Sword Coast Stratagems v34 (edit: 34.3) now available

[CamDawg]

Oh derp, I thought we were looking at imported IWD spells. I see the issue now in regular ole BG2EE.

edit: and agreed about with the changes. I'd like to first try changing them to mode 3/25% since that seems best in line with the intent. If mode 3 damage also doesn't leave combat feedback, then we definitely need to indicate to the player that something's happening. If we go portrait icon I don't think dying is the best option, but on the other hand, nothing existing applies either. Something generic like 'constriction damage' as feedback might work, but as always, I'm open to suggestions.

Edited November 4, 2023 by CamDawg

[polytope]

1 hour ago, CamDawg said:

edit: and agreed about with the changes. I'd like to first try changing them to mode 3/25% since that seems best in line with the intent. If mode 3 damage also doesn't leave combat feedback, then we definitely need to indicate to the player that something's happening. If we go portrait icon I don't think dying is the best option, but on the other hand, nothing existing applies either. Something generic like 'constriction damage' as feedback might work, but as always, I'm open to suggestions.

Yes, besides hp fluctuating due to the mode, with a lack of feedback in the combat log it's also not obvious to a player who doesn't delve into the mechanics where the damage is coming from, since it's delayed without a specific portrait icon or feedback string.

Also, unlike the damage tick from bleeding, poison or disease it's counterintuitive to the player that killing the shambler won't end the problem, for a constriction attack. To solve that aspect I think it would have to be broken into several time delayed subspells, with an added death script for the shambler to use a separate .spl that removes the lingering effects on the targets. I tried something like that with mindflayers (which are supposed to kill in 4 successful hits) and it became too complex and annoying to maintain.

I think we saw similar problems with aTweaks fiends and their constriction/grabbing attacks, the game engine just isn't set up to properly implement monsters which are supposed to grapple, envelop or whatever.

[boof]

13 hours ago, polytope said:

I believe this is actually due to the melee attacks of the shambling mounds accompanying Nyalee.

If struck by one of those mounds and failing any of several saving throws (at +4, +2, 0) then your character's hp are set to 25% with a staggered delay.

However that will also actually increase the PCs hp if it were below that threshold. This looks like a fixpack thing @CamDawg I'm pretty sure the concept is that the target loses 25% of their hp per round (or half-round as implemented) while the shambler suffocates them, so decrement rather than set.

Should also probably add a "dying" icon to their attack, to give the player a clue that they're in trouble if hit and failing a save.

Damn... thanks for the clarification. This is a crazy dangerous effect and definitely needs better readability for the player. So in theory if you failed every one of the saves, you'd get set to 25% hp multiple times during the next round and a half? (saw in NI that the duration goes up to 9). And it is also accompanied by the entangle effect to boot. Big yikes. Definitely thinking twice before engaging them in melee again, at least without making sure the saves are sufficient. Thanks again.

Edit: Looking at the clip again, Anomen here would've had a Spell save of 1 (not seeing any save reducing effects on him), which should allow him to make every spell save vs the shambling mound. How did he get hit by the damage then, and two times to boot.

Edited November 4, 2023 by boof

[boof]

11 hours ago, CamDawg said:

If we go portrait icon I don't think dying is the best option, but on the other hand, nothing existing applies either. Something generic like 'constriction damage' as feedback might work, but as always, I'm open to suggestions.

Dying portrait icon would be better than nothing, but a portrait icon in general would not be ideal as by this time in the game a lot of players' portraits are absolutely covered in buffs. It might be easily missed, or just plain old not visible at all.
I don't know how much trouble it would be adding a visual effect on the character would be, accompanied with something in the combat log. What visual effect would be best, I don't really know.

Edited November 4, 2023 by boof

[polytope]

11 hours ago, boof said:

Edit: Looking at the clip again, Anomen here would've had a Spell save of 1 (not seeing any save reducing effects on him), which should allow him to make every spell save vs the shambling mound. How did he get hit by the damage then, and two times to boot.

The nymphs that arrive with Nyalee's shamblers may be the culprit, HGNYMPH has both a melee attack (not likely to connect with an armored fighter or cleric though) and a special scripted spell-like ability that can lower saves vs spell. An interesting and rare synchronisation of dissimilar creature's abilities. It's obviously pretty unlikely to see it in game as so few posters have commented on it.

[boof]

15 hours ago, polytope said:

The nymphs that arrive with Nyalee's shamblers may be the culprit, HGNYMPH has both a melee attack (not likely to connect with an armored fighter or cleric though) and a special scripted spell-like ability that can lower saves vs spell. An interesting and rare synchronisation of dissimilar creature's abilities. It's obviously pretty unlikely to see it in game as so few posters have commented on it.

Thanks for looking into it.
I see the melee effect but couldn't find the ability, but I'll take your word for it. If it did hit, it didn't leave a profile icon, which it probably should.
Hopefully the shambling mound thing gets fixed up so it is incremental and not a set to 25%.

And yeah, this is an even more interesting and unique encounter than I first thought due to these synergies.

[Andrea C.]

I apologize if this has been mentioned before; I'm getting the following error message when trying to install the Initialize AI component:

Quote

Will uninstall  48 files for [STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2] component 5900.
Uninstalled     48 files for [STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2] component 5900.
ERROR: Failure("resource [ohdarmor.itm.itm] not found for 'COPY'")

This is the code for component 5900:

BEGIN @16024 DESIGNATED 5900 GROUP @6

REQUIRE_PREDICATE (GAME_IS ~tutu tutu_totsc bgee bg2ee eet iwdee~ || MOD_IS_INSTALLED ~setup-bg2fixpack.tp2~ ~0~ ) @24124


LAF run STR_VAR files=initial location=initial END
ACTION_IF !VARIABLE_IS_SET SFO_batch_mode BEGIN
	CLEAR_MEMORY // we've messed enough settings around, best to re-initialise 'always'
END

Any idea how I can work around this?

[TotoR]

2 hours ago, Andrea C. said:

ohdarmor.itm.itm

Hi,

I am not sure but SCS may fail when you have a file created by NI named xxxxxx.bak (backup file) in the override folder. You could try to erase them before installing SCS (but of course you loose the backup from NI)

[Andrea C.]

1 hour ago, TotoR said:

I am not sure but SCS may fail when you have a file created by NI named xxxxxx.bak (backup file) in the override folder.

That was it! Thank you!

EDIT: Spoke too soon, now the error message changed to:

Quote

ERROR: cannot convert feedback_yloc or %feedback_yloc% to an integer
ERROR: [ui.menu] -> [override/ui.menu] Patching Failed (COPY) (Not_found)

Will uninstall 3683 files for [STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2] component 5900.
Uninstalled    3683 files for [STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2] component 5900.
ERROR: Not_found

I'll see if I can install the UI mod after SCS then...

Edited November 7, 2023 by Andrea C.

[Graion Dilach]

InfinityUI and the BG1 UI are not ready for a megamod installation. You can also just use the stratagmes.ini setting to revert the UI patching to an innate.

If you're forced to install your UI mod after your tweak mods, that means you shouldn't use that UI mod. Simple as that.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Graion Dilach

[boof]

It may have been mentioned before (starting to lose track at this point), but some enemies tend to happily beat on mordenkainen swords, doing no damage. Most notably golems, but I think I've noticed others as well. Would be nice to get them to switch targets.

[harticus33]

Hi @boof and @CamDawg, sorry to jump in here, but quick SCS question - ya'll mentioned above about atweaks fiends - is there any compatibility these days with the latest versions of SCS and tweaks to have pnp fiends work correctly with SCS? I installed SCS first but haven't installed PNP fiends yet, trying to do some research. I can't find anything by googling that's more recent than 2020. Will this work out these days? Thanks!

[Graion Dilach]

It won't. PnP Fiends break 2.6 Aec'Letec.I had a hack to combine the two, but I couldn't resolve this incompat yet, also ToToR's ongoing update is of better quality (but last I seen, it doesn't touch this either).

[Connelly]

I remember some time ago disabling all the lines referencing Aec'Letec just to be safe with aTweaks, even with Totor's fork, and it was easy enough. But the following fiend components seem to have issues of some kind installing.

That said, wouldn't the fiends components of both mods make fiends unreasonably strong? Besides maybe aTweaks assuming an older version of SCS and potentially messing with things (though I think Totor might have fixed that).

[harticus33]

@Connelly you don't happen to remember the lines referencing Letec? If possible, I'd like to try; I haven't started the game yet but I did just install PnP Fiends successfully over SCS without errors (though I know that doesn't mean it necessarily work out well).

Also, it does make for a crazy run. I remember a previous giant mod run I did a decade ago with fiends summoning fiends and it was pretty glorious.