The Burning Earth - which creatures for each bonus?

[jmerry]

The longsword "The Burning Earth", available in both BGEE and BG2EE, has this in its description:

Quote

THAC0: +1, +2 vs. regenerating creatures, +3 vs. cold-using creatures, +4 vs. undead 
Damage: 1d8+1, +1 fire, +2 vs. regenerating creatures, +3 vs. cold-using creatures, +4 vs. undead

Those changes also apply to enchantment level; it's a +1 flaming sword in general, that upgrades to +2, +3, or +4 against various creatures.

As currently implemented:

- 1d8+1 physical damage, +1 to hit, +1 enchantment level base.

- Additional +3 to hit, additional +3 damage, +4 enchantment vs GENERAL = UNDEAD

- Additional +2 to hit, additional +2 damage, +3 enchantment vs CLASS = WOLF_WINTER

- Additional +1 to hit, additional +1 damage, +2 enchantment vs RACE = LYCANTHROPE

- Additional +1 to hit, additional +1 damage, +2 enchantment vs RACE = TROLL.

So ... winter wolves are the only creatures that count as "cold-using"? Anyway, improvements welcome.

[InKal]

I always immediately sell that sword. Improve also the selling price please!

[moggadeet]

Cold-using: ice salamanders, ice mephits, ice trolls, snow trolls, frost salamanders, and ice golems.

[jmerry]

Going through that list ...

Ice salamanders, frost salamanders: Race = SALAMANDER, class = ELEMENTAL_WATER, animation = SALAMANDER_FROST. Except for one in the Black Pits which is class CLERIC. The class is also used by the SoD water elementals (but not the ToB/BP2 ones). And back in 2.5, they were class ELEMENTAL_FIRE for no good reason.

Ice mephits: Race = MEPHIT, class = MEPHIT, animation = IMP. No good way to filter them from other mephits as they are now.

Ice trolls and snow trolls: don't actually use ice. Their attacks are pure physical; they're just trolls adapted to cold environments with cold resistance and fire vulnerability.

Ice golems: Race = GOLEM, class = GOLEM_IRON, animation = GOLEM_ICE. That same animation is also used by the ice elemental prince Cryonax (race ELEMENTAL, class ELEMENTAL_EARTH).

Cryonax can also summon Blizzard Trolls, which actually do deal cold damage. Though I'd rather not have two bonuses apply to the same creature.

Kaldran the Bear, back in Durlag's Tower, is another good candidate ... not that it ever matters, since you have to kill him before you can get the sword.

And, checking things ... animation isn't a stat that can be tested against in a SPLPROT.2DA entry. So much for filtering by that. The best solution I can think of here is to create a new class ELEMENTAL_ICE and assign it to the creatures that we want to be affected by this. That, or using the existing WOLF_WINTER class for the same purpose. The creatures are all* using monster classes already, so using class as a marker shouldn't cause trouble.

*OK, one exception. But the Burning Earth isn't available in BP1, so leaving that one Ice Salamander Cleric as a cleric doesn't have any effect.

[polytope]

Quite apart from the incomplete array of "cold-using creatures" for the sword's effects, many monsters with natural regeneration are also missed: Most mephits, imps, abishai and cornugon devils (plus pit fiends, but the sword is only +2 vs regenerating creature so couldn't hit them most of the time). IIRC, regeneration unfortunately isn't a detectable stat either, even on EEs.

Although, conceptually, it's debatable that a flametongue sword would do extra damage versus a regenerator that is also immune to fire like imps and cornugons. Even though the sword's extra damage isn't fire, it's intensified against types of creatures that are normally fire-vulnerable.

As for Cryonax and his blizzard trolls, it's really unlikely anyone will still be using this weapon if and when they encounter them (they don't show up in Ascension games), because it's only a +3 longsword versus cold based monsters, the party will almost certainly have more than one better longsword.

9 hours ago, InKal said:

I always immediately sell that sword. Improve also the selling price please!

I kind of liked in BG2, it's one of the best reusable early game weapons to backstab a vampire with, also possibly useful against demilich alongside Daystar if you haven't yet been to Watcher's Keep.

EE hit it with the nerf bat though by restricting hit/dam bonuses to one hand, whereas belm, which is generally thought of as a much better offhand weapon got no such nerfing. Disregard, only the global +4 enchantment level was removed.

Edited July 10, 2023 by polytope

[Luke]

5 hours ago, jmerry said:

Ice mephits: Race = MEPHIT, class = MEPHIT, animation = IMP. No good way to filter them from other mephits as they are now.

Indeed, there is no way to filter them by type. What about adding MEPHIT_ICE, MEPHIT_MAGMA, MEPHIT_DUST, etc. to CLASS.IDS?

I mean, should be reasonable since we already have ELEMENTAL_EARTH, ELEMENTAL_WATER, ELEMENTAL_FIRE, ELEMENTAL_AIR...

6 hours ago, jmerry said:

Ice salamanders, frost salamanders: Race = SALAMANDER, class = ELEMENTAL_WATER

As far as Salamander are concerned, I suggest borrowing SALAMANDER_FROST / SALAMANDER_FIRE from IWD:EE CLASS.IDS...

6 hours ago, jmerry said:

Ice golems: Race = GOLEM, class = GOLEM_IRON

What about adding a GOLEM_ICE class to CLASS.IDS...?

6 hours ago, jmerry said:

Cryonax can also summon Blizzard Trolls, which actually do deal cold damage. Though I'd rather not have two bonuses apply to the same creature.

As far as blizzard trolls are concerned, I suggest borrowing SNOW_TROLL from IWD:EE RACE.IDS (speaking of this, it should probably be a CLASS.IDS value rather than a RACE.IDS one...)

6 hours ago, jmerry said:

Kaldran the Bear, back in Durlag's Tower, is another good candidate ..

Polar bears are supposed to use the BEAR_POLAR class...

[Luke]

53 minutes ago, polytope said:

EE hit it with the nerf bat though by restricting hit/dam bonuses to one hand

What do you mean exactly...? Unlike op344, op178/179 affect all attacks, not just the weapon they're on...

Edited July 10, 2023 by Luke

[polytope]

3 minutes ago, Luke said:

What do you mean exactly...? Unlike op344, op178/179 affect all attacks, not just the weapon they're on...

You're right, I obviously misremembered this as being fixed at the same time the effective enchantment level versus creature IDS entries were.

This flametongue is still a decent offhand weapon later in the game, then.

[jmerry]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

What about adding MEPHIT_ICE, MEPHIT_MAGMA, MEPHIT_DUST, etc. to CLASS.IDS?

The reason not to go too crazy on adding CLASS.IDS entries is that CLASS is a one-byte field. There are only 256 possible values available, and a bit over half are already used. We wouldn't want to eat up all the modder space here.

I ran a quick test on what would happen if a creature was in multiple categories - take the illusion werewolves, multiply HP by 10, remove the script for them to switch to real weapons, set GENERAL to UNDEAD and CLASS to WOLF_WINTER ...

All of the damage bonuses stacked, for a total of +6. The weapon only got an additional +1 to hit; it appears that the first instance of opcode 178 was applied and all others were ignored. Which ... yeah, the IESDP already knows about that. The off-hand normal long sword also got that +1 to hit, and I wasn't meaningfully testing enchantment values.

My reading on "multiple bonuses could apply" creatures is that the higher value should be used, if feasible. No reason to double up if there's something like a cold-using undead creature, for example. The Blizzard trolls ... the problem is, there are other effects that target race TROLL, so moving away from that would cascade to the likes of Crom Faeyr. And as long as it's still a TROLL, adding a second ice-based category would cause the damage stacking.

[kjeron]

58 minutes ago, jmerry said:

The reason not to go too crazy on adding CLASS.IDS entries is that CLASS is a one-byte field. There are only 256 possible values available, and a bit over half are already used. We wouldn't want to eat up all the modder space here.

If CLASS is to be used, it would be better to create a generic CLASS for use by any creature, based on Plane/Para/Quasi(WATER, FIRE, AIR, EARTH, SMOKE, MAGMA, OOZE, ICE, LIGHTNING, RADIANCE, MINERAL, STEAM, VACUUM, ASH, DUST, SALT, POSITIVE, NEGATIVE), rather than one specific to a single race (MEPHIT_ICE, MEPHIT_DUST, etc...)

Otherwise, re-purposing one of the wasted proficiency stats for a similar purpose: 3 bits Good/Evil alignments + 3 bits Law/Chaos alignments + 4 bits Elemental + 2 bits Positive/Negative + 2 bits Ethereal/Astral + 2 bits Shadow/Fey = 16 bits covering all necessary planes.

[Luke]

1 hour ago, kjeron said:

If CLASS is to be used, it would be better to create a generic CLASS for use by any creature, based on Plane/Para/Quasi(WATER, FIRE, AIR, EARTH, SMOKE, MAGMA, OOZE, ICE, LIGHTNING, RADIANCE, MINERAL, STEAM, VACUUM, ASH, DUST, SALT, POSITIVE, NEGATIVE), rather than one specific to a single race (MEPHIT_ICE, MEPHIT_DUST, etc...)

Are you saying that, say, FIRE should be used for Fire Salamander, Fire Elementals, Fire Mephits, Fire Beetles, etc...?

1 hour ago, kjeron said:

Otherwise, re-purposing one of the wasted proficiency stats for a similar purpose: 3 bits Good/Evil alignments + 3 bits Law/Chaos alignments + 4 bits Elemental + 2 bits Positive/Negative + 2 bits Ethereal/Astral + 2 bits Shadow/Fey = 16 bits covering all necessary planes.

Could you provide an example...?

I mean, op178/179/344 cannot target a STAT... But I suspect I'm missing something...

Edited July 10, 2023 by Luke

[CamDawg]

I'm just going to pop in and say two things: 1) The Burning Earth should cover enemies accurately but b) without massively redefining identifiers.

3 hours ago, jmerry said:

My reading on "multiple bonuses could apply" creatures is that the higher value should be used, if feasible.

Agreed.

[polytope]

19 hours ago, jmerry said:

I ran a quick test on what would happen if a creature was in multiple categories - take the illusion werewolves, multiply HP by 10, remove the script for them to switch to real weapons, set GENERAL to UNDEAD and CLASS to WOLF_WINTER ...

All of the damage bonuses stacked, for a total of +6. The weapon only got an additional +1 to hit; it appears that the first instance of opcode 178 was applied and all others were ignored.

In my tests neither THAC0 nor damage bonus stacked, not even when using duplicate flame tongues in each hand, but the erroneously low +2 was used for a "winter wolf" cre that's also a lycanthrope and undead. Is it possible you had another source of damage like the bonus for striking at unarmed (+4)?

Anyway, regarding overlap of bonuses:

19 hours ago, jmerry said:

No reason to double up if there's something like a cold-using undead creature, for example. The Blizzard trolls ... the problem is, there are other effects that target race TROLL, so moving away from that would cascade to the likes of Crom Faeyr. And as long as it's still a TROLL, adding a second ice-based category would cause the damage stacking.

In game there are no undead trolls (spectral trolls are supposed to be undead, but clearly turning by priests would interact badly with the troll death mechanic), no undead lycanthropes and no undead elementals. Cold themed undead are present in IWD, but not BG. There are also no weretrolls or winterwolfweres.

So it's really just Cryonax and his blizzard trolls then, plus the frost salmanders, ice mephits, and all regenerating mephits/imps.

For what my opinion's worth, it's unlikely to break anything by assigning frost salamanders the "winter wolf" class, whereas trolls because of their emergent bugginess should be left alone if possible (and for the blizzard trolls it's only +1 to hit and damage on a late-game fighter with a lot of other presumable bonuses). As a unique monster Cryonax should probably not be reclassed, even if it means he can't be hit by flame tongue, put it down to a special "boss" perk that he can extinguish your fiery sword (but you have better swords by then so...).

A flat +1 bonus versus the races of mephits and imps would be justifiable, doubtful if it's worth differentiating the ice mephits.

[jmerry]

3 hours ago, polytope said:

In my tests neither THAC0 nor damage bonus stacked, not even when using duplicate flame tongues in each hand, but the erroneously low +2 was used for a "winter wolf" cre that's also a lycanthrope and undead. Is it possible you had another source of damage like the bonus for striking at unarmed (+4)?

The damage stacking was extremely obvious - hit the monster once, get five damage events in the log; main weapon damage, then fire damage, then three packets of 3, 2, and 1 slashing damage respectively.

[kjeron]

4 hours ago, polytope said:

In my tests neither THAC0 nor damage bonus stacked, not even when using duplicate flame tongues in each hand, but the erroneously low +2 was used for a "winter wolf" cre that's also a lycanthrope and undead. Is it possible you had another source of damage like the bonus for striking at unarmed (+4)?

op178/179 apply in reverse order (the oldest has precedent), so whichever is listed first among the equip effects will apply.   The THAC0 (op178) effects are listed in order: LYCAN, WINTER_WOLF, UNDEAD, TROLL.

However, the sword does not use op179 for damage, but instead applies the damage directly through op177, so any that match will apply.

Enchantment level is a "best of", so it doesn't matter what order they are in.