PnP opposition schools?

[Guest Rhastor]

Is there a mod to restrict the spells available to specialist mages according to PnP rules? This is something that always bugged me, as there is virtually no reason not to choose to specialize in BG, since you lose only a few spells.

(PnP oppostion schools are described here, if you're interested: http://people.wku.edu/charles.plemons/ad&d/listings/schoolsindex.html)

[temnix]

I can't answer your question, but I can point out that the reason why people don't think of playing mages is because there are too few spells generally and too few that do anything interesting. Players don't feel, and rightly, that they miss out on much because of a restriction. I don't want to derail the discussion - or even start one - but how many higher-level versions of Secret Word do we need, removing progressively stronger defenses which other spells progressively mount? This reminds me of a Robert Sheckley story where an inventor comes with plans for a super-cannon in one pocket, plans for an armor that stops the super-cannon in a second pocket, plans for a super-super-cannon that penetrates that armor in a third pocket and so on. If there were more spells with standalone, interesting mechanics in every school, especially Divination, flexibility would become as important in these games as in PnP, and then mages would be valued.

And while I'm here, let's set the vocabularity straight: there is no such thing as a specialist mage. The character class is called wizard, and wizards who have access to all schools are called mages, while ones that specialize are specialists. Just as with the warrior class, under whose umbrella we have sub-classes: fighter, paladin and ranger.

Now I will be a little useful and say that I do remember hearing of mods that add opposition schools, only not of players being too eager to handicap themselves.

Edited May 17, 2020 by temnix

[Jarno Mikkola]

3 hours ago, temnix said:

Now I will be a little useful and say that I do remember hearing of mods that add opposition schools, only not of players being too eager to handicap themselves.

Are you talking about the Divine Remix mod.... cause the Sphere system in that just misses the mark so completely. There are zero reasons to restrict the things so fully that you can't cast healing spells from a Cleric/Priest of any kind.

And yeah, the BG2 missed the mark completely in the restrictions of wizards spells... giving the Conjurers the ability to cast Invocation spells, while still restricting the opposite, the current system:

Quote

- Abjurer: Cannot scribe/cast Alteration spells
- Conjurer: Cannot scribe/cast Divination spells
- Diviner: Cannot scribe/cast Conjuration spells
- Enchanter: Cannot scribe/cast Invocation spells
- Illusionist: Cannot scribe/cast Necromancy spells
- Invoker: Cannot scribe/cast Enchantment/Conjuration spells
- Necromancer: Cannot scribe/cast Illusion spells
- Transmuter: Cannot scribe/cast Abjuration spells

There's no way you can draw symmetric bubbles into this picture to make that into a thing:

 

The non-EE BG1 had a more restrictive opposite school list. I know cause Edwin could not cast Fireballs, or Magic Missiles... while he can in BG2.

The rulesystem unfortunately cannot be completely redrawn because it's too much engrained into the game engine&files to do so.

But one could add more restrictions in the .spl file, if you just edit the Exclusion flaks, aka the offset 0x001e ... but like said, Invokers are resticted by both Invoker and Diviner flags.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Jarno Mikkola

[Guest Rhastor]

On 5/17/2020 at 2:12 PM, temnix said:

I can't answer your question, but I can point out that the reason why people don't think of playing mages is because there are too few spells generally and too few that do anything interesting.

Having played BG2 as a straight conjurer (my first and only time) I am mystified that anyone would think this. There's a huge array of options to choose from - charms, confusion, web, invisibility, haste, summons, direct damage spells, simulacrum, protection from a buch of different things, dispel magic, breach, contingency, web, and web, and web, and spider spawn, and time stop. And so on. Alright, a few of those might have been redundant (arguably simulacrum is a summon, and did I mention web?) but in comparison, fighters can either hit things with a sword or shoot them with a bow. I definitely feel like I had too many spells.

On 5/17/2020 at 2:12 PM, temnix said:

And while I'm here, let's set the vocabularity straight: there is no such thing as a specialist mage. The character class is called wizard, and wizards who have access to all schools are called mages, while ones that specialize are specialists.

That is so. I'm probably not going to stop saying it, though.

On 5/17/2020 at 2:12 PM, temnix said:

Now I will be a little useful and say that I do remember hearing of mods that add opposition schools, only not of players being too eager to handicap themselves.

Why not? The game is too easy. Anyway, I would be interested if you could provide specifics on said mods.

 

On 5/17/2020 at 3:15 PM, Jarno Mikkola said:

The rulesystem unfortunately cannot be completely redrawn because it's too much engrained into the game engine&files to do so.

But one could add more restrictions in the .spl file, if you just edit the Exclusion flaks, aka the offset 0x001e ... but like said, Invokers are resticted by both Invoker and Diviner flags.

Could you provide a little more detail on how to do that (in "for dummies" language)? I might try to do it myself.

Invokers having Diviner restrictions is actually not a problem - in P&P, Invokers can use everything but Enchantment and Conjuration, while Diviners just can't use Enchantment.

I suppose a bigger problem would be restricting the specialists to cast their bonus spell per level in their specialization schools, but I assume that must be impossible.

Do scrolls have to be edited separately from the spell files?

[Guest Rhastor]

(They can't use Conjuration, rather.)

[Jarno Mikkola]

On 5/19/2020 at 2:31 PM, Guest Rhastor said:

Invokers having Diviner restrictions is actually not a problem - in P&P, Invokers can use everything but Enchantment and Conjuration, while Diviners just can't use Enchantment.

Well, the problem is that Diviner's are better mages than Invokers cause they are not restricted by being invoker... while invokers are restricted by being BOTH INVOKERS and diviners. AND this in enforced by default. And you can do nothing about it.

Yes, I am aware that you want it to be like this for Invokers, but I wouldn't.

But back to what you want...

On 5/19/2020 at 2:31 PM, Guest Rhastor said:

Could you provide a little more detail on how to do that (in "for dummies" language)? I might try to do it myself.

Well, there's probably better examples elsewhere... but we take a spell we know, Magic Missile, and run a weidu function on it, aka we insert this code into a .tp2 file... and make it restricted from Conjurer(9th+1 or 0b001000000000, and Enchanter 7th+1 or 0b000010000000) bits using the binary operation):

BEGIN ~Magic Missile alteration~
COPY_EXISTING ~SPWI112.spl~ ~override~
//                   WTNIIEDCA
//                   irenlniob
//                   lacvlcvnj
//                   dnrouhiju
//                   msoksanur
//                   ammeinere
//                   guarotrer
//                   etn ne r 
//                    ec sr   
//                    re t    
//                     r      
WRITE_LONG ~0x1e~ ~0b00001010000000~

And then we do similar to that to all the spells and you have yourself a more restrictive arcane spell casting system. Yes, there are probably better ways to do this... way better.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Jarno Mikkola

[temnix]

In the "Player's Handbook" not all schools had two oppositions. Divination had just one, and maybe another. But yes, it's easy to patch spells with more exclusions. I wouldn't expect players to flock to this, especially if they lose their Fireballs... Another problem is that in PnP many spells belonged to two schools at once, even to opposed schools sometimes. Spook, for instance, was both an Illusion and a Necromancy spell, if I remember, and learnable by specialists from both. More often a spell would belong to adjacent schools. In these computer adaptations the type has a mechanical meaning and fixed in the table used for things like spell immunities. They all have to be of one type there. What a modder can do is revamp the system and put all wizard spells in the NONE school, make them general, then add prohibitions on the spell-by-spell basis. This would reproduce the logic of the old AD&D, which was to look at the workings of the spells themselves and include them where the designers thought appropriate (sometimes their thinking eluded me, but it was human error and a DM could decide otherwise).

This, at any rate, was different from the abstract approach of 3E and later editions, which put forward a system of descriptors, tags, in effect. It was done in an attempt to streamline the rules, and succeeded, only the substance went out with the bathwater. (Among other things, in AD&D some spells of the same name for wizards and priests worked somewhat differently, to wit, Detect Magic, Know Alignment... All this was junked.) Recreating the system for these adaptations would only cost Spell Immunity, which would become useless. I don't think this would be a huge loss to bring back the old elaborate tapestry. 

I haven't got any more suggestions to put forward, but about your, Rhastor, wonderment that I say there are not enough spells and not enough different spells, the explanation is simple: you look at these games as action games, I look at them as RPGs. For an action game only less hectic than Diablo, with a few more conversations and a party instead of a single character, there is a good arsenal of destruction here: fireballs, webs, all those things you have trouble choosing from. No argument from me about that, which is why I rarely make combat spells and items myself - there are enough of those. But to my mind the games are about creating a personality to live in an imaginary world with meaningful choices, where there will be some fighting from time to time, yes, and for those purposes fireballs don't cut it. Where is demon summoning, the real kind, where you can bind demons, send them on errands, bargain with them? Where is Contact Other Plane (Icewind Dale actually did have it, and it gave real information - hurray to that game for that)? Oracle, the real one? Where are illusions and disbelief? Where is Geas? Teleportation? Real Animate Dead? Minor and Major Creation? Wall of Iron that you can throw down on enemies and crush them or just sell for scrap metal? Where is Fool's Gold? Water Breathing? Useful applications of Charm? Friends doing what it is supposed to, which is not just to increase Charisma to buy stuff for less? I understand that the entire richness of a real tabletop game between humans using their imagination can't be replicated on a sorry heap of microchips, and these games are very old to boot, but some of the above IS possible, just no one has bothered with sophistication, because hardly anyone respects such a thing. The crowd is plenty happy to electrocute monsters, yee haw!

And so, because there are already few spells with a difference, I don't think there is a point to restricting wizards further. Don't you want spiffy stuff to kil thangs with? At least you can switch between Confusion and Fireball if you get both their schools. That ought to alleviate boredom a little.

Edited May 19, 2020 by temnix

[Guest For temnix]

Pleasd add a way to ally with ust nasta demon and start an alliance all together

[Guest Rhastor]

7 hours ago, temnix said:

 Where is Contact Other Plane (Icewind Dale actually did have it, and it gave real information - hurray to that game for that)? Oracle, the real one? Where are illusions and disbelief? Where is Geas? Teleportation? Real Animate Dead? Minor and Major Creation? Wall of Iron that you can throw down on enemies and crush them or just sell for scrap metal? Where is Fool's Gold? Water Breathing? Useful applications of Charm? Friends doing what it is supposed to, which is not just to increase Charisma to buy stuff for less? I understand that the entire richness of a real tabletop game between humans using their imagination can't be replicated on a sorry heap of microchips, and these games are very old to boot, but some of the above IS possible, just no one has bothered with sophistication, because hardly anyone respects such a thing. The crowd is plenty happy to electrocute monsters, yee haw!

And so, because there are already few spells with a difference, I don't think there is a point to restricting wizards further. Don't you want spiffy stuff to kil thangs with? At least you can switch between Confusion and Fireball if you get both their schools. That ought to alleviate boredom a little.

Of course I'd like to have more non-combat spells, but I'm realistic and understand that most of these spells are nightmarishly complicated to implement, while others, like teleport, might break the plot. I did not know about Icewind Dale having Contact Other Plane (I quit that game early because it was just a series of fights) but having that spell means writing a ton of dialogue, which I guess they did in lieu of having a plot. Many of the things you are suggesting here would require lots of scripted events, and basically the spell would just serve to give you access to them, or would require elaborate revisions to the AI (e.g. to have NPCs react to illusions). But even without all this, there's still a substantial selection of spells.

[Guest Rhastor]

13 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

But back to what you want...

Thanks. I might give it a shot.

[subtledoctor]

It's probably worth making up a mod that has a settings file that can be filled out, with whatever opposition schools the player wants (and however many), so that players can decide this for themselves.  I made up a custom version of something like this for kreso a few years ago; it's probably floating somewhere over in the SR subforum.  But it was based on the code over here.  That isn't open-ended, but maybe someone can adapt and expand it to do this.

[subtledoctor]

19 hours ago, temnix said:

you look at these games as action games, I look at them as RPGs. For an action game only less hectic than Diablo, with a few more conversations and a party instead of a single character, there is a good arsenal of destruction here: fireballs, webs, all those things you have trouble choosing from. No argument from me about that, which is why I rarely make combat spells and items myself - there are enough of those. But to my mind the games are about creating a personality to live in an imaginary world with meaningful choices, where there will be some fighting from time to time, yes, and for those purposes fireballs don't cut it.

Neither here nor there, but I think you are in the minority.  Most players say they consider these games to be RPGs, but they really treat them as real-time strategy games (not "action" games).  And I think the developers of the games are included in this category - the games were not designed for real role-playing.  I applaud your desire to treat them that way - the underlying game, D&D, is after all truly for role-playing - but injecting those kinds of role-playing elements into these strategy games cuts very much against the grain.  Good luck with that windmill, it looks fierce!

[temnix]

8 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Neither here nor there, but I think you are in the minority.  Most players say they consider these games to be RPGs, but they really treat them as real-time strategy games (not "action" games).  And I think the developers of the games are included in this category - the games were not designed for real role-playing.  I applaud your desire to treat them that way - the underlying game, D&D, is after all truly for role-playing - but injecting those kinds of role-playing elements into these strategy games cuts very much against the grain.  Good luck with that windmill, it looks fierce!

You called them a murder simulator once. I hope for more. And some things are possible. This is my last post here - I don't want to derail the topic any more, but I can mention that I made, for example, a replacement for Oracle that gives real information on creatures. It "measures" their hit points, sometimes "revealing" that their health is below maximum - in effect it lowers it - and "discovers" properties like special vulnerabilities or strengths or that the creature is an illusion altogether. Granted, that's still going around the prickly pear of combat statistics, I can't up and write in whole worlds' worth of NPC and content, but this is an example of magic that expands the world. It creates breathing space instead of garroting people.

[dukdukgoos]

 

On 5/15/2020 at 3:23 AM, Guest Rhastor said:

Is there a mod to restrict the spells available to specialist mages according to PnP rules? This is something that always bugged me, as there is virtually no reason not to choose to specialize in BG, since you lose only a few spells.

(PnP oppostion schools are described here, if you're interested: http://people.wku.edu/charles.plemons/ad&d/listings/schoolsindex.html)

I came here to ask the exact same question. Specialist Mages are too OP as they are; adding in the more extensive PnP opposing school restrictions would properly balance them with Generalist Mages.

I got the list of additional PnP opposition schools here, specifically the footnote to the table

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by dukdukgoos
added link code

[Jarno Mikkola]

On 7/4/2020 at 12:52 PM, dukdukgoos said:

I got the list of additional PnP opposition schools here, specifically the footnote to the table:

Or you could just spell it out what you want to say ?

So: Speliality;  Opposite schools, adjustment to the current system.

Abjurers have; Alterations and Illusions.

Conjurer; (Greater )Divination and Invocation.

Diviners; Conjurations. **

Enchanter; Invocation and Necromancy.

Illusionist; Necromancy plus Abjuration and Invocation.*

Invoker; Enchantment and Conjuration(as-is currently).

Necromancer; Illusion and Enchantment

Transmuter; Abjuration and Necromancy.

My notes:

*That's a lot. But gnomes. We kick them, after all, they are already down.

**So Diviner is just a better Invoker. Nice. Yes, the invoker gets a negative modifier to the enemys saves... but that's only damage, while diviners can use Enhancements, that probably can do the same stuff, say bane. A 1st level spell...

Edited July 31, 2020 by Jarno Mikkola