Unearthed Arcana presents Faiths & Powers: Gods of the Realms

[subtledoctor]

Updated to version 0.83.7.

This update keeps non-denominational multiclass clerics in the kit choice menus when no sphere system is installed. It also improves handling of multiclass cleric/sorcerers when Tome & Blood multiclass sorcerers are installed, ensuring cleric/sorcerer HLA tables are appropriate (including when Refinements HLAs are installed).

[Amuziller]

Druids can't use scimitars don't know why

[subtledoctor]

Small update to v0.83.8 fixing a few things in the kit menus - for halfling rangers, elven rangers and druids, etc. Mostly just some kits appearing where they aren’t supposed to - nothing that would interfere with actual gameplay. If you are wondering “should I update this in my already-modded game?” the answer is, probably don’t bother. 

But more perfect is more perfect. Many thanks to @Greenhorn for finding and reporting these bugs.  

Edited June 12, 2022 by subtledoctor

[whodisseus]

Hi @subtledoctor, is there any way for vanilla druids and shamans to access the sphere systems if we haven't installed the FnP kits? I'm playing IWDEE right now and I'd like to keep the base druid class (for flavor purposes), but there are no spheres assigned to it. All of the other vanilla game kits (avenger, shapeshifter, totemic) get sphere assignments, just not the base class. It also seems that shamans have the same issue.

(Big fan of your mods, btw! I've been using them for ages but only recently joined the forums. So: longtime lurker, first-time caller!)

[whodisseus]

Sorry, just noticed one other issue: For shaman kits I've installed (e.g., Dreadful Witch from "I Hate Undead" or Warhorn Shaman from "Artisans Kitpack"), I get access to ALL their available sphere spells, with no spell selection required. Seems a bit OP.

[subtledoctor]

On 7/29/2022 at 12:01 PM, whodisseus said:

is there any way for vanilla druids and shamans to access the sphere systems if we haven't installed the FnP kits?

noticed one other issue: For shaman kits I've installed (e.g., Dreadful Witch from "I Hate Undead" or Warhorn Shaman from "Artisans Kitpack"), I get access to ALL their available sphere spells, with no spell selection

Wow, thanks for bringing these to my attention! They get into some edge-case, buried-deep-in-the-code issues. Took a bit of digging, but I have managed to fix both issues in version 0.83.11.

Cheers!

[Mordekaie]

Does the  kit "Acolyte of Shar" is still present in the latetest version of Faiths&Powers ? I was just testing Viconia  Rewamp installed after F&P, and i got the following warning from PI :

//SKIPPING: [Viconia Revamped -> Multi-class: Darkcloak of Shar]
//    Requires the Acolyte of Shar component from "Faiths and Powers".

I am also doing some testing with F&P :

•  It seems that Paladins and Rangers have specific spell table progressions (not the P&P, un-nerf or IWD versions). Those F&P tables seem to give access to spells earlier with a faster progression compared to the other Tables ? Am i correct ? I didn't find any infos about those tables anywhere. Where can i find those tables ?
• I also found out that the min CHA and Wisdom have been (partially?) suppressed from your Paladin annd ranger kits. Am i right ?

[whodisseus]

5 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Wow, thanks for bringing these to my attention! They get into some edge-case, buried-deep-in-the-code issues. Took a bit of digging, but I have managed to fix both issues in version 0.83.11.

Cheers!

Fantastic! Thanks for looking into this so quickly. I’ll check out the new version.  

[subtledoctor]

5 hours ago, Mordekaie said:

It seems that Paladins and Rangers have specific spell table progressions (not the P&P, un-nerf or IWD versions). Those F&P tables seem to give access to spells earlier with a faster progression compared to the other Tables ? Am i correct ?

Yes, I wrote new spell tables in FnP according to my own whim. I think they need some special abilities earlier, as fighters get weapon mastery at 3rd level. So I start rangers and paladins getting spells at 3rd level, and they get another spell slot every odd level after that (5th, 7th, etc.) So it is earlier but slower advancement, and up to 4th-level spells for both. 

Notably, the sphere system and all FnP kits will fine with any other spell tables, whether CDTweaks, or IWD, etc. (You would have to install those tables after FnP.) The inly exceptions are 1) if you use the FnP option to make your ranger or paladin cast like a sorcerer, it will necessarily use the FnP tables - the sorcerer casting method is a bit finicky and not flexible enough to handle any arbitrary spell tables. And 2) If you use 5E-style casting it might stick to the FnP tables… maybe. Or maybe it works with other ones? I’m not sure about that one…

[whodisseus]

On 7/31/2022 at 10:56 AM, subtledoctor said:

Wow, thanks for bringing these to my attention! They get into some edge-case, buried-deep-in-the-code issues. Took a bit of digging, but I have managed to fix both issues in version 0.83.11.

Cheers!

I'm sorry, Doc, but the trueclass druid still isn't accessing the FnP spheres. To make certain, I tried installing FnP on an otherwise clean install. (The effect is the same: If spheres are installed, trueclass druid only gets access to universal spells like Bless, etc.)

 

EDIT: I was wrong. I just tried again, and trueclass druid *does* get access to the FnP spheres. My bad! And thank you again for doing this.

Edited August 3, 2022 by whodisseus

[Endarire]

F&P Multiclass: I used a console to have a Druid/Mage reach max EXP and he was given a Holy Symbol of Lathander Ring since he was NG.  The ring said Druids couldn't use it but he could still somehow equip it.

EDIT: Druid/Mage isn't proficient with Scimitar, but gets Longbow.  This seemed erroneous.

Does F&P allow for multiclass Thief/Druid and Thief/Shaman?  If not, may we get those?  (I don't recall seeing those in this build.)

Thankee!

Edited August 13, 2022 by Endarire

[subtledoctor]

On 8/12/2022 at 3:20 PM, Endarire said:

Does F&P allow for multiclass Thief/Druid and Thief/Shaman?

Yes.

On 8/14/2022 at 12:29 AM, Endarire said:

-Should the HLA transformations like Water Elemental ignore Boots of Speed if equipped?

-Should the Water Elemental's weapon still be equipped and character's speed reduced if I reverted to natural form before the duration expired?

This is borrowed form Refinements. Upon inspection, the Water Elemental form has a penalty to movement, though in my game it is only for 3 seconds? I think. At any rate it is applied by the LI#DRUWA weapon, and SPINHUM.spl has an op112 effect removing that weapon. So looks correct to me. It is possible some mod in your install is altering SPINHUM.spl and removing that effect...

On 8/14/2022 at 12:29 AM, Endarire said:

-Should the holy symbol granted at epic level be the same as the deity worshipped?  My test character was a Fighter/Tormite but got a Lathander holy symbol.

Per the base game you get a Symbol of Lathander if you are Good, of Helm if you are Neutral, and of Talos if you are evil. FnP does not do anything here, it's just a hard-coded thing that happens in the game. We have not (yet?) made up holy symbols for the dozens and dozens of deities added in FnP, because that would theoretically need new .BAM icons for each one and, to quote a wise woman, "ain't nobody got time for that." Right now FnP is relying on the automatic game mechanism;I don't know  if it will ever do anything different in this regard. (The whole Holy Symbol thing is pretty boring and uninspired, to me.) I suppose what a we should probably do is simply remove the references to Lathander/Helm/Talos from the existing holy symbols, so that you just get "Holy Symbol" and leave the  deity association to the player's imagination...(It's not like there are any differences in the items...)

On 8/14/2022 at 12:29 AM, Endarire said:

-How to edit what files to change the proficiencies/sphere access of kits?

Sphere access is generally handled in each sphere system document, look at the .tpa file for whichever sphere system you use in faiths_and_powers/data/sphere-systems/. You can edit these before installing to change which spells are in which sphere and which deities get which spheres.

Weapon usability/specialization is controlled by functions with each kit install - look at faiths_and_powers/lib/kits_new_clerics.tpa as an example, you'll see various code to install each kit and then something like:

//DEFINE SPHERE ACCESS______________________________________________________________
//
 LAF ~DEFINE_FNP_KIT_INFO~
  INT_VAR
	u_leather_armor 	= 1
	u_chain_armor 		= 1
	u_plate_armor 		= 0
	u_club_staff	 	= 1
	u_hammers	 	= 1
	u_maces 	 	= 1
	u_flails 		= 0
	u_axes 			= 0
	u_daggers 		= 1
	u_short_swords		= 1
	u_long_swords		= 0
	u_scimitars 		= 0
	u_katanas 		= 0
	u_bastard_swords 	= 0
	u_2hand_swords 		= 0
	u_halberds 		= 0
	u_spears 	 	= 0
	u_darts 		= 0
	u_slings		= 1
	u_bows 			= 0
	u_crossbows 		= 0
  STR_VAR
    	clab_name 		= ~d5clazu~
	sphere_list		= ~azuth_spheres~
	class 			= ~cleric~
	multiclass 		= ~ck~
 END

You can change those values, again before installing the mod, to 0 or 1 for armor and from 0 to  5 for weapons. You can search by deity or kit name in these files. You'll have to go through kits_new_druids.tpa and kits_default_handling.tpa as well. (I'm pretty sure these values only affect clerics and druids.)

Edited August 15, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Endarire]

Editing the kits_new_...: Should this be done before or after mod installation?

Inquisitor of Azuth: Wizard Bane applies a double strength dispel magic.  What counts as single or double strength?

Thankee!

[subtledoctor]

On 8/16/2022 at 3:44 AM, Endarire said:

Editing the kits_new_...: Should this be done before or after mod installation?

Editing anything in the mod of course needs to be done before installation. Making  changes to mod  folders after they are installed will never have any effect on your game.

On 8/16/2022 at 3:44 AM, Endarire said:

Inquisitor of Azuth: Wizard Bane applies a double strength dispel magic.  What counts as single or double strength?

I didn't design that one but I assume it is just like the vanilla Inquisitor ability.

...

Reposting this here since it is relevant to the possible future development of this mod:

Quote

 

I have to say, this run has made me a bit dissatisfied with the state of divine kits, and paladin kits specifically. I'm using Faiths & Powers which 1) adds lots and lots of kits, for many dozens of deities. For most NPCs, there is a lot of flexibility for each playthrough: Coran can be an Archer thief one game, a ranger the next game, etc.; I've played Imoen as a  thief, a mage, a bard, a sorcerer, and various multiclass combinations of those classes. But Anomen can only really ever be a cleric of Helm - he just talks about it so much. Likewise Ajantis with the BG1NPCProject really must be a paladin of Helm, and Sirene must be a paladin of Ilmater, etc.

But, especially for paladins, this  isn't working so well. In this game I didn't love the  special abilities for Sirene's paladin of Ilmater kit, and I wanted her to have the Protection from Evil abilities from the paladin of Torm kit. But making her a paladin of Torm doesn't just change he functional abilities, it kind of changes her characterization as well. 

With clerics I'm not as concerned about this - having the spell selection and special abilities be tied to one's deity seems fine. (And I've played around a bit there, e.g. once making Finch a cleric of Oghma instead of Deneir when I wanted to try out the Oghma kit abilities.) But for whatever reason, with paladins it seems like more of a straitjacket. So maybe it's worth revisiting the idea of distinguishing between the kit and the deity. Maybe set up handful of paladin archetypes, (something like Champion, Zealot,* Defender, Inquisitor, etc.) and once you are in the game, after you  have chosen your deity as your kit, then you could choose which kind of paladin you want to be. Each deity might allow certain archetypes but not others - a paladin of Talos would not allow defenders, and a paladin of Sune might not allow Inquisitors, etc. Could add some more badass archetypes for neutral/evil deities, if it comes to that.

* Could even fold in the current idea of Zealots, which are in the Ranger class but are devoted to a deity and get cleric spells... we already have several kits that can seamlessly shunt you from the paladin menu to the ranger class, so this could simply be a particular paladin archetype rather than its own class category...

Anyway just thinking out loud. I think that would make paladins a bit more flexible and improve replayability. It would be slightly complicated to implement - though, nothing FnP couldn't handle with a bit of effort.

 

I want to sketch out some basic design notes, and how I think this might be  achieved.

So the first thing is to design several archetypes for paladins/champions. I had ideas for the followi - EDIT - okay I've looked at the  2E Complete Paladin's Handbook and there are some good ideas there:

• basic Paladin/Champion (the basic template with Lay on Hands, Smite, etc.)
• Inquisitor (used to root out heresy and counter hostile magic - follow template of vanilla Inquisitor)
• Defender (start with the Cavalier template - no ranged because these guys rush to be in between danger and civilians... add protective abilities)
• Zealot Divinate (a warlike/military template, with a frenzy ability... and maybe focus access to the sphere of War?)
• Envoy (a smart, tactical, diplomatic paladin, part evangelist and part spy - put this in the Ranger class)

Once we flesh out the archetypes, we would add variables to the existing spell sphere functions to record which archetypes are available to which deity kits. We already do this to control which multiclass versions are available to cleric kits, so no big deal adding this.

The mod code would check this variable and do two things: 1) if ranger kits are allowed, it would use ADD_KIT_EX to automatically create a ranger kit that matches the existing paladin kit; and  2) it would populate a .DLG with all available  archetypes file to create the dialogue that players would use in-game to choose their archetype.

Actually implementing the archetype abilities would involve two things. 1) If changing from a paladin to a ranger archetype, the dialogue would  execute a class  change and kit change. (We already have this kind of thing in the mod, see e.g. the Champion of Arvoreen which is chosen in the paladin menu but makes you a ranger in-game.  So this would not be difficult. And  2) the dialogue would tag the character with a spellstate  or stat representing which archetype was chosen.

Giving abilities at level-up at different levels from two sources (the deity kit and the  archetype) would be difficult; character can only have one kit so only one source can use the CLAB table. Instead, what we would do is create a set of spells that apply the archetype abilities, gated behind an op326 effect  conditioned on having the  appropriate spellstate or stat. Then entries containing all archetype spells with 326 effects would be added as a new row to every paladin kit in the game.

And that's it - this would be great for NPCs and replayability; one game you could play Isra as a traditional paladin, then in another game you could make her a lightly-armored Zealot, etc. This is currently not possible;at the moment the only way to offer this kind of flexibility for paladins is to add a ton of new kits, and that is a lot of effort. At the moment we don't even have a traditional heavy-armored paladin kit for Sune!

I don't think this will come  to fruition anytime soon. Crafting an arbtrarily extensible dialogue for choosing an archetype would be a fair amount of work, and applying ADD_KIT_EX to create ranger kits on-demand would be as well. But it's totally feasible, and in the long-term I think it would be a great addition.

Edited August 17, 2022 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

Incidentally:

On 8/14/2022 at 12:29 AM, Endarire said:

Should the holy symbol granted at epic level be the same as the deity worshipped?  My test character was a Fighter/Tormite but got a Lathander holy symbol.

I've just updated the mod to v0.83.12, which handles this a bit better by simply making all Holy Symbols of [_deity_] into a more generic "Holy Symbol." These items  are quite generic in function, now their names match and there will be no mismatched deity symbols.

It also adds configuration options to decline the installation of IWD spells and/or our new FnP spells. This was easy enough to add, and only really affects the marginal few players who have too many spells in their games already to add more.