SubtleMods: 5E Spellcasting Rules Conversion

[Endarire]

To clarify, the code I mentioned was the one line part you recommended I comment out to test compatibility.  I understand your stance of wanting to be retired from modding, yet this small and very impactful tweak (changing one line of code in 5e Casting) made Shadow Magic viable for me since, after playing D&D for years as a prepared caster, I just wanted to enjoy a mix of spontaneity and changing spells daily a la the 5e system.  I suspect others are like this as well.

A simple, largely elegant solution for Shadow Magic and 5e Casting is thus:  Offer it as an install option (compared to the normal spell system) with the explicit warning that it's experimental or not entirely supported.  That way, people like me aren't asking about why Shadow Magic casters aren't getting their spontaneous spells via 5e Casting, then accidentally breaking the 5e Casting mod locally trying to reverse engineer it.

Thankee.

[pencey]

When Druid characters level up without selecting 'Change Prepared Spells' beforehand, and reach a new spell level, they do not learn the spells of that level. Tested with both single- and multi-class druids.

After missing out on Level 2 spells upon reaching Druid 3, I was able to resolve this issue by selecting 'Change Prepared Spells' before leveling to Druid 4.

WeiDU.log

[subtledoctor]

Oh interesting. I feel like that is something already dealt with, a long time ago. But probably in a different context. Been a long time since I played without a sphere system.

Sounds tricky. I wonder if I could do some UI trickery to prevent leveling up until you prepare new spells. Or maybe tie a spell effect to the level-up button? Or maybe just apply all spells to your spellbook at level 1. Hmmm…

[pencey]

It's worth noting Clerics don't suffer from the same issue. Maybe that's a lead.

[Endarire]

Knowing all the spells at level 1 seems easiest.  That's how you handled your Revised Specialists, doc.

Also, did you intend to make Shadow Magic compatibility an official component?  If not, may the community publicly release a version that uses your listed tweak to make Shadow Magic compatible?

Thankee!

Edited September 4, 2023 by Endarire

[subtledoctor]

On 8/30/2023 at 8:09 AM, pencey said:

It's worth noting Clerics don't suffer from the same issue. Maybe that's a lead.

That’s bonkers. Clerics shouldn’t work any different from druids. 

1 hour ago, Endarire said:

 did you intend to make Shadow Magic compatibility an official component?  If not, may the community publicly release a version that uses your listed tweak to make Shadow Magic compatible?

You said it is buggy, and I am not equipped to address those bugs. 

No one should be “releasing” versions of other people’s mods. You are free to locally modify anything you download, and you already have a version that works for your game, to your satisfaction. What more do you need? 

[Endarire]

Intro
To clarify, after further research (EET, Shadow Magic 3.0.1 and the latest publicly available 5e Casting mod with your above listed change to make Shadow Magic work),  Shadow Adepts (Shadow Magic Wizards) are meant to be getting an extra spell slot per spell level per day, and 5e Casting is the mod which prevented this from happening.

I made a variety of new characters in Shadows of Amn, each with 18 INT/WIS/CHA.  For 5e settings, I chose to have items that grant bonus spells only grant bonus spell slots, though because the characters start off effectively naked, that didn't matter.

I made a 5e Shadow Adept who should've gotten a bonus spell slot per level as if it were a specialty Wizard.  This didn't happen.

I made a normal Mage who received a bonus spell slot as if she were a specialty Wizard.  This shouldn't happen.  Oddly, her highest spell slot level (4) said she got 2 spell slots per day, but could only use 1.  (I tested with confusion and contagion each prepared once.)  This meant she only had 1 spell slot to use of spell level 4, which was the same as a Shadow Adept.

I made an Enchanter who had the same spells per day as a Shadow Adept and also ended up with 1 spell slot per spell level less than a generalist Wizard.

Using Shadow Magic without 5e Casting gets Shadow Adepts their normal allotment of spell slots as if they were specialty Wizards.

What do I conclude from this?
5e Casting may be wrongly parsing available spell slots for the highest spell level castable and is seemingly reversing whether specialty Wizards should have a bonus spell slot per level - Shadow Adepts or not.  That bonus spell slot for spell levels below the maximum is usable as normal.  (As a generalist Wizard, I tested spamming Imoen with blindness and I was able to use the extra spell slot that normally only a specialist would get.)

Update: What about Bards?
With the same mod setup listed above, I made a plain Bard in SoA then consoled her to 160K EXP.  She gained an extra level 3 spell slot as if she were a specialty Wizard.  It seems you flipped a bit somewhere.

Finally for Now
Thankee!

Edited September 5, 2023 by Endarire

[subtledoctor]

I don’t fully understand what you are describing. Remember 5E has no “spell slots,” it has “memorization slots” and “casting slots.” The basic premise of the mod is that you can increase either one or the other, to become more powerful in different ways. 

Here is what I do know:

Unkitted mages should have more memorization slots than usual, because they are generalists and should be more flexible. 

Specialists should have fewer memorization slots because the spells in their specialty are effectively always ‘pre-memorized’ for free. Less overall flexibility but more flexibility within their focus. 

Shadow Adepts have a custom, proprietary system whereby they get extra spell slots depending on their stats. In the 5E system this amounts to extra memorization slots, which is annoying because I want to limit memorization slots and this is a system I cannot account for. 

My rough answer is very simple: let each mod for each class do what that mod does for that class. This mod explicitly changes the casting rules for generalist mages and specialists. Other mods may make changes to the sorcerer class, e.g. Tome & Blood allowing you to switch out learned spells. Other mods may make changes to other spellcasting systems. E.g. Shadow Magic explicitly states that it is a different source of magic with different spells and different rules regarding spell slots. Likewise there is a Warlock mod with particular rules for that kit, and I have a psionics mod with particular rules for psionics. My feeling is that these mods should all be able to set their own rules as designed, and should not step on each others’ toes if it can be avoided. 

If you do want to make Shadow Magic kits work by this 5E system… then there are bound to be issues, because as I said Shadow Magic employs a number of proprietary adjustments which will manifest as the “wrong” number of memorization slots. You are trying to combine two mods that do different things to the same game system, and you seemingly expect things to work perfectly. But it probably won’t happen. 

Installing a lot of mods will result in some things being wonky. At the moment I have a weird issue in my IWD game: a cleric for Mystra from FnP had 5E casting, and also participates in the SoB Combat Skills system, and also has bonus spell slots for high stats. She dual-classed to wizard at level 6. For whatever reason, after reaching level 7 as a wizard, instead of having about 4-5 casting slots for 1st-level priest spells and about 3-4 casting slots for 2nd-level priest spells, she has 2 1st-level slots and 7 2nd-level slots. Why? I don’t know. It’s a bug. It’s weird. 

But also, Coran has 20 DEX and Kagain has 20 CON, and Minsc has illegal stats but doesn’t fall, and Aerie has an illegal class and Haer’Dalis has illegal proficiencies. Some things in these games don’t exactly comport with the rulebook. If you install a ton of mods, there will be more of this. If that bothers you, don’t install so many mods. 

That said, I’m not even sure there is a problem here. You said:

16 hours ago, Endarire said:

made a normal Mage who received a bonus spell slot as if she were a specialty Wizard.  This shouldn't happen. 

As I noted above, this is intentional. 

16 hours ago, Endarire said:

Oddly, her highest spell slot level (4) said she got 2 spell slots per day, but could only use 1

Again I’m not sure because of the terminology, but it sounds like you are saying you have two memorization slots (could memorize Confusion and Contagion) but only one casting slot. And this is very much intentional. You may only be able to cast one 4th-level spell, but you are flexible as far as which spell that can be. (This is the opposite side of the coin from sorcerers, who may only know one spell of a given level but can cast it three times.) 

Mages prize flexibility and memorization; sorcerers don’t know much magic but employ repetition and extra reserves of power. This is a core concept of this mod. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by subtledoctor

[Endarire]

Intro
Greetings again, doc!

I make this post since 5e Casting 1.20 may be bugged in how it treats specialty Wizards versus other prepared arcane casters.  Things may be poorly explained, leaving players like me with the wrong impression.  Something else may be happening here.

I want to ensure we properly understand each other here.  I agree that I may have misunderstood how 5e Casting worked with Bards and Wizards since I haven't played them much with 5e Casting enabled.

Testing Notes
-All tests were done on EET with game version 2.6.6 using 5e Casting 1.20 with the code change you posted above to allow for 5e Casting to work with Shadow Magic.  Shadow Magic tests used Shadow Magic 3.0.1, which was installed before 5e Casting.  No other mods that altered casting were included for test purposes:  No Tome & Blood, etc.  (However, I have tried other spell mods such as OlvynSpells and Spell Revisions and the results were the same.)

-5e Casting was tested before and after EET End, but the results were effectively the same.  Installing 5e Casting before EET End is still advised.

-All characters used were new characters made for the Shadows of Amn campaign, chosen because we start at or around level 7 naked with Imoen nearby to for testing purposes.

Shadow Magic Notes
-Shadow Magic 3.0.x - the latest Shadow Magic version as of this writing - changes the Shadow Adepts (Wizards) to act like specialty Wizards.  They normally get 1 bonus spell slot per spell level.

-Previous versions of Shadow Magic (2.x) gave Shadow Magic users extra bonuses - such as extra spell slots - based on their INT, WIS, and CHA scores.  These bonuses no longer exist in 3.0.x.

-Shadow Magic spells in 3.0.x use Olvyn's Spell Tool, meaning these spells should be compatible with 5e Casting.  Numerous tests proved this to be true if using the code adaptation you previously listed, doc.

-5e Casting normally treats Shadow Magic as a specialty Wizard kit, which it effectively is, and one that can only learn Shadow Magic spells, which is also intended.

Results
Images are taken after a character has given the game enough time to get the 5e Change Spell Preparation innate ability on the characters, rest, then enter spell swap mode.   (Images are hosted off-site due to file size limits.)

-Note that some of the spells listed below are unbordered in their spell prep screen but can't be cast, meaning they're just hanging there for some reason.  (These spells were chosen and prepared at character creation.)  Removing these extra spell preps seems harmless, meaning, for example, I can remove an extraneous farsight (or other spell I know, Shadow Magic or not) but later change my spell preps to cast farsight with a spell slot of its typical spell level.

-Note that spell slots gained from leveling, items, and otherwise apply normally.  For example, if as a specialty Wizard I have one extraneous level 4 spell in my repertoire then console my way to level 11 (500K EXP) then I gain the appropriate spell slots at all relevant spell levels and that extraneous level 4 spell with which I started the game has become a normal, usable spell slot.

-With the posted fix above alone, only Shadow Adepts are affected, not Nightsingers (Bards).  However, with further file tweaking, Nightsingers can be affected by 5e Casting and their casting worked as if they were normal 5e Bards in terms of spells per day and initial spells known.

-5e Casting doesn't normally apply to Sorcerers of any kit, meaning normal and Shadow Magic Sors functioned as normal.

-5e Generalist Wizard's level 4 spell repertoire.  All spells are bordered.

-This is an example of a specialty Wizard's level 4 spell repertoire.  The last spell slot (the rightmost one) has no border, meaning it can't be cast.  (This phenomenon happened regardless of the specialty of Wizard I checked - Diviner, Enchanter, etc.)

-Imoen's level 4 dual class generalist Wizard spell repertoire.  All spells are bordered.

-A new Bard has a single level 3 spell available to cast at this point and it's bordered.

-This new Shadow Adept shows his level 4 spell repertoire.  Just like with a normal specialty Wizard above, only one spell is bordered.

-This is that same Shadow Adept's level 4 spell repertoire at level 11 (500K EXP).  Note how the extraneous spell slot has been replaced by real spell slots of this level.

Help Me Understand
-Should these extraneous spell slots from character creation happen?  When I mentioned what seemed to be a bug to me with Shadow Adepts and their spell selections, this is what I meant.  This same phenomenon has happened with all 5e specialty Wizards from what I can tell.

-What are the spells prepared and spells per day tables for normal and specialty Wizards with 5e Casting?

-What advantages are specialty Wizards meant to have in this system?

Finally for Now
Thankee!

[subtledoctor]

Okay, I understand much better now. So just to be clear, those pictures you took are pictures where you have used the “Prepare Spells” ability, which enables your spellbook and disables casting. From this point, if you rest, the spellbook memorization slots will be disabled, “locking in” your prepared spells and enabling you to cast them spontaneously. So far so good - this is precisely how the mod works.

What you are seeing and calling a “bug” is also how the mod works. Specifically, the mod makes adjustments to memorization slots via opcode 42. As I said, generalists get an extra memorization slot in their spellbook, while specialists have one fewer slot. 

However, opcode 42 effects are applied to characters in the chatacyer generation screens after the part where you choose spell memorizations. This is just an unfortunate quirk of the engine and there is no getting around it. So with this mod installed, a specialist can memorize 2 spells in CharGen but then one of those slots is removed, resulting in your pic where you have two spells memorized but only one is “bordered.” 

So the mod is behaving correctly; you are just seeing leftover cruft from a stage of CharGen before the mod effects were applied. Mods cannot affect that stage of CharGen, therefore CharGen should not be trusted or used as evidence for whether something is wrong. I mod for actual gameplay and as far as gameplay goes, you are getting the correct number of memorization slots. 

Can you benefit from that CharGen quirk by memorizing an extra spell? Hey, why not, like I said the game has lots of quirks, this won’t be game-breaking and I won’t tell anyone  . But as you play the game and change out spells, the system will correct itself and all will be well. 

Btw that’s good to know about Shadow Magic 3.0, it means I can stop making exceptions for it both here and in Scales of Balance. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by subtledoctor

[Endarire]

Reading your report's a relief, doc!

As you mentioned, there are some minor quirks with this system by prepping spells in character creation then using your mods, since the game thinks it has a different number of spells available to cast than it should according to you; however, also as mentioned, it's easily fixed.

Thankee!  Alleluia!

[pencey]

BG1's Evermemory ring does not grant my character an ability to refresh spell slots like the readme describes.

[subtledoctor]

31 minutes ago, pencey said:

BG1's Evermemory ring does not grant my character an ability to refresh spell slots like the readme describes.

Readme may be out of date. What effect do you see?

[Endarire]

I made a new SoD Shadow Magic Wizard with this updated 5e Casting Shadow Magic compatibility file and used the second install option for spell slot items.  I cast some level 1 spells, pushed the Use Item Key, used Evermemory, and the slots were refreshed as expected.  (5e Shadow Bards also worked.)

Enjoy!

[subtledoctor]

I might change Evermemory to, well, do what it says on the tin. When you wear it, you never run out of first-level slots. True Evermemory. 

Crazy? 

(Of course that raises the question what to do with the IWD ring that doubles 5th-level slots. Give the player infinite 5th-level spellcasting? That seems really crazy…)