Skills and Abilities Mod

[morpheus562]

Some quick updates on Paladins that will occur with the next release:

Smite*

This ability allows the paladin to make a special attack against any enemy. Paladins apply their Charisma modifier to their attack roll and damage roll for one round. Smite may be used once per day at 1st level. At 5th level and every five levels after that, the paladin gains an additional use per day.

* I will look at adding an "Extra Smiting" HLA so Paladins can gain one more Smite per HLA ability point spent.

Aura of Courage (level 3 passive ability)

This ability grants protection against all forms of panic, boosts morale, and grants +2 bonus to all saving throws for the character and all allies within 15 feet.

Aura of Despair** (level 3 passive ability)

The blackguard radiates a malign aura that causes all enemies within 15 feet of <PRO_HIMHER> to suffer a -2 penalty on all saving throws.

** Blackguards update their Aura of Despair with this ability. They do not get Aura of Courage.

Sanctify Strikes*** (Paladin ONLY HLA)

You deal 2 extra points of magic damage with your attacks.

*** I would like to do a Holy damage type here, but magic dmg will have to suffice for now.

Edited February 3, 2022 by morpheus562

[morpheus562]

Official pre-release for version 0.2-Alpha which brings the following enhancements:

• Updated item compatibility if Bards and Monks gain using thieving skills.
• Added components to update the Monk and Paladin classes, kits, and new HLAs.
• Added component to allow Inquisitors to cast divine spells.
• Added new Exotic Sword weapon group for katanas, scimitars, ninjatos, and wakizashis.
• Changed Armor proficiency to Heavy Armor Proficiency.
• Added new HLAs for all classes and kits.

[subtledoctor]

On 2/3/2022 at 2:32 AM, morpheus562 said:

I would like to do a Holy damage type here, but magic dmg will have to suffice for now.

As of EE v1.4 or 2.0 or something, the "MagicFire" and "MagicCold"  damage types no longer crash the game. But they are more or less completely unused. I have long considered converting MagicFire into a radiant/positive/holy application (Sunray, False Dawn, Sol's Searing Orb), and MagicCold into a necrotic/negative application (Skull Trap, Vampiric Touch, probably ADHW). And then set creature resistances appropriately. It would not be that hard... but I've never figured out, down to brass tacks, what the upside would be. My feeling was that it would not actually change much for the better, and potentially throw some kinks into SCS scripts and the like. But it's there for the doing, for anyone who comes up with an interesting and practical concept.

[morpheus562]

8 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

As of EE v1.4 or 2.0 or something, the "MagicFire" and "MagicCold"  damage types no longer crash the game. But they are more or less completely unused. I have long considered converting MagicFire into a radiant/positive/holy application (Sunray, False Dawn, Sol's Searing Orb), and MagicCold into a necrotic/negative application (Skull Trap, Vampiric Touch, probably ADHW). And then set creature resistances appropriately. It would not be that hard... but I've never figured out, down to brass tacks, what the upside would be. My feeling was that it would not actually change much for the better, and potentially throw some kinks into SCS scripts and the like. But it's there for the doing, for anyone who comes up with an interesting and practical concept.

I was thinking Magic Fire for holy and haven't even considered Magic Cold for Negative Energy, but I like it! Getting into the nitty gritty of making a new Holy damage with Magic Fire is on my to-do list, but that is not going to be for a little while.

[polytope]

18 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

As of EE v1.4 or 2.0 or something, the "MagicFire" and "MagicCold"  damage types no longer crash the game. But they are more or less completely unused. I have long considered converting MagicFire into a radiant/positive/holy application (Sunray, False Dawn, Sol's Searing Orb), and MagicCold into a necrotic/negative application (Skull Trap, Vampiric Touch, probably ADHW). And then set creature resistances appropriately.

Magic cold actually works fine on the original engine, magic fire was the only one bugged.

The main problems with setting necromancy spells to inflict magic cold are:

1. Creatures will be frozen+shattered by the damage, there are several fixes for item loss following this kind of death, but it will be conceptually strange for most necromancy, particularly ADHW which is stated to dehydrate the target.
2. While it's easy to patch every undead with specific immunity to magic cold, and I guess add a MC vulnerability to cold immune living creatures that aren't constructs or whatever, it still forces a particular install order, needing to come after any mod that adds creatures. It's better to use ids specific racial immunity as an eff in the feature block of the spell itself.

Necromancy spells already almost exclusively use the magic damage type (cleric poison being the exception), which seems reserved by dev intent, the problem is more that Sunray and Magic Missile also use it. Sunray as magic fire sounds fine, Bolt of Glory too perhaps, but I really don't know about MM, I suspect only if PC usable buffs and items that give resistance or immunity to magic energy are also patched to give equivalent protection from magic fire would this work for the AI, who use it a lot and make assumptions (unlike Sunray and Bolt of Glory vs the party...). Obviously the reverse shouldn't follow for enemy undead who might be immune to the necrotic/magic energy subtype, but quite vulnerable to radiant/magic fire.

Can magic fire be given a different damage animation to normal fire? Easy to add via VVC of course, but it tends to "linger" visually on the target for a few moments.

Then there's the Horn of Blasting and if you have the IWD spells installed also Lance of Disruption and Shout etc. A while ago I discovered that physical (crushing) damage bypasses stoneskin if applied by opcode 272 (repeating eff) which seems good for sonic damage if you feel the 1-second delay (1/2 if hasted) is worth the unsoakable nature of such an attack.

Edited February 9, 2022 by polytope

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, polytope said:

main problems with setting necromancy spells to inflict magic cold

Agree. And there's really no necessity; taking radiant/holy/whatever spells out leaves magic damage to be used for necromantic/negative/whatever effects.

1 hour ago, polytope said:

Bolt of Glory too perhaps

Definitely. And Sol's Searing Orb, and Sunscorch, and I'd even venture to say Moonblade and Wall of Moonlight. If a mod were to make a new tactical toy for players, why not let them play with it?

But OTOH there is still the question of, how much would this really add to the game? I've already modded False Dawn and Sunray to bypass MR, and most undead are vulnerable to fire damage; and Skull Trap/ADHW can easily be made to not affect undead, if that isn't already the case. Things already seem pretty good on this front.

1 hour ago, polytope said:

but I really don't know about MM

I've long thought MM should just do missile damage, but, AI. So I've finally become okay with MM sharing a damage type with ST and ADHW. It's nonspecific magical "energy"  that harms animate things. Fine, sure.

1 hour ago, polytope said:

Can magic fire be given a different damage animation to normal fire?

I haven't looked into it, but my guess is that it's hard-coded.

1 hour ago, polytope said:

Then there's the Horn of Blasting and if you have the IWD spells installed also Lance of Disruption and Shout etc. A while ago I discovered that physical (crushing) damage bypasses stoneskin if applied by opcode 272 (repeating eff)

Huh, I didn't even realize Stoneskin blocked crushing damage - I thought it would block physical attacks but not damage applied by spell. I'm a big fan of the idea that 'sonic damage' = crushing for engine purposes (I even give bards the Earthquake spell, lore being it is triggered by sonic force), so it looks like I have some work to do to tune up my Sound Burst and Shout spells...

Anyway this is probably not very on-topic for a "Skills and Abilities" mod, apologies for the diversion Morpheus.

[Luke]

3 hours ago, polytope said:

Can magic fire be given a different damage animation to normal fire?

Yes, see here.

The only real hardcoded thing should be the "Creatures will be frozen+shattered by the damage"...

[morpheus562]

@subtledoctorNo worries! Actually, a question for you regarding your 5E mod: how does use of Opcode 261 to restore lost spells (provided by my new Devotion and Spellcraft proficiencies) impact spells with your 5E mod installed? Will it restore  those spells or would it break the system?

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, morpheus562 said:

@subtledoctorNo worries! Actually, a question for you regarding your 5E mod: how does use of Opcode 261 to restore lost spells (provided by my new Devotion and Spellcraft proficiencies) impact spells with your 5E mod installed? Will it restore  those spells or would it break the system?

Nothing would happen.

[rummages through code]

I think you would need to do this:

ACTION_IF (FILE_EXISTS_IN_GAME ~d5__semi_spont.d5~) BEGIN
  COPY_EXISTING ~d5src#a.spl~ ~[prefix]restow.spl~ // or name it whatever
  IF_EXISTS
  COPY_EXISTING ~d5shm#a.spl~ ~[prefix]restod.spl~ // or name it whatever
  IF_EXISTS
  COPY_EXISTING ~d5zprpd.spl~ ~override~
    LPF ADD_SPELL_EFFECT INT_VAR opcode = 321 target = 1 timing = 9 STR_VAR resource = ~[prefix]restw#~ END
    LPF ADD_SPELL_EFFECT INT_VAR opcode = 321 target = 1 timing = 9 STR_VAR resource = ~[prefix]restd#~ END
  IF_EXISTS BUT_ONLY
END

...where ' # ' is the spell level. It can't perfectly replicate op261's choosing the highest level between x and y. You have to specify the spell level, and this will give an extra casting slot of that level, which will last until the next rest. (I suppose you could do 25% chance each of levels 1-4, or whatever.)

And then add a 146 effect casting restow.spl (spellcraft) or restod (devotion) alongside the op261 effect.

EDIT - sorry, best to limit that to actual 5E casters. For the 1% effects, you would want to do something like this:

ACTION_IF (FILE_CONTAINS_EVALUATED (~splstate.ids~ ~D5_SEMI_ARCANE~)) BEGIN
  COPY_EXISTING ~splstate.ids~ ~override~
	COUNT_2DA_COLS cols
	READ_2DA_ENTRIES_NOW rows cols
	FOR (row = 1; row < rows; ++row) BEGIN
	  READ_2DA_ENTRY_FORMER rows row 1 ~state_name~
	  READ_2DA_ENTRY_FORMER rows row 0 ~state_ind~
	  PATCH_IF (~%state_name%~ STRING_EQUAL_CASE ~D5_SEMI_ARCANE~) BEGIN
		SET semi_spont_arcane = %state_ind%
	  END
	END
  BUT_ONLY
  COPY_EXISTING [wizard spells]
    LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR silent = 1 multi_match = 1 match_opcode = 261 match_probability1 = 1 /*or whatever*/ opcode = 326 target = 1 parameter1 = %semi_spont_arcane% parameter2 = 110 timing = 1 STR_VAR resource = ~restow~ END
  BUT_ONLY
END
                             
ACTION_IF (FILE_CONTAINS_EVALUATED (~splstate.ids~ ~D5_SEMI_DIVINE~)) BEGIN
  COPY_EXISTING ~splstate.ids~ ~override~
	COUNT_2DA_COLS cols
	READ_2DA_ENTRIES_NOW rows cols
	FOR (row = 1; row < rows; ++row) BEGIN
	  READ_2DA_ENTRY_FORMER rows row 1 ~state_name~
	  READ_2DA_ENTRY_FORMER rows row 0 ~state_ind~
	  PATCH_IF (~%state_name%~ STRING_EQUAL_CASE ~D5_SEMI_DIVINE~) BEGIN
		SET semi_spont_divine = %state_ind%
	  END
	END
  BUT_ONLY
  COPY_EXISTING [priest spells]
    LPF CLONE_EFFECT INT_VAR silent = 1 multi_match = 1 match_opcode = 261 match_probability1 = 1 /*or whatever*/ opcode = 326 target = 1 parameter1 = %semi_spont_divine% parameter2 = 110 timing = 1 STR_VAR resource = ~restod~ END
  BUT_ONLY
END

 

Edited February 9, 2022 by subtledoctor

[morpheus562]

@subtledoctorThank you. I am going to dive into the 5E mod and start updating my scripts to account for it. While I'm at it, I will also update Skills and Abilities to account for and behave appropriately when 5E is installed.

[subtledoctor]

See the edited post above.

[morpheus562]

This also begs the question: for 5 pips in Spellcraft/Devotion, do players prefer the current system where there is a 1% chance per round to re-memorize 1 spell from levels 1-4 OR do players prefer another bonus? More spells? Something else?

Edited February 9, 2022 by morpheus562

[Dan_P]

Regaining spells is fine, though it's really easy to abuse Resting or Wish to do that quicker. A couple other things that might work:

- Tweaks Anthology has a component (labeled a beta) that adds save penalties to spells cast by high level casters. Something similar could work here and be less unbalanced than having it apply for everyone automatically. I think it'd fit well with divine casters, and you could also use it to buff up enemy casters in BG2.

- For arcane, I'm not sure if this is possible in the current EEex (for v2.6), but the Olvynspells mod has a level 9 spell, Enoll Eva's Duplication. It causes spells cast to be doubled for a duration. So casting one fireball will cast two, summoning one creature will summon two, etc.. It does this by adding an EEex wild surge effect to the caster with op280.

So whenever it's made possible in EEex, you could add a 1% chance per round to apply an effect on the caster (for 1-2 rounds?) that doublecasts spells. Because it's random and such a low chance, you wouldn't be able to abuse it easily, like you can the spell from OlvynSpells. I'm mainly suggesting this one because it's a cool effect and fitting for a super powerful wizard. Since it's EEex only, it could be an optional component.

[subtledoctor]

Personally not a fan of things that have a ~1% chance of happening, in general. (Unless it's for a Wild Mage, I guess.)

Also neither here nor there but I can totally see how to make Enoll Eva's Duplication work without resorting to EEex...

[morpheus562]

7 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Personally not a fan of things that have a ~1% chance of happening, in general. (Unless it's for a Wild Mage, I guess.)

Also neither here nor there but I can totally see how to make Enoll Eva's Duplication work without resorting to EEex...

Original plan was to allow casters to cast 1 additional spell from spell level 1 through 4; however, because it is a temporary effect added every round, it would cause the character to lose any spells they assign.