SubtleMods: Magic Battles Revised - streamlined rules for mage duels

[Nameless_Knight]

On 12/10/2021 at 9:33 PM, subtledoctor said:

EDIT - sorry, it turned into a long post. The tl;dr is, this should work great with SCS AI and IWD spells. To minimize risks, set Spell Thrust to 3rd-level when installing.

It is designed to work just fine with SCS - in fact when making the versions of the spells installed by this mod, I used versions that had SCS installed as a starting point. So the spell defenses like Minor Deflection, for example, sets spell states and proficiencies so as to function with the SCS version of Detectable Spells, which should allow the AI to handle spell battles with this mod as well as it handles the normal or SR systems. Moreover, as noted, this mod lets lower-level magic attacks like Spell Thrust and Secret Word be more effective against high-level spell defenses like Greater Deflection. I have tailored the DS spell states to allow the AI to take advantage of this. (Though, there has not been much playtesting.)

Apparently, according to some discussion above, SCS may patch these spells while this mod installs them in what should be their final configuration. So this should be installed after SCS. However, apparently SCS will not patch them if SR or SRR is installed first. So if playing with SR or SRR, then you can install this before SCS.

Entropy Shield, as installed and modified by SCS (v33) in my current game, is supposed* to protect you from Breach. Entropy Shield has the "Spell Protection" secondary type, so in this way it works for priests pretty much the same as Deflection works for mages: it protects you from Breach but can be dispelled by Spell Thrust, Secret Word, Pierce Magic, etc.

Impervious Sanctity of Mind, as installed and modified by SCS,* casts a subspell, DW#ISSS.spl, which is a clone of the Spell Shield wizard spell. Because this subspell has the same secondary type as Spell Shield, it will work just fine with this mod. (However, if this mod is installed after SCS it should modify that subspell... I'll get to that and issue an update. But in the meantime it should work perfectly fine with the SR-MBR-SCS install order.)

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* SCS seems to have a bug - at least, the version in my game, which is v33. Entropy Shield and Impervious Sanctity of Mind are supposed to give you opcode 206 protection against various spells. But it looks like it uses opcode 318 instead. It's been a while since I messed with this stuff but IIRC cannot work in the way SCS is trying to use it here. So, in my game at least, Entropy Shield will not protect against Breach. I don't know if this is actually a bug in SCS, or something that changed these spells in my personal game; and I don't know if it was a bug in SCS v33 that has been fixed in v34. But, just an FYI. I'll post something about it on the SCS forum.

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One important thing to note: this mod can change Spell Thrust into a 1st-level spell so you can cast it more easily. In my experience this is balanced just fine. What the mod does:

• give the old Spell Thrust a new IDS name (e.g. WIZARD_SPELL_THRUST_OLD)
• add the new 1st-level Spell Thrust
• give the new Spell Thrust the old IDS name (WIZARD_SPELL_THRUST)
• set the new 1st-level Spell Thrust to be known and memorized by all enemy mages

Theoretically, this means the AI should be fine. Any scripts operating via IDS name and calling for the wizard to cast Spell Thrust will find that the new spell corresponding to "WIZARD_SPELL_THRUST" is known and memorized, and should therefore successfully cast the spell. Any scripts operating via RES (filename) will find that, if the mage had SPWI321 memorized before this mod was installed, they will still have SPWI321 memorized and therefore will cats it. It will be cast as a 3rd-level spell instead of a 1st-level spell, but from the player's perspective it should not make a noticeable difference. I tried to cover both bases to make sure enemy wizards can successfully and effectively use Spell Thrust against the player.

In practice: in my current BG2EE game I am not seeing many wizards cast Spell Thrust. I am not sure what is going on - it's possible the enemy wizards I am facing are simply high-level and are casting better spells like Pierce Magic instead. But it's also possible there is a problem.  It probably needs to be tested in BG1EE to be sure. If you don't want to risk it, then make sure you set Spell Thrust to be a 3rd-level spell in the mod's settings .ini file before you install it. (Edit - I'm making that the new default behavior in the next update of the mod.)

Also: from a post above it sounds like there might be a small bug in the install process. I'll check it out when I can.

Very interested in getting this mod to work properly as part of a very large EET install including SCS. Questions:

1) Does it still stand that this mod can be installed before SCS but after SRR if the latter is present?

2) Aside from SCS/SRR, should this mod be installed after all mods that add/remove/or tweak spell gameplay?

3) Lastly, as a corollary of (2), should this mod just be installed after SCS in any case, even if SRR is present?

Edited October 4, 2023 by Nameless_Knight

[subtledoctor]

54 minutes ago, Nameless_Knight said:

1) Does it still stand that this mod can be installed before SCS but after SRR if the latter is present?

I install this after SCS. It's been some time since I considered install order (that post is two years old) and I suppose it might be fine to be installed first. But to be on the safe side I would install this more or less at the very very end of the order.

55 minutes ago, Nameless_Knight said:

2) Aside from SCS/SRR, should this mod be installed after all mods that add/remove/or tweak spell gameplay?

Ya.

55 minutes ago, Nameless_Knight said:

3) Lastly, as a corollary of (2), should this mod just be installed after SCS in any case, even if SRR is present?

Ya.

[Nameless_Knight]

Once again thank you for the clarifications.

[subtledoctor]

I have updated this mod to version 1.9. This removes the ability to change the spell level of Spell Thrust - that option has now migrated to my new "SD's Spell Tweaks" mod. Everything else here works the same as always, with a few changes to back-end code for the sake of efficiency and compatibility.

[Guest Wend]

Hello, subtledoctor.
I love the mod. Unfortunately, in the latest version (1.9), spell thrust no longer works. I am also using SR and SRR. Installing 1.8 fixed the problem.
Thanks for all your efforts. They're much appreciated.

[subtledoctor]

21 hours ago, Guest Wend said:

Hello, subtledoctor.
I love the mod. Unfortunately, in the latest version (1.9), spell thrust no longer works. I am also using SR and SRR. Installing 1.8 fixed the problem.
Thanks for all your efforts. They're much appreciated.

What exactly are you seeing? I just installed the latest version of the mod on BG2EE v2.6, and the files seem identical to the way they are in my current game, and I'm pretty sure the spell is working in my current game.

[Guest Wend]

The spell would cast, land, and dissipate without having the proper effect; it would dispel nothing, not even the lowest spell protections. Secret word on up worked fine. I have quite a lot of mods installed (Lefruit's UI mod, IR+IRR, SR+SRR, some of your spell tweaks from the specialist pack, cdtweaks, SCS, Magic Battles Revised, and Lvl 1 NPCs), so something might have gotten scrambled in the maelstrom of changes.

Incidentally, I noticed that there might be another problem, though it's not terribly serious. When I cast one of the spell deflections, they have the wrong names in the status effect list in the character information screen. Minor spell deflection, spell deflection, and greater spell deflection are listed as spell deflection, spell turning, and shield of the archons. The spells protect and are dispelled as described by your mod; it just seems that their names aren't accurate. I have Lefreut's UI installed. Perhaps that's causing the problem. 

Again, thanks for all your efforts.

[subtledoctor]

Okay, I just did a test, and everything seems to be working. I installed v1.9.1 on BG2EE v2.6, rolled up a mage, memorized three instances of Spell Thrust, and gave Imoen some instances of Minor Globe of Invulnerability, Minor Spell Deflection and Spell Deflection. Then:

• Imoen casts MSD, I cast Spell Thrust at her: the deflection is dispelled.
• Imoen casts MGOI, I cast Spell Thrust at her: the globe is dispelled.
• Imoen casts SD... remember that casting Deflection also auto-casts Minor Deflection. So Imoen now has two protection spells and it requires two Spell Thrusts to remove them. I cast one Spell Thrust and I can see that Imoen's protective swirls change color, from blue to white. This indicates the Deflection has been dispelled but the Minor Deflection remains. I cast Spell Thrust again, and the Minor Deflection is dispelled.
• Same thing, Imoen casts SD and has two layers of deflection. This time I cast Secret Word, and all of her protections go away.
• Imoen casts MSD and MGOI, I cast Spell Thrust at her: the deflection is dispelled and the globe remains. I cast Spell Thrust a second time and now the globe is also dispelled. (This is interesting, I had thought the globe would go first. But it doesn't bother me too much.
• Imoen casts SD and MGOI... now she has three layers of protection. I cast Spell Thrust and the deflection swirls change from blue to white (hard to tell through the globe animation, but it is there); I cast Spell Thrust a second time and the deflection is entirely dispelled; I cast Spell Thrust a third time and the globe is also dispelled.
• Finally Imoen casts Spell Deflection and Spell Shield. I cast Spell Thrust and it removed the shield; I cast Spell Thrust a second time and it changed the deflection swirls from blue to white; I cast Spell Thrust a third time and the deflection was dispelled.

So, from what I can tell the mod itself is working correctly. Note that by design, sometimes you have to cast Spell Thrust multiple times for it to take full effect and make an enemy vulnerable. If an enemy had Greater Spell Deflection, Globe of Invulnerability, and Spell Shield, it would take five Spell Thrusts to break through the defenses.

So my best guess is that either 1) you are just not casting Spell Thrust enough, or 2) something has gone awry with your install. My own game has SR+MBR, but I have not tested with SRR, for various reasons, so I don't know if Bart's latest tinkerings with that mod could cause some kind of incompatibility.  For trying to fix your current game you could drop the three attached files in /override and then look at them in Near Infinity. Make sure the effects for SPWI321, 321B, and 321C match these versions with the 'z' suffix. (With the exception that the one targeting the SPELLSHIELD secondary type should target whatever sectype index is SPELLSHIELD in your game - this can vary from install to install.)

 

spwi321cz.spl spwi321bz.spl SPWI321z.SPL

[Guest Wend]

Thanks for all your efforts. Before starting a new game, I create a party of two mages in ToB and do a very similar test to see if the magic system is working correctly; it's how I identified the problem with ST in the first place. I've used MBR numerous times now and am quite familiar with how the gradual stripping of spell defenses works (and it's very satisfying indeed). The problem was probably SRR, as you suggest. I'm also not sure if I had selected the option to have ST single- rather than multi-target in (I think) your spell tweaks pack; perhaps something like that had something to do with it. Or perhaps something untraceable just didn't install correctly amidst all the mods. This has happened to me before.

And thanks for the files and all the rest of the information. I've coped it all, your post included, for future reference.

I have one last question. Sometimes I see, typically higher-level, mages with a single white flickering orb above their head, and I can't figure out what spell protection it is, as no orb with those characteristics is described in your original post, even reading the combat log. What might it represent? I'll try to take a screen shot of it next time it crops up (time to figure out how to take screenshots).

 

[Guest Wend]

The white orb is Moment of Prescience! I figured it out today... by reading the combat log properly.