Release Candidate 1 for IWDification Now Available

[DavidW]

My feeling was/is that a mod designed to move IWD spells to BG2 should keep its changes to the BG2 spell system to a minimum. Moving a spell to a different level is, in my subjective judgement, a lot more minimal than actually changing it into a different spell. I'd probably rather just leave it at 6th level and accept the mismatch with Entropy Shield if the alternative was changing it into a new spell. However, I don't really have a problem with changing a spell level - I don't really see what's 'arbitrary/contradictory' about it, except that it doesn't match PnP... but PnP fidelity was never an IWDification design goal.

(All that said, this is an SCS design choice that Cam just inherited; he might feel differently.)

[Luke]

On 8/27/2021 at 4:31 AM, CamDawg said:

We've already made them all IWD-style, non-touch spells. David and I discussed Harm and, for now at least, we're content leaving it as it is in BG2. Moving from a to-hit roll to a failed saving throw is a reduction in its usefulness.

I too prefer the IWD-version of these spells, they're easier to use.

Also, the NPC/AI version of these spells (ENEMY_CLERIC_SLAY_LIVING, ENEMY_CLERIC_HARM) is IWD-style (non-touch) in BG2, but that's probably because it's (much?) easier to script / instruct a creature to use a non-touch spell rather than a touch one...

Finally, I'd like to point out there's an unused / unimplemented Touch Projectile flag. You might want to do something about it, it may be relevant in this kind of situations...

Edited August 28, 2021 by Luke

[CamDawg]

There are many excellent reasons why I love working on projects with David. One of my many failings as a modder is that I routinely fall into the trap of simply doing something without asking whether or not it's something worth doing. E.g. I'm more interested in throwing IWD spells onto BG2, whereas David will actually think about it and point out things like* "this makes elemental summoning completely non-sensical" and "there's no longer any reason to learn Physical Mirror" and "FFS, I have better things to do than babysit you" and "these icon colors should follow a consistent scheme".

6 hours ago, DavidW said:

My feeling was/is that a mod designed to move IWD spells to BG2 should keep its changes to the BG2 spell system to a minimum. Moving a spell to a different level is, in my subjective judgement, a lot more minimal than actually changing it into a different spell. I'd probably rather just leave it at 6th level and accept the mismatch with Entropy Shield if the alternative was changing it into a new spell. However, I don't really have a problem with changing a spell level - I don't really see what's 'arbitrary/contradictory' about it, except that it doesn't match PnP... but PnP fidelity was never an IWDification design goal.

(All that said, this is an SCS design choice that Cam just inherited; he might feel differently.)

It also helps that we are, I think, fairly pragmatic when approaching design and resolutions to issues like this. I would also leave PM at level 6, unchanged, before substantially altering it; bumping it down to level 5 is a good compromise.

* I may have made one of these up.

[TotoR]

Hi @CamDawg,

I have installed the last version from github and some questions come to my mind :

• IWD Bard : is not compatible with RR and Garrick-tt. I have made a test and it could be (I'll send you the test in PM if you want)
• IWD Druid : should't it be added to the Avenger kit ? description indicates that the Avenger get all polymorph that un-kit druid have
• IWD Arcane spell : summons (1,2...7) add new monsters and some are not in line with existing/created ones :
  • Level 3 : HOGBOGSU has only 30 hp (vs 42 for others Lv3). This is less than the ogresu from lv 2 (33hp)
  • Level 4 : OGREMASU has more hp (52) than a Lv5 summon (45 and 50hp) and is quite powerfull with its spells. should'nt it be a lv5 summons ? Also it seems that MS5MINO could be swap for it.
  • Level 5 : MS5MINO has less hp (45) than Lv4 summons (48 and 52hp), with a non-magical weapon. It could be swap for the ogremasu witch is more in line with l5 summons and has a +1 weapon
  • Level 6 :
    • DW#MS6GT has more hp than all other summons (101) ans has regeneration and great statistics (st21, dex20, 3atk...) it seems a bit too powerfull even if it were a lv7 summons...
    • MS6SALC weapon is "only" 1d6+2d4 (cold) (max=14) with 2atr. In addition, it has no stats of a frost Salamander (normally it is 5 attack/round, 63hp, ST17, AC2 at least)
    • MS6SALF weapon is 2d8+1d6 (fire) + 4 (max=26) with 2atr making it far better from the frost salamander. In addition, and like frost salamander, it does not have its regular stats (should be 63hp, ST16, INT14, AC2 at least)
  • Level 7 :
    • DW#MS7ET : is a great addition, instead of boneguard, but it has a non-magical weapon making it useless for a lv9 spell
    • MS7UMBH : has not the standard stats for an umber hulk (should be 72hp, st 19, con 15, dex16, int 10 at least)
  • It could be nice to add already design/created monsters (like the ogremasu) from oBG2 that was not implemented wolfwisu, jellmusu, basillsu and basilgsu.

Anyway, thanks for your hard work on this.

Edited August 30, 2021 by TotoR

[Luke]

On 7/31/2021 at 8:52 PM, Galactygon said:

Cloudburst: I noticed in IWDEE it doesn't remove the Shroud of Flame subspells SPWI524B/C.spl properly. Is a bug in 2.6

Removing the C one is probably useless (or extra precaution) since it applies a single instantaneous effect (op12), so there would be nothing to remove for op321...

[Graion Dilach]

One thing I noticed with RC1 is that IWD scrolls do not switch artwork to the coiled generic scroll when they are moved between slots/characters.

[Graion Dilach]

On 9/5/2021 at 9:47 AM, Graion Dilach said:

One thing I noticed with RC1 is that IWD scrolls do not switch artwork to the coiled generic scroll when they are moved between slots/characters.

Ignore this guy, he's an idiot who can't read that @argent77's ToTLM conversion should come after IWDification, breaking both magic components thenafter. It looks fine when I fixed my installation order. (can I request a PI dynamic install order rule in one of these mods for dumbasses like me?)

[Luke]

On 8/1/2021 at 2:51 PM, Galactygon said:

Opcode 102 doesn't protect against area of effect projectiles if coming from the caster. If you remove the 102s from MGoI you can damage yourself with a Fireball. In Antimagic Shell's case they aren't necessary since spellcasting is disabled anyway.

@CamDawg Remember to add all new non Party-friendly AoE spells that are not flagged as "Hostile" (BIT10 @0x18) (f.i.: Spike Stones) to all those SPL/ITM files that apply op102 (notably "SCRL07.ITM – Protection from Magic" and Lich / Rakshasa rings...)

Guess you can safely skip Otiluke's Resilient Sphere's subspell since spellcasting is disabled anyway (it applies Casting Failure like Antimagic Shell...)

 

Edited September 17, 2021 by Luke

[subtledoctor]

Shouldn’t Spike Stones have the “hostile” flag? Seems pretty damn hostile to me. 

[Luke]

2 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Shouldn’t Spike Stones have the “hostile” flag? Seems pretty damn hostile to me. 

True, but it's not flagged as "Hostile" in IWDEE (v2.6), only BIT9 is set to 1...

It's also worth mentioning that as of v2.6, the main difference between "BIT9" and "BIT10" is the interaction with op102. If BIT10 is not set, then op102 cannot protect the caster from its own AoE spells... Apart from that, both flags remove Sanctuary and Invisibility, so Spike Stones is somewhat hostile...

Edited September 17, 2021 by Luke

[subtledoctor]

Just seems like, if you start murdering civilians in Kuldahar by impaling them with spikes that shoot up from the ground (and let's spare a thought for what a gruesome way to go that is), the townsfolk should probably get pretty angry at you.

[Luke]

19 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Just seems like, if you start murdering civilians in Kuldahar by impaling them with spikes that shoot up from the ground (and let's spare a thought for what a gruesome way to go that is), the townsfolk should probably get pretty angry at you.

Ah, yes, you're right. That's the other important difference between BIT9 and BIT10.

BIT10 is also necessary to trigger the "AttackedBy()" script trigger (BIT9 cannot trigger it). However, it's not necessary in this case since the spell always deals damage via opcode #12 (bypass MR, no save)... and since op12 does trigger "AttackedBy()", civilians will turn hostile even if BIT10 is not set (provided of course they're not immediately killed upon taking damage...). Ditto for Spike Growth and the like...

Sure, there could be problems in case op12 does not bypass MR and/or grants a Save (f.i. Acid Storm), but as you can see, these spells seem to be flagged as "Hostile" (BIT10 is set to 1), so everything should be fine...

[subtledoctor]

Ah - got it. 

[Luke]

On 8/25/2021 at 12:32 AM, CamDawg said:

If you look at the files, the SSxLIZx have invalid abilities (255) selected. MS2LIZM, which uses the same weapon, was working fine since it uses a valid value (0) here.

edit: traced it higher up the stack; a patch in the converter was messing up multiple inventory items and it's all fixed.

@Gwendolyne

Unfortunately, there's another issue now (BGEE with SoD).

If the creature is facing east, then you'll notice that its weapon and sprite are misaligned (see attached screenshot).

Guess there's something wrong with the BAM files...? But I'm not having this issue on IWDEE, and these BAM files are taken from that game as are ... Is it something at the engine level...?

Also, possibly related: the same issue occurs with the ordinary LIZARD_MAN animation (0xE510) and the YUAN-TI animation (0xED00). Something else...? Could it be something related to Animation Type E000 (monster_icewind)...?

Spoiler

 

Edited September 19, 2021 by Luke

[CamDawg]

Oh god, we need a content warning on that spoiler tag. I had forgotten the full horror of sprite outlines.