Unearthed Arcana presents Faiths & Powers: Gods of the Realms

[ahungry]

@subtledoctor there is a very high chance I just missed that Evermemory type items were converted to a charge ability does it apply to all rings with an evermemory type ability, or just the known/base items of that name?

Your new vanilla-plus sounds awesome - I'm tempted to drop my current game (yet again) and install it.

 

[subtledoctor]

16 minutes ago, ahungry said:

does it apply to all rings with an evermemory type ability, or just the known/base items of that name?

All rings that double spells, but there are only two I’m aware of: Evermemory and Kontik’s Ring IIRC. I think they are handled by name, so you can’t just change items, they would have to be whitelisted in the mod itself. 

I think. Or possibly, other similar items would work the new way, but their descriptions would not be updated. (Because there’s no way to know what the description is if the item itself is not known at the time of install - and here you see another source of potential formatting inconsistencies.)

[mickabouille]

Hi, I made a Fnp Forest druid (human) in BG2 with the last (0.81.7) version but that's maybe the same for older version (didn't check).

The spells "beetle swarm"(1), "spider swarm"(2) and "cloak of darkness" (3) don't have an icon. Or maybe they have one but I can't see it?

In any case, in the divine spell book I only see the spell name with a "blank" space besides it.

// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~FAITHS_AND_POWERS/FAITHS_AND_POWERS.TP2~ #0 #21 // Create a sphere system -> FnP: the Faiths & Powers original sphere system: 0.81.7
~FAITHS_AND_POWERS/FAITHS_AND_POWERS.TP2~ #0 #31 // Install Cleric kits: 0.81.7
~FAITHS_AND_POWERS/FAITHS_AND_POWERS.TP2~ #0 #33 // Install Druid kits: 0.81.7
~FAITHS_AND_POWERS/FAITHS_AND_POWERS.TP2~ #0 #35 // Install Paladin kits: 0.81.7
~FAITHS_AND_POWERS/FAITHS_AND_POWERS.TP2~ #0 #37 // Install Ranger kits: 0.81.7
~FAITHS_AND_POWERS/FAITHS_AND_POWERS.TP2~ #0 #75 // Alter priests' weapon usability and proficiency: 0.81.7
~FAITHS_AND_POWERS/FAITHS_AND_POWERS.TP2~ #0 #80 // Apply sphere system: 0.81.7
~FAITHS_AND_POWERS/FAITHS_AND_POWERS.TP2~ #0 #85 // Apply FnP kits to NPCs: 0.81.7
~FNP_MULTICLASS/FNP_MULTICLASS.TP2~ #0 #91 // Multiclass Druids: 0.81.7
~FNP_MULTICLASS/FNP_MULTICLASS.TP2~ #0 #92 // Multiclass Shamans: 0.81.7
~FNP_MULTICLASS/FNP_MULTICLASS.TP2~ #0 #95 // Multiclass Cleric kits (install AFTER all other kit mods!!): 0.81.7

(i.e. only installed fnp + fnp-multiclass)

(linux, BG2ee 2.6.6, weidu 249)

Edited February 10, 2022 by mickabouille

[subtledoctor]

Yeah, a number of new spells have identical icons to existing ones, and some lack icons (they should have some kind of placeholder icons, but a few may have gotten lost in the shuffle). And some have new icons, but the new icons are awful. (Looking at you, Animal Growth.) Problem being, making icons is entirely outside my skill set, and the person who has pitched in by making new icons in the past is gone. Further, it's hard to even get a good grasp on which spells need work, because the nature of the sphere system is that you only ever see a limited subset of spells in any person's spellbook.

Coincidentally, the new 'Vanilla Plus' system I just made puts all spells into everyone's spellbook, so I can now pretty easily see what needs work. Maybe for now, what I can do is give each problematic spell an icon with a distinct color, like purple. That will stand out as mod content, but, 1) each one will have an icon; 2) each icon will be distinct from other spells; the ones that still need to be finalized will be recognizable at a glance.

Edited February 11, 2022 by subtledoctor

[mickabouille]

And people that are really bothered by purple will submit new ones (well, in my dreams they will ).

[ahungry]

11 minutes ago, mickabouille said:

And people that are really bothered by purple will submit new ones (well, in my dreams they will ).

Is there a guide to creating these image files?  (what programs people have used in the past to create - GIMP etc.?) and what conversions (imagemagic etc.) - I assume there is a forum post going over all this, I'm just too lazy to use the Search 

[subtledoctor]

23 hours ago, ahungry said:

Is there a guide to creating these image files? 

See discussion here. It involves programs I don;t have an have never used. It's simply beyond me.

Meantime, I've identified 16 spells that need work on their icons:

• Beetle Swarm
• Spider Swarm
• Rhinocerous Beetle
• Abundant Ammunition
• Bless Water
• Binding
• Magic Weapon
• Castigate
• Dictate
• Cloak of Darkness
• Stormwall
• Animal Growth
• Assassin Vines
• Misfire
• Waves of Agony
• Nature’s Wrath

I have ideas for how to improve almost all* of these by recoloring or otherwise manipulating already-existing icons. Only a few will turn out to be purple.   In the long term they should get their own icons. But in the long term that will rely on others making them. (EDIT - actually I think Grammarsalad is working on b_Spells as an independent mod; once that is complete we can just strip it out of FnP and players can use his newer better external version.)

* (Can't for the life of me figure out what to do for Waves of Agony.)

Edited February 11, 2022 by subtledoctor

[mickabouille]

On a completely unrelated subject, would something like this be useful? unwelcome?

https://github.com/UnearthedArcana/Faiths_and_Powers/pull/153

There are really two parts that I conflated because I'm lazy, but could easily be split: removal of a bunch of unused code on one side and traification of a handful of strings and some proofreading on another one.

I'd argue for the removal because it makes it easier to poke around the code to see how it works (and may even make it easier for you one day, one never knows). It's not a glamorous contribution, but would come at no burden increase for you i think.

 

Of course i don't expect to accept without some scrutiny so there is _some_  additional work..

Edited February 10, 2022 by mickabouille

[subtledoctor]

This is just a huge, huge project. Probably too big, which is why stuff like the old Faiths of Faerun never got off the ground. Honestly there is just so much here, so many different things, so many interacting systems, that it's even hard for us to navigate the code. Partly for that reason, I'm terrified of removing anything, because as the mod has changed it's not entirely possible to understand which files or bits of code can really be safely removed.

But I'll take a look at the PR when I can.

Meantime ( @Gwaihir ), I have just uploaded version 0.81.8 which adds or changes icons for about 20 spells. I can't say all the blues match the base game's blue or all the reds match the base game's red, etc. I can't say there is a ton of rhyme or reason as to the color choices... basically green signifies either weak effects, or personal effects, or nature-related effects, or summons; blue still signifies generally defensive effects (except for Beetle Swarm and Spider Swarm, where it signifies weak summons); red still signifies offensive effects; and purple signifies either powerful effects, or spells where I just needed a different color.

(There was discussion a looooong time ago in relation to Faiths of Faerun, and a bit of discussion more recently here, about doing to complete overhaul of the spell icon colors. Three colors is very limited and arbitrary (shouldn't Glitterdust be red??); IWD adds green which is welcome, but especially in the context of BG2 with IWD spells added, there is no consistency as to the application of green. It would be great to sit down and take, say, five colors (red, blue, green, purple, and white - I've tried yellow/gold before and it looks terrible) and apply a nice rigorous system of which types of spell get which color. But, given all the mods adding spells, that would be extremely hard to do in a comprehensive way.)

But at any rate I can say this about the update: it appears that all the spells have icons, and each spell's icon is distinct. Which is an improvement!

Edited February 11, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Gwaihir]

9 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Meantime ( @Gwaihir ), I have just uploaded version 0.81.8 which adds or changes icons for about 20 spells.

Got it I'll let you know how they look.

Incidentally, I just remembered that that beetle swarm spell was not only missing an icon, but the strings were wrong too. Hovering over a beetle showed some line from an npc. Also, the effect from the 'curse' spell has the worng string; enemies affected were saying something like 'you know I am' or whatever.

[Endarire]

Waves of Agony:  Recreate the Scream painting with some waves behind the face.

[mickabouille]

17 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

This is just a huge, huge project. Probably too big, which is why stuff like the old Faiths of Faerun never got off the ground. Honestly there is just so much here, so many different things, so many interacting systems, that it's even hard for us to navigate the code. Partly for that reason, I'm terrified of removing anything, because as the mod has changed it's not entirely possible to understand which files or bits of code can really be safely removed.

But I'll take a look at the PR when I can.

Well, yes, it's quite frightening and I actually didn't want to submit it.

I did it for myself because I wanted to find if certain tra strings were used and for what, so for personal use (not even for installing it myself).

But once I had it done and it actually installed, I thought why not...

And BTW, I actually only tested the fnp spheres, not the pnp one (and v+ didn't exist yet).

[mickabouille]

Can a spell be in multiple spheres at the same time? Like CLERIC_FORBID (forbiddance, I guess?) is both in thought and dread in fnp and vanilla+ (but not in pnp, where it's only in Thought).

Hm the spell description @50801 (and @50802) set it in Thought, but

@1000000 set it in Charm, which doesn't seem to be a sphere at all,  but as it's unused, it's probably not a problem.

[subtledoctor]

6 hours ago, mickabouille said:

Can a spell be in multiple spheres at the same time?

Yes, and the spell descriptions should be updated to mention both - though the dynamic description updating might only work in English.

However, this causes some issues with sorcerer-style casting, which I'm not sure I ever completely nailed down. So I try to steer away from having spells in multiple spheres.

If I was confident everything would work 100% correctly, I would love to put lots of spells into multiple spheres, it would solve a number of problems like not enough clerics getting Chaotic Commands etc.

EDIT - actually sorcerer casting might work fine but spells in multiple spheres might mess up 5E casting. I forget. Really should look into though, it would be nice to have it working for my next install. 

Edited February 12, 2022 by subtledoctor

[mickabouille]

> Yes, and the spell descriptions should be updated to mention both - though the dynamic description updating might only work in English.

I don't think I've seen the spheres in any tra file (yet?), so yes, it probably doesn't work as is.