Future tweak ideas - post 'em here

[Galactygon]

Cloning spells should become much less laden with bugs with this suggestion., especially when it comes to interacting with other (creature- and spell-granted) immunities. Only the self-referencing 318s/324s would need to be updated.

Edited January 6 by Galactygon

[Morgoth]

I have three requests for Siege of Dragonspear, all involving the spectacles:

- make them have all the charges needed to bring forth the summonable creatures.
- make it so that you don't have to equip them to see the ghosts around - a good idea would be using the line of sight of whole party (And not of the single party member having them in their inventory).
- make it so that you don't have to use the ability on the ghosts. Just click on them *Use the spectacles to bring the ghost forth* and done.

Edited January 10 by Morgoth

[Trouveur80]

10 hours ago, Morgoth said:

I have three requests for Siege of Dragonspear, all involving the spectacles:

- make them have all the charges needed to bring forth the summonable creatures.
- make it so that you don't have to equip them to see the ghosts around - a good idea would be using the line of sight of whole party (And not of the single party member having them in their inventory).
- make it so that you don't have to use the ability on the ghosts. Just click on them *Use the spectacles to bring the ghost forth* and done.

For the first one, it's already in Made in Heaven EQ.

[Opipo]

How about an option to remove the Vorpal Effect from all weapons?

 

I.. uhh.. requote myself from the thread in SCS subforum where it came to my mind: "Vorpal is a really bad effect. It's pointless on trash mobs and it robs you of an epic fight during boss encounters. This is not a darn MMO. Luckily it's only present on like .. 3 weapons and none of them are meta, so i just avoid it. Shame about the Axe tho. Come to think of it.. instead of patching the dragons, one could patch the weapons instead, for the ultimate solution."

[subtledoctor]

I would love it if wild mages could cast normally in wild magic areas. That would be a wonderful switcheroo.

Or maybe just get a bump to their surge result, so there would still be wild magic but they would be better at magic there than other casters.

The former is probably not possible. But the latter... could a mod run through areas looking for a wild magic flag, and apply a scripted spell with an op281 effect targeting wild mages?

Hmm... I write this in the CDTweaks forum, but now I kind of want to do it myself

I don't know how wild magic areas are flagged/coded, however.

EDIT - looks like it is done in the area scripts:

IF
	!GlobalTimerNotExpired("WildmagicTimer","AR3009")  // Watcher's Keep -- Wild Magic ?
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		ApplySpell(Player1,WILD_MAGIC_AREA)  // SPIN645.SPL (No such index)
		SetGlobalTimer("WildmagicTimer","AR3009",14)  // Watcher's Keep -- Wild Magic ?
END

Lava does the same thing to the Firewine Bridge area (and Firewine ruins dungeon!) in SotSC. So I guess a mod would run through every area script looking for application SPIN624/WILD_MAGIC_AREA, and then add a block with a spell targeting wild mages. Doable! ...but not a top priority.

Edited January 28 by subtledoctor

[jmerry]

Or you just edit the WILD_MAGIC_AREA spell to include the alteration you're looking for; that's what actually imposes the wild surges, at least in the Watcher's Keep areas.

Unmodded, that spell does two things: force the target's next spell cast in the next 14 seconds to surge, and set the target's wild surge bonus to 1 for those same 14 seconds. Which, depending on how the wild mage surge bonus is implemented, might even override it so they don't get their usual +level to the check.

Edited January 28 by jmerry

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, jmerry said:

Or you just edit the WILD_MAGIC_AREA spell

Wow that is an excellent idea! Boffo!

1 hour ago, jmerry said:

Unmodded, that spell does two things: force the target's next spell cast in the next 14 seconds to surge, and set the target's wild surge bonus to 1 for those same 14 seconds. Which, depending on how the wild mage surge bonus is implemented, might even override it so they don't get their usual +level to the check

So, easy enough to bang that out into a subspell, and (with EE op318) make the Wild Mage and Chaos Sorcerer kits immune to the subspell. 

On pre-EE games I guess it would be a bit more complicated - apply immunity to the subspell to Wild Mage/Chaos Sorcerer via an inline .EFF, or something. 

[cdx]

I'd really like a tweak for common ammo in original BG1 - arrows/bolts use iron in arrowheads and are one-use items, so could be more expensive. Which would make stone bullets more expensive, too, due to demand. Would be great to be able to set their store price to something like 1gp per 1 arrow, or custom amount per stack. It could change the gameplay quite a bit, changing party composition and how many arrows you want to use in case you need money for an item. Also, would make me more inclined to use magic arrows because they wouldn't be that much more expensive than standard ones. And killing some kobold archers would feel really good .

For extra flavor cheap arrows/bolts (not bullets) for 1gp per stack could still exist, but they should be weaker, maybe with 50% chance to do 0 damage.

Another nice tweak would be a new option for the current mod which changes the stack sizes in stores - if 1 stack of 20 is 1gp in base game, 1 stack of 120 to be 6gp in stores. Otherwise the QoL change feels like cheating due to the lack of increase in price for a larger stack.

Something really cool would be to set the buy markup at all stores to 40% to use with the no depreciation option. I imagine this should be about right for getting approximately the same total amount of gold in a playthrough as base game with depreciation, without the hassle of collecting things to sell in batches, spreading items among stores, etc. I really like the No depreciation mod to remove my OCD about selling optimally, but it ends up providing much more money.

[jmerry]

59 minutes ago, cdx said:

Would be great to be able to set their store price to something like 1gp per 1 arrow, or custom amount per stack.

Game mechanics are a limit here; the base price must be per-arrow, and must be an integer. The standard value is zero, which means basic ammo can't be sold back to the store for anything and a stack of any size costs 1 to buy.

If you increase that price to 1, then it becomes possible for a character with high reputation and charisma to make a profit buying and selling the ammo; this is already in the game for throwing axes and throwing daggers. The price you buy a stack gets discounted to something like 75% or 67% of the base price, and you're paying 13 or 15 gold for that stack of 20 arrows. Which you then sell back for 1 gold per arrow - you could always do it one at a time - and get more than you paid.

If you increase the price to 2, that closes off the profit exploit. But that's way too much for basic ammo; a starting archer would have trouble buying any arrows at all. And it's the same as the price of a dagger, which is a lot more metal.

(Incidentally, there are no enemies in the entire campaign that use slings and bullets. You'll only ever get a few bullets from pre-placed drops, and you'll always have to buy anything else. While enemies with bows and arrows are quite common, and you can supply even multiple archers in a party entirely from enemy drops for considerable portions of the game.)

[cdx]

16 hours ago, jmerry said:

If you increase that price to 1, then it becomes possible for a character with high reputation and charisma to make a profit buying and selling the ammo;

Store cheese wouldn't be a problem with this, right: "Change Effect of Reputation on Store Prices -> Reputation has no effect, stores price fixed at 100%" and no charisma effect adjustment? I usually play with this installed, so I don't try to min-max when I sell things. In order to not need that option installed, would it be too complex to make normal ammo unsellable as part of an ammo price tweak?

As for the bullets, they don't do much anyway, except for against skeletons. Although, if they are very limited, mages and clerics will just stand around when not casting. And micromanagement would increase, as without ranged for mages/clerics I wouldn't be able to select the whole party and click attack. So maybe it would be better to change arrows/bolts to 1gp each and leave bullets at 1gp per stack.

It would fit well with the lore as well. As you said, there isn't that much metal on arrows/bolts, but there is some. So merchants wouldn't want to buy arrows/bolts for such a high price, but would be more than willing to sell them to you if you're willing to pay .

[jmerry]

Removing the impact of charisma and reputation on prices would remove the possibility of making a profit by buying and selling the same items repeatedly, yes.

As for making a particular item unsellable, there's a flag on the item that will do that in original BG1. There isn't a flag for that in BG2 or the EE - at least, not without undesirable side effects. The other lever that can be used is item type; some stores won't buy arrows, for example. Of course, using this would shut off selling magic ammo too.

Edited January 29 by jmerry

[DrAzTiK]

Hi friends !

Another bottle in the sea but an interesting tweak could  be a mod allowing to get a gameplay a la dragon age origins  meaning all your teammates just lay down if "killed"  (except emprisonement and stonning oc) and "wake up if you manage to win the fight with at least one character surviving ( you still need to heal them)

This way,  you don't  need resurrection/raise dead in case you manage to win the fight with at least one character witch is particularly usefull on BG1 where you don't have easily  access to raise dead and resurrections.

 

More importantly, it would  prevent some  extremly boring micromanagement : no need to equip all items on a dead character coz fallen characters would still keep equipement and items.

Raise dead and resurection would still be usefull allowing to resurect teammates during the fight if you need/can afford it.

It would also allow to continue the fight when your main character is dead, with no need of boring relloading or feeling cheating. 

I remember that Jarno has made a mod like it for the protagonist long time ago. But I think it is not updated anymore and it would be good to extend it to all characters.

Is it doable with BG EE engine ? 

[subtledoctor]

Probably? I basically apply something like this in my Black Pits-in-Baldur’s Gate mod. (Or else it was already there and I had to manipulate it in some way. I forget.)

Basically apply min1hp to all party members, and when one of them reaches 1hp apply an irresistable Sleep effect and increase a variable value. Have BALDUR.bcs check the variable and if it hits six, blammo, kill the party. Then apply something when combat ends which dispels the Sleep/variable spell and adds 1 hit point. So if anyone survives, everyone wakes up with 2 hp and goes on their way.

Something like that. Doable, but probably a bit kludgy in execution.

Edited February 12 by subtledoctor

[DrAzTiK]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Probably? I basically apply something like this in my Black Pits-in-Baldur’s Gate mod. (Or else it was already there and I had to manipulate it in some way. I forget.)

Basically apply min1hp to all party members, and when one of them reaches 1hp apply an irresistable Sleep effect and increase a variable value. Have BALDUR.bcs check the variable and if it hits six, blammo, kill the party. Then apply something when combat ends which dispels the Sleep/variable spell and adds 1 hit point. So if anyone survives, everyone wakes up with 2 hp and goes on their way.

Something like that. Doable, but probably a bit kludgy in execution.

Hi subtledoctor !

How handsome you look, with health you seem to glow.. You are the Pheonix of al who here reside.

Long story short, if it is not a pain to code, I beg you to make it one day if you have time. Almost a personal request but surely a large number of player could find an interest in it. 

We must do good for people in spite of themselves. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

[jmerry]

The mechanism there ... in the base game, the Black Pits has a special override script for PCs (BPPLOT.BCS) that does the "fall asleep at 1 HP, wake when raised" part, and the non-removable "Slave Ring" with a min-HP effect and immunity to instant death (But only the opcode 55 "slay" kind, because that's the only kind that comes up in that adventure). Area scripts handle the "if everyone goes down, you lose" part.

This already has the potential to do some bad things. If you export a Black Pits character and import them to the main campaign, they'll keep the script and any equipment they have - including the "Slave Ring" if you did so before victory. Put that into a campaign that's not designed for it, and trouble ensues. Shoal's kiss on the protagonist is a soft-lock, for one - they go down, you can't raise them in the field because you don't have the levels, and you can't leave to reach a temple because of "You must gather your party before venturing forth". If you still have the ring, it's also impossible to kill that character for a proper Game Over, and your only recourse is to quit out.

So you can take that mechanism as inspiration, but it needs a lot of tweaks to actually function outside its original context.