Let's talk about modding bards

[Grammarsalad]

...

]Well then, tell me what this will give you:

IF
		See([PC.0.0.BARD])
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
	stuff
END

Of course if you fail to understand what those things do... I can't help you.

 

...

Now we're getting somewhere.

 

My "witch" class would be invited to the playhouse stronghold, which would be inappropriate. Further, by bardic thief would be invited to run the thieves guild, which is less appropriate than the playhouse. But that can be fixed.

 

And really, you can help, say by mentioning specific examples of scripts that need to be altered. In fact, that's more or less what this community is about.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Heck, the absurd vanilla "Blade" kit could be left in the game, and simply renamed. It functions more or less like the Jongleur:

Fine, then just do that...

[subtledoctor]

Wait. So if I add a new thief kit, which can use bard song and has offensive spin and defensive spin, and I call it "Blade," and I leave the vanilla Blade kit with bards but rename it to "Jongleur" and replace offensive and defensive spin with other abilities, you're fine with it...

 

But if I do that exact thing but describe it as "moving the Blade kit to the thief class" then you're up in arms?

 

Ah - wait. I see. You thought I was going to change the class ID of the vanilla Blade kit in kitlist.2da, literally moving it to a different class...?

 

Honestly, that idea never occurred to me. What I'm talking about is adding some completely new kits, and juggling around some of the kit name strings, and manipulating the CharGen menus a bit. That's all. For the player, it will feel as if the Blade has moved and become a "hybrid bard/thief" that appears in the thief class menu. (Not for nothing I renamed that to the more general "rogue" class menu.) But under the hood, it will be a completely new kit.

 

As for the stronghold, that should be easy enough to modify, once I get around to it.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Wait. So if I add a new thief kit, which can use bard song and has offensive spin and defensive spin, and I call it "Blade," and I leave the vanilla Blade kit with bards but rename it to "Jongleur" and replace offensive and defensive spin with other abilities, you're fine with it...

No. What I said was, if you rename the existing Blade -kit to be cheesehats kit, and then take the Blade name and make your own kit from it, I am fine with it... as long as you don't modify the cheesehats description, item usage, abilities or the .2da file, while you corrupt the original kits name to be what ever you want it to be.

 

But if I do that exact thing but describe it as "moving the Blade kit to the thief class" then you're up in arms?

Because you can't just move it to another class and expect the results to be the same.

Or have you been able to allow arcane spells to be cast-able by these "Rogue"'s that are not bards or Thief/Mages ? And I mean arcane spells, not special innate spells made for the class. I only bring this up as important part of this example... you don't need to get the Blade to be able to cast spells... probably because he is not a bard. But for mine it still is. (Which is why I said that I am fine with it if you edit the original kits name.)

[subtledoctor]

by these "Rogue"'s that are not bards or Thief/Mages ?

Actually since EE can do proper multiclass kits now, one of my thoughts was to re-create the Bard class as mage/thief kits... but I think that's too much work.

 

As for not changing the item usage, abilites, or .2da file... sorry buddy, Offensive Spin needs to die a horrible death. It is going away in my mod.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Actually since EE can do proper multiclass kits now..

What makes you think the old engine couldn't ? It can very much, thank you.

 

As for not changing the item usage, abilites, or .2da file... sorry buddy, Offensive Spin needs to die a horrible death. It is going away in my mod.

Well, that's a strong opinion, so you must have a strong reason to hate it, which is ?

Offensive Spin. Once per day for every four levels in this class, the Blade may enter a powerful offensive stance for four rounds, doubling their movement rate and gaining a temporary +2 bonus on all attack and damage rolls. The Blade also gains an additional attack every round, and all attacks deal maximum damage. The benefits of this ability do not stack with Haste or Improved Haste.

Cause for me, that just seems a self targeted Haste variant that the kit gets. And considering that the Bard gets only 1 or 2(dual wield) attacks per round... it should be not that too powerful. Of course if you go with the cheese and allow bards to gain actual proficiency bonuses and so on(among them bonus attacks)... then it's cheesy as my home plane, but that's a difference of allowing cheese or not, not the ability itself.

[subtledoctor]

All very nice opinions about balance, but none of which goes to whether a .SPL file should be off-limits to modding...

 

 

Actually since EE can do proper multiclass kits now..

What makes you think the old engine couldn't ? It can very much, thank you.

No, it can't. Can you make a mage/thief class with its own proficiency limits? With its own HLA tables? That is available in the class/kit menus?

[Jarno Mikkola]

No, it can't. Can you make a mage/thief class with its own proficiency limits? With its own HLA tables? That is available in the class/kit menus?

... Well, make two kits, one to use at "level ~1", that casts an invisible creature after the game is created, that then applies the class change and then applies the other kit, level up one time. Tadaa, done. The other kit is not made to be select-able in the kit-table while only "the level 1" is. I say it's the ~level 1, as this works even in the ToB game, you just need to restrict the choose-able weapon proficiency'es to be either zero in every category on this class or if the multi class has more, set them so that the level 1 can pick the first levels proficiency maxes in as many categories as they have points at level 1, while the other can be set them freely from the multi-classes allowed table. The "level 1" kit doesn't need the HLA table either, but usually it's common place to put both kits to use the same table. The hitpoint and save tables will sort themselves out after the second kit is levels up (the 1 time).

And you'll need to do the same thing in the EE games too as far as I know.

[subtledoctor]

And what happens if you can advance more than one level at a time? What happens on SoA starts or TOB starts?

 

No - on EE 1.4 and up (as far as I understand) you can have *actual* multiclass kits. And on EE 2.0+ you can have them appear in menus.

 

So you could replace the "mage/thief" string with "bard" and re-fashion the entire class to be mage/thief kits. can't do that on the old engine. Think about it: then you would have bards with access to select thief skills (which I like) and eventually access to 9th-level magic. (Which you like, for done reason.)

 

But I've already considered and rejected that idea, it's a bit too radical.

[Jarno Mikkola]

What happens on SoA starts or TOB starts?

In SoA, the player gets a level 7 Thief... and the game will start normally. But after the cutscene of Irenicus runs off, the player gets control back... during that time the character will experience their characters transformations start by the first kits first levels summoned invisible creature, as it runs a script that does things to the summoner: The cheracter is multi classed and gets the second kit assigned... and then their level is set back to 1 without changing the amount of XP they have... (as the script only takes effect after the game is in progress, the actions are only done in the game after it starts). The class change is done by the script action #156 targeted to the SummonerOf(Myself), the kit is done by script action #274, again with same target. While the level setting back to 1 is done by ActionOverride(CastSpell -action that uses the opcode #96) again with the same target.

And then the player just re-levels the character up to level 6/6 or whatever. Yes... in the non-EE, the assigned Thief skill points might become a hassle... I know, but I am sure some fancy race-targeted-magic can do away with that too.. of course the player needs to be compensated for the 1st level thief skill assignation amounts(+25 + race bonuses). This needs to be done in the second kits first level, via a spell effect.

In the EE games... the first kit doesn't need any skill points while the second does.

This will work in ToB too... so long as no one gets to take HLAs. Under the ToB xp cap. Cause if they do... it's complete cheese_the_whee_els cake.

 

Hmm... good to know the "And on EE 2.0+ you can have them appear in menus." That way it's a lot less complicated.

[subtledoctor]

Seriously. That's a lot of work to do to avoid spending 5 bucks to get EE on sale...

[subtledoctor]

Okay I have 19 "songs" coded up: seven that aid nearby allies, six that penalize enemies, and six that affect the bard alone, or a very small area near his/her body. Most kits will start with one song, and gain another automatically. The True Bard will start with the Luck Bonus and then get the Morale Bonus song; the Skald will start with the Damage Bonus song and then get the Cloak of Fear song. The Blade will start with the Combat Penalties for Enemies song (a la PnP Weapon Display) and then get the personal Blur song (replacing Defensive Spin). My Meistersinger will have an Entangling song, my Loresinger will have a Bless song, etc., etc. Beyond the two default songs for each kit, if you use the M&G feat system you will be able to acquire more songs, from a basic list. And some of the more exotic songs (like party-wide Reflected Image) will only be available from quests or merchants in the game.

 

The list (so far...?) is:

 

- Luck bonus for allies #

- Morale bonus for allies #

- Damage bonus for allies #

- Bless effect on allies

- NPP for allies * $

- Mind Shield for allies * ^ $

- Reflected Image for allies * $

 

- Spellcasting failure affects everyone * #

- thac0/damage penalties for enemies *

- Luck/save penalties for enemies * #

- Entangle enemies * #

- Confusion on enemies * ^

- Hold undead enemies ^ $

 

- Blur effect on self *

- Mind Blank on self *

- MGOI on self * #

- Cloak of Fear *

- Slow enemies within 3 feet *

- Dispel Illusions within 3 feat * $

 

* denotes that spellcasting is disabled while the 'song' is in effect

^ denotes that physical combat is disabled while the 'song' is in effect

# denotes that the song can be learned as a feat

$ denotes that the song can be found or purchased in the game

 

You can see that most songs disable spellcasting... at first my rationale was that putting an inspiring effect like Bless or Courage on a willing ally is easy - they allow themselves to be affected by the music - while forcing a penalty on an enemy is harder and takes more concentration. And then a couple exceptions, like AoE Chaotic Commands and NPP just being too powerful and requiring great concentration. And the personal effects, having the magical harmony flow so directly through your body, also inhibits the use of other magic.

 

But now I wonder if it shouldn't be a simpler, blanket rule: bardic magic disables regular spellcasting. If you want to cast a spell, you must stop your bard song... but the transition isn't easy, it takes about six seconds before you are ready to cast spells.

 

What do people think - is the simpler, broader rule better? Or should spellcasting be possible simultaneous with some of the less powerful songs?

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

Or should spellcasting be possible simultaneous with some of the less powerful songs?

 

Depends on if the bard has one mouth or two, unless you've got an equipped instrument requirement to use a bard song. I approach things from a DM/PnP PoV as if a player were coming to me with the idea. I don't need to have realism above all else, but a bard's "song" ought to have an instrument or voice as its source, and the latter conflicts with spellcasting, since the vast majority of spells have it as a component.

[subtledoctor]

Well, I'm going to change the in-game lore a bit: bardic magic doesn't literally come from music. Rather, they have an expert/intuitive grasp of vibrations and harmonics, and can control them to create magical effects. (It's a magical world, this isn't so different from mages creating spells from some intonations, hand symbols, and memorized formulae.)

 

So it's not literally a song about courage that makes your allies immune to fear effects; it is a (possibly sub-auditory) harmony of vibrations that affects people on a fundamental, magical level. And different 'notes'/'harmonies'/vibrations can have different effects.

 

Obviously someone with those kind of skills will also, separately, be excellent at playing music. Which explains bards' "day job." (Everyone has to put food on the table, right?)

 

tl;dr: chanting the verbal component of a spell while maintaining one of these 'songs' doesn't bother me more than, say, casting spells while dual-wielding does. My real concern here is balance, making these fun and useful while not game-breaking. And not confusing players.

[subtledoctor]

Btw, any old-school 2E aficionados around here might appreciate what I have inadvertently created by allowing non-bards to use the modal bard song ability:

 

Demi-bards. !!!

 

This expands the scope of what I'm doing a bit, so it will take a while. But it makes a nice framework for how to liberalize bards: allow elves and gnomes to become bards (because they can use arcane magic), and allow dwarves and halflings to become demi-bards.

 

How about... a Halfling Whistler? A Dwarven Chanter? Maybe a Tumbler kit?

 

Yet another piece of 2E that never really fit into BG before, provided by the Subtle Doctor. Should be ready to play in a couple weeks.