Detect Magic/Intimidation (mod)

[temnix]

1. Summary
2. Compatibility
3. Detect Magic
4. Intimidation

1. Summary. Like the anfisbene or Dogcat, this mod is two things in one body. Detect Magic brings a spell of the same name to wizards and priests, one that will find magical items on creatures, whether they always had them or obtained them by lucky rolls of random treasure. It will give a separate indication if the items are powerful (expensive), and when cast by a priest alert to cursed items. Intimidation is a character ability for most warriors and all half-orcs. Meant mostly to be used on neutrals, outside of combat, it can shoo them away to where convenient and interrupt all those greeters walking forward eager to announce something to the party, such as that they are about to kill the characters off.

2. Compatibility. Detect Magic should work on all games and versions, but Intimidation uses advanced effects. Its files will not be installed on a "classic" game.

3. Detect Magic. This is a 1st level Divination spell. All wizards of various combinations (and sorcerers) receive it for free automatically at the beginning of their career - or as soon as you install the mod. Bards, characters who switch to wizards later and others can avail themselves of Detect Magic scrolls, sold at all of the main magic stores in the games. Priests also have it, and in line with the AD&D tradition their version is somewhat different and superior. Unlike the wizards', theirs will detect cursed items.

There is no saving throw against the spell, but magic resistance stops it. When a creature has something to detect, it will glow. Cast by a priest, this is the order of findings: 1) cursed items, worn and not, including cursed scrolls and the Murky Potion - the target will pulse orange quickly; 2) magic items worth at least 5000 gp or scrolls worth at least 1800 gp (5th level spells and above, see below on scroll prices) - flash a bright violet; 3) lesser magic items or ongoing enchantments, obvious and not - flash red. More important readings obscure those below. For example, somebody with a cursed scroll in the inventory will pulse orange even though the creature may have a vorpal sword in the backpack. The spell does not tell directly which items are cursed, but you can be smart with your own inventory and figure it out.

Now, item prices in the games are wildly scattered and irrational. A sword +3 is worth less than a wand of lightning. I can't know what price-adjusting modules you may have installed on your computer, my chosen threshold of 5000 gp is at the level of the weakest wands. As for scrolls, vanilla-game prices are ridiculous - ridiculously uneven and ridiculously low. A scroll of Cone of Cold is worth 500 gp, while Confusion costs 1200 gp. No high-level scroll approaches the price of Wish, which could perhaps make sense in a tabletop game, but not here, where Wish is so lame. And so on. This mod puts scroll prices on a system:

Level Price

1         100
2         300
3         700
4         1200
5         1800 (appears as a powerful item to Detect Magic)
6         2500
7         3200
8         4000
9         5000

Note that, given store mark-ups, this will make scrolls far more prohibitive to buy. No longer will you be able to empty High Hedge's selection with a couple of thousand but will have to devote considerably more of your earnings to stocking the mages. Given the gold glut in the games, this is probably a good thing, although later on, with most spells learned, you may begin to sell scrolls to stuff the purse. While money is short, though, who gets the gold is a good trigger for role-playing.

Detect Magic works in a shallow, broad cone. On this screenshot Edwin's amulet responds. I had a different screenshot, one that showed an ogre assassin, Larze, walking up to the party and glowing under the spell. He might have rolled up something magical in random treasure, but more likely this was due to his basic undroppable ogre's morningstar, which, like all undroppable weapons, is flagged "magical" in the vanilla game, even without any special properties. I recommend using my "Monsters Beat Enchantment" mod, which unmagics all those, because otherwise you are going to get a lot of false positives. Even animals may glow, because their claws might have that unfortunate property.

Finding an item or a curse on a creature earns some experience for the party, one time for every target, only not from your own party members.

Yes, and Boo is also non-magical now. (Sorry, Boo.)

3. Intimidation. This special ability is given to all warriors (fighters, paladins and rangers) of the human, elf, half-elf and dwarf races (no gnomes or halflings). Half-orcs also receive it, regardless of class. Among NPC and monsters ogres, giants and other big brutish types possess it, so if you need to scare somebody in a pinch, you can try to procure an ogre. As with all abilities that I make, if a character for some reason does not have it, e.g. a former party member was outside when this mod was first run, invite the character into the party and have someone else use the ability. The newbie will learn.

Intimidation works in a rather short range and forces a saving throw vs. spell on the target, initially with a +2 bonus, when used on a neutral. Every 4 levels the roll improves until -2 at the 17th level, and the number of creatures than can be intimidated at once also increases, until 3 at that final stage. In a fight hostile characters are already attacking the party, there is already plenty of intimidation in the air, so the ability is much less effective against red-circle creatures: the bonus starts at +8 here. Either way having Strength of 18+ improves the roll by a point, and Charisma of 16+ by another. Here I want to note that the games don't always show successful saving throws, there may be no bottom-window message for a save. You will see "Browbeat" there if you succeeded, if not, you did not.

So what, finally, does Intimidation do? If it works, it will stop the target in its tracks and send it scampering away a short distance. You can use this to shoo away potential witnesses, hearers of shouts, guards and so on. What is more, the creature will lose the desire to speak with the party.

Grok the half-orc-shaman-with-Intimidation and eretre the halfling-fighter-without brush off an unpleasant encounter.

All in all, it will be with the creature as if the conversation has already taken place. The dialogue of the target will be advanced to the next state, if there is one. If you talk to the neutral now, after he stops his mad run, and he has something else to say, it will be as if you are addressing him a second time. (The first thing I did was intimidate Winthrop at the Candlekeep Inn to get past that unbearable "10000 gp entry fee" conversation.) Note that you may spoil things for yourself if you do enter a conversation at this juncture, it may create confusion with quest givers. The change is only temporary, though: if you have left the creature alone, it will return to the initial dialogue state in an hour. (If you did talk to it, you don't get to reset the relationship.) The desire to bring the word to you will also return. You can keep 'em down with more rudeness in the meantime, though.

I must say, yelling at people with impunity can become an addiction.

Abdel the fighter hollers at random townsfolk in Saradush.

As a final note, while you can intimidate animals, in combat and out, they are not so smart and may as easily as not fly into a rage and attack you or whoever is nearest. Perhaps you might find a use for this, too.

Download

Edited April 15, 2020 by temnix

[Blash2]

Very interesting! Detect Magic is an AD&D spell that's missing in the BG saga, it is a very welcome addition.

It seems you're making very interesting mods! What about putting them on GitHub for future Project Infinity usability?

Edited April 18, 2020 by Blash2

[temnix]

What's Project Infinity?

[Blash2]

The coolest mod manager evah 

 

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/74335/project-infinity-public-beta-for-all/p1

https://www.gibberlings3.net/search/?&tags=projectinfinity&search_and_or=and&sortby=relevancy

https://github.com/ALIENQuake/ProjectInfinity

 

It's @AL|EN's project, involving also many member of the modding community.

 

[temnix]

I'll say this much about project infinity, that they may convert my mods if they like. I don't mind.

[AL|EN]

17 hours ago, temnix said:

I'll say this much about project infinity, that they may convert my mods if they like. I don't mind.

Thanks! That's much appreciated and not something which I often see.

On the other hand, there is nothing to convert as PI offers extra features like mod metadata, the automatic mod updates (this is why Blash2 asked you to host you mods at GitHub), ability to set you desired install order for you mods etc. I can help you but is up to you if you wana make usage of those extra features or not.

[temnix]

What I meant was that I'm not interested in this project one way or the other. If it makes modding more convenient and inspires some people, good. If they want to include my material in some fashion, fine. But I'm not going to upload anything, I have better things to do. The mods will be here, and that's enough.

[Salk]

Interesting mod this one too, temnix.

You certainly show you have many good ideas but I have a simple question: where can we download Monsters Beat Enchantment which you recommend installing together with this modification?

[temnix]

You can download it on page 2 of this forum. Believe it or not, there is more than one, with many other mods there.

[Salk]

Found it.

Unfortunately I am a BGT classic player so I won't be able to use it.

Too bad and thanks anyway.