Sword Coast Stratagems v34 (edit: 34.3) now available

[subtledoctor]

I’m using SCS v33... I think 33.4. It’s working great. I generally hesitate to recommend using an old version of something, and v34 has introduced some really nice features. But, for players who just want a problem-free game, reliable beats new. 

(Just, if you do that, do NOT post about v33 bugs. It will likely just confuse things.)

[pochesun]

7 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I’m using SCS v33... I think 33.4. It’s working great. I generally hesitate to recommend using an old version of something, and v34 has introduced some really nice features. But, for players who just want a problem-free game, reliable beats new. 

(Just, if you do that, do NOT post about v33 bugs. It will likely just confuse things.)

Right. I think 33.4 is the last version that does not have a nasty problem with mages not being able to fight after their spell book is depleted. Also the abscence of many new features being introduced in V 34 can be easily mitigated by using other mods (IRR or SRR for instance: like "Wand of Spell Striking now reduces MR by 20% rather than a level-dependent amount" been handled by SRR etc.).

[Gordian]

If playing 2.6 (with IRR and SRR) one would have to resort to v34.x, no?

That's the impression I got from checking the releases on github.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Gordian

[pochesun]

16 hours ago, Gordian said:

If playing 2.6 (with IRR and SRR) one would have to resort to v34.x, no?

That's the impression I got from checking the releases on github.

I am not sure i understand what you mean. If you imply IRR and SRR versions then, to my knowledge, they dont force you to use the latest SCS version. If i misconstrued you post please elaborate on it. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by pochesun

[Gordian]

On 1/23/2022 at 7:14 PM, pochesun said:

I am not sure i understand what you mean. If you imply IRR and SRR versions then, to my knowledge, they dont force you to use the latest SCS version. If i misconstrued you post please elaborate on it. 

The IRR and SRR portion of that sentence was just providing additional info.

2.6 seems to clash with earlier versions of SCS if you check the changes made in v34 and v34.1 here - thus requiring you to play on 2.5 if you want to use, say, 33.4.

I don't know which "critical issues" they are referring to though.

I hope I could specify my question sufficiently.

 

I'm mainly concerned with 34.x breaking beholders and contemplating omitting said component for now.

 

edit: thanks for digging, @Angel. : )

Edited January 25, 2022 by Gordian

[boof]

Thanks for some of the suggestions.

 

I don't know if this is an scs thing, but I've noticed with liches in particular, if they timestop and have only a summon in their field of view, they'll sometimes spam the death spell three times, which is complete overkill of course as only one is ever needed.

[jmerry]

Since it's the SCS script doing that, yes, it's an SCS thing. SCS mages are scripted to use Death Spell to kill summons, which works great most of the time - but in a Time Stop, the Death Spell Projectile doesn't move and the summon sticks around to trigger the logic again.

There is some logic in the scripts around using spells differently in a Time Stop, but it's not perfect. You've noticed a hole in it.

[boof]

Too bad, a decent tactic to eat up at least one round of their casting turns into a cheesy exploit

 

Just did the fight with Anadramatis, and he doesn't cast his wish spell. Not sure if an intended nerf, as from everything I've seen and read spanning years, he's always led with a wish. Really underwhelming fight in general, he barely did anything other than auto attack and breath (kind of my general experience with dragons). After the initial remove magic on him, the fighters could almost afk default attack him to death without any haste, maybe an occasional heal potion used (maxed settings for scs).

Very weak encounter considering the lizardman insanity of a fight that happens right before it. I understand the concept of pacing for good gameplay, but weird to make a bunch of what's essentially fodder enemies the peak combat encounter, and Draconis and Anadramatis the more laid back, easy fights.

Edited January 26, 2022 by boof

[Bartimaeus]

IMO, dragons are pretty underwhelming in general, even if you try avoiding some of the cheesier strategies like constantly summoning. The simple reality is that a dragon is only one creature, and it's difficult for one creature, no matter how powerful, to really match the action output of 5 or more pre-buffed characters unless it is truly insanely strong...especially if they're not spellcasters with a wide array of tools at their disposal. Well, dragons are technically spellcasters, but they have a very limited spellbook that seems to be defensively oriented just to buy themselves time in between attacking and firebreathing. As it is, I don't think it's really that particularly difficult to kill any of the dragons in even SoA the moment you come across them if you sufficiently prepare. I find something like the Haer'Dalis planar prison fight many times more challenging than Firkraag.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Gordian]

Hm...
One could maybe give them abilities (I'm thinking in analogy to MnG feats or similar - if I had the choice, all enemies would get similar abilities and use them via SCS scripts) as at will abilities being quick/free actions to make them independent of their casting potential and boosting their action economy versus a full party. Another (additional?) option would be to give them multi-directional attacks for facing multiple opponents (I'm thinking bite, claws, tails, wings - they have 2 of those, iirc) but this might not be feasible at all.
Also: them being in a much higher size category than humans should result in them having a much larger range (don't know their default range, but it's an easy check in NI). I think there already was a mod idea on enemy ranges - totally in favour, where it is sensible. Will likely need a script overhaul though...

I really like what Angel did with his alternate damage for large creatures component in mih_tweaks. Ideas like this one add granularity and immersion.

 

On spells: extending the set of spells the AI can use seems to be a herculean task, from what I've read here (and UA-like abilities might be in the same boat), else I'd also propose a dynamic check for installed spells and HLAs (maybe even more so) and adding them to the AI's arsenal.

Again something I don't know the status quo about: how does SCS AI react to being debuffed (SoS spells/abilities often in preparation of SoD/outright die ones)? Does is prioritise getting rid of them immediately?

 

Ad targeting: I don't know its current state well enough as a baseline, but making smart (i.e. INT/WIS maybe lore even) enemies analyse the situation and focusing the biggest threat would make for interesting gameplay. ME_tweaks makes enemies change their target faster (no idea whether that's needed with SCS), which prevents some kiting cheese.

 

A dragon should be one of the most fearsome enemies, preferably not just due to stats and its aura (could be different auras too). There's the Super Firkraag mod too, don't know what it changed/did though.

The gist of my notions is: we give the player so many useful and shiny tools, but most enemies have to resort to their (beefed up) vanilla ones, if I'm not mistaken. UA already houses many of the tools conceivable, we'd just have to make enemies use them too. (Probably with several layers of scaling using sliders.) This would be an angle for making fights more interesting and hopefully requiring some innovative thinking/extra care when facing many of Faerûn's inhabitants.

 

(Afterthought: The more I read in this thread, the more I'm gravitating to reverting to 2.5 and SCS 33.4 (not going to as of yet, but still). Even though dragons might be the same. Patience and an SCS update or two will definitely be the better choice.)

Edited January 26, 2022 by Gordian

[subtledoctor]

Could reduce the directed attacks and add an invisible Blade Barrier effect, idea being anyone who gets close enough to melee is close enough to be raked by dragon claws every round. (And easy enough to exclude invisible/hidden attackers from such damage.) That way no matter how many people pile on, the dragon's defensive damage output will scale, and it becomes a question of comparing the damage output of each side. And of course the dragon could use breath/wing buffet/spells during that time.

Could easily add on-hit effects to dragon attacks, like knockdown or stun, to simulate the sheer force of being hit not just by a claw, but by a claw that is bigger than your whole body. That would allow dragons to possibly stun-lock attackers a bit, and would allow dragon attacks to be effective against those with Stoneskin up. (Arguably giants and similarly large creatures should have this as well.)

Dunno what else... lots of options to be creative here... and if they are fairly straightforward ideas, like passive effects, they could be applied by another mod and work with SCS without changing any scripting.

[boof]

I think giving them an extra action per round of some sort like Kangaxx's trap the soul might spice them up. Maybe something that lowers resistance to their element, as right now it's just a matter of throwing up one spell to be immune to the dragon's strongest weapon. Maybe something with a massive penalty but short duration (like -100 resistance, 2-3 rounds duration) or something small, but aoe and cumulative. 

Now that I think about it, I'm rarely getting wing buffeted, and that was what tended to make dragon fights chaotic in the past.

I just did the 4 dragon fight in Abazigal's lair, and that was pretty cool, but I think one person got wing buffeted once during the whole thing, and I can't even remember the last time before that that someone got buffeted. Looking into it, apparently spell shield, amulet of power and abjuration immunity blocks wing buffet, and I have three people running impervious sanctity of mind which is essentially a spell shield, a fourth with the amulet and a fifth often has abjuration immunity. Wing buffet really needs to be ignoring all of these. Would make Anadramatis's amulet that grants wing buffet immunity more meaningful.

Edited January 26, 2022 by boof

[Gordian]

1 hour ago, boof said:

 Maybe something that lowers resistance to their element, as right now it's just a matter of throwing up one spell to be immune to the dragon's strongest weapon.

According to the wiki Firkraag (at least) has this already, that's why I didn't bother proposing. If that's not true for all dragons, then that might be a good addition. You could also make it set the resistance to a certain amount or maybe there's some middle ground between cumulative and set.

1 hour ago, boof said:

Now that I think about it, I'm rarely getting wing buffeted, and that was what tended to make dragon fights chaotic in the past.

I haven't fought dragons in a long time, so I can't comment on frequency (even more so in a modded game). What I can state is, that I don't really like its implementation too much, but launching characters into the air or whirling them around might not be feasible without EEex (I think Olvyn Spells managed to do something like this). I wholeheartedly agree with the rest of your paragraph btw.

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Could reduce the directed attacks and add an invisible Blade Barrier effect, idea being anyone who gets close enough to melee is close enough to be raked by dragon claws every round. (And easy enough to exclude invisible/hidden attackers from such damage.) That way no matter how many people pile on, the dragon's defensive damage output will scale, and it becomes a question of comparing the damage output of each side. And of course the dragon could use breath/wing buffet/spells during that time.

That's an elegant way of implementing/emulating multidirectional attacks! This train of thought could be applied to more enemies than just dragons, I suppose.

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Could easily add on-hit effects to dragon attacks, like knockdown or stun, to simulate the sheer force of being hit not just by a claw, but by a claw that is bigger than your whole body. That would allow dragons to possibly stun-lock attackers a bit, and would allow dragon attacks to be effective against those with Stoneskin up. (Arguably giants and similarly large creatures should have this as well.)

Yep, that would be one way of giving them "feats" - also agree on the large creatures part. Wondering whether maybe there should be different versions of this - differing in the effect being blocked by Freedom of Movement or not, when using being stunned as an example. As in a powerful enough dragon overcoming this protection. Angel's mih_eq has various tiers for creatures like dragons or vampires, thus an elder+ version of a creature could overcome some protections that are directed against their natural abilities.

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Dunno what else... lots of options to be creative here... and if they are fairly straightforward ideas, like passive effects, they could be applied by another mod and work with SCS without changing any scripting.

Do SCS scripts check for states like "stunned" by default? I'm thinking of targeting behaviour etc here.

 

Adding such (mainly passive) abilities to various creatures might really be an interesting mod to spice up the game. It would also benefit from SCS' difficulty slider and/or fine tuning options.

 

On quoting: I'm pretty new to writing in forums: is there a way of quoting a specific passage without having to quote everything and deleting the rest? Might just be my lack of knowledge, but seems tedious.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Gordian

[subtledoctor]

17 minutes ago, Gordian said:

Adding such (mainly passive) abilities to various creatures might really be an interesting mod to spice up the game.

Well, my "Random Tweaks" mod has a whole section on creatures, but as yet there are precisely two tweaks. Stuff like this - on-hit effects, auras, defensive effects - would be quite simple to code up. Feel free to throw around ideas over there and there's a decent chance they could become a reality.

17 minutes ago, Gordian said:

According to the wiki Firkraag (at least) has this already, that's why I didn't bother proposing.

I glanced at the .CRE file in BG2EE 2.5 and I don't see any such thing (reducing fire resistance of enemies)... is this supposed to be an SCS thing?

It's actually a great idea - isn't dragon fire often supposed to be hotter and more destructive than normal fire? I could see giving all dragons an aura that reduces resistance to their element to 50% max in all nearby enemies...

17 minutes ago, Gordian said:

is there a way of quoting a specific passage without having to quote everything and deleting the rest?

In my browsers (Firefox & Safari), when I highlight any text in a post, a little button appears that offers to quote just the highlighted text. I don't really like this forum software, but that part is neat.

Edited January 26, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Gordian]

7 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Well, my "Random Tweaks" mod has a whole section on creatures, but as yet there are precisely two tweaks. Stuff like this - on-hit effects, auras, defensive effects - would be quite simple to code up. Feel free to throw around ideas over there and there's a decent chance they could become a reality.

You posted two excellent implementations yourself, I feel. One could create multiple components to add said effects to various creatures to give players a choice and/or fine tune their difficulty.

I also contemplated writing something along those lines myself but I don't think that I'm there yet and should probably start with something smaller on the one hand and UA already houses many features which could be applied to enemies in addition to giving those options to players - also alluding to our conversation on feats for AI F/T.

I will check out the thread and try to contribute if I come up with something concise and (more or less) sensible.

8 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

In my browsers (Firefox & Safari), when I highlight any text in a post, a little button appears that offers to quote just the highlighted text. I don't really like this forum software, but that part is neat.

Heh... this was the first thing I tried a few weeks ago, but I must have missed the pop-up somehow (Firefox), thanks indeed!