Affecting kits from mods to enemies

[jmerry]

And Polymorph Other is a spell that SCS mages use already.

The three weak specialties aren't all weak for the same reason; Abjurers and Transmuters have unacceptable gaps in their defensive options, Abjurers and Diviners don't have any of their attack spells benefit from the save penalties.

Illusionists? Well necromancy doesn't do anything irreplaceable; there are individual good spells, but the only category of spells mage necromancy has exclusively are life drain spells. Which SCS doesn't use anyway. It's not a very painful school to lose. There isn't much benefit from the save penalties on illusion spells, but hey, at least it's not zero like abjuration and divination. But most importantly ... gnomes. It just feels wrong to have all of the gnome mages turned into not-illusionists.

[aigleborgne]

On 4/4/2023 at 7:21 AM, jmerry said:

It's a deliberate choice - they're scripted to use Enrage only once, rather than renewing it in the unlikely case of a prolonged fight. And since enemies only need to build for one encounter...

Well, OK, they're probably scripted to just use Enrage if they have it. Which would have to be changed if they actually had multiple uses of the ability, setting up a timer so they don't try to use it either when it's already going or during the "winded" period.

I have just studied a level 9 kensai with kai ability. SCS only gave one Kai and script is using what is really affected. I even made a test in game, and that kensai only used one cast.

I'm going to reinstall BGT to see if it works better there.

[aigleborgne]

I've just checked on BG2 fresh install, and the same bug is confirmed. Kit parsing is partly broken in current version of SCS.

[subtledoctor]

I guess I’m just not clear on whether things are “broken.” Like, DavidW may have just coded all kensai and berserkers to use their active abilities once, for the sake of simplicity and efficiency. And it’s his mod so that would be his choice. It may be working as intended. 

Of course that’s an answerable question! 

My point is only, when you say something like “I set this or that enemy to be a kensai or an illusionist and SCS isn’t applying their kit abilities properly,” the answer to that might be “SCS is not designed to assist you in kitting out enemies as you see fit.” To get what you seem to desire might require another mod. 

[aigleborgne]

10 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I guess I’m just not clear on whether things are “broken.” Like, DavidW may have just coded all kensai and berserkers to use their active abilities once, for the sake of simplicity and efficiency. And it’s his mod so that would be his choice. It may be working as intended. 

Of course that’s an answerable question! 

My point is only, when you say something like “I set this or that enemy to be a kensai or an illusionist and SCS isn’t applying their kit abilities properly,” the answer to that might be “SCS is not designed to assist you in kitting out enemies as you see fit.” To get what you seem to desire might require another mod. 

Maybe, although it is clearly a weird choice assuming this is one. 

A berserker is not likely to use more than one rage in most fights, but for other kits, this is a heavy loss. 

I will see how SCS assign abilities and if clab files are used at all. As a developer, I would most likely seeing this as a functional regression or unwanted side effects to some recent changes. 

Edited April 7, 2023 by aigleborgne

[subtledoctor]

I don’t know how one can judge whether such a choice is “weird” without knowing  the costs and benefits associated with it. 

And on flip side of the coin, I’m just not seeing what the “heavy loss” is that you are describing. Are there examples you have seen of SCS enemies failing to behave properly? (If so, maybe mention it in the bug thread.)

[Jarno Mikkola]

On 3/30/2023 at 9:39 PM, jmerry said:

Even NPCs that were once in the party get those abilities removed when they leave.

Do they ? So you are telling me that if I need to kick a party member out, they will lose all their kit abilities instantly... and when I then rehire them back, they will need to gain a experience level to regain those as that's the moment they are applied at.
They might not gain abilities back... but that's because the game doesn't actually have the NPCs rest .. unless you have SCS, and then it's usually likely just the enemies.

Also, you will want to know that if the creature has a kit assigned, and they then are given the same abilities by any other means (via weidu for example), the kits abilities are reapplied if the programmed ones didn't come from the kit, so there's a lot of old kitted NPC mods that can have this happen, aka they get a second apply of their kit on top of the existing creatures pseudo kit.

So SCS is very unlikely to touch the NPCs that join the party, even if they have kits and can become enemies.

Edited April 7, 2023 by Jarno Mikkola

[jmerry]

Oh, the ability removal is very easy to test. Build or recruit an Avenger, Beastmaster, Shaman, or Stalker, not in the party's first slot. Memorize one or more of their special spells; those are added in the CLAB. Dismiss them from the party, then re-recruit them. See those gaps in their spell memorization? When you dropped that character from the party, those spells were removed from their spellbook, and any memorized instances were forgotten. When you brought them back, those spells were re-added, and no new instances were memorized.

No, you won't need to gain a level to see your abilities returned. Kit abilities are applied at the moment of joining as well - everything up to their current level. This is also essential to bugs like the one with Wilson's bonus strength; that ability has a bad timing mode so it doesn't get removed when he leaves, but it still gets reapplied when he rejoins. And so it stacks up, and a few cycles of leaving and rejoining take him to a permanent 25.

Also of note, this design is why innate class/kit abilities are refreshed when a character leaves the party and returns. The old expended version is removed, and a fresh version is applied ready for use. More uses of Set Snare, anyone?

There's an SCS component that falls foul of this, too - the innate sequencers. That component uses something indirect with an AP_ entry to grant the new sequencer abilities so it can display a message, rather than a simple GA_ entry. That indirection means that the spells don't get removed, so they stack up if you repeatedly dismiss the character and re-recruit them.

[DavidW]

It is a bug that SCS doesn't hand out more than one of each kit ability (a bug in the metaprogramming code that builds the function to hand out kits). Will chase.

On mage schools, the problem with illusionists is that there isn't any obvious way to make them distinctive. Pretty much all the illusion spells in the game are defensive spells that most mages are going to use anyway. There are a few offensive spells but not really enough to build a combat style on. Pen-and-paper spells like phantasmal force that really define the illusionist aren't available in the IE.

I agree it's a shame about the gnome illusionists though!

[DavidW]

Now fixed locally.