Skills and Abilities Mod

[morpheus562]

@subtledoctorminor protection from physical damage sets physical damage resistance to 50% and physical damage resistance will set it to 90%. Mantle will increment physical damage resistance by +60%, improved mantle by +80%, and as absolute immunity by +100%. I can make absolute immunity have a straight protection against opcode 12 instead of mucking with damage resistance. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by morpheus562

[subtledoctor]

20 minutes ago, morpheus562 said:

Mantle will increment physical damage resistance by +60%, improved mantle by +80%, and as absolute immunity by +100%

I don't totally follow... unless, are you making them so players can do the "you stabbed me and I got healed" thing with >100% resistance?

21 minutes ago, morpheus562 said:

I can make absolute immunity have a straight protection against opcode 12 instead of mucking with damage resistance.

That's pretty much what Spell Revisions does, with a few other bells and whistles. For the 9th level magic, it basically says "you cannot be damaged by any means, for three rounds."

It also turns Improved Mantle at 8th level into Moment of Prescience, a divination combat spell (yeah!) that prevents anyone from striking you via a 40-point AC bonus, or thereabouts. Good stuff.

And I've personally turned Mantle into an improved version of Stoneskin which blocks elemental damage as long as you have skins left (so no spell interruption from pesky arrows of fire or Varscona etc.)

[morpheus562]

1 minute ago, subtledoctor said:

I don't totally follow... unless, are you making them so players can do the "you stabbed me and I got healed" thing with >100% resistance?

Exactly this. Mages now have the option to use Mantle and Improved Mantle to stack other means for physical damage resistance. Note: These spells I am overhauling will overwrite each other and are non-stackable, so you will need other sources of damage resistances to stack with.

[subtledoctor]

Ah,  I see.

Man, I sorely wish BG2EE had proper non-interruption on zero damage and working concentration checks. The DR mechanic would have so much more depth, it would be worth using different ways to minimize damage. Sigh. Unfortunately I don't have much hope for a 2.7 patch... it is probably years away from happening, and people have already been told a bunch of stuff won't be in it. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by subtledoctor

[morpheus562]

I will also update Mantle, Improved Mantle, and Absolute Immunity to block more effects like level drain, brain devour, gaze attacks, and others that will be a threat.

[morpheus562]

@subtledoctor I reached out to @Bubb on the discord, and I am hoping to add functionality via EEex to ensure players with the above spells active (checked through spellstates) will not be interrupted when damaged. That would be the option of prime importance. The spellstates to be checked are:

• ABSOLUTE_IMMUNITY
• IMPROVED_MANTLE
• MANTLE
• PROTECTION_FROM_MAGICAL_WEAPONS

Additionally, if possible and not important now, I am wondering if the lua could check the number of assigned pips in a specific proficiency and then do a percentage reduction of being interrupted depending on how many pips are assigned? If that is possible, I can create a Concentration proficiency that will provide spellcasters the ability to reduce the amount of interruptions they will face.

Edited October 27, 2022 by morpheus562

[subtledoctor]

20 minutes ago, morpheus562 said:

I am hoping to add functionality via EEex to ensure players with the above spells active (checked through spellstates) will not be interrupted when damaged.

I'm pretty sure SCS actually has something like this. Or partially? Maybe? I don't know why that's in my memory. But it might be possible without resorting to EEex.

21 minutes ago, morpheus562 said:

Additionally, if possible, I am wondering if the lua could check the number of assigned pips in a specific proficiency and then do a percentage reduction of being interrupted depending on how many pips are assigned? If that is possible, I can create a Concentration proficiency that will provide spellcasters the ability to reduce the amount of interruptions they will face.

...and you will me me hate EEex even more for being able to create something I desperately want but which cannot work on my game's OS.

More seriously, my understanding is that the damage animation triggers spell failure. So maybe something like, have a probability to suppress that?

I feel like I looked into this before, trying to make something without EEex... like, if you could suppress the damage the animation, then you could mess around with op318 and a stat and conditionally escape spell interruption. But I think it turned out to be impossible.*  And anyway it could not be tied to the damage taken, which is an important part of concentration checks IMHO. (If you get wolloped with a claymore it should have a high chance of interrupting you; if you are being bitten by little mosquitos or have a mild case of contact poison, you should have a high. chance of ignoring it and casting the spell.)

* Wait... is it impossible? How does SCS prevent interruption on zero damage hits? Can the damage animation be suppressed? @Bubb? 

Damn me for constantly getting my hopes up!

[morpheus562]

@subtledoctor still thinking through it. Iterate all spells/items checking for opcode 12 (damage). If yes, add opcode 326 (insert point 0) to apply spell effect list if the target being hit has one of the listed spell protections active. If yes, the target will be blocked from opcode 138 (set animation sequence) for 2 ticks. Or should I target opcode 170 (play damage animation) instead? This will theoretically block the damage animation, and hopefully any chance of spell failure.

If this method works, I can do something similar to provide spell failure with pip assignments. If all of the above works as I describe, then EEex would not be required.

Edited October 27, 2022 by morpheus562

[morpheus562]

@subtledoctorI just tested, and my method works at preventing spell interruptions. I think I can make concentration checks work now too. EEex not required.

[subtledoctor]

Wait but does that work for weapon attacks??

[morpheus562]

Just now, subtledoctor said:

Wait but does that work for weapon attacks??

Yes

[subtledoctor]

Well what do you know. I just tested a quick op101 vs. op170 in a quarterstaff and indeed it seems to prevent casting interruption. See, this is why I haunt the forums, you never know when some random conversation about the  PfMW spell (!) can lead to an amazing mod idea that has never been done before.

Have to work  out details. Unfortunately, like I say, there is no way to make it responsive to the damage done by an attack. And stuff like poison and similar repeated damage over time is problematic. (And not easy to ameliorate... I once tried to systematize ll poison effects and  turn them into repeated op12 effects, in order to flesh out Slow/Neutralize Poison and the like... but the result was an unfixable buggy mess.)

But... maybe it's worth messing around with this? Setting up a stat you can invest in for less casting interruption shouldn't be hard.  And the total possible damage range of an attack could somewhat influence the chance of interruption (so we can give greatswords a higher chance of interruption than darts). Individual instances of repeated damage could be manually modified to work with the framework, and instances that escape the net can be hand-waved as weird effects that mess with your spellcasting to an unusual degree. Instances I would consider modifying:

• poisonous arrows/bolts/darts (man there are a lot of these in the games!)
• assassin's poison weapon and the Poison spell
• the three insect spells
• ...?

Also I need to go add that 101 to 170 into my psionics powers, which have a slightly embarrassing thing where using psi powers makes you gasp in pain.  brb

[morpheus562]

@subtledoctorNeedless to say, I'm really excited now for the updates to these couple of spells and it will play nice with existing ai without making anything die too quick. This will be a standalone component to update these few spells, so it should play nice with most other mods (minus spell revisions). My current implementation blocks poison but not insect. Those insect spells will be easy to account for.

I wonder if there is a benefit to using opcode 138 or 170? Opcode 138 worked in my testing and 170 worked in yours.

Edited October 27, 2022 by morpheus562

[subtledoctor]

Interestingly, when I was considering what stat could be used, I randomly looked at thief skills. It turns out that you can add non-thief classes and kits to  thiefscl.2da and thiefskl.2da, and the skill will show up in their level-up UI! Unfortunately the ‘points at level-up’ value seems to have a negative multiplier.   And if you set it to a negative value it gives you a positive number of points to spend, but the UI doesn't give you buttons to spend them. I wonder if this could be solved with a non-EEex UI modification…?

Anyway that’s neither here nor there, but just goes to demonstrate the weird places ideas can go from conversations like this…

[morpheus562]

4 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Interestingly, when I was considering what stat could be used, I randomly looked at thief skills. It turns out that you can add non-thief classes and kits to  thiefscl.2da and thiefskl.2da, and the skill will show up in their level-up UI! Unfortunately the ‘points at level-up’ value seems to have a negative multiplier.   And if you set it to a negative value it gives you a positive number of points to spend, but the UI doesn't give you buttons to spend them. I wonder if this could be solved with a non-EEex UI modification…?

Anyway that’s neither here nor there, but just goes to demonstrate the weird places ideas can go from conversations like this…

@subtledoctorI spoke to @Bubb about this awhile ago when allowing bards to use thieving skills, and each class does their own thing in the background. No two are alike from what I have seen and tested.