Unearthed Arcana presents Faiths & Powers: Gods of the Realms

[Endarire]

@subtledoctor
In your F&P Spheres list, it should be "Negative Plane Protection," not "Plain."

I also didn't see freedom of movement AKA free action on any list.  What happened to it?

What determines which HLAs each divine caster gets?

Do Clerics of any deity get a special holy symbol at a certain level?

Thankee!

Edited May 28, 2020 by Endarire

[subtledoctor]

That google doc was created by someone else, and some time ago.  I would not trust it to be up-to-date.  (Unless @Grammarsalad knows otherwise.)  The most up-to-date list of spells by sphere (and spheres by deity) is here.  As you can see at line 155, Free Action is a 3rd-level spell in the Exploration sphere.  Anyone with minor access to Exploration can cast it.

As for HLAs, the base tables are here.  That directory has a subfolder for each sphere, and in each subfolder there is a .txt file with ~1-3 lines.  For each kit, the sphere system starts with the base table for their class, and then appends the .txt files relating to each sphere for which they have major access.

We have not gotten around to holy symbols yet.  It's a pretty low priority, admittedly because I at least think the idea is pretty dumb.  You should get a holy symbol upon being initiated into the faith, i.e. at level 1 - not at level 25!  At epic levels you should get some kind of artifact to help you in your endeavors - and the game is full of such things.  I never saw what a holy symbol adds.  But, presumably we'll get around to it eventually.  Or maybe we will indeed add it as a level 1 thing, instead.  Haven't really talked about it that much.

[Guest fallen one]

Forgive my question, but I fail to realize how these spheres system work. I mean, am I wrong thinking that by installing the system of the spheres actually makes the mage you are playing less powerful, because you get way less spell? 

But it's not even a matter of being powerful, more a matter of going crazy with all the spells available, rather than having your options limited.

 

[subtledoctor]

59 minutes ago, Guest fallen one said:

Forgive my question, but I fail to realize how these spheres system work. I mean, am I wrong thinking that by installing the system of the spheres actually makes the mage you are playing less powerful, because you get way less spell? 

But it's not even a matter of being powerful, more a matter of going crazy with all the spells available, rather than having your options limited.

It affects clerics and druids, not mages.  The point of it is, instead of every cleric having exactly the same spells to cast, having a certain kit or worshipping a certain deity will give you access to spells that fit the themes of that kit or deity.  This does change which options are available to you: your style of play (as far as spellcasting anyway) will tend to match the theme of the deity you worship.  So if you choose to be a cleric of Shar, you won't be casting Blade Barrier or Defensive Harmony.  Yes, that removes some spells from your arsenal that you might want to cast... but if you want to be using Blade Barrier, then don't worship a deity of shadow and magic!  Worship Helm or Tyr, and you'll get your Blade Barrier.  (But in that case you won't get Wraithform or Summon Shadow.)  If you play a cleric of Lathander, you won't be able to cast Animate Dead but you can cast Sunray.  If you play a cleric of Cyric, you cannot cast Sunray, but you can cast Animate Dead.  Et cetera.

How this works out, as far as overall spell choice?  Well, we add a TON of spells to the lists, so here is an example of a druid.  In the vanilla game you get these level 1 spells:

• Armor of Faith
• Bless
• Cure Light Wounds
• Detect Evil
• Doom
• Entangle
• Shillelagh

A big seven spells.  With the FnP sphere system, you get:

• Aid
• Animal Eyes
• Burning Hands
• Cause Disease
• Detect Alignment
• Entangle
• Expeditious Retreat
• Find Traps
• Frost Fingers
• Goodberry
• Gust of Wind
• Hold Person or Animal
• Know Opponent
• Magical Stone
• Obscuring Mist
• Resist Elements
• Sanctuary
• Shillelagh
• Silence
• Slow Poison
• Sunscorch
• Unfailing Endurance

Tell me, whose options are limited?

Admittedly, you will have more spells available at low levels since kits have minor access to several spheres.  At higher spell levels the lists will be closer in number to the vanilla game.  But there should generally still be a good list of spells, probably more than in vanilla; and crucially, those spells will actually be responsive to your chosen kit, instead of being the same for everyone.

But OTOH I don't mean to suggest that everyone must like the sphere system.  It is entirely optional.  Also, it can be tweaked to your liking.  You can edit the document I linked to before installing the mod, if you want a lot more spells to be universal, available for all priests regardless of kit.  The system is flexible.

[Guest fallen one]

Thank you for the insightful reply. I would add it as a FAQ inside the readme, so new users won't miss the awesome reply.

[Grammarsalad]

4 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

That google doc was created by someone else, and some time ago.  I would not trust it to be up-to-date.  (Unless @Grammarsalad knows otherwise.)  The most up-to-date list of spells by sphere (and spheres by deity) is here.  As you can see at line 155, Free Action is a 3rd-level spell in the Exploration sphere.  Anyone with minor access to Exploration can cast it.

As for HLAs, the base tables are here.  That directory has a subfolder for each sphere, and in each subfolder there is a .txt file with ~1-3 lines.  For each kit, the sphere system starts with the base table for their class, and then appends the .txt files relating to each sphere for which they have major access.

We have not gotten around to holy symbols yet.  It's a pretty low priority, admittedly because I at least think the idea is pretty dumb.  You should get a holy symbol upon being initiated into the faith, i.e. at level 1 - not at level 25!  At epic levels you should get some kind of artifact to help you in your endeavors - and the game is full of such things.  I never saw what a holy symbol adds.  But, presumably we'll get around to it eventually.  Or maybe we will indeed add it as a level 1 thing, instead.  Haven't really talked about it that much.

No. It is not up to date, unfortunately. Ineth(sp) made it a while ago. I do have access to it but it's difficult to manage. I'll update it sometime soon, or at least when we have spheres, etc finalized (do we)?

[subtledoctor]

Honestly I think the Github page us easy enough to read. (May be used to it though, feel free to disagree.) 

[Caedwyr]

Documentationwise, the thing I most wish for this mod is having a readme doc that clearly spells out what the current components are, since the opening post is quite out of date with what is even offered.  The rest of the code I've looked at has been some of the clearest commented code I've seen in the IE modding community, but figuring out components and subcomponents, etc still makes my head hurt when reading .tp2 files.

[MrEnnigma2]

So I think I may have an issue. I've started a new EET game and I've installed the multi-class kits and the NPC component. Jaheira does not have her kit though, even after doing the initial  level up once I've met her at the Friendly Arm and added her to the party. I've looked at the link you posted a page or two back concerning the FnP NPC stuff but I only have a vague idea of what I'm looking at. I've also looked at my Weidu log install order and the component was installed after the primary FnP stuff. Do I actually have an issue or does she get the kit later? I can choose multi-class kits at startup so they're there, just don't seem to be applying to NPCs, at least not the first one I've met.

Edit - Wait...is she assigned an actual named kit or just a fighter/druid "kit"? I'm not seeing a named kit for her in the FnP NPC stuff you linked to earlier. Let me see if I can find someone else to add who should have a named kit...

Edit2 - OK nevermind, Viconia has her kit. I thought Jaheira was supposed to have a named one, I've been looking at so many mods lately that I guess I confused FnP with another.

Edited May 29, 2020 by MrEnnigma2

[Caedwyr]

I've been fixing up the descriptions mentioned in my previous posts and have noticed that the style of the kit descriptions is a bit different than those of the base game.  Is this something that was done deliberately?  For example, the use of Restrictions instead of Disadvantage (base game).

There's also some other minor formatting issues around newlines in kit descriptions.  I can share my edited setup.tra if you'd like, which should make it easy to do a compare to your version and see if you like the changes.

[subtledoctor]

On 5/28/2020 at 4:51 PM, Caedwyr said:

Documentationwise, the thing I most wish for this mod is having a readme doc that clearly spells out what the current components are,

Grammarsalad has been working on that, I believe.  It is a very long and difficult process, because this mod does a LOT of stuff.  But I got a sneak peek at the work-in-progress, and it is astoundingly good.

Huh, @Grammarsalad I wonder if it would make sense to release the readme even in an unfinished state.  Still might be useful for players.

On 5/29/2020 at 8:28 AM, MrEnnigma2 said:

Jaheira does not have her kit

...

OK nevermind, Viconia has her kit. I thought Jaheira was supposed to have a named one

I think some of the strings for the 'Forest Druid' just call it "Druid" since it is really the basic version of that class.  As long as Jaheira gets a proper spell selection and kit abilities (should have a spirit animal summon and a good number of shapeshifts as she levels up), then I wouldn't worry about it.

...

@Caedwyr some of the style differences are on purpose, and necessary for technical reasons.  Like using "Abilities" instead of "Advantages" and "Restrictions" instead of "Disadvantages."  Not only are the new terms more accurate, but we have to do some REPLACE_TEXTUALLY to find the proper place to insert the text describing each kit's sphere access.  This is done dynamically at install time, so we have to make sure we use particular text that is in our control, to find the insertion point.

Without knowing what you are specifically referring to, some of the other stuff is just stylistic (e.g. the base class text for clerics and druids needs to be redone) or maybe just technical bugs?  (Nor sure about line endings, but I use a text editor on a Mac so it's possible there is some discrepancy between UNIX-style and Windows-style endings.  (Although maybe not, given that the .tra file is a single uniform document...?)

[Caedwyr]

I was wondering about the use of replace textually.  I'll stick to edits to the missing fluff text and carriage returns then.

[Caedwyr]

Comments related to attached zip file containing the revised setup.tra

@21903.  Revised last line in the Pain Touch description to flow more naturally. 
@22403.  Added missing fluff.
@22406. There is some weird text in this one in my editor (Notepad++) with UTF-8 encoding.  It appears to be related to a special character for the long/double dash.  Fixed with a single dash.

Quote

@22406 = ~Lightning Bolt
(Evocation)

Level: 3
Range: Visual range of the caster
Duration: Instant
Casting Time: 3
Area of Effect: Path of bolt
Saving Throw: 1/2

Upon casting this spell, the cleric releases a powerful stroke of energy that inflicts 1d6 points of electrical damage per level of the spellcaster to each creature within its area of effect (maximum damage of 10d6). A successful Save vs. Spell reduces this damage to half (round fractions down). When the lightning bolt intersects with a wall, it will rebound until it reaches its full lengthâhitting the same enemy multiple times, or even members of the caster's own party.~

@31403.  Added missing fluff
@37101. Changed to "sonnlinor of moradin" so the paladin kit and the specialty priest have different names (taken from Demi-human deities)
@37102. Changed to "Sonnlinor of Moradin" so the paladin kit and the specialty priest have different names (taken from Demi-human deities)
@37103. Changed to "SONNLINOR OF MORADIN" so the paladin kit and the specialty priest have different names (taken from Demi-human deities).  Adjusted the fluff text accordingly.  Note that the 5th level ability had a leftover reference to Alaghor.
@37303. Deleted "From 9th level" as the kit .2da file did not list any ability at 9th level.
@40503. What is this kit supposed to be?  It can cast like a sorcerer (spontaneous), progresses like a sorcerer with regard to HP and THAC0, and may not use divine magic.  What spell list does it use?  I'm not sure if this actually installs at present.
@45103. Based on the preceding lines @45101 and @45102, I suspect that this should say FIGHTER/DRUID and include some information regarding what the multiclass gets (the base game may have something) as expanding the fluff description.  I have not made any changes as I'm not 100% on what is going on here.
@49212. Added some fluff text for the Wind Walk ability.
@73103. You mentioned this one previously, but by the pattern it should probably start with FOREST DRUID.
@73803. Shadow druid was missing the flavour text.  Added some.  Check that this matches what you wanted for the kit.  This kit may not install, as I'm noticing that it appears to be missing .2das and various bits.  The description still needs information added about what the Shadow Wolf and Panther forms grant.
@80011. There's some weirdness in the text on UTF-8 viewed in NotePad++.  It appears due to a non-standard character for the starting dash.  Fixed.
@80108. There's some weirdness in the text on UTF-8 viewed in NotePad++.  It appears due to a non-standard character for the starting dash.  Fixed.
@80111. There's some weirdness in the text on UTF-8 viewed in NotePad++.  It appears due to a non-standard character for the starting dash.  Fixed.
@80703. Replaced missing fluff text with the one you'd originally used for the cleric description since it fits the martial paladin order and I'd already replaced the other text with the one written for the Sonnlinor of Moradin.
@80803. Rewrote fluff text to be complete and flesh out the text slightly.
@87703. Added fluff for Truesword of Arvoreen.
@87712. Added fluff for Truesword of Arvoreen.
@90004.  Placeholder text here regarding fluff about archetype/class.  No changes made, just included for tracking purposes.
@90033.  Placeholder text here regarding fluff about archetype/class.  No changes made, just included for tracking purposes.
@90043. Placeholder text here regarding fluff about archetype/class.  No changes made, just included for tracking purposes.
@93303. Added fluff text for Earth Dervish.
@93304. Added fluff text for Earth Dervish.
@93403. Added fluff text for Water Dervish.
@93404. Added fluff text for Water Dervish.
@93503. Added fluff text for Air Dervish.
@93504. Added fluff text for Air Dervish.
@93603. Added fluff text for Fire Dervish.
@93604. Added fluff text for Fire Dervish.
@93703. Added fluff text for Light Dervish.
@93704. Added fluff text for Light Dervish.
@93803. Added fluff text for Shadow Dervish.
@93804. Added fluff text for Shadow Dervish.
@6290001, @7240001, @50101, @50103, @42100001, @73600001, @101000001, @101000002, @101000003, @101000004. There is some weird text in this one in my editor (Notepad++) with UTF-8 encoding.  It appears to be related to a special character for the long/double dash.  Fixed with a single dash.

There also appears to be a few typos in some of the .2da files. (I only checked this one and have not made any edits because I don't want to break something)

faiths_and_powers\kits\clerics\373_marthammor\d5clmar.2da

• ABILITY2 does not have a **** entry for level 50
• The kit description has a "From 9th level, ..." however, the .2da file does not have any new or old ability listed at 9th level.

 

Feel free to use this info as you desire.

setup.zip

[subtledoctor]

Thanks. Also sorry - fir some reason my brain told me I had already addressed this. A good number of strings in the .tra file are for kits that either used to exist and now don’t (the Dervishes), or that might have existed, but were aborted (the Shadow Druid). We haven’t fixed them because they are not part of the mod... just ghosts of what once was, or might have been. 

[subtledoctor]

@Caedwyr thanks for that, I looked over your text changes and they are very helpful!