Jump to content

Subtledoc's Random Tweaks


Recommended Posts

12 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

It removes intoxication and fatigue and regenerates 2 hp/round, 1round/level, to a max of 20 hp over 10 rounds at 10th level. It has a very long casting time and cannot be cast in combat. 

Perfect, please implement immediately.

Would reinstall just for this.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, 4udr4n said:

Perfect, please implement immediately.

Would reinstall just for this.

Ask and ye shall receive - I've updated the mod to version 0.6, implementing that version of Goodberry and also improving the Spell Revisions version of Stinking Cloud: the effects of Nausea won't disappear so quickly, the inability to attack or cast spells will be 2 rounds instead of 1 round, and small residual penalties to AC, thac0, and casting speed will last another two rounds past that. Now Stinking Cloud will be the kind of thing where just passing through it will cause deleterious effects for a few rounds; you can almost use it like IWD's Wall of Moonlight.  Hopefully this might finally make it competitive with Web.

@4udr4n no need to reinstall.  Just for you, check out the 'pre-release' version 0.G at that link.  It is a little mod that only changes Goodberry.  You should be able to install it in your current game and keep on playing.

Edited by subtledoctor
Link to comment
1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

 

@4udr4n no need to reinstall.  Just for you, check out the 'pre-release' version 0.G at that link.  It is a little mod that only changes Goodberry.  You should be able to install it in your current game and keep on playing.

Thanks!

Link to comment

@4udr4n I screwed it up slightly.  If you go in the mod folder and open /d5_goodberry/comp/random_spell_tweaks.tpa, at line 13, change "WIZARD_DECASTAVE" to "CLERIC_GOOD_BERRIES"

You can see it here.

Next up, I'll nerf Sunscorch, and buff Alicorn Lance and Faerie Fire, and maybe tackle Shillelagh.  Maybe time to think outside the box again: what if Shilellagh made a staff get up and attack by itself?  Like a very low-power Mordenkainen's Sword?  Or what if it was like a miniature version of Changestaff, creating a tiny little wood golem?

Link to comment

Remember to consider BG1 in these modifications.  For Shillelagh, it might be worthwhile to just give it a longer duration like mage armor.  It means that one character doesn't need a basic magic weapon at low levels.  You could allow it to scale or have it grant additional effects (maybe a stun or entangle).  The PF version of the spell does the following:

Quote

Your own non-magical club or quarterstaff becomes a weapon with a +1 enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls. A quarterstaff gains this enhancement for both ends of the weapon. It deals damage as if it were two size categories larger (a Small club or quarterstaff so transmuted deals 1d8 points of damage, a Medium 2d6, and a Large 3d6), +1 for its enhancement bonus. These effects only occur when the weapon is wielded by you. If you do not wield it, the weapon behaves as if unaffected by this spell.

So making it do more damage than a basic club might be an approach as well.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, Caedwyr said:

Remember to consider BG1 in these modifications.

Yeah - but wouldn't it be fun in BG1 to get a BG1-level version of some of the fun stuff from BG2?

Other possibilities: it could do extra damage against extra-planar/unnatural creatures.  Could be a nice, easily-available way to enforce the power of nature, when called upon...

Link to comment

Anti-unnatural might be an interesting thing.  My comment was mostly a matter of if you want to give it some interesting stuff, make sure it doesn't overpower the BG1 portion of the game and to take advantage of spell scaling with level.

Link to comment
58 minutes ago, Caedwyr said:

Anti-unnatural might be an interesting thing.  My comment was mostly a matter of if you want to give it some interesting stuff, make sure it doesn't overpower the BG1 portion of the game and to take advantage of spell scaling with level.

Yeah - making it scale well, but still be balanced at low levels, when it involves a melee weapon for a class not designed for melee, is quite hard.  That's why my mind was wandering further afield to less traditional approaches... maybe there's no need for a Shillelagh spell.  Maybe it should be replaced by something else altogether.  Like, what would a 1st-level version of Changestaff look like?  Change your staff into a treant... but like, a really little cute one!

Link to comment

The reason I suggested upping the duration so it lasts hours like mage armor is there is a role for magic created weapons and armor that are not traditional items at lower levels.  The +x at low levels helps hitting stuff and slightly higher damage dice could make it a decent alternative if you haven't found a +1 staff or club.  If you are going to keep it as a min/level buff though then I agree that a larger redesign may be worthwhile. 

Some ideas of other effects while wielded include

1. Protection from unnatural similar to protection from evil.  Undead, fiends, constructs?

2. Sanctuary effect while wielded against unnatural.   Poor mans staff of the magi.

3. Entangle proc effect chance on hit.

4. Fatigue proc effect chance on hit. 

5. Some of the above effects or the vase ability, but also a special ability that consumes the shillelagh (you drop it) to form a wall of thorns that is slow to move throughand does damage at same enchantment level as the shillelagh.  Basically you plant the club and it grows into a wall of thorns.

Link to comment

Entangle-on-hit in a melee weapon looks cool, but is almost entirely useless.  I never understood weapons that do that.  I guess you could disengage, move away, use a missile weapon... but that sounds super un-fun.  Just make a missile weapon with entangle-on-hit, and do something better for melee weapons.

Link to comment

I have updated this mod to version 0.7.  Version 0.6 had a nasty little bug that could replace Exaltation and Spiritual Clarity  with a different spell if you used their component.  That is now fixed. 

0.7 also adds an all-new component: "Revised Magic Battles."  This changes various aspects of the 'spell battle' or 'mage duel' system of spell protections and magic attacks.  It can only be installed if you have already installed Spell Revisions v4.  Consider the vanilla system of spell protections:

  • 3rd level: Minor Spell Deflection (blocks up to 7th level spells)
  • 4th level: Minor Globe of Invulnerability (blocks up to 3rd level spells)
  • 5th level: Minor Spell Turning (blocks up to 4th level spells)
  • 6th level: Globe of Invulnerability (blocks up to 4th level spells)
  • 6th level: Spell Deflection (blocks up to 9th level spells)
  • 7th level: Spell Turning (blocks up to 9th level spells)
  • 9th level: Spell Trap (blocks up to 9th level spells)

SR eliminates the two Spell Turning spells, creating a more streamlined series of spell protections:

  • 3rd level: Minor Spell Deflection (blocks up to 4th level spells)
  • 4th level: Minor Globe of Invulnerability (blocks up to 3rd level spells)
  • 5th level: Spell Deflection (blocks up to 7th level spells)
  • 6th level: Globe of Invulnerability (blocks up to 4th level spells)
  • 7th level: Greater Spell Deflection (blocks up to 9th level spells)
  • 9th level: Spell Trap (blocks up to 9th level spells)

This mod uses the SR series of spells but allows all Deflections to block up to 9th level spells.  There is no need to remember what spell level Deflections work against; the simple rule is that Globes block an unlimited number spells up to a certain level, while Deflections block a certain number of spells of unlimited level. 

To add value to the high-level protections, each Deflection spell will automatically apply the lesser Deflection spell(s).  This will not increase the number of "spell levels" that will be absorbed; if you are targeted by a normal spell, it will reduce the number of spell levels of protection from all active Deflections simultaneously.  But each different Deflection spell counts as a separate layer of defense when an enemy uses magic attacks like Spell Thrust to remove your defenses.  Cast Greater Spell Deflection, and you will have 3 separate layers of spell deflection protecting you.  Each of the three Deflection spells uses a different portrait icon, so you can tell at a glance how many layers of Deflection you have at any moment.

The magic attack spells are similarly simplified.  Spell Thrust, Secret Word, and Pierce Magic all work against spell protections of any level; they dispel 1, 2, and 3 spell protections, respectively.  So if an enemy is protected by Greater Spell Deflection (and thus, automatically, also Spell Deflection and Minor Spell Deflection), and you cast Spell Thrust at them, their Greater Spell Deflection will be removed but the Spell Deflection and Minor Spell Deflection would remain.  Secret Word would leave the enemy with only Minor Spell Deflection, and Pierce Magic would remove all three.  Globes of Invulnerability also factor into this; if your enemy is protected by Greater Spell Deflection and Globe of Invulnerability, they would have four layers of defense; a Secret Word would remove the two strongest ones, and leave in place the teo lesser Deflection spells. A follow-up Secret Word would remove those two.  (The same outcome could be achieved by a Pierce Magic followed by Spell Thrust... or, in a pinch, casting  Spell Thrust four times.)  Ruby Ray and Pierce Shield also remove three layers of defense, but they are strong enough to also remove Spell Trap.  Warding Whip removes six layers over three rounds - it is like casting Secret Word three times in a row - but as always cannot dispel Spell Trap. 

Spell Shield is unchanged, it wholly blocks the first magic attack spell used against it, regardless of its power.

There is a settings file - "MBR_settings.ini" - in which you can set how many spell levels of protection will be blocked by Minor Deflection, Spell Deflection, and Greater Deflection.  The default values are 4, 9, and 18.

Additionally, Spell Thrust is moved from 3rd level to 1st level.  The idea is to make it easier to have some kind of magic attack at the ready, even if the battle has dragged on and the enemy suddenly pops a Contingency to renew their protections.  This works with Tome & Blood's "Level 1 Cantrips" component; with both installed, you will never run out of Spell Thrusts - and, importantly, neither will enemy mages!  If you want Spell Thrust to stay at 3rd level, you can disable this part of the mod in the afore-mentioned settings file.

Additionally, you can set how you want the Dispel Magic spell to interact with (Minor) Globes of Invulnerability.  In the base game, Dispel Magic could bypass (M)GOI and dispel the buffs behind it, but the GOI is left intact; with SR installed, Dispel Magic can bypass (M)GOI and dispel the Globe itself, along with your other buffs!  But you can consider an alternate rule: since Dispel Magic is 3rd level, maybe it should be blocked by Globes of Invulnerability.  The default behavior with this mod is this last option, but you can choose which behavior you prefer by setting a couple variables to 0 or 1 in the settings file.  (In a future update I will probably change the default to match the vanilla  game's behavior, so pay attention to that setting file before you install!)

Additionally: Breach will normally remove all spells in the "combat protections" category (like Stoneskin, or Protection from Magic Weapons) and the "specific protections" category (like Resist Fire/Cold, or Free Acton or Chaotic Commands).  Variables in the  settings file will allow you to whether Breach should remove spells from either or both of those categories, as well as from the lesser-used "combination protections" (includes Holy Power) and "non-combat protections" (includes Chant) categories.  The default behavior is to remove combat/specific/combination protections, but leave noncombat protections in place.  You can change that, if you don't think Breach should remove things like Chaotic  Commands or Death Ward.

Finally, it has always annoyed me that beneficial spells like Cure Wounds are blocked by Spell Deflections.  If they can bypass Magic Resistance to aid your companion, why not Deflection?  This mod will set the  power level of the following spells to 0, in order to work on allies even when they are protected by spell protections:

  • Cure Wounds spells
  • Cure Disease/Blindness/Deafness
  • Slow/Neutralize Poison
  • Remove Curse/Break Enchantment
  • Remove Paralysis
  • Exaltation/Spiritual Clarity
  • Free Action
  • Lesser/Greater Restoration
  • Freedom

This change to Cure spells is on by default, but you can disable it in the settings file if you like.

Okay, that's it!  I know it's a lot to digest, but the changes are all in the vein of streamlining, or adding flexibility for how you want certain spell interactions to work in your game.  Cheers!

Edited by subtledoctor
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...