Future tweak ideas - post 'em here

[Guest crosiassevalley]

Comment about the "Add Save Penalties for Spells Cast by High-Level Casters" option.

It is currently set to -1 every 5 levels, but in my opinion an option of -1 every 10 levels is more balanced and enjoyable. It would still have a big impact on making lower level spells more useful throughout the game, in a similar fashion to how IWD 2 works, but set like this at higher levels it's unplayable. Chromatic orb will kill almost anything, same for any death magic, holds and horror / panic like spells always work, and basically the first spellcaster to cast takes over. Spells become indefensible. There should be a middle way.

[testlum]

It would be nice if Remove XP Cap and Raise Level Cap to 50 were changed to separate components. I'd like to use the Triple Class HLAs component (which depends on Remove XP Cap) without going above level 40 on my non-triple classed characters.

Edited August 19, 2023 by testlum

[jmerry]

An increase to the XP cap actually has to modify at least some of the other leveling tables to work properly; otherwise, you could level to 41 and break your class completely. Losing all spell slots on your cleric or mage is not fun.

So, what you're looking for here is an IWD-style cap, in which characters can reach the same level N in any class they're progressing in, given unlimited XP. Here's a set of tables that does this for BG2(EE), allowing multiclasses to reach level 40 in everything but putting level 41 out of reach.

(Technical details: XP cap raised to 50 million, requirement for level 41 in any class raised to 100 million. It's a simple "drop in override" tweak that I had already put together for some of my own playing around.)

BG2EE multiclass XP cap removal.zip

[testlum]

Thanks! I already had a rough idea how to do it in override myself, but thought it might be good to have in the Anthology too.

[jmerry]

Looking at things ... actually, this idea would fit best as a new subcomponent for the existing XP cap component. There are already "cap at level 20" and "cap at level 30" subcomponents along with the "no level cap (but actually capped at level 50)" subcomponent; a "cap at level 40" component would fit in just fine.

Pretty easy to implement, too.

[v1ld]

A component that let you keep any unspent xp gained since your last level up when dual classing would be great to have. 

Current behavior is for the game to zero out any unclaimed xp, leaving you with 0 xp in your new class.  Would be great if you kept your unspent xp to spend in your new class.

This makes dual classing less of a chore and is how I handle it through manual save edits already.  So if I want to create a Thief 7 / Mage dual, I get 40k xp for the Thief 7 then stay there for the next 90k xp, after which I dual to Mage and save edit the 90k xp back in to get to Mage 8 and unlock the Thief levels immediately.

If the game let you keep your xp on dual classing this would be even simpler to do.

 

[Coelacanth]

As discussed in this thread, adding a tweak to make all summoning spells use green icons IWD-style would be great (I like it for better quick parsing of the UI), and if in the Tweak Pack it could be installed quite late to hopefully overwrite everything else. @subtledoctor mentioned a more comprehensive implementation that would also capture mod spells via opcodes and recolor them too, which would be even better.

[Isewein]

On 7/28/2023 at 11:41 PM, Guest crosiassevalley said:

Comment about the "Add Save Penalties for Spells Cast by High-Level Casters" option.

It is currently set to -1 every 5 levels, but in my opinion an option of -1 every 10 levels is more balanced and enjoyable. It would still have a big impact on making lower level spells more useful throughout the game, in a similar fashion to how IWD 2 works, but set like this at higher levels it's unplayable. Chromatic orb will kill almost anything, same for any death magic, holds and horror / panic like spells always work, and basically the first spellcaster to cast takes over. Spells become indefensible. There should be a middle way.

I second this - I tried it on my last run but had to remove it again because it is just too unbalanced.

[Thacobell]

Would a component to pick which UI you use in a SoD installation be something doable? I do lik SoD's UI, but the blue stone is just so good.

[polytope]

17 hours ago, Isewein said:

I second this - I tried it on my last run but had to remove it again because it is just too unbalanced.

The save penalty with level for casters is imbalancing esp if you solo and once you get access to items which reduce casting time (or Spell Sequencers) which practically guarantee the player can go first.

However I'd like to see something along this line, but with a penalty to magic resistance instead dependent on either caster level or offensive spell level.

I.e. for caster level it could be -2% at lvl 12 -4% at level 14 etc. all the way up to -50% at level 36.

Alternatively for spell level, MR is decremented by -5% for 2nd level spells, -10% for 3rd level etc. up to -40% for 9th level spells (this system at least gives some advantage to mid level casters when they prioritize their highest level slots for offense, and makes previously weak spells like Chain Lightning a bit more appealing because of the improved chance to punch through MR).

I coded up the 2nd option once, but it only applied to offensive spells existing in the vanilla game, no hot detection of new and PC usable spells with e.g. a damage effect or debuff found in the spell's header (might not be the best way to determine if a spell is hostile either, it would catch Spirit Armor, Haste etc.). With so many new spell packs and IWDification a modification like this should definitely search for new spells on install.

[subtledoctor]

13 hours ago, polytope said:

However I'd like to see something along this line, but with a penalty to magic resistance instead dependent on either caster level or offensive spell level.

I coded up the 2nd option once

Ruh? How?? I would love something like this. I could host it as well, if that is quicker/more appropriate than having it in CDTweaks. (I already have a couple components labeled “Magic Resistance Overhaul,” this kind of thing would fit well there.)

[polytope]

7 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Ruh? How?? I would love something like this. I could host it as well, if that is quicker/more appropriate than having it in CDTweaks. (I already have a couple components labeled “Magic Resistance Overhaul,” this kind of thing would fit well there.)

Just put a zero-duration #166 magic resistance modifier at the top of the spell's feature block.

Similar to how "typeless" damage can be faked to bypass resistances.

Haven't tested if it works on all engines/versions though, effect order application has always been weird and inconsistent.

[subtledoctor]

11 hours ago, polytope said:

Just put a zero-duration #166 magic resistance modifier at the top of the spell's feature block.

Similar to how "typeless" damage can be faked to bypass resistances.

Haven't tested if it works on all engines/versions though, effect order application has always been weird and inconsistent.

Oh - I'm an idiot. I just assumed the spell - and thus also the first effect in the feature block - would be blocked by MR. And never thought about the fact that every effect has its own setting as to whether it gets blocked by MR.

Okay, I am totally going to add this to my mod. ...At some point. As far as implementation, I would guess that there are any number of non-player-accessible spells which should not get extraneous op166 effects, so I would probably limit this to:

• spells learnable by sorcerers and shamans
• spells learnable from scrolls
• spells of arcane or divine type added by Olvyn's tool
• spells in Faiths & Powers Sphere systems
• spells of arcane or divine type added in kit ability tables

That leaves out clones of spells (most notably innate clones and SCS spell clones), which are kind of the bane of my existence. Sigh, I wish people cloning spells would just cast them by 146/148, it would make global spell tweaks so much easier, I would only have to tweak the originals...

[polytope]

15 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

That leaves out clones of spells (most notably innate clones and SCS spell clones), which are kind of the bane of my existence. Sigh, I wish people cloning spells would just cast them by 146/148, it would make global spell tweaks so much easier, I would only have to tweak the originals...

Yes, I've been saying so for years, the cosmetic benefits of a functionally identical cloned spell are outweighed by emergent bugs in mod interactions.

[subtledoctor]

On 9/23/2023 at 2:05 AM, polytope said:

Alternatively for spell level, MR is decremented by -5% for 2nd level spells, -10% for 3rd level etc. up to -40% for 9th level spells (this system at least gives some advantage to mid level casters when they prioritize their highest level slots for offense, and makes previously weak spells like Chain Lightning a bit more appealing because of the improved chance to punch through MR).

If anyone is interested in playing around with this, I have coded it up in my Spell Tweaks mod. Should work on mod-added spells (it looks for offensive spells procedurally)… but I have not tested it extensively.