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CamDawg's Tweak Pack Ideas


Grim Squeaker

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Well, here we go again:

 

According to the small messages that appear when you save or load, "the duration of mind affecting spells has been reduced", but they still almost always last longer than the battle. The same goes for fear, stun and hold spells – the most annoying part of figthing magic users is standing around for five minutes afterwards, waiting for your characters to stop running around the screen (or standing motionless, or whatever). It's almost enough to make me go digging around in the spell files on my own. But only almost, so if the duration of these spells could be shortened without me having to any work, I'd be grateful  :)

 

And another thing:

 

Would it be possible to make enemies give up when they're almost defeated? Say, when they reach 25% of their hit points, or when half of the group has died, or something like that, they would stop fighting and run away. You should still get experience (you defeated them, after all), and it would proobably be a good idea to make them drop their stuff before they leave, but you wouldn't have to kill them.

 

It should not happen in every fight, of course (imagine Firkraag dropping his scales and running away screaming...), but at least in encounters with humanoid creatures that are not plot-critical.

 

Or am I the only person trying to keep my kill count as low as possible?

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It should not happen in every fight, of course (imagine Firkraag dropping his scales and running away screaming...), but at least in encounters with humanoid creatures that are not plot-critical.
  :D  :D  :D  :)  Hive mother: "hey, no problem mate! it is just one eyestalk and I have so many"

 

Or am I the only person trying to keep my kill count as low as possible?
I think it is good to avoid killing all these petty thieves and orcs along the way, though I doubt that sendai's slaves are free to surrender.
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Well, it would perhaps have to be done on a case-to-case basis, and that would perhaps take more effort than it's worth, but it's a thing I would really like to see done. Some of my characters are feeling guilty about all the random people they end up killing.  :)

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OK, a quick summary of the last few pages of ideas, and my take on feasability:

 

1) Defensive abilities for offhand weapons, specifically for offhand short swords or daggers--I think weapon style bonuses are hardcoded, though there may be a way to do this with a search-and-edit function with individual items. Still, I think feasability is low.

 

2) Making panicking (non-plot-critical) enemies run away more intelligently, with full XP & item bonuses for PC--if there is a generic panic script, it may be possible, though I haven't checked yet (and doubt that one exists)

 

3) Altering the Rod of Lordly Might to be somewhat useful--easily done, though suggestions for weapons would be needed. I think it would be a much better idea to emphasize versatility, not munchkin-ness, and make each form viable and useful. Ideas could be immunities you don't normally see (say INT drain) or abilities not normally seen in weapons.

 

4) General reduction of duration of mind-affecting spells--easily done, anyone want to suggest a general reduction percentage? 10%? 20%? 75%?

 

5) Changing Imoen's avatar to a female human mage--also easily done.

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4) General reduction of duration of mind-affecting spells--easily done, anyone want to suggest a general reduction percentage? 10%? 20%? 75%?

I don't think this one is that necessary. The durations were decreased substantially from BG1 to BG2- reducing them more would just make the spells almost useless. :)

 

Also, it's not like the game's that hard anyway. :D

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1) Defensive abilities for offhand weapons, specifically for offhand short swords or daggers--I think weapon style bonuses are hardcoded, though there may be a way to do this with a search-and-edit function with individual items. Still, I think feasability is low.

You should get a parry ability, but forfeit one attack or something like this, because parrying involves deflecting a strike with more skill than with a shield. Don't know the HLA though.:)

 

 

2) Making panicking (non-plot-critical) enemies run away more intelligently, with full XP & item bonuses for PC--if there is a generic panic script, it may be possible, though I haven't checked yet (and doubt that one exists)
would also make sense story wise, I hate fighting everybody all the time

 

3) Altering the Rod of Lordly Might to be somewhat useful--easily done, though suggestions for weapons would be needed. I think it would be a much better idea to emphasize versatility, not munchkin-ness, and make each form viable and useful. Ideas could be immunities you don't normally see (say INT drain) or abilities not normally seen in weapons.
maybe a lowly enchanted swiss-knife which can transform into several deadly weapons which do next to nothing apart from the designated foe. It would not be an overkill weapon nor a jack-of-all-trades at it is now -I think I never used it-, but make up for some deficiencies in the game and built in cheats that some classes cannot use, i.e. Shield of Balduran vs. Beholders.

 

4) General reduction of duration of mind-affecting spells--easily done, anyone want to suggest a general reduction percentage? 10%? 20%? 75%?
As Andyr said above they are very short anyway. Do you also mean vice versa, which would not be good at all.
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I love the parry/defensive weapon idea; the problem is that AFAIK all of the weapon style bonuses are hardcoded. I have not found a scripting solution yet.

 

Jester, we're on the same page for the Rod of Lordly Might. I like the idea of a bevy of situational +1 or (maybe) +2 weapons. For example one component could have bonuses vs. trolls, another might have an immunity to charm effects, a third could grant specific save/AC bonuses, etc. It would be nice to avoid metagaming--no +5 damage to drow or slay undead effects, given the contents of chapters 5 & 6.

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4) General reduction of duration of mind-affecting spells--easily done, anyone want to suggest a general reduction percentage? 10%? 20%? 75%?

I don't think this one is that necessary. The durations were decreased substantially from BG1 to BG2- reducing them more would just make the spells almost useless. :D

 

Also, it's not like the game's that hard anyway. :D

It's not about making the game easier, it's about making the spells less annoying. As I said, they almost always last longer than the actual battle, and I'm getting tired of having to wait for my party members to stop running around every time we've run into a yuan-ti mage.

 

And the changes would of course affect the spells when the party casts them as well. I'm not sure about the logic of this, but since the party potentially can cast them a lot more often than any individual enemy (who dies at the end anyway), shortening the durations would actually strike harder against the player.

 

(After some twenty runs through the game I would in fact like to make all battles as short and unintrusive as possible, so I can get on with the plot. I should perhaps use ctrl-y more often...)

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