IR Revised V1.3.800 (2022 January 11th)

[pochesun]

13 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, that .ini tweak is basically for nerfing the amulet back to BG1 levels but with the added bonus of assigning the vs. breath saving throw bonus to both versions so that they're consistent. I personally think Edwin getting that many extra spells is pretty unconscionable, especially given that he's already a Conjurer which is both the strongest and the least interesting of all the mage school specialists, but...people like their cheese.

not that i try to cheese my way out while playing the game, i actually always go for most challenging settings and conditions (like, for instance, i install PnP equipment for fighter/druids but never instlal something like bracers for kensai or wands for thieves, or casting in armor) but there are some features of the game i prefer to leave as they are: Edwin has always been an iconic charachter in BG saga and i have a lot of fun memories in regard to him so Edwin's Amulet is one of those things i tend not to change  

[pochesun]

@Bartimaeus I am not sure but i think The Claw of Kazgaroth (cursed item) grants only + 2 bonus against missile instead of +4 (as its written in desciption). Could you check it please?

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, pochesun said:

@Bartimaeus I am not sure but i think The Claw of Kazgaroth (cursed item) grants only + 2 bonus against missile instead of +4 (as its written in desciption). Could you check it please?

I believe it's intended to be +4 total, not +4 additional. So since you already get a +2 general AC bonus...

Edited March 7, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[pochesun]

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I believe it's intended to be +4 total, not +4 additional. So since you already get a +2 general AC bonus...

i am not sure about that, the description is a bit misleading to be honest. Why not just put " +2 vs Missile" as any other item got?

[Bartimaeus]

55 minutes ago, pochesun said:

i am not sure about that, the description is a bit misleading to be honest. Why not just put " +2 vs Missile" as any other item got?

Elven Court Bow, Gauntlets of Gauntlets of Swordplay, Cloak of Displacement, Martial Staff, Malakar, and Malakar's Companion all use the same format:

Quote

Elvencraft: +4 bonus to AC (none vs. missile weapons)
Parrying: +2 bonus to AC (none vs. missile weapons)
Displacement: wearer gains a +2 bonus to AC (+4 vs. missile weapons) and a +3 bonus to saves vs. breath and wand

The intended statement with Elvencraft is "you get +4 to your general AC...except not against missile weapons". With Kazgaroth, it's "you get +2 to your general AC...except actually +4 vs. missile weapons". It's a shorthand way of conveying the different AC properties without needing to add a whole separate thing about it. Item statistics should be brief where possible.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[pochesun]

12 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Elven Court Bow, Gauntlets of Gauntlets of Swordplay, Cloak of Displacement, Martial Staff, Malakar, and Malakar's Companion all use the same format:

The intended statement with Elvencraft is "you get +4 to your general AC...except not against missile weapons". With Kazgaroth, it's "you get +2 to your general AC...except actually +4 vs. missile weapons". It's a shorthand way of conveying the different AC properties without needing to add a whole separate thing about it. Item statistics should be brief where possible.

i agree that item statistics should be brief and concise but not at the expense of clarity. It just seems to me that the description of "Claw" is not 100% transparent with the brackets. WIth Elvencraft or Parrying this type of description has way more sense since its using exlusion parameter, which is more difinitive in logic. "Claw" using inclusion parameter which is more ambivalent in logic. Also brackets are usually used to clarify meaning and , in our case, it does indeed clarify, but to an extent that a person can derive from it at least 2 conclusions - item gives additional +4 vs Missile or item operates as total + 4 vs Missiles with information mentioned before (that it already gives + 2 by default). Also, to be fair, i can list 100 times more items that using description with separate clauses (in addition to the main characteristic component), like +2 vs Missile or + 3 vs slashing etc. Thats why i was kinda perplexed by that description. But, in any case, if you confirm that item "Claw" provides additional only + 2 vs Missile i will just it and cast " protection from Missiles" spell next time, just to be sure  

[MikeX]

@Bartimaeus

Could you have a look at how HELM02.itm and HELM02_.itm are distributed to a BGT game, please?
After installing BGT there is only HELM02.itm as 'Helm of Opposite Alignment'.
After installing Item Revisions main component HELM02.itm becomes 'Helm of Despair' and it creates HELM02_.itm and makes this the 'Helm of Opposite Alignment'.
There are at least two npc mods (Brage, Atjantis) that react to HELM02 as being the 'Helm of Opposite Alignment', so HELM02 should probably not be changed (at least for BG1/BGT).
Salk's Cursed Items mod also seems to assume that HELM02 is the 'Helm of Opposite Alignment'.

Thanks.

Edited March 26, 2023 by MikeX
Spelling

[Bartimaeus]

7 hours ago, MikeX said:

@Bartimaeus

Could you have a look at how HELM02.itm and HELM02_.itm are distributed to a BGT game, please?
After installing BGT there is only HELM02.itm as 'Helm of Opposite Alignment'.
After installing Item Revisions main component HELM02.itm becomes 'Helm of Despair' and it creates HELM02_.itm and makes this the 'Helm of Opposite Alignment'.
There are at least to npc mods (Brage, Atjantis) that react to HELM02 being the 'Helm of Opposite Alignment', so HELM02 should probably not be changed (at least for BG1/BGT).
Salk's Cursed Items mod also seems to assume that HELM02 is the 'Helm of Opposite Alignment'.

Thanks.

Base IR overwrites Helm of Alignment completely with the Helm of Despair - the former no longer exists at all. IRR restores it but to HELM02_.itm instead while replacing HELM02.itm on the Death Knight with HELM02_.itm so that he has the Helm of Opposite Alignment. It would probably be a good idea to instead move Helm of Despair to its own item code to prevent these kinds of issues - I didn't know any other mods interacted with it, but there's always been a bit of a fascination about this item, so I suppose it makes sense that there would be.

[MikeX]

I investigated a little further, using NI:
HELM02, as far as NI is telling, has no use references in oBG2 (That's probably why Item Revisions changed/used it?).
In oTotSC (and clean BGT 1.22) HELM02 has two use references:
1. jamie.cre, but it is not assigned to any item slot
2. deathk1.cre, the death knight that appears outside Durlags Tower killing the tourists and disappears.
So originally there seemed to be only a very small chance to obtain this item after all.

But mod(s) change that and, as you said, it would be a good idea to leave the original HELM02 and make the 'Helm of Despair' a new item code.

By the way, I stumpled across this while investigating item descriptions not properly updating when installing Item Revision component 'Revised Critical Hit Aversion'.
The descriptions afterwards contained two lines 'Amor Class Bonus:', one with 'none' and one with '+1'.
Changing line 59 in critical_hits.tpa from 'SPRINT t1 @100422' to 'SPRINT t1 @100423' seemed to have solved the issue.
I use 'item_description_style = 1', there might be a similar issue for the other description styles.

There's still an issue in this regard (not removing line 'Protects against critical hits') with HELM02 changed by Salk's Cursed Items mod, investigating further...
 

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, MikeX said:

HELM02, as far as NI is telling, has no use references in oBG2 (That's probably why Item Revisions changed/used it?).

The primary creator of IR, Demivrgvs, never even played BG1 if I remember correctly. There were definitely some interesting ramifications resulting from this when Tutu and BGT came about and mods started becoming compatible with them, .

2 hours ago, MikeX said:

1. jamie.cre, but it is not assigned to any item slot

Doesn't drop in vanilla AFAIK, though a certain 'fixing' mod (lolfixer) can accidentally enable it to do so.

2 hours ago, MikeX said:

2. deathk1.cre, the death knight that appears outside Durlags Tower killing the tourists and disappears.

Yeah, that was another reason I was surprised any other mod touched it, since it's almost impossible to get in the first place. But...I think BG1EE makes it so it drops when you properly defeat him as well? Not a hundred percent sure about that, but definitely part of the equation here if so.

I'll get the situation sorted out sooner rather than later.

For the erroneous Armor Class Bonus line, I'll look into that as well, thanks. (e): I think the problem there is that vanilla's descriptions are so all over the place that the regexp can't catch all cases when IR's main component isn't installed.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[MikeX]

49 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

For the erroneous Armor Class Bonus line, I'll look into that as well, thanks. (e): I think the problem there is that vanilla's descriptions are so all over the place that the regexp can't catch all cases when IR's main component isn't installed.

Just to clarify, I have the main component installed (in front of the other).

I've found the issue with Salk's HELM02. His description says 'Protects from...' instead of the expected 'Protects against...'.

So maybe this should be changed/added to description_updates.tra, line 589 (not tested):

// Remove ~Protects Against Critical Hits~ from helms
@100422 = ~[%LNL%%MNL%%WNL%]\([ %TAB%%emdash%]*\)\(Special:[ %TAB%]+\)?Protects[ %TAB%]+\([Aa]gainst|[Ff]rom\)[ %TAB%]+[Cc]ritical[ %TAB%]+[Hh]its~

 

[Bartimaeus]

19 minutes ago, MikeX said:

(not tested)

Salk's descriptions usually blend different components of original and EE descriptions. Let's see if your suggested change works... Nope. But I figured it out - was just missing a backslash:

@100422 = ~[%LNL%%MNL%%WNL%]\([ %TAB%%emdash%]*\)\(Special:[ %TAB%]+\)?Protects[ %TAB%]+\([Aa]gainst\|[Ff]rom\)[ %TAB%]+[Cc]ritical[ %TAB%]+[Hh]its~

Guess the "|" character needs a backslash when used for an expression as well. Thanks!

Edited March 17, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[MikeX]

Ok, thanks for testing.

[NdranC]

I think there might be a bug with the critical hit aversion helmet's description. Downloaded the latest github master.

[Bartimaeus]

52 minutes ago, NdranC said:

I think there might be a bug with the critical hit aversion helmet's description. Downloaded the latest github master.

 

There's been some revision to that component recently to try to fix some of its issues. Are you using oBG2-styled descriptions on BG2EE? I don't think @MikeX (who was the one primarily putting work into the component) or I tested this particular configuration.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Bartimaeus