EET v13.4 released

[Jarno Mikkola]

This is not directly a bug in EET, but rather a side effect of the continuation it provides. "Corinth's Bow +2" (bdbow02.itm) from SoD may cause trouble if you continue to use it in Athkatla. On a critical hit this bow casts "Luck" on the user, which happens to be the vanilla arcane spell "Luck", and is therefore detected by the Cowled Wizards. This ability makes using the bow in the city very dangerous.

 

There may be more items causing trouble. SoD added a lot of items which auto-cast spells on certain conditions. Maybe it's possible to add a fix that automatically scans all items with auto-cast spell effects and replaces these spells with copies marked as non-arcane.

Or just edit the .itm file to use a spell like effect.

The reason that would be better, an effect instead of the whole spell is that ... a spell has a token of being a spell, while an effect is just added attribute to the item. Hows that different, you might ask. Well let me tell you about the Spell refreshment mod that I have, and how it effects every spell, if you have items that cast spells, you gain the refreshment from the spell it casts when you use an item that casts spells and that's bad ... cause casting fireballs from wand would allow you to gain the mage spells without resting. And thus a 5th level mage could get their spells refreshed by simply casting more fireballs from wand of fire. While if it were be an effect that is very much similar but doesn't cause a spell to be casted, then they wouldn't. And mages could use arcane spells from items without themselves being subject to the pursued against all magic. Ouh, and while at it the Cow-lead Lizards ( ) should fight against Liches that the town has and not prevent the player from pursuing them. Aka the script the summoned mages have should take into consideration that who casted the spells first and go against them instead of only the player ... just like in the original Irenicus cutscene, where they spoke to everyone that was casting spells. And say if there is a battle before they ported in, they should defend the player, not go ham on him, and then take a fee for unsocial-able actions. But that's not really a subject related to EET.

 

To fix this issue completely, it might be best to program perhaps the item casted spells to use something different than Spell type flags: arcane(1), innate(4), divine(2) spells use... perhaps make use 6 if that doesn't break the whole game down to tiny spects of dust. 6 would be "item casted spells".

You'll notice that the IwD imported item Harbinger +3 casts fireball as an hit ability without protecting the user from it in vanilla BG2, which is whole whop of woppass. Mods, like the Item Revision changed it to use a divine variant of the spell if memory serves. That's better, but ideally it would use neither. As the usual effect is quite severe either way, let along bringing the whole might of the idiot patrol on the player that just got 6d10 landed on them.

Edited August 29, 2016 by Jarno Mikkola

[subtledoctor]

You could run through all items, and find any that use opcode 146/148; and in each such case, find the spell cast by the effect; and if the spell name begins with "SPWI" then copy the spell as an innate ability and re-set the item's 146/148 effect to cast the new spell instead. But if the referenced spell does *not* begin with "SPWI" then just patch it to be innate.

 

BUT, there could be a slight chance of error, if any scripts use SpellCastOnMe() or similar arguments, they would not be triggered by the item. That's why, in our sphere system mod (thanks to the valuable feedback of Roxanne and others), where we added arcane spells to the divine lists, we ended up actually casting the arcane spell via 146/148 rather than simply cloning it.

 

Which means, of course, that now some (but not all) divine spells will call down the Cowled ones. The whole spellcasting in Athkatla thing is poorly implemented anyway. Step two feet inside a tavern and suddenly your magic is undetectable?? Arcane spells are verboten but all other magical abilities - including arcane spells cast from wands! - are perfectly okay??

 

I would love to make the Cowled wizards show up when they detect ANY magic use - that wold make much more sense given the lore. (Several prisoners in Spellhold are not mages, after all.) And when you begin a stronghold quest with an established organization, like the temples or the Knights of the Radiant Heart, then you would get a free license because presumably those groups have a standing contract with the government.

 

But alas, I wouldn't know how to do that. (If anyone has an idea how, please let me know!)

[argent77]

I would support the case-by-case solution to "fix" items. It doesn't make sense that an Archer using an enchanted bow triggers the Cowled Wizards. However, a wand or some other mage-specific equipment might.

In the case of the bow, the spell is deeply hidden behind several layers of indirections, so an automatic replacement function would have to be rather complex to code, especially since there are so many ways to trigger spell casting via effects nowadays.

[Gladius]

16

It seems that EET Tweaks, which I know is next in line to be updated, fails to increase experience caps right from the BGee get-go, regardless of whether I just select 'remove xp caps', and/or entering integers for the different games, of which SoD is not yet implemented. Could it be that I entered integers that were too high (over 8,000,000) ?

 

Yeah yeahh.. I just wanted to favour multi-class, and play it on hard with a head-start.

 

Messing with the spells is nothing but trouble! lol

 

Thanks very much, you guys are a treasure trove of modding madness!

[K4thos]

Just a little update - RC6 is ready but not pushed to GitHub yet. I think it may be a good idea to wait for weidu 239.03 release, so we can test both feature complete EET (probably final RC release before 1.0 unless there will be enough problems to warrant additional RC) and the almost stable version of weidu that supports patch 2.x features at the same time. If I interpret this post correctly next weidu release candidate is right around the corner.

Edited September 5, 2016 by K4thos

[Roxanne]

Just a little update - RC6 is ready but not pushed to GitHub yet. I think it may be a good idea to wait for weidu 239.03 release, so we can test both feature complete EET (last RC release before 1.0 unless there will be enough problems to warrant additional RC) and probably the last weidu version before stable release that supports patch 2.x features at the same time. If I interpret this post correctly next weidu release candidate is right around the corner.

Maybe you understand more than I do and can clarify this

 

1. Will it be necessary to change anything in ADD_JOURNAL @1 @2 @3 USING bla/bla to get mod's journal entry into the quest part of the journal (where applicable).

2. Are there other changes a mod needs to consider with this update?

 

(Otherwise I have a ready and tested megamod for EET, just waiting for NTotSC to become available)

[K4thos]

1. Will it be necessary to change anything in ADD_JOURNAL @1 @2 @3 USING bla/bla to get mod's journal entry into the quest part of the journal (where applicable).

 

I think argent77 will be able to answear this. From what I understand his code works exactly the same as ADD_JOURNAL weidu command that works on pre patch 2.x games, so if Wisp will internalize it to use non-function syntax than you won't need to change anything.

2. Are there other changes a mod needs to consider with this update?

 

weidu? Nothing that I'm aware of. EET now merges TLK files but it doesn't affect mods in any way, so nothing has to be changed in your code. EET_functions.tph file that automatically implements EET NPC continuity system to NPC mods has been updated but from what I remember you don't use it, so you don't need to acknowledge it. Although you will need to redownload EET compatibility patches if you use those mods once RC6 is pushed to GitHub (patches also awaits for new weidu before I upload them) since many of them depends on this file. To eliminate such situations in future I've removed the file from all patches mod directories and load it from within EET directory instead like this: INCLUDE ~EET/other/EET_functions.tph~. This way from now on if mod author internalize the patch he/she no longer need to worry about this file being out of date.

Edited September 5, 2016 by K4thos

[Roxanne]

 

1. Will it be necessary to change anything in ADD_JOURNAL @1 @2 @3 USING bla/bla to get mod's journal entry into the quest part of the journal (where applicable).

 

I think argent77 will be able to answear this. From what I understand his code works exactly the same as ADD_JOURNAL weidu command that works on pre patch 2.x games, so if Wisp will internalize it to use non-function syntax than you won't need to change anything.

2. Are there other changes a mod needs to consider with this update?

 

weidu? Nothing that I'm aware of. EET now merges TLK files but it doesn't affect mods in any way, so nothing has to be changed in your code. EET_functions.tph file that automatically implements EET NPC continuity system to NPC mods has been updated but from what I remember you don't use it, so you don't need to replace the file in your mod folder (although you will need to redownload EET compatibility patches once RC6 is pushed to GitHub since many of them depends on this file).

 

Thanks.

[argent77]

I've encountered another issue. When Imoen rejoins your party in Spellhold she still has her unremovable belt from Chateau Irenicus equipped.

[K4thos]

I've encountered another issue. When Imoen rejoins your party in Spellhold she still has her unremovable belt from Chateau Irenicus equipped.

 

fixed, thanks! This LUA code should fix it locally in your game:

C:Eval('ActionOverride("Imoen2",DestroyItem("IMOENHP1"))')

Edited September 5, 2016 by K4thos

[AL|EN]

I've encountered another issue. When Imoen rejoins your party in Spellhold she still has her unremovable belt from Chateau Irenicus equipped.

 

I believe that this was the consequences of the characters continuity, which is very neat feature!

[lynx]

that belt is the most overpowered item ever though, even considering cheesy mods.

[Jarno Mikkola]

that belt is the most overpowered item ever though, even considering cheesy mods.

Well, not so much... yeah, it will make Imoen unkillable yeah... but she'll kick herself out of the party right after the fight is over ... via a dialog that you can't refuse to not go through(as far as I know), and escapes with your wealth.

[lynx]

The dialog is not attached to the item (pst actually can do that) and I'm sure EET is not (re)assigning CI dialog to Spellhold Imoen.

[Jarno Mikkola]

The dialog is not attached to the item (pst actually can do that) and I'm sure EET is not (re)assigning CI dialog to Spellhold Imoen.

The effect comes from baldur.bcs ... not the item. At least it did so in BGT ...

Edited September 6, 2016 by Jarno Mikkola