Monsters Beat Enchantment (mod for EE)

[temnix]

Final version

1. Summary
2. Compatibility
3. Table
4. Types of "magical" weapons
5. Protection from Magical Weapons and Normal
6. For clarity: what does what
7. Special ranged attacks
8. In the plans

1. Summary

This small but consequential mod implements a mechanic from the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide which anwers the question "how all these weapon-immune monsters fight each other." One has to wonder about that. Would a lich and a vampire only pointlessly catfight with each other? Couldn't a dragon with his huge teeth, claws and tail do something to a golem? On the other hand, a dragon probably should not be able to harm a ghost for all his weaponry; but then, what could harm a ghost? Questions like that have to be decided by the Dungeon Master on a case-by-case basis, or maybe he will design an approach, but that isn't something that can be done in computer adaptations. Here I applied the DMG principle that more Hit Dice (or levels, for non-playable races who can have levels) allow monsters to break through + defenses, but changed the table to suit the abundance of high-level creatures in these games.

The mod patches all creatures in any game where it is installed, except the playable races, whether in the party or among NPC. The creatures are given an "innate enchantment bonus" (similar to weapon pluses, but with an important technical difference) in proportion to their power so that they can overcome weapon immunities of wizards and engage each other. This includes summoned minions, who become more useful.

2. Compatibility

Only the Enhanced Editions.

3. Table

This is the table this mod applies:

Hit Dice/levels   Overcomes

Fewer than 5        Nothing
5-7                       +1
8-10                    +2
11-13                  +3
14-16                  +4
More than 17    +5

To get an idea what this can mean in practice, remember, for example, that flesh golems can only be hit with +1 or better weapons and that ogres, whom you can summon, only have 4 Hit Dice, but ogre berserkers, who can be summoned with a more powerful spell, have 5, and so do sword spiders from Spider Spawn.

4. Types of "magical" weapons

The "magical weapon" mechanic in the Infinity Engine is not so straightforward, though, as it should be. It should be that weapons with pluses count as magical and ones without as not. Instead there is a muddled double system in place, which non-modders may not be aware of. Here is how it works. Monsters' natural attacks in these games are considered weapons just like swords and clubs, only they aren't dropped on death or shown on the screen. Often weapons monsters use are swords and clubs - a duplicate of what they drop. Ogres, for example, carry one morningstar with which they hit PC and which perishes with them and another, standard one PC pick up from their corpses. Although all "weapons" are lumped in one category, Bioware must have found it convenient to introduce a special item check mark, "Magical." It was probably meant for actual arms and special items - this property makes items indestructible by a script action or two, but the check mark began to be put in all kinds of monster "weapons."

Parellel to this exists the numerical enchantment bonus of the weapon. This means that for the purposes of weapon immunity a weapon can be either checkmarked "Magical" or have some enchantment bonus - either one will go through Protection from Non-Magical Weapons. The problem is with Protection from Magical Weapons. Because the "Magical" checkmark is on for natural weapons of some powerful monsters, like all of the golems, you can keep them at bay completely with this spell, which makes no sense. On top of the checkmark, golems' attacks have enchantment bonuses from +3 upwards. My mod removes all enchantment bonuses from weapons that are invisible and undroppable, along with the "Magical" checkmark. All these bonuses are excessive, hard to judge exactly and at any rate the system is wrong-headed and leads nowhere. The ability to penetrate weapon defenses should be tied to the creature's power. It's the only idea that makes a little bit of sense. Instead of bonuses that were built into the weapons, golems (to go with this example) will penetrate as much as can be expected for their Hit Dice. Flesh golems are level 9, now they can punch through defenses of up to +2 instead of +3. Adamantine golems are level 18 and can beat anything - they used to go as far as +4.

When and if a creature switches to a better-enchanted weapon than its innate enchantment, the weapon's enchantment will take precedence.

5. Protection from Magical Weapons and Normal

This part will be interesting mostly to modders. There was a technical problem with giving creatures these "innate enchantment bonuses." It's easy to see that if a monster is made weapon-like with the same effect that can turn a basic club magical (opcode 345), the whole creature is going to be powerless against someone under Protection from Magical Weapons. Unlike Mantle, PMW doesn't shield from particular enchantment bonus degrees but from all three kinds of "magic": weapons checkmarked "Magical," weapons with a number in the "Enchantment" field and weapons with opcode 345 - or the whole creature under that effect. Patching creatures by their power with 345 would make a wizard under PMW invulnerable to the attacks of every monster with 5 Hit Dice and more. Instead I used the neighbouring opcode, 344, to give a universal bonus, in the right amount, vs. all creatures (ANYONE). It works the same way in practice but bypasses PMW.

The result (players, read this) is that PMW now protects not from any monsters but from actual armaments: in those three categories - the checkmark, the field and 345. It will protect from swords and arrows +1, +5 or any other level of enchantment, even +20 if you have those in your game, from Melf's Minute Meteors, from monks' fists when they get pluses and so on, but don't expect it to do anything against golems, elementals or good old Karoug. I think this balances the spell out quite nicely, too. Protection from Non-Magical Weapons is not quite symmetrical: it will protect from real weapons without pluses and from attacks of monsters too weak to qualify for a power bonus, i.e. with 4 or fewer Hit Dice or levels, unless somebody has been selling enchanted spears to the tasloi. (Basically this spell is now a super-weak Mantle; opcode 120, protection from Magical, was converted to protection from Enchanted at enchantment level 0, which corresponds to non-magical weapons. I applied this to all items like golem rings, to creature properties and spells.)

And don't forget, player races get no bonuses from levels. It is the quality of the weapon taken up that determines penetration.

6. For clarity: what does what

Protection from Normal Weapons: good against weak monsters and 20th level fighters with basic swords.

Protection from Magical Weapons: against fighters of any level with enchanted swords and against special ranged monster attacks (see below).

Protection from Normal Missiles: defends against specific projectiles, not changed.

Mantle: against weapons up to +2 and monsters with up to 10 Hit Dice (it's very nice, but remember, basic conjured elementals have 12 Hit Dice).

Natural defense against non-magical: as Protection from Normal.

Immunity to all but cold iron or all but silver: not changed.

7. Special ranged attacks

Some monsters have special attacks, special weapons, really, which I thought it would be nice to have in a separate category, neither enchanted nor unenchanted. For example, ankheg acid spit or the blobs thrown by slimes. I don't see why these should be stopped by either Mantle or Protection from Normal Weapons. There are energy attacks, acid, fire, icicles, webs... If these are stopped by the weapon defenses, why not dragon breath? And it would be no improvement to defuse monsters completely. Unfortunately, there is no third option, so I made undroppable, invisible weapons with a single Ranged-type ability (rather than Launcher) supremely enchanted, enough to go through everything except Protection from Magical Weapons (which is absolute). This combination should narrow the list down to the natural ranged attacks of monsters who have them. The power-up is an equipped ability - the "enchantment" bonus only lasts while the creature uses the ranged weapon. If the ankheg switches from the spit to the bite, it will again drop down to no bonus. Beware of monsters' spitting et cetera, because not even Improved Mantle will protect against it!

8. In the plans

It still remains to update some of the specific monster weapons that PC get to use while polymorphed: the iron golem's fist, maybe others, fix the flind's halberd separately and more. After patching most of these will be plusless by themselves, the enchantment is on the monster who wields them. PC would lose out when using Shape Change and the rest of the spells. There will be a separate mod that will nullify these and revise the polymorph spells.

Download

Edited March 11, 2020 by temnix

[Bartimaeus]

Pretty cool! I've always wanted to do a cleanup of monster weapons, but it's too daunting a task to realistically consider going through every single one and fixing them, especially because I'm sure some other mods modify them as well. Unfortunately, not an EE player, so I can't use it! Oh well.

[subtledoctor]

Jesus - did you finally crack the means to balance PfMW??  I had given up long ago... before the addition of opcode 344, unfortunately.  Looks like that is the key.

Good work.

EDIT -

Though, there seems to be some pretty arbitrary line-drawing.  I get that the effective "enchantment" level of a werewolf's claws might be tied to its HD, for balance reasons.  It makes a ton of sense for natural weaponry (for values of "makes sense" adopted by 2E AD&D), but I'm not convinced actual weapons should be treated the same as monster claws.  For example, that ogre berserker: it is using a morning star, the same as any morning star that a human can pick up and use.  Why should the 5HD ogre get the enchantment bonus when a 10HD human doesn't?

Admittedly, checking each .CRE for equipped weapon and excluding them from the 344 effect if they are using a human-usable weapon would be fairly annoying to code...

Also it seems kind of weird that Mantle wouldn't protect you from lowly ankheg spit.

EDIT 2 -

This could possibly use some special handling for compatibility with SR and/or SCS.  One or both of those add specific immunity to "plus" bonuses from +1 to +6 via extra opcode 120 effects.  That would frustrate one of the main purposes of this mod. 

Of course, removing those effects would make it super easy to go after high-level (non-lich) wizards: just throw a spider at them from a 4th-level summon spell, and their PfMW will be useless against it.  (The poison even goes through Stoneskin and Mirror Image! ).  This mod further differentiates PfMW from Mantle/Imp. Mantle; making each kind of protection valuable in different situations.  That is great... but unfortunately the AI is too dumb to know when to use each one, and even the best version of the AI (SCS) doesn't have this mod in mind.  So it might be worth brute-forcing the behavior more likely to make enemy wizards more fun and challenging - which I think means defaulting to Improved Mantle.

Something like:

• Add PfMW to hidespl.2da
• Add a new version of PfMW, and direct scrolls to teach this to PC wizards
• Copy Improved Mantle over SPWI611

This would effectively mean that enemy wizards would never use PfMW.  Perhaps a shame, especially because one would expect that to be effective against an adventuring party kitted out with enchanted everything... but summons would make things too easy.  Mantle would protect against both, which is what the dumb AI thinks it is doing.  It would become less effective in the late game when you have a crap-ton of +4 and +5 gear, but a) hopefully enemy wizards would start casting Absolute Immunity by that point; and b) players can install SR which would fix this issue by changing Improved Mantle to Moment of Prescience.

Okay I think that's the extent of my thoughts on the matter.

Edited February 24, 2020 by subtledoctor

[temnix]

If someone wants to take this mod farther and give it special features to accomodate Sword Coast Stratagems and other mods - after I update it to take care of polymorph weapons - they are welcome to do that. This is as far I care to take the idea. subtledoctor is right that ogre berserkers' morningstars should be treated like any other morningstar, but that's a flaw of the whole method of basing enchantment-punching on Hit Dice. A troll only has claws, so does a dragon, but somehow they get to penetrate stronger defenses. All I can say is, maybe berserkers swing harder than regular ogres... Or maybe they have enchanted morningstars, but then, they don't drop them. Besides, I don't want to go through every creature and examine whether they are wielding real weapons or not, and this wouldn't cover creatures added by mods, anyway. There needs to be a general principle in place, and a line drawn somewhere. It's not possible to always look at the weapons monsters are drawn to be wielding in the games. Giants only have fists. If they were stopped by everything, beginning from Protection from Normal Weapons, that would make them complete pansies.

In truth, ogres, gnolls and other weaponized monsters really should be treated like the seven playable races and not receive any bonuses from power but only from the weapons they carry. I think it might be possible to remove those "undeserved" bonuses in a general, patching way: give undroppable weapons in weapon-type categories (morningstars, gnolls' undroppable halberds etc.) an on-equipped 337 effect, removing the 344. If effects from weapons apply after effects on the creature itself on spawning, the power bonuses would be wiped away. Yes, I think that's a good idea.

Edited February 25, 2020 by temnix

[temnix]

Actually, scratch the last idea. If berserkers' morningstars don't penetrate Protection from Normal Weapons, why do spider fangs? This is a slippery slope. No, going by creature power is what I'm going to stick with.

[subtledoctor]

Yeah it’s not really a big deal.

[subtledoctor]

EDIT - I have no idea what happened with this post.

Edited March 11, 2020 by subtledoctor

[temnix]

This update finishes the module by going through all candidates for monster weapons - everything undroppable with the name "Attack" and some other standard names commonly used - and making them non-magical and without enchantment bonuses. Now it is all about monster power. I sat down to the business of sorting out polymorph weapons, too, but realized that they are quite a mess and that I wanted to streamline them and introduce new mechanics there while I had the chance, and that this would be better done in a separate mod.