Future tweak ideas - post 'em here

[Jarno Mikkola]

It's not really complicated, but rather it is that this is an approved change to the original game in the EE version. The change coming from the fact that the EE games come with the officially approved and intergrated One Pixel Production mod and others... that had art to add in to the game.

You can use near infinity to change this, you just load it up, go into the item, and find the paperdoll index, and change the file reference. Save and exit... and load a game where you have not visited the area where the item is found and get it, it will then be the updated one. Or just toss the old one away and console the current one via the in-game-console.

[CamDawg]

17 minutes ago, Mera said:

Would that be something that I could edit using NearInfinity for example? 
On the other hand, don't want to bother you too much, if it's too complicated, I'll just do without that particular tweak  
Thanks!

Yes!

5 minutes ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

It's not really complicated, but rather it is that this is an approved change to the original game in the EE version. The change coming from the fact that the EE games come with the officially approved and intergrated One Pixel Production mod and others... that had art to add in to the game.

You can use near infinity to change this, you just load it up, go into the item, and find the paperdoll index, and change the file reference. Save and exit... and load a game where you have not visited the area where the item is found and get it, it will then be the updated one. Or just toss the old one away and console the current one via the in-game-console.

...but not by doing any of... this.

Vhailor's Helm is the item wa2helm.itm. The paperdoll image is set by the 'Equipped Appearance' field in NI. It uses 'h0' in oBG2, and 'j3', one of the new 1pp models, in BG2EE. Its icon is, nicely enough, the 'Icon' field in NI. In oBG2 it used ihelm24; BG2EE (via 1pp) uses 1helm24 (the image from Jarno a few posts up).

Unique Icons changes it to use the cdunq265 icon (Helm of Shouting from IWD) and changes it back to the h0 equipped appearance. Save your changes and continue on with the game--you don't need to find a new copy of the helmet or any other such nonsense.

[Mera]

Very easy indeed! Worked like a charm on the first try  
Thank you very much!

[Jarno Mikkola]

16 minutes ago, CamDawg said:

...but not by doing any of... this.

Well, I was on the safe side...

[jmerry]

On 2/18/2022 at 8:16 PM, ktchong said:

As I understand it: three different versions of Sandthief's Ring exist across different editions/games:

1. The version with only one charge. The ring cannot be recharged and disappears after use, so it is basically a one-use item — first introduced in the original BG1: TotSC, then used in the Black Pits.

2. The version with one charge per rest.  The ring automatically recharges after resting and does NOT disappear when the one charge is used — introduced in the original BG2.  (This IMO is the best version.)

3. The version has seven charges when bought from a store.  The ring does NOT automatically recharged, and it disappears after all charges are used.  It can be recharged at a ridiculously expensive price — introduced in the BG1EE main campaign

 

All of these "versions" are RING05.itm.

In BGEE, that item has a base cost of 20K fully charged and an 8-charge maximum, but doesn't recharge when you rest; 2500 gold per charge. If you use the last charge, it goes away.

In BG2EE, the item has a base cost of 3K and one charge per day. Use it and the ring sticks around, recharging when you rest.

The difference between the Black Pits ring and the Ulgoth's Beard ring is entirely in the store file; the former starts with one charge and the latter starts with seven. Both can be recharged by selling and rebuying them, if you don't use them up fully.

Edit: I spoke too soon about the Black Pits version. It's available in both tier 2 and tier 3 of the illithid's store. The copy at tier 2 starts with a full eight charges. The copy at tier 3 has "0" charges in the store file, so it defaults to one charge. Oops. That's going into the next version of my tweak mod, as I already have a component for fixing little BP errors.

Not that it's ever worthwhile to buy the ring in the Black Pits - the Concocter has an unlimited supply of invisibility potions at all tiers, for one tenth of the cost per charge. And the ring is self-only, so it doesn't offer any utility that the potions don't.

Edited February 27, 2022 by jmerry

[potatoteers]

I wonder if this falls intot the scope of Tweaks Anthology. But can we have a module that extend the duration of Protection for Negative Plane to a flat 1 turn of 1round/level? I know that Spell Revison works on this spell, but some people may not have installed SR.

[marchitek]

I'm thinking about two tweaks regarding identification:

• All items requires identification to use (I think there was some tweak like this somewhere, but I cannot recall)
• All unidentified items has icons of "normal" objects (this would work cool with Item Randomiser, when you don't know which item is where)

Also, I think Tweaks Anthology could include some tweak regarding Free Action.

 

EDIT

Maybe "All unidentified items has icons of normal objects" should be in fact Item Randomiser feature, since it already knows items that are randomized (I guess it would be hard to write generic script that would assign proper icons to all items in game).

Edited March 8, 2022 by marchitek

[marchitek]

Two more ideas, this time regarding reputation:

• Getting drunk in Inn decrease reputation. Purpose is ofc the same as "Bardic Reputation Adjustment", to have less drastic way to make evil NPCs happy. After I got this idea I'm really surprised that it doesn't work that way in unmodded game. Does it?
• Low reputation cause discount in shops that are fences. Also fences store with higher price to parties with high reputation. I guess this could be sub component for "Change Effect of Reputation on Store Prices".

[jmerry]

On that second idea ... probably impossible. The EEs do have an "Ignore Reputation" flag for stores, which would make sense to set for stores like fences or the Ust Natha merchants. It appears to be used only for the Black Pits 2 stores.

[Ragnarok qt]

One tweak I *always* wanted; non-rechargeable items (eg. Wands, necklace of missiles).

The main rationale behind this was that it encourages a diversity of strategies, rather than spamming 100 fireballs/spellstrikes and recharging by selling and buying a wand back. Instead you’d be more conservative with your wand charges, and maybe even take the spells in your spellbook. Limiting the charges would in effect make these wands feel more valuable, given they could only be used the set amount of times designated by the game/modder.

The fix could be as simple as disabling these items being sold to vendors… I’m sure there’s a more elegant way tho.

Edited March 22, 2022 by Ragnarok qt

[Guest Frenzgyn]

It's not a "tweak", mostly a "fix", but it seems to me that in IWDEE the upgrade of Bren Muller's Crossbow doesn't work: you contact the spirits, it tells the crossbow'a accuracy could be upgraded but you don't get the upgraded weapon.

It's a minor thing, the weapon is not particularly good, but I must admit it upset me.

[Quester]

Suggestion for a tweak that I think could fit into the scope of the Tweaks anthology:

Game over only on Party Death (for BGEE and BG2EE)

I know there is an old mod like this somewhere, but an updated, working version as part of the Tweaks would be cool, alongside the existing Tweaks component "Game Ends When the Main Character Dies" for IWD.

[Mordekaie]

Grandmastery for Paladins and Rangers,

[subtledoctor]

Not to be dismissive, but I don’t get that? Grandmastery is a kit ability. It’s like saying fighters should get Turn Undead or clerics should be able to set traps. I don’t see anyone asking for those? Don’t get me wrong, it’s possible to mod and so there’s nothing wrong with doing all of that. But it would be like giving all curative magic to mages. It would basically obviate one of the game’s classes. (Again, not that there’s anything wrong with that - I made a mod that literally removes the bard class from the game.)

EDIT - which is to say, I'd be totally interested to hear an idea like "let others get GM like fighters do, and in turn give fighters ______ special bonus"

Edited April 5, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Mordekaie]

On 4/5/2022 at 5:16 PM, subtledoctor said:

Not to be dismissive, but I don’t get that? Grandmastery is a kit ability. It’s like saying fighters should get Turn Undead or clerics should be able to set traps. I don’t see anyone asking for those? Don’t get me wrong, it’s possible to mod and so there’s nothing wrong with doing all of that. But it would be like giving all curative magic to mages. It would basically obviate one of the game’s classes. (Again, not that there’s anything wrong with that - I made a mod that literally removes the bard class from the game.)

EDIT - which is to say, I'd be totally interested to hear an idea like "let others get GM like fighters do, and in turn give fighters ______ special bonus"

I understand your point of view and your argument is solid: what the point to have a fighter if Paladins and Rangers come with GM ? My perspective is biaised and directly related to my extended P&P experience with Role Playing games, especcialy AD&D where : Paladins and Rangers were very demanding and almost exceptionnal kits, in P&P the lack of GM was in practical very tiny and almost unoticeable limitations to those kits... Now when i play BGEE/BG2EE i feel that some of the special abilities of Paladins for example  (like Detect evil or Protection From Evil, ...) still give flavour to the kit but became very limited in practice;  and in the other hand, lacking GM becomes a huge "drawback" for me (in my very personal opinion) and the main reason to avoid playing a Paladin or a Ranger. For me GM for Paladins and Rangers feels more right than GM for multi fighter/something for one particular reason : the multi has decided to spend half of his energy developping in an another class, where Paladins and rangers are focused and part of the fighter class (AD&D comes with 4 archetypal classes : Fighters, Priets, Thiefs and Mages).

On the other hand, "pure" fighters should probably get some very particularities coming from their experience of battle field and having to be operational in any circonstance. Pure fighters should probably get more versatility with weapon proficiency...

Edited April 11, 2022 by Mordekaie