SR Revised V1.3.900 (2022 August 8th)

[FixTesteR]

So what will the aftermath of VS be? Do you all want spell deflections to deflect it completely, even though it's a splash spell, like a minor fireball?

[FixTesteR]

Is SR/R incompatible with aTweaks components PnP Fiends and Fiendish Gating (description found here: http://readme.spellholdstudios.net/readme_atweaks.html)

I'm asking because maybe they both try to modify the same files. Thanks.

[Bartimaeus]

8 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Is SR/R incompatible with aTweaks components PnP Fiends and Fiendish Gating (description found here: http://readme.spellholdstudios.net/readme_atweaks.html)

I'm asking because maybe they both try to modify the same files. Thanks.

atweaks is not "incompatible" insomuch as aTweaks simply overwrites SR/R spells. How undesirable that is is left up to you.

11 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

So what will the aftermath of VS be? Do you all want spell deflections to deflect it completely, even though it's a splash spell, like a minor fireball?

Yes, if you choose to install the AoE Spell Deflection component: that's the idea. A Vitriolic Sphere or two could kill a number of mages who would have no other effective way of protecting themselves otherwise, which seems less than ideal.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[FixTesteR]

56 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

A Vitriolic Sphere or two could kill a number of mages who would have no other effective way of protecting themselves otherwise, which seems less than ideal.

Well. GoI should block VS as per description that it blocks aoe.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, FixTesteR said:

Well. GoI should block VS as per description that it blocks aoe.

Subtledoctor should've already fixed that - it was set to power level 0 (which would bypass spell protections) when it should've been level 4.

(e): Actually...now that I think about it, Globe of Invulnerability should have a carved our immunity to Vitriolic Sphere in its entirety that should make the power level issue moot, so I'm not sure why it wasn't protecting against it.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[FixTesteR]

Oh no, I'm not saying I tested GoI vs VS. I just think it should be tested. Which I'll gladly do after my installation is done. Right now I've a problem with "EET needs EET_End." during my installation. Probably something really elementary to solve. I asked about it in the forums. Afterwards I can check how VS behaves in my megamod install.

Does Death Ward really not protect against vorpal attacks? Is there any way to protect against them so as to become immune to them?

Edited August 26, 2022 by FixTesteR

[Bartimaeus]

3 minutes ago, FixTesteR said:

Does Death Ward really not protect against vorpal attacks? Is there any way to protect against them so as to become immune to them?

Why wouldn't it?

[FixTesteR]

9 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Why wouldn't it?

Because I saw that one of some mod components task was to "make death ward protect against vorpal hits". Now if SR/R does that, I'm already content. Thanks.

[Bartimaeus]

30 minutes ago, FixTesteR said:

Because I saw that one of some mod components task was to "make death ward protect against vorpal hits". Now if SR/R does that, I'm already content. Thanks.

I guess it depends on how the vorpal effect is implemented; in IR, they're instant death or kill creature type opcodes, which Death Ward protects against both of. On the other hand, if a vorpal effect was implemented as a 100% damage effect, then it wouldn't. But I'm not sure how it would be possible to provide immunity against that outside of immunity to the damage type.

[FixTesteR]

Alright, thanks! I'm using IR, so it's good, then. Though my question was aimed at Planetar attacks.

[Bartimaeus]

13 minutes ago, FixTesteR said:

Alright, thanks! I'm using IR, so it's good, then. Though my question was aimed at Planetar attacks.

For SR's planetars, it's an instant death effect, which is covered by SR's Death Ward at the very least.

[FixTesteR]

Hey, I have some SRR questions after reading through the SRR description of changes. I suppose some decriptions aren't updated, but still.

Isn't Chromatic Orb's magic damage now on par with MM dmg?

Icelance: dealing 1D6 of both piercing and cold damage for every two experience levels of the caster, up to a maximum of 5D6 at 10th level. Meaning 5D6 of piercing and 5D6 of cold?

Polymorph Self: "Should be a fairly decent spell for any single-class mage or perhaps mage-cleric." But not for F/M?

Feeblemindedness: "From a -4 saving throw to -2. This is essentially a "target is effectively dead" spell - compare to Domination at the same level which is in the same school and also has a -2 saving throw." But Domination gains you a temporary ally and this doesn't. That's probably the rationale.

Summon Shadow: 2 wraiths at level 12 were OP?

What's the whole deal behind removing true petrification? Character being exited from the party? And?

Are fiends in SR/R able to be protected from by using PfEvil as was the case in Vanilla?

Also, why haven't PnP Fiends been incorporated into SR/R? Are they just worse? From the description in aTweaks, it says that that component brings them closer to their PnP counterparts, that legitimately missing abilities are restored and spuriously granted benefits are removed. Which sounds nice. The Fiends' AI acts in accordance to their PnP behavior, the Blood War plays a role, too: Whenever Baatezu and Tanar'ri meet, they will taunt and fight each other. This will take precedence over any other actions. Why is SR/R a better option?

Lastly, why didn't SRR touch on Find Familiar? That creature is quite overpowered at level 1. And it gives a HP boost to your protagonist mage. Which is about 12 additional HP at level 1. A lot. Just on that point, I'm considering FF a cheat spell, and might end up not using it again. I got an imp which can polymorph (level 4 spell at level 1), and could easily kill an ogre with it, with a little bit of kiting from the level 1 party. I was also able to kill the caravan raiding bandits in the same area, which is Coast Way, and their leader is somewhat tough.

Thanks

[subtledoctor]

5 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Polymorph Self: "Should be a fairly decent spell for any single-class mage or perhaps mage-cleric." But not for F/M?

M and C/M might use Polymorph to become effective in melee. F/M is already effective in melee. 

5 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Summon Shadow: 2 wraiths at level 12 were OP?

Have you played with it? It’s a pretty amazing spell. I was sending wraiths against enemies right into ToB in my last game. 

[FixTesteR]

6 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

 

11 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Summon Shadow: 2 wraiths at level 12 were OP?

Have you played with it? It’s a pretty amazing spell. I was sending wraiths against enemies right into ToB in my last game. 

Not enough, I guess! Under SRR, that spell progresses more slowly but gets more powerful. So for your ToB actions, SRR is even better.

This time, I installed SR still. But I like most, if not all SRR changes. And asking questions here makes me help make up my mind. While I'll be going through the game this time, I'll pay attention to spells I never use, and see if SRR does anything with them.

A while ago I asked if anything could be done with Detect Evil/Detect Alignment, whatever the name, level 1 divine spell. If that could give more info about a creature, even in a dialog box or wherever, it could really make it a useful spell. Like resistances, stats. Maybe only some stats, depending on the caster level. Or random stats. As is, I guess it has a minor usage, that being, if you find out a creature is evil, at least PfE will work against it. Since I learned that Carbos and Shank are actually neutral, you can't use Firebead's reward to stand a better chance against them. Yeah, funny, but I died to a critical from the first assassin once , and it was a no-reload run.

I see that Cure Critical Wounds isn't redone in SRR, but the first three healing spells are. Doesn't CCW then kind of suck compared to CSW?

Blade Barrier: "From 6' AoE to 10' AoE." isn't that quite a big radius? And seeing how that damage cannot be prevented or saved against?

False Dawn: "From 15' AoE to 20' AoE, and non-undead opponents now suffer 1D6 fire damage" Hmmm, this takes away from the spell name, namely DAWN, that shouldn't have any effects upon living creatures.

Edited August 30, 2022 by FixTesteR

[Bartimaeus]

 

15 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Hey, I have some SRR questions after reading through the SRR description of changes. I suppose some decriptions aren't updated, but still.

I have not updated the "list of spell changes" in the original post for a while, but at least most of them should be relatively accurate.

15 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Isn't Chromatic Orb's magic damage now on par with MM dmg?

Magic Missile does an average of 3.5 damage per missile, which is 17.5 damage at 9th level with all of them; Chromatic Orb at 14th level does 2D10, which is an average of 11 damage. In other words...no - if anything, Chromatic Orb is still too weak, particularly given the level progression differences and the fact that Chromatic Orb's secondary effect isn't likely to do anything for most of BG2.

15 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Icelance: dealing 1D6 of both piercing and cold damage for every two experience levels of the caster, up to a maximum of 5D6 at 10th level. Meaning 5D6 of piercing and 5D6 of cold?

Correct: it's essentially on par with a lightning bolt, but you exchange the more severe saving throw (-4) and lightning damage for two types of damage and a chance of paralyzing.

15 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Feeblemindedness: "From a -4 saving throw to -2. This is essentially a "target is effectively dead" spell - compare to Domination at the same level which is in the same school and also has a -2 saving throw." But Domination gains you a temporary ally and this doesn't. That's probably the rationale.

Feeblemindedness is a kill spell, though: if it works, that enemy is effectively dead. However, it should be noted that I increased the penalty of both Feeblemindedness and 5th level arcane Domination to -4 since writing that (4th level divine Mental Domination stays at -2): single target disabling spells should be effective and have good use cases compared to AoE disable spells like Confusion, which makes me inclined to have them be more severe.

15 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Polymorph Self: "Should be a fairly decent spell for any single-class mage or perhaps mage-cleric." But not for F/M?

I think Subtledoctor already covered this: a F/M should already have solid fighting abilities which is kind of the entire point of Polymorph Self (it's basically a sort of lesser and more varied Tenser's Transformation), so it's not a spell really suited for them.

15 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Summon Shadow: 2 wraiths at level 12 were OP?

This is more of a philosophical issue than anything else: I don't think higher experience levels should ever result in less creatures being summoned compared to lower experience levels. It is a level 5 spell though, so someone could convince me that it would be more appropriate to start with 3 shadows at 9th level, thus accelerating the progression.

15 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

What's the whole deal behind removing true petrification? Character being exited from the party? And?

Not an SRR change - in fact, SRR gives the option of optionally restoring true petrification via the settings.ini in \spell_rev (or alternatively restoring it just for enemies while keeping the "kinder" petrification effect for just party members). The long and short of it is that the true petrification effect removes party members from the party, kills ongoing romances (due to being "kicked out" of the party), and destroys items (unless you have another component that makes it so they're dropped).

15 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Also, why haven't PnP Fiends been incorporated into SR/R? Are they just worse? From the description in aTweaks, it says that that component brings them closer to their PnP counterparts, that legitimately missing abilities are restored and spuriously granted benefits are removed. Which sounds nice. The Fiends' AI acts in accordance to their PnP behavior, the Blood War plays a role, too: Whenever Baatezu and Tanar'ri meet, they will taunt and fight each other. This will take precedence over any other actions. Why is SR/R a better option?

Uh...because I can't just straight up steal someone else's major work like that (particularly given that the original author has not been around in close to a decade IIRC), and someone may prefer the SR/R creatures over them. It should be noted that SRR comes with another settings.ini switch to prevent changes to fiends; this is because I too prefer atweaks' P&P fiends, which is also why I made another component in my Bart_Tweaks mod to further unite SRR and atweaks' P&P Fiends.

15 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Lastly, why didn't SRR touch on Find Familiar? That creature is quite overpowered at level 1. And it gives a HP boost to your protagonist mage. Which is about 12 additional HP at level 1. A lot. Just on that point, I'm considering FF a cheat spell, and might end up not using it again. I got an imp which can polymorph (level 4 spell at level 1), and could easily kill an ogre with it, with a little bit of kiting from the level 1 party. I was also able to kill the caravan raiding bandits in the same area, which is Coast Way, and their leader is somewhat tough.

It would be nice to have a full-fledged level progression for familiars, but there are issues inherent to how Find Familiar works that make it very difficult to work with and not something I particularly want to touch. Perhaps try a standalone familiar mod, like WTP Familiars.

4 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

I see that Cure Critical Wounds isn't redone in SRR, but the first three healing spells are. Doesn't CCW then kind of suck compared to CSW?

All six levels of Cure/Regenerate Wounds spells in SRR (Light, Medium, Moderate, Serious, Critical, and Mass) are redone, but yes, I see that I forgot to mention that particular one in the original post.

4 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

Blade Barrier: "From 6' AoE to 10' AoE." isn't that quite a big radius? And seeing how that damage cannot be prevented or saved against?

There is perhaps a confounding issue here: it's a 10' AoE, but a 5' AoE radius (i.e. a 5' circle around the caster, which is a 10' diameter). In SRR's actual description text, the radius size is what is used in descriptions. The original post list of descriptions were largely written sometime ago, hence the confusion. As for how large it is...maybe? It's been sometime since I actively checked, but I don't remember thinking it was particularly an issue...but I'm certainly open to feedback.

4 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

False Dawn: "From 15' AoE to 20' AoE, and non-undead opponents now suffer 1D6 fire damage" Hmmm, this takes away from the spell name, namely DAWN, that shouldn't have any effects upon living creatures.

As far as I know, the "dawn" doesn't literally cause fire damage to undead either - pretty sure I've seen zombies and skeletons at all times of day throughout these games, . This is a goofy spell because of its slow ongoing effect (compared to others like Sunray or Fireburst which deal their total damage instantly), so I'm not particularly keen on letting it be so relatively weak for a 6th level spell.

4 hours ago, FixTesteR said:

A while ago I asked if anything could be done with Detect Evil/Detect Alignment, whatever the name, level 1 divine spell. If that could give more info about a creature, even in a dialog box or wherever, it could really make it a useful spell. Like resistances, stats. Maybe only some stats, depending on the caster level. Or random stats. As is, I guess it has a minor usage, that being, if you find out a creature is evil, at least PfE will work against it. Since I learned that Carbos and Shank are actually neutral, you can't use Firebead's reward to stand a better chance against them. Yeah, funny, but I died to a critical from the first assassin once , and it was a no-reload run.

If such a thing could be done, I'd say it's probably more appropriate to Know Opponent than Detect Alignment.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Bartimaeus