Sword Coast Stratagems v34 (edit: 34.3) now available

[pochesun]

I been installing SCS and some sections were installed with warnings: priests and druids are known issues but in "Initialise AI components" i noticed this 

[./override/sppr313.spl] loaded, 202 bytes

WARNING: no effects altered on sppr313.spl
Copying and patching 1 file ...
[./override/spcaco.eff] loaded, 272 bytes

What could this be about? I believe sppr313.spl is Holy Smite spell. I have Spell Revision Revised and Item Revision Revised installed before SCS. Can it be a conflict with SRR or is it just SCS issue?

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, pochesun said:

I been installing SCS and some sections were installed with warnings: priests and druids are known issues but in "Initialise AI components" i noticed this 

[./override/sppr313.spl] loaded, 202 bytes

WARNING: no effects altered on sppr313.spl
Copying and patching 1 file ...
[./override/spcaco.eff] loaded, 272 bytes

What could this be about? I believe sppr313.spl is Holy Smite spell. I have Spell Revision Revised and Item Revision Revised installed before SCS. Can it be a conflict with SRR or is it just SCS issue?

That specific warning is harmless in the vast majority of cases - all it means to say is that the resource wasn't altered. There could a few different reasons why this might happen, but as far as errors/warnings go, "nothing has changed" is one of the safest.

[pochesun]

10 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

That specific warning is harmless in the vast majority of cases - all it means to say is that the resource wasn't altered. There could a few different reasons why this might happen, but as far as errors/warnings go, "nothing has changed" is one of the safest.

i see, i am still curious if its SRR related, i will try to install scs with and without SRR, see what happens. For research sake

[subtledoctor]

23 hours ago, pochesun said:

WARNING: no effects altered on sppr313.spl

What could this be about?

I said this over in the other forum but I’ll repeat it here for the sake of any future readers: this ‘warning’ generally means that no effects needed to be altered for the mod to do what the mod is doing. It usually does not indicate a bug of any sort. 

Edited June 30, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Guest Morgoth]

I have a question concerning better calls for help: is it intended that if you punch the guy on the upper floor of the tavern in Candlekeep, all the inn becomes hostile? Or is it an oddity of my game?

[pochesun]

4 hours ago, Guest Morgoth said:

I have a question concerning better calls for help: is it intended that if you punch the guy on the upper floor of the tavern in Candlekeep, all the inn becomes hostile? Or is it an oddity of my game?

This behavior changed some time ago with some of older SCS versions. With old SCS version (like 2.5) that nobleman was punchable without alarms, so you could steal gold from his drawboard, but at some point SCS changed it with later versions. Oddly enough this change of behavior could coincide with another version of the game itself (i mean later patches from Beamdog), but i still think that SCS is a "culprit" here.

[Guest Morgoth]

13 hours ago, pochesun said:

This behavior changed some time ago with some of older SCS versions. With old SCS version (like 2.5) that nobleman was punchable without alarms, so you could steal gold from his drawboard, but at some point SCS changed it with later versions. Oddly enough this change of behavior could coincide with another version of the game itself (i mean later patches from Beamdog), but i still think that SCS is a "culprit" here.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm wondering if DavidW made this change deliberately and what's the rationale behind it. I think I liked the old behaviour more

[The_Baffled_King]

10 hours ago, Guest Morgoth said:

Thanks for the feedback. I'm wondering if DavidW made this change deliberately and what's the rationale behind it. I think I liked the old behaviour more

The vanilla game might very well be the culprit.

In v2.6.5, and in the final version of v.2.5, non-combatant area actors in Candlekeep have the specifics script WAITRUN.BCS, and combatants have the specifics script WAITHSTL.BCS. If creatures with these scripts are attacked, they set the global variable "AttackedCandleKeep" to 1 and turn hostile, if that global variable is already set to 1, they turn hostile even if they haven't been attacked yet (there are also other scripts that use that variable in that way). My most recent install with SCS is on the final version of v.2.5, and I think it's one of the last versions of SCS v33. That version of SCS makes no changes to WAITRUN.BCS or WAITHSTL.BCS, and it doesn't remove the script from the actors. So, attacking the nobleman on the upper floor sets that global variable, and it is the global variable that turns everyone else hostile - I don't think the scripts changed by 'Better Calls for Help' are to blame. I don't know when that behaviour was introduced into the vanilla game. Also, I don't know whether it's possible that the changes that SCS makes to creature scripts (ie not the scripts I mentioned) could ever have operated in a fashion that prevented the specifics scripts for the area actors from being parsed, but that's getting beyond my knowledge (in theory and in relation to SCS).

Edited July 1, 2022 by The_Baffled_King

[pochesun]

5 hours ago, The_Baffled_King said:

The vanilla game might very well be the culprit.

In v2.6.5, and in the final version of v.2.5, non-combatant area actors in Candlekeep have the specifics script WAITRUN.BCS, and combatants have the specifics script WAITHSTL.BCS. If creatures with these scripts are attacked, they set the global variable "AttackedCandleKeep" to 1 and turn hostile, if that global variable is already set to 1, they turn hostile even if they haven't been attacked yet (there are also other scripts that use that variable in that way). My most recent install with SCS is on the final version of v.2.5, and I think it's one of the last versions of SCS v33. That version of SCS makes no changes to WAITRUN.BCS or WAITHSTL.BCS, and it doesn't remove the script from the actors. So, attacking the nobleman on the upper floor sets that global variable, and it is the global variable that turns everyone else hostile - I don't think the scripts changed by 'Better Calls for Help' are to blame. I don't know when that behaviour was introduced into the vanilla game. Also, I don't know whether it's possible that the changes that SCS makes to creature scripts (ie not the scripts I mentioned) could ever have operated in a fashion that prevented the specifics scripts for the area actors from being parsed, but that's getting beyond my knowledge (in theory and in relation to SCS).

thx for clarifying. So you saying beamdog messed up with 2.6.6 patch?

[DavidW]

On 6/30/2022 at 4:08 AM, subtledoctor said:

I said this over in the other forum but I’ll repeat it here for the sake of any future readers: this ‘warning’ generally means that no effects needed to be altered for the mod to do what the mod is doing. It usually does not indicate a bug of any sort. 

As far as SCS is concerned, though, it’s a bug: if I’m trying to alter something, I want it altered. Of course, the bug could be that I should be checking whether I need it altered - but in any case please *do* report bugs like this.

[DavidW]

It does look as if this go-hostile thing is a vanilla game change; it’s certainly not an intentional SCS change. Better Calls for Help is mostly intended to get already-hostile groups to work together better; it’s not intended to mess with the vanilla game’s (somewhat tangled) logic as to who goes hostile in the first place, though sometimes it ends up doing so accidentally.

[Guest guestMM]

There seems to be some sort issue with Rakshasas. Sadaat is a 9th level raskhasa and has level 6 spells, while Ihtafeer is level 11 and has access to 7th level spells. Not only is this illegal by the wizard spell table, but according to the MM (http://www.mojobob.com/roleplay/monstrousmanual/r/rakshasa.html), rakshasa do not typically get full spell selection. As noted a Raskshasa who casts as an 11th level caster should only have the spellbook of a level 6/8 cleric mage, and a Rakshasa casting at 9th level should only still have access to 3rd level wizard spells.

[Guest guestMM]

this also seems to be a consistent problem with Ruhk Rakshasas where they all have much higher spell selection than would be typical for a rakshasa. 11 hit dice does not mean the spellbook of an 11th level wizard especially for creatures that have strong physical abilities.

[DavidW]

This is a classic example of BG2 differing from PnP AD&D. Rakshasas in BG2 routinely have, and usually are scripted to use, spells roughly equivalent to their HD. Saadat, for instance, is scripted to use Death Fog (a 6th level spell). I think SCS is doing a reasonable (inevitably, imperfect) job of replicating the abilities Rakshasas display in-game. Those abilities are much stronger than PnP Rakshasas, but SCS isn’t a PnP simulator.

[Guest guestMM]

According to the wiki (https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Saadat) Sadaat has spellcasting of Chromatic Orb ,Magic Missile (×2), Melf's Acid Arrow ,Fireball ,Flame Arrow, which is pretty much equivalent to a PnP Rakshasa. Giving a 3rd level spellcaster level 6 spells is a pretty huge balance change and giving a 9HD creature level 6 spells and an 11 HD creature level 7 spells when Wizards can't even cast them until 12th and 14th level is pretty horribly inconsistent no matter what ruleset you are going by. These 3 Rakshasa in particular are typically encountered by a lower level party who don't have access to 8th level spells either, so PFMW combined with breach invulnerability combined with normal weapon invunerability makes them immortal to pretty much everything except dragon breath/absorb health type abilities for 8 rounds. 

If we are looking at RAKRUH01 specifically for our justification a single cast of death fog is pretty big difference in balance versus 2 casts of PFMW both in terms of spells known and its impact on a creature that is immune to breach by default. Their spellbooks were also pretty sparsely populated, and it seemed more or less intentional that they were fighter/mage types rather than pure casters like liches who had full spellbooks in the base game.  

I think making them supermages is a bit of a mistake and they should most likely have their casting nerfed, otherwise they should at least have their level increased so they aren't casting illegal spells according to BG2 rules.  If we are talking about "replicating the abilities Rakshasas display in-game" I don't think it was intentional for something to be both immune to both breach and have so many defensive spells up at the same time in the first place, but that's your choice on that one.

As an aside, since you rebalance many spells in your mod, have you considered that in terms of balance it would make more sense if we got mantle at 6th level, improved mantle at 7th, PFMW at 8th, and Absolute Immunity at 9th? PFMW is one of those anomalous spells that forces the rest of the game to play around it, and it doesn't make sense that it should be lower level than mantle in the first place.