My new "Made in Heaven" mods

[Angel]

24 minutes ago, Arthas said:

I poked you because your "challenging" area tweaks make sense.

And my requests, even if odds, stems from a very simple reason: encounters should not be added just to make the game tougher, but to improve the experience as a whole.

If I would have liked a mere dragon fight, I would have probably waited ToB and installed improved Abazigal, where you face 4-5-6 dragons (can't remember the number) out of the blue and they don't even drop scales, just to make the area "tougher".

But I don't care about that. I care about fights embedded into the lore or that makes sense according to the area.

Effort poured into an encounter players cannot hope to defeat normally is effort wasted IMHO.  (And make no mistake, scripting anything other than "run up and hit nearest" is pretty hard even with monsters that have only one or two special abilities, let alone something as complex as a dragon. It can take hundreds of lines of code.)  I'd rather put my energy into something that is fun and enjoyable for both me and the players than in putting an impossibly tough encounter somewhere just because the lore says it has to be there.  If I pulled out my FR books old and new I can probably find dozens of things that should be there but aren't in both BG1 and BG2.  This is a game first and foremost, not a Forgotten Realms encyclopedia.

[Lilaina]

After visiting Cloakwood a few Hairy Spiders spawned inside the Jovial Juggler. Is this supposed to be one of the spider infested areas? :D

(Caused by the MiH Encounters and quests mod, I assume)

https://i.gyazo.com/c067746be8eb5662f978abd0a24aa989.png

[Angel]

13 hours ago, Lilaina said:

After visiting Cloakwood a few Hairy Spiders spawned inside the Jovial Juggler. Is this supposed to be one of the spider infested areas?

(Caused by the MiH Encounters and quests mod, I assume)

It's certainly not intentional and I have no explanation for it nor can I reproduce it; I don't touch the Jovial Juggler's area script at all. Maybe it somehow got delayed or something.  I'm not entirely happy with that encounter anyway and will probably redo it from scratch in the next version.

[Chitown Willie]

Hi Angel,

I just equipped Imoen with the "Gloves of Missile Snaring" (MIH-IP) and think it might be overpowered.

With just her, I can tap dance all over weaker ranged enemies (bandits/kobolds) and even special ranged encounters (e.g., Zargal/Malkax/Geltik).

Perhaps downgrade from "Protection from Missiles" to "+2 bonus from missile attacks"?

[Angel]

31 minutes ago, Chitown Willie said:

Hi Angel,

I just equipped Imoen with the "Gloves of Missile Snaring" (MIH-IP) and think it might be overpowered.

With just her, I can tap dance all over weaker ranged enemies (bandits/kobolds) and even special ranged encounters (e.g., Zargal/Malkax/Geltik).

Perhaps downgrade from "Protection from Missiles" to "+2 bonus from missile attacks"?

That's the effect the gloves already have in a standard game.  "BG2 Items in BG1" does not install new items, it uses the ones already present in BGEE/BGT.  Perhaps you have another mod that upgrades them, Item Revisions maybe?

[subtledoctor]

Is there any kind of readme for this stuff?
 

EDIT - also, any suggestions as far as install order?  And compatibility?  Are you aware of any interactions with any other particular mods?

Edited January 7, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Angel]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Is there any kind of readme for this stuff?
 

EDIT - also, any suggestions as far as install order?  And compatibility?  Are you aware of any interactions with any other particular mods?

There's a readme and some other documentation files in the /docs directory.  It's still a bit rudimentary, but it should be enough to see what the mods do.

Recommended order is MiH: Item Pack => MiH: Spell Pack => MiH: Encounters & Quests.  I don't think anything serious breaks if you deviate, but there might be some minor inconsistencies.  All three mods require ToBEx and G3Fixpack on BG2/BGT, and either mergemod or A7-DLCMerger on SoD.  Other than that I am not currently aware of any issues with other mods. There is currently no cross-mod content except a very minor one with BG1UB; MiH Item Pack adds a minor item to a dummied out shop that BG1UB restores (this will work regardless of install order).

Keep in mind that while the released versions should work, this is still very much a work in progress and prone to change a lot between releases.  Always uninstall and completely remove any older versions before unpacking and installing a new one.  You should also start a new game after installing.  (My BG Save Fixer can repair some issues with an older save game, but it's not guaranteed to work.)

Edited January 7, 2020 by Angel

[Chitown Willie]

1 hour ago, Angel said:

That's the effect the gloves already have in a standard game.  "BG2 Items in BG1" does not install new items, it uses the ones already present in BGEE/BGT.  Perhaps you have another mod that upgrades them, Item Revisions maybe?

Yep - you are correct; it's Item Revisions.

https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/15700-item-index/?tab=comments#comment-134398

Gloves of Missile Snaring

Equipped Abilities:

Off-Hand THAC0: -20 penalty

Deflect Arrows: deflects ranged weapons

Requires: 15 Dexterity

Usable by:

Bard

Thief

Monk

Notes: I've drastically improved them while keeping the original concept (which was +2 AC vs. missile weapons). I've made them usable only by bards, monks and thieves (single class only) for balance, technical and concept reasons.

Even SixOfSpades agrees:

" Wait--so the intent is to be a permanent Protection from Missiles, available only to Monks and those using Single Weapon? The effect would be too strong, even if you could perfect the implementation--which might not be feasible. "

Thanks for the help.

Just out of curiosity - Would you have moved the "improved" version to BG1?

[Chitown Willie]

Angel,

2 quick Q's:

1) Do you happen to know if MIH-SP plays nice w/ Spell Revisions?

2) Any docs on the new kit ( Alaghar of Clangeddin Kit)?

Edited January 7, 2020 by Chitown Willie

[Angel]

I am unfamiliar with both IR and SR, having looked at both only once and discarded them as game-breakingly overpowered as I recall, so I have done very little testing with them.  I *think* it should work, but it might lead to some unexpected consequences, like with those gloves.  And no, there is no way I'd purposefully introduce an item like that in BG1, and I'd have reservations against it in BG2 too, at least early on.

As for the Alaghar, there should be a description in the readme, but the basic features are as follows:

- Requirements: Dwarf, LG or LN
- Advantages: +2 to hit and damage undead, can put two stars in weapons and styles, adds Silverbeard, Rockburst and Axe Storm of Clangeddin to cleric spell list
- Disadvantages: Cannot turn undead.

I'm currently moving the Alaghar to a separate mod, so I won't be working on it for now.

[subtledoctor]

Weird - SR/IR are very balance-focused... some of the spells introduced here seem far more OP than the stuff added by SR.  But, to each his own!

On the EE engine, there is a way to have someone evade the first missile attack in each round.  It's what I use for the Gloves of Missile Snaring.  (But if this mod is intent on pre-EE compatibility then it wouldn't work.)

[Angel]

1 minute ago, subtledoctor said:

Weird - SR/IR are very balance-focused... some of the spells introduced here seem far more OP than the stuff added by SR.  But, to each his own!

On the EE engine, there is a way to have someone evade the first missile attack in each round.  It's what I use for the Gloves of Missile Snaring.  (But if this mod is intent on pre-EE compatibility then it wouldn't work.)

My main focus for modding is EE, but I try to keep BGT compatibility where possible.  So far I have used EE-specific coding in only a very few places, most of them being in content that is only for SoD anyway.

As for balance issues, I think everyone has their own definitions.  My design rule so far has been that I do not make anything significantly stronger than what is already there in the game.  I don't recall exactly what it was that ticked me off IR/SR and I haven't looked at them in a very long time so admittedly things may have changed, I would have to check again sometime.

Like I said before,my mods are still a work in progress.  If I do find a balance issue, I fix it or remove it.  For example, my next version of the spell pack will no longer have Destroy Undead as I found it significantly more powerful than Control Undead which is several levels higher (I also had some conceptual problems with it after reading Van Richten's Guide to the Lich which first introduced it.)  If you have specific concerns about some of my items or spells, please do share them, I am very curious to hear.

[Chitown Willie]

Hi Angel,

Just a heads-up that the Item Pack readme doesn't include any explanation for this option:

Install Component [BG1-style Wands of Frost & -Lightning]?

[Angel]

On 1/8/2020 at 5:44 PM, Chitown Willie said:

Hi Angel,

Just a heads-up that the Item Pack readme doesn't include any explanation for this option:

Install Component [BG1-style Wands of Frost & -Lightning]?

In short, the way the Wands of Frost and -Lightning worked changed between BG1(EE) and BG2(EE).  This modification for BG2(EE)/BGT reverts these changes.

In BG1 the Wand of Frost is a single-target 8d6 cold attack.  There is no 2e equivalent that I know of, but you could compare it to the Polar Ray spell of 3.5e.  In BG2 this was changed to a conical area, like Cone of Cold.

In BG1 the Wand of Lightning unleashes a single 6d6 Lightning Bolt.  In BG2 this was changed to five weak 3d6 bolts.

[Angel]

For those curious about what I am up to, I am currently working on new versions of MiH Item Pack, MiH Spell Pack and MiH Encounters & Quests.  This will be a massive rewrite that uses @DavidW's SFO (and in a few places SSL) library, like SCS, Wheels and aTweaks do.  Item Pack and Spell Pack are almost finished, and I'm about halfway with Encounters & Quests, the mod that will profit the most from using SFO and SSL.