CamDawg's Tweak Pack Ideas

[Grim Squeaker]

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.

Surely you could have a HLA (that you could take 3 times) that gives you -1 AC if you have a dagger or shortsword in your offhand (If you take it 3 times then its -3 in total).

 

Also, any idea if this is possible?:

 

http://forums.spellholdstudios.net/index.p...t=0entry90421

[CamDawg]

There's no way to detect if a specific slot (i.e. offhand weapon) has something equipped. This is one of my first ideas for fixing the shapeshifter offhand weapon bug. There is only one spell effect that even deals with the offhand (Offhand THAC0 bonus) and that was added in ToB specifically for Montolio's Cloak.

 

And don't call me Shirley.

[Grim Squeaker]

There's no way to detect if a specific slot (i.e. offhand weapon) has something equipped. This is one of my first ideas for fixing the shapeshifter offhand weapon bug. There is only one spell effect that even deals with the offhand (Offhand THAC0 bonus) and that was added in ToB specifically for Montolio's Cloak.

 

And don't call me Shirley.

'Yeah then the shit'll hit the fan...'

 

*SQUELCH!*

 

Seriously though, damn thats annoying. And the monk thing?

[CamDawg]

I'm sure it's possible with a scripting workaround, but my question is why? In 2e it really makes no sense. It would be better to apply the wisdom bonus for all classes to saves, which AFAIK wasn't implemented.

[Meira]

Inspired by JPS' Actors and Bard Song thread...

 

Bards using bard song get floating text above their head actively exhorting their comrades.

I think that that would be pretty neat. You would want to choose the quotes carefully though. Too famous one might annoy some players and naturally they should also fit to the character, so it would perhaps work better on NPCs rather than with Charname. Best would be of course to write original text instead of quoting existing ones. That would turn to be quite demanding though.

 

Closest to getting suitable text for the PC regardless of the character would probably be if there would be different set for each kit, maybe with tweaks according PC's alignment.

 

-Meira

[CamDawg]

Yeah, it would take some writing, especially to prevent the quotes from repeating. With enough suggestions, though, it would be a very nifty tweak. Since it's script-driven, you could even have specific comments for specific races/classes/kits/etc.

[JPS]

This door does not have a conventional lock and may be warded against simple spells.

 

This was actally the one thing that I really disliked about BG2 way back when I started playing it, but I've gotten so used to it that I haven't really thought about it for a while.

 

(Not until last night, in fact, when I played the thief stronghold – which I usually don't do, so I haven't had time to get used to that instance of "no, this lock can't be picked, you have to do all the quests. We don't care if you think it's the lamest thing since lame ducks". And yes, the game said that.)

 

Would it be possible to change the unpickable locks to normal (but very difficult) locks?

 

Would this require a change of the entire map or could it be done just by changing the actual doors and containers? Are there any places where the entire game would be broken, technically or plot-wise, by a change like this? And perhaps more importantly, would anyone else be interested in this?

[icelus]

It's an interesting idea, and one that could probably be fixed fairly easy with a bit of WeiDU hex editing. As to breaking any quests--not sure. We'd probably have to examine each lock in question.

[Meira]

What about knock-spell? I was always bothered that I could open automatically any lock, making your super thief look a bit lame. If you make key-requiring door to be opened with (insanely?) good lockpick skill and the same time any wizard can open it with snap of his fingers... Of course magic is supposed to work miracles, but if there would be even a change of failure - I know I would feel better about it.

 

Opposite example would be Arcanum where the spell for locks never seemed to work - which was equally annoying.

 

-Meira

[Caedwyr]

I know that getting into Irenicus' office in Spellhold before he reveals himself does not break the game. There is a scripted sequence where Irenicus comes and confronts you, then goes into his "resistence is futile" speech.

[JPS]

What about knock-spell? I was always bothered that I could open automatically any lock, making your super thief look a bit lame. If you make key-requiring door to be opened with (insanely?) good lockpick skill and the same time any wizard can open it with snap of his fingers... Of course magic is supposed to work miracles, but if there would be even a change of failure - I know I would feel better about it.

Well, the obvious solution, from an in-game perspective, would be using traps, alarms or guards. After all, people would know that a fairly low-level wizard can open just about any lock. And traps and alarms would give thieves an edge anyway, since wizards canät deal very well with those (not to mention that wizards have a limited number of spell slots and for every knock spell they want to use to make a quest a little easier, they have to go without a potentially life-saving spell like web or melf's acid arrow).

 

From a modding point of view it would perhaps be easier to nerf the knock spell a bit, but I'd rather avoid that solution. The problem with the un-pickable locks is most likely a result of a game designer taking the easy way out, and solving it by taking the easy way out as a modder doesn't feel like the best solution.

[CamDawg]

Alright, tried experimenting with a shedload of stuff. Progress report:

 

Changing Imoen's avatar to mage: done.

 

Weapon animation tweaks: done

 

World map changes: done.

 

Adding stealth penalties to armor is damn near impossible on the fly, because there is no consistent way to determine armor type. An example: full and half plate have the same item unusability flags, same animation, adn no consistent weight/description/STR requirements. I could make changes to default armor in BG2/ToB but it would have to be on a case-by-case basis and would not apply to armopr added by mods.

 

Increasing movement rates while not in combat/talking: I have not found a satisfactory solution yet.

 

Fleeing enemies: Not possible without revising scripts across the game. This causes serious compatibility issues and, as such, is out.

 

Rod of Lordly Might: Need more ideas. I really like the idea of changing it into a swiss-army weapon, instead of YA+4OPI (yet another+4 overpowered item).

 

Fire spells igniting webs, sympathetic detonations of skull traps and DB fireballs: May be possible, but I have no idea where to even start. I don't think that PRO and VVC files can interact with one another.

 

Defensive abilities for offhand weapons: There are no scripting/spell effects that can check if something is explicitly in the offhand, and weapon style bonuses are (for the most part) hardcoded.

 

Floating bard song text: I've gotten this to work, but it causes the bard to stutter-step. I'm going to take another run at this.

 

This door does not have a conventional lock and may be warded against simple spells: Need to be on a case-by-case basis, and there are lots of compatibility concerns. Probably not going to happen. However, Knock can be tweaked to be on a sliding scale of success (maybe 5% per level? I can't imagine a lvl 20 mage not being able to open a lock).

[CamDawg]

One more item: over at FWS, Kish had mentioned a desire for a tweak that would convert the faulty IsValidForPartyDialog triggers into InParty triggers. The net effect would be characters in your party shouting interjections from across the screen, similar to Valen/Solaufein, but you also wouldn't miss any. I have this component coded as well.

[icelus]

I'm glad to see that you've gotten this to work, Cam. I ran into this problem when I was testing the Suna Seni in Spellhold stuff. After the tour of the other patients, before Irenicus reveals himself and Imoen, Yoshimo is supposed to interject about his treachery. Since Irenicus would start speaking as soon as the main character was close enough, often Yoshimo wouldn't make it far enough into the room to be a part of the conversation. It seemed like a rather annoying oversight, especially considering how important that speech is to the game.

[Caedwyr]

This is a feature that I've been hoping would be added to a tweak pack for quite some time. It always annoyed me that Yoshimo, or any interjection NPC was getting left out because they weren't quick enough on their feet. Another thing that may be good to look at is using a detect rather than See command for initiating interparty banters and romance dialogues. I tend to have my Thieves hide in shadows all the time, and as a result they don't get many banters in.