My new "Made in Heaven" mods

[Angel]

4 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I honestly hate the 1hp item as well. I would do something like fast regen + damage resistance, and have hits from fire or acid attacks temporarily disrupt one or both (via op326, not script).

I fully agree that the situation is far from ideal, but with the limitations I have in both the engine and my available time and patience, this is currently the best I can do.

6 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Also I would make sure there is a non-magical way to inflict fire or acid damage, which there is in PnP & IWD but not really in BG.

Try installing my Item Pack.

7 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

However, that is not a knock on this mod. BG2 adopted this weird scripted-resuscitation convention, you are just following the convention.

That, and I simply don't have any better.  At least this is a mechanic BG veterans should be familiar with.  I'm pretty certain that had I implemented it any other way (damage resistance did cross my mind) I would now be swamped with people complaining about "unkillable dread wolves" as well.  There is just no pleasing all the people all the time.

11 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

What’s needed here is to figure out why some other mod is having this interaction. Which may not be clear. I had a similar problem, unkillable trolls in IWD, when using Spell Revisions “Dispel Magic Fix.” Why those interact, I don’t know.

Agreed, and I might be inclined to help if there it weren't brought to me in a "How dare you f*** up SCS arglebargle!!" way.  Instead I just got multiple copies of "X doesn't work, fix it now!" with no usable info whatsoever and I was somehow expected to derive the issue from there, followed up by demands to change my mod because it didn't suit the complainer's tastes.  I get enough of that kind of BS in my day job already, I don't need them in my free time as well.  It's things like this that make me regret ever publishing E&Q to begin with.

17 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

If you are using vanilla game’s troll scripts and some other mod is hijacking them, perhaps you could inure your dread wolves by switching them to a custom version of the script. I dunno, just brainstorming. 

It's already a custom script, mh#reg1x.bcs.  The problem seems to be that SCS clones dread wolves but in doing so somehow removes or deactivates my script.  Which I literally cannot do a thing about and isn't really up to me to debug to begin with.

[subtledoctor]

2 minutes ago, Angel said:

It's already a custom script, mh#reg1x.bcs

Ah. So maybe SCS clones the creature and its items, but inserts its own scripts. From the mention of Ulcaster and Sendai, maybe it happens with some of the SCS "improved encounter" components? Which IIRC are kind of Tactics-inspired and probably apply very particular scripting to the enemies. I don't personally use those components, which would explain why I also have never seen this issue in my games. It's a hypothesis, at any rate.

Of course even if that hits the nail on the head, what to do about it as a prophylactic measure is far from clear.

[morpheus562]

16 minutes ago, Angel said:

Agreed, and I might be inclined to help if there it weren't brought to me in a "How dare you f*** up SCS arglebargle!!" way.  Instead I just got multiple copies of "X doesn't work, fix it now!" with no usable info whatsoever and I was somehow expected to derive the issue from there, followed up by demands to change my mod because it didn't suit the complainer's tastes.  I get enough of that kind of BS in my day job already, I don't need them in my free time as well.  It's things like this that make me regret ever publishing E&Q to begin with.

It never was this. I messaged you over the weekend identifying an issue and you are taking this far in a direction it never went. I stated my resolution as remove the item or simply annotate in a readme it is incompatible, but there was never a "fix it now".

[DavidW]

Yeah, this is SCS's fault. It didn't occur to me that Dread Wolves (which are fairly generic creatures in the unmodded game) would have scripts added to them - especially scripts that do something essential - so I'm not careful in altering them.

The Wolf of Ulcaster, and some of the wolves summoned by high-level vampires (which are clones of the generic dread wolf), have an extra script just placed into script_override, which is blank in vanilla but which gets filled by the remove-minhp1 item in MiH. SCS ought to be inserting more delicately. Fixed locally (will be in v35); in the meantime, the workaround is to install (at least that component of) MiH after SCS.

There might be minor residual issues even with my local fix, because ideally a regenerate script ought to be in the override slot, whereas SCS v35 will displace it down one slot if it is installed after MiH. I would be surprised if this causes any significant issues though.

[Angel]

3 minutes ago, DavidW said:

Yeah, this is SCS's fault. It didn't occur to me that Dread Wolves (which are fairly generic creatures in the unmodded game) would have scripts added to them - especially scripts that do something essential - so I'm not careful in altering them.

The Wolf of Ulcaster, and some of the wolves summoned by high-level vampires (which are clones of the generic dread wolf), have an extra script just placed into script_override, which is blank in vanilla but which gets filled by the remove-minhp1 item in MiH. SCS ought to be inserting more delicately. Fixed locally (will be in v35); in the meantime, the workaround is to install (at least that component of) MiH after SCS.

There might be minor residual issues even with my local fix, because ideally a regenerate script ought to be in the override slot, whereas SCS v35 will displace it down one slot if it is installed after MiH. I would be surprised if this causes any significant issues though.

Thank you David, for the confirmation of the issue and the workaround/fix.

From my end, I'm trying to come up with a better solution for this.  Trollish regeneration has always been an issue even in vanilla BG2, I remember seeing plenty of reports about it.  But several people have also stated they like my dread wolf behavior, so I don't want to change it too radically.

Perhaps it would be better to apply the minhp1 effect through a spell with a finite duration instead of an item, that should at least pretend immortality issues down the line.  But it does make the scripting a whole lot trickier.  I'm going to have to think long and hard on this one.

[DavidW]

As an addendum to this: it is a bit dangerous to add minhp items to a core creature, because you can't control what happens to its scripting environment: if another mod overwrites, or even strips all the scripts to use the creature as a template, it's game-breaking, since the minhp item sticks around.

I suggest that you get the script itself to add the minhp item. Then if the script is removed, everything fails gracefully.

[Angel]

3 minutes ago, DavidW said:

As an addendum to this: it is a bit dangerous to add minhp items to a core creature, because you can't control what happens to its scripting environment: if another mod overwrites, or even strips all the scripts to use the creature as a template, it's game-breaking, since the minhp item sticks around.

I suggest that you get the script itself to add the minhp item. Then if the script is removed, everything fails gracefully.

That is sound advice, thank you.  I'll do that if I can't think of a better way.

[DavidW]

1 minute ago, Angel said:

That is sound advice, thank you.  I'll do that if I can't think of a better way.

Your 'apply a spell' trick would also work. The important point is to make sure everything is contained within the script, one way or another. What's dangerous here is having two separate things attached to the creature file, such that if one is removed but not the other, you get a hard fail. (That's true for vanilla trolls too, of course, but the original developers didn't have to worry about mods - though I still think it was a bit of a bug risk for them.)

[subtledoctor]

Could maybe be done without scripts at all. Add a contingency or repeating effect to the min1hp item which casts a subspell when hp=1, and have the subspell cause 1) sleep, 2) immune to damage, 3) regenerate to full hp, and 4) then remove the min1hp item. 

Or something. Would likely only work on EE games, though. 

[Jarno Mikkola]

52 minutes ago, Angel said:

That is sound advice, thank you.  I'll do that if I can't think of a better way.

Well here's a trick.. add a few more hit points and just a regeneration ... no min1hp items. You have your regeneration, and no unkillable creature.
And if you then want to go and make better things, you add a regen immunity to all the fire and acid based attacks, well spells and arrows usually. Or you could ask SCS to do that. ... cause you know, a man on fire should probably not regen... unless he is made of fire, and then the (fire) damage immunity will do that by itself.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Jarno Mikkola

[jmerry]

13 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Could maybe be done without scripts at all. Add a contingency or repeating effect to the min1hp item which casts a subspell when hp=1, and have the subspell cause 1) sleep, 2) immune to damage, 3) regenerate to full hp, and 4) then remove the min1hp item. 

Or something. Would likely only work on EE games, though. 

EE trolls, without mods, do exactly this.

Trolls have four undroppable items.

- TROLLIMM: general troll immunities, which include basically everything mind-affecting or that could prevent scripts from running. Probably because previous versions of trolls did rely on scripts for the fire/acid thing.

- TROLLBOO: Sets movement speed to 11, standardizing trolls as slightly faster than an unaugmented PC.

- MONHP1: min HP 1, no other effects.

- TROLLREG: Regeneration, immunity to Sleep, casts the TROLLREG spell when hit points get low (opcode 232).

So, what does that TROLLREG spell do?

- Immediately dispel everything and cure basically all status effects, including the stuff trolls are immune to already. Set HP to 1.

- Immediately remove the TROLLREG and MONHP1 items.

- Set 100% immunity to all damage types except fire and acid. Cause sleep. Set all saves to 20 (auto-fail). All with duration 20.

- After a delay of 20, set HP to 100% and create the TROLLREG and MONHP1 items.

 

Incidentally, there's some support for dread wolves having troll-like regeneration. There's a variant that shows up in SoD (BDWOLFDR) that uses essentially the same mechanics as trolls. Some slight differences; the min-HP and regeneration items are merged, and the resistance-modifying effects while the wolf is down are externalized to another item.

Edited October 11, 2023 by jmerry

[Angel]

3 hours ago, jmerry said:

Incidentally, there's some support for dread wolves having troll-like regeneration. There's a variant that shows up in SoD (BDWOLFDR) that uses essentially the same mechanics as trolls. Some slight differences; the min-HP and regeneration items are merged, and the resistance-modifying effects while the wolf is down are externalized to another item.

It's P&P accurate.  2e Monster Compendium, Annual Volume One:
 

Quote

During combat, a dread wolf regenerates like a troll, regaining 3 hp per round after the first combat round.  Only acid, fire, or total dismemberment will inflict permanent damage.  It is immune to charm, hold and cold-based spells...

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by Angel

[Jarno Mikkola]

2 hours ago, Angel said:

It's P&P accurare.  2e Monster Compendium, Annual Volume One:

Just to state this... ", a dread wolf regenerates like a troll," -doesn't mean it has a min1hp item, it just means that it can regenerate, if it gets hurt, and is not dead.
I'll also state that the trolls are badly made in the main game ... and so on. And there's better ways to make them... for example give them 10 HP regeneration, but remove the item, and make all fire/acid spells remove the regeneration effect.

[DavidW]

9 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

for example give them 10 HP regeneration, but remove the item, and make all fire/acid spells remove the regeneration effect

That’s roughly what SCS does - but I wouldn’t say it’s better, necessarily, it just depends what you want.

[InKal]

sadly that fecking dread wolves are more annoying wolves than dread wolves. first you must beat him to a pulp and then immidiately stop to make him fall down but he will not die yet. he will get up pretty quick and then you need to hit him only once and he will finally die?? right?? pretty close pretty sure. 

remove this buggy regen completely, make them immune to normal and +1 weapons, give them 2 apr and make their bites cause bleed (which is actually poison in BG engine as far as I know) - and voila - a BIG SCARY FUCKING DREAD WOLF! 

yeah, I know I can do this myself