Modding Classes

[MSduPre]

Has anyone ever found a way to mod character classes? Not kits, but actual class mechanics. Last I knew, they were hard-coded and no one had found a way to get into it, but this was years ago when pocketplane was the thing, and we were still playing off the multi-cd sets, and I haven't really kept up since then.

What I'd like to do is mod the spellcasting classes to eliminate Vancian magic: that is, for Mages to cast like Sorcerers (but still learn like Mages) and Clerics to cast like Shamans, but still acquire their spells like Clerics (and keep the other features, like Turn Undead). I've used various work-arounds, like switching classes back and forth during the game using Keeper, and there are others, like modding the mxpells 2da to give Mage and Cleric a very high number of spells, then memorizing multiple copies of each, but none of them are really elegant or ideal.

[Jarno Mikkola]

That's not really moding a class. That's creating a kit you like. You create a Sorcerer kit and you add in the spells you like, that's about it. And kick the character somehow to balance it out. Aka, create a-work-around. And I'll remind you of the fun fact, the original game didn't have a Shaman's, so that's a-work-around too.

What moding a class means is modifing the items and spells they have access to, and that's actually pretty easy... you just read the items and modify their content, how to balance that is a question of FUN.

[MSduPre]

Thanks. I do know how to modify items and spells and whatnot for a particular class--what I'm wondering is if anyone has ever found a way to alter the basic aspects of the class itself. So, for instance, if I created a Shaman kit so that it mimicked a Priest as far as spells and weapons and armor and such, the GUI would still be Shaman--it would have shamanic dance rather than turn undead, etc. Or conversely, to just alter the coding of the Cleric class so that he casts spontaneously like a Shaman. So I suppose the answer is still "no", no one has found a way to alter that.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I am sure there's a way to make the Shamanic dance to mimic a Turn Undead. It's a spell effect after all. It migh not say Turn Undead in the graphical user interface... or it might... but the effect would be there. So request someone to make a specific kit... with all features featured in the description. And you might want to give subtext additional data, like every featured spell you request the Shaman kit to have access to, if you want them to be able to use axes, possible race restrictions, ... as without them you won't get them. And if you don't know, how... you don't need to. People will tell that this is impossible. Or at least that there's a really lowsy way to get around some messes.

[MSduPre]

That's a good idea, thanks--changing the shamanic dance to mimic turn undead. I'll play around with that and see if I can get it to work.

[subtledoctor]

Faiths & Powers now lets all clerics and druids decide in-game whether they want to learn and cast spells in the Vancian way, or like a Shaman. It requires you to install the sphere system, I think  

Might & Guile has a bard class overhaul that allows bards to learn spells from scrolls, but cast them spontaneously like sorcerers.  (You can choose a selection of your known spells to be available for casting the next day.) These ‘bards’ are multiclass mages, which can cast up to 7th-level spells. I have not ported this casting system over to the general wizard class.

These may not be exactly the implementation you want, but they are pretty extraordinarily complex. Some kind of simpler method of modding classes’ hard-coded spellcasting characteristics is simply not possible, I fear. 

[Jarno Mikkola]

5 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

  (You can choose a selection of your known spells to be available for casting the next day.)

I have a doubt that you actually mean this, cause it only takes 8 hours to complete a rest in the game.

[MSduPre]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Faiths & Powers now lets all clerics and druids decide in-game whether they want to learn and cast spells in the Vancian way, or like a Shaman. It requires you to install the sphere system, I think  

Might & Guile has a bard class overhaul that allows bards to learn spells from scrolls, but cast them spontaneously like sorcerers.  (You can choose a selection of your known spells to be available for casting the next day.) These ‘bards’ are multiclass mages, which can cast up to 7th-level spells. I have not ported this casting system over to the general wizard class.

These may not be exactly the implementation you want, but they are pretty extraordinarily complex. Some kind of simpler method of modding classes’ hard-coded spellcasting characteristics is simply not possible, I fear. 

Thanks, I'll definitely check that out! That sounds like getting close to, if not exactly what I want. Are you going to be expanding it to the wizard class in the future? 

Also, how compatible are your mods with others from here, and with my own tinkering? I'm thinking in particular of ones which already changed spells, like Sword Coast Stratagems and Improved Celestials. 

[lynx]

In gemrb it would require just changing a value in a 2da, but it would affect everyone with that class. And it looks like a line of python would need to change as well, since learning is disabled for sorcerer-style spellbooks.

[MSduPre]

This is the first I'm learning of gemrb. Thanks, it looks intriguing and promising. I only was able to give it a cursory look last night, and the website's down right now, but I'll check it out more later. 

I downloaded and installed Faiths & Powers, and I like it! I was disappointed that there was no Dawnknight of Lathander for my Paladin, but maybe I'll use this opportunity to learn to properly build a kit for myself. It looks like the mechanic is an in-game implementation of what I'd been doing with my clerics through Keeper--assigning a very high number of memorizable spells, then filling them with equal numbers of all spells known, to emulate spontaneous casting. Very well done (and much more fun than stopping to use Keeper every time I level up). 

I am a little confused about spheres and spells known, and couldn't find any documentation except the spreadsheet you linked in the main forum topic. I'm currently playing with Branwen (with a different portrait--ugh!), and naturally assigned her the Tempus kit. But she only has like 3 or 4 1st-level spells. So I checked the spreadsheet, and it looks like most spheres are allowed to her kit, although I admit I haven't yet gone through and carefully checked each one to see why it isn't there. My question is: are more spells gainable or somehow learnable, or do the priests of some orders just not have many spells? Or is it maybe a conflict with another mod I've got installed?

Lastly, since you like Clerics so much, I thought I'd share with you a tiny little thing that I made. I got tired a long time ago of Clerics only having one option for ranged weapons, and that not really a very good one, and so I made stonebows. This is only a very basic selection so far: light and heavy mundane, and light and heavy +1, with basic, +1, and +2 bullets, and an infinite quiver of plain bullets (because the way ammo is done in-game is tedious and implausible--arrows and bolts and slingstones are not expended on use like firearm ammunition! They're recovered after each fight, and broken or lost ones replaced in-between battles.) Anyway, thought you might like it, and it would be easy enough to expand upon with better bows and bullets, etc. I'm going to create a special undead-hunter stonebow next, and some holy bullets, maybe using the sunstone ones from the Amaunator temple. The trick is that you have to lie to IE (in some places) and tell it that the bullet is a bolt. The stonebow bullets and sling bullets are not interchangeable, which is accurate to life, because real slingstones are actually not round but lozenge-shaped. I'm actually thinking I'm going to change the names and descriptions of sling bullets in my game to reflect this and make them more easily distinguishable from stonebow bullets.

SBOW03.ITM SBOW04.ITM XBUL01.ITM XBUL02.ITM XBUL03.ITM SBOW01.ITM SBOW02.ITM QUIVER07.ITM

Edited April 5, 2020 by MSduPre

[MSduPre]

Now that I think of it, maybe I'll just do a complete ranged weapons overhaul. I'd have to learn how to weidu if I was going to release it to the public.