ToF feature requests

[Cahir]

Hi David,

Not sure if you accept feature requests for future versions (or even for release version), so if not, feel free to disregard this thread.

I'd like to request a couple of additions to subrace component:

• Human subraces - not sure if the engine allows for that, but I would love to see human subraces (like Chondathans, Tethyrians, Calishites, etc.). I realise, in P&P, it's mostly flavour distinction, and I'm perfectly fine, it would be also just a flavour addition in ToF, but that would IMO add more immersion and role playing options.
• Two new elven subraces - star elves and avariel. Here's the Wiki page about star elves, in case you're not familiar. As for avariel, I guess the presence of wings may be a problem in implementing them, but if it's possible, that would be a welcomed addition.

[DavidW]

I'm happy to hear suggestions, though I have enough of a backlog of my own projects that I'm unlikely to take on things with a large work overhead.

As far as these specific suggestions are concerned:

- there is no technical bar to human subraces. But I don't include them because I think the 'subrace' concept is a pretty problematic fit to humans. For one thing, it essentializes racial divisions in Faerun in a way that I think actually restricts role-playing complexity (what if one of my characters is the love-child of a Tuigan barbarian and a Calishite courtesan?) For another, I'm skeptical of purely cosmetic subraces, and I think giving racially-dependent abilities to humans is frankly politically edgier than I want to play with in 2023!

- I'm skeptical of the value of adding more subraces, except in the presence of relatively clear and interesting new powers that could be associated with them. I'd rather spend time integrating the existing subraces more into the game (IWD2 is exemplary here, and I think is the model to follow).

- For star elves in particular, as I understand the lore they're virtually absent from Faerun until around 1370 DR anyway, and insofar as they are around they're thousands of miles from the Sword Coast. So they don't seem a natural fit.

- For avariel, the wings are a near-insuperable problem both technically (PCs that can fly break the game) and graphically (wing graphics). (There is actually a non-playable avariel race but it's purely cosmetic, just in the game to label Aerie.)

[Lightbringer]

Hi David,

Continuing the idea of Druid multiclassing, have you considered Monk multiclassing?  I know Monastic Orders of Faerun covers it, but it has some issues and cumbersome errors involved. I'd love to see Monks get a little love and integration with the ToF multi-classed kits, too.

[DavidW]

Interesting… yes, that’s plausibly possible. Will consider.

[Galactygon]

Congratulations on the release David! I'm very impressed you were able to go around the limitations of IE with these never-before seen options! Being able to multiclass druids into something other than fighters as well as the bonus spell slot being restricted to the spell of that specialty for specialists has long been a wet dream of mine. Were you able to use the EE's UI functionality to get around all these limitations?

I haven't downloaded the mod yet, just read the readme. Spells belonging to several schools is also a nice feature that was cosmetic in oBG2 but was rolled back in the EEs due to engine limitations (i.e. having the same spell available for several specialists as an option during character creation). I wish it were possible to have a spell belong to multiple schools in all respects (i.e. save penalties imposed by specialists, doesn't bypass Spell Immunity of that school, etc.) The elementalist system is also impressive, especially if you were able to pull off the scribe scrolls bonuses/penalties. Was that coded via the UI as well?

[DavidW]

1 hour ago, Galactygon said:

Were you able to use the EE's UI functionality to get around all these limitations?

Yes. The mod's unofficial title is 'a man-in-the-middle attack on the Infinity Engine'. Control of the UI lets you present kits as if they were classes, change displayed titles, hide spells from the player, block spell learning, inject new spells into the learnable-spell list, etc etc. (To be fair quite a few of these techniques were in mods already, though not all of them.)

 

1 hour ago, Galactygon said:

The elementalist system is also impressive, especially if you were able to pull off the scribe scrolls bonuses/penalties. Was that coded via the UI as well?

Yes (more clunkily than I would have liked, but it works).

[RoyalProtector]

Hello, I would like to submit as an idea that you tweak the Shadowdancer too. It is thematically considerably different from other rogues in terms of nature and abilities. I feel like it's left out fairly often, not sure why, but maybe because the Hide in Plain Sight is considered broken as far as AI is concerned. It's my favorite class, thematically, and I'm kinda working (when I have some time) on an overhaul, but it would be nice to be integrated in a cohesive system such as the one in this mod.

I have a few suggestions as to what to do about the class for your consideration:

- To minimize the power with Hide in Plain Sight, add a penalty when the hiding occurs in combat. I was kinda working on this myself by reducing the base hiding skills by 50%, which was an okay-ish compromise for me, although it would only trigger once per round, leading to some inconsistencies. I don't think removing the ability of hiding in plain sight is a good compromise though, as others have done, since "incredible skill at hiding even when observed" is a core feature of the class, after all, and makes it what it is. Maybe other solutions are better... like a spell that you can cast to hide in combat, but only every x rounds.

- Add, in some way or another, at some level, the ability to summon a shadow. The lore says that Shadowdancers can summon a shadow that increases with power with them, has the same alignment as the caster, and is difficult to turn (this last bit I could be wrong about). NWN had this, for example, and at epic levels you could upgrade the shadow to shadow lord. I think it's a cool idea in any event.

- They should probably get slippery mind by default, as well as Infravision, regardless of race.

- Shadowstep (which I believe it's called Shadow Jump in the original lore) is slightly broken because it relies on Time Stop and Time Stop has an inconsistent timing. I posted this a long while back noting these issues breaking things: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/63649/stealth-invisibility-wears-off-before-attacking-shadowstep-bugs . And additionally, I offered an alternative replacement here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/83362/improved-shadowstep-bgee . The point for me was to make sure Shadowstep could be used for both escaping danger and also chain backstabs effectively by moving from one enemy to another, which is the counter to the fact that their backstabs are weaker.

- NWN and NWN2 both add other features, such as Shadow Daze, which I interpreted as a mix of confusion and feeblemindedness (in NWN, daze makes the character not able to move or be control, but can attack back).

- The lore if I recall correctly notes that they can cast silent images of themselves and minor illusions to confuse enemies. This could be interpreted in the game as a Reflected Image, perhaps, that grows in power to become Mirror Image, perhaps...

I was also working on a few other things such as making backstabs "infused" with shadow magic stuff in various toggleable ways to make their weaker backstabs potentially more interesting in some other ways but I imagine this deviates too much from both the game and the lore. I was sort of inspired by what The Artisan was doing with the Assassin, for example, but to be fair his changes deviate from the normal game behavior much more significantly than your mod.

And for thieves in general it would be cool for them all to have some other ways of doing okay damage when backstabs are disabled for an enemy. The Artisan did this by making a HLA of the assassin "weaken" a target, by removing backstab immunity permanently, although I think that's too much. A temporal disabling of the immunity is possible anyway. All the other thieves have traps, at least, but the shadow dancer has nothing of the sort, it only has backstabs as the main source of damage, although I suppose that with your revised proficiencies this problem is lessened a bit.

Anyway, for your consideration. Cheers! Loving what you're doing with this mod for the most part

Edited December 16, 2023 by RoyalProtector
something I forgot

[Guest Drew lost his login info]

David, this thing is awesome!  I love the implementation of feats and the way you laid it out.  As yet another unsolicited feat idea, I'd love an option for bards to use feats to  add some divine spells to their list.  Just a thought. 

[Galactygon]

Have you looked at implementing some 2e lore abilities for higher-level druids, which become Hierophants? They gain the ability (not HLA) to summon various types of elementals and paraelementals in addition to being able to travel to the inner planes. The latter is difficult to adapt for the BGEE/IWDEE series, so instead I suggest to replace it by the ability to shapechange into said (para-)elemental, with more elemental shapes unlocked at higher levels. That would mean they automatically recieve these elemental shapes instead of them having to spend level-ups to select those shapes via a HLA menu. A title change for "Hierophant" would also be cool, once the Druid is past a certain level.

[subtledoctor]

Aren’t hierophant druids also supposed bound to their groves, and effectively retired from play?

The way Bioware handled the Druid Grove was super weird. They retained the XP table that assumes retirement at level 15… and then “boop” you’re back to leveling up at a normal rate. You take over leadership of a grove, become the pre-eminent druid of the area around Amn… and then delegate its care and never set foot there again and end up tromping around Amkethran and the lower planes and seizing the power of a god. 

Rather than lean in to the 2E grove-bound 2E druid stuff, since the game already deviates from it pretty hard, I think a mod would be better off providing more context and mechanical growth that explains the deviation from the 2E model. A druid with the blood of a deity is a pretty extraordinary thing, and a bit of a wild opportunity. Charname could be specifically charged with leaving the grove and questing to redress the unbalancing effects of such an evil death god as Bhaal. Go out and reclaim death as a part of the natural, neutral, order of things. And apply a suite of mechanical benefits geared toward pursuing that quest  

Heck, I think I just talked myself into making a mod for this…

[Lightbringer]

Keep it up, Doc, and I just might try out that mod if you make it (Compatibility with ToF's multi-class druids requested, of course)

An interesting side note about Druids retiring after level 14 -- AD&D 2e rules established limits by race on level advancement.
For example, Halflings could reach a max level of 9 as a fighter, only 8 as a cleric, but 15 as a thief. Elves could reach a max of 12 as a fighter, cleric, or thief, but 15 as a ranger or mage. The ability to level without limits was one of the major racial traits of being a human. They were the only race that could level without limits.  The implication that Druids retired after winning a grove at level 14 was actually right in line with the limits of other characters.
Fortunately, Baldur's Gate did away with those limits. However, the strange xp table for Druids persisted as a relic of those RAW limitations. 

[Galactygon]

The point of Hierophants in 2e were that it was a way for a Great Druid to further progress as an idependant agent without being challengeable by other druids so they were no longer bound to the druidic circle system, which thankfully isn't faithfully adopted by the BG1/2 story.