[35.10] Level 3 Scrolls in Gnoll Fortress?

[Delior]

I am playing with the wider random scrolls component from 35.10, and a level 3 scroll (Hold Undead) just dropped from an enemy in the Gnoll Fortress.  Is that intended? I know it was possible to get level 3 scroll drops in vanilla BG1EE, but IIRC that only happened later in the game.  

[jmerry]

So, the baseline for this region ...

First, there are a few preplaced enemies. Gnarl, Hairtooth, the gnoll chieftain, and the chieftain's generic minions. Gnarl and Hairtooth don't have any scrolls. The chieftain has three instances of RNDTRE04. The minions are just more of the same creatures that you can find elsewhere.

Then, there are a bunch of spawn points, all of which generate various xvarts and gnolls. All of these have one instance each of RNDTRE02.

The table for RNDTRE02 includes an entry for RNDSCR01; you get a random level 1 scroll about once for every twenty instances of that treasure token.

The table for RNDTRE04 includes two entries for RNDSCR02; you get a random level 2 scroll about once for every ten instances of that treasure token.

So, in vanilla, you'll get lots of level 1 scrolls, might pick up a level 2 scroll from the chieftain, and won't ever see a level 3 scroll.

Then SCS gets involved. The "wider random scrolls" component wipes out the existing random scroll tokens (which are level-based in BG1 but vary more in BG2), and replaces the entries on the other random treasure tables pointing to them with some gold. Then it creates new random scroll tokens dwrnscr0 through dwrnscr8 for level 1-9 spells. And finally, it replaces a fraction of random treasure tokens with these new random scrolls, with some randomization as to the spell level. For items in containers, this is done at install time; in BGEE; RNDTRE01 and RNDTRE02 can become DWRNSCR1 (a level 2 scroll), RNDTRE03 can become DWRNSCR1 or DWRNSCR2 (a level 2 or level 3 scroll), RNDTRE04 can become DWRNSCR1, DWRNSCR2, or DWRNSCR3 (a level 2 through 4 scroll), and RNDTRE05 can become anything from DWRNSCR1 to DWRNSCR5 (a level 2 through 6 scroll). For items on creatures, it's the same range but done through item-creating spells.

But wait, there's a catch. For spells above a maximum level, the tables don't get filled out, and that token isn't actually created. No spells above level 4 in BG1, no spells above level 8 in BG2. So that highest-level random treasure in BGEE can't actually create a level 5 or 6 scroll for you. And if it does roll that ... I don't know what happens, but that looks like a likely source of invalid items.

And then there's the big issue: it looks to me like the whole table is off by one. Are you seeing any random level 1 scroll drops at all? The comments in that file imply that level 1 scrolls go into DWRNSCR0, but that random scroll token is never created under any circumstances.

This component is intentionally somewhat more generous about the higher-level scrolls than the base game. It should be possible to pick up a level 3 scroll from the chieftain, if you get lucky. But it doesn't look to actually be working properly.

[Added in edit]

I just took a look at the previous version of this, from 35.7 to 35.9. That had no random scrolls on RNDTRE01 or RNDTRE02, DWRNSCR0 on RNDTRE03, DWRNSCR1 on RNDTRE04, and DWRNSCR2 on RNDTRE05. So that version would have had no scrolls at all from the regular gnolls and a chance of a level 2 scroll from the chieftain. 35.10 made things substantially more generous with chances of scrolls from the lower random treasures, but also introduced that off-by-one problem for no level 1 scrolls anywhere.

Edited February 16 by jmerry

[Trouveur80]

13 hours ago, Delior said:

I am playing with the wider random scrolls component from 35.10, and a level 3 scroll (Hold Undead) just dropped from an enemy in the Gnoll Fortress.  Is that intended? I know it was possible to get level 3 scroll drops in vanilla BG1EE, but IIRC that only happened later in the game.  

I remember having high level scrolls dropped in an EET game there, with the BGQE A failed picnic quest.

Edited February 16 by Trouveur80

[Delior]

I am seeing level 1 scroll drops as well. Some of us noted in prior versions of SCS 35 that we were not seeing many random scroll drops, and David said that his code was being "stingier" than vanilla, and so he adjusted it for the latest version.  I am either getting very lucky with level 3 drops, or the code may be a tad too generous.  I also had an enemy drop a Melf's Minute Meteor scroll. I didn't note who dropped that unfortunately, but my party is still all level 1 or 2 and we haven't even cleared Nashkel yet.  

If the component is working as intended, that's fine.  It's up to David to decide how generous he wants the scroll drops to be - my only purpose in noting these drops is to ensure that the component IS working as intended.  

[jmerry]

If you're seeing level 1 scrolls, then ... actually, I can just ask. What do the DWRNSCR# rows look like in RNDTRES.2DA?

[Delior]

Well, I'm not sure which numbers you are looking for specifically, but here is the file from my override folder.  

rndtres.2da

[jmerry]

OK, looks like the comment "levels are on a 0-8 convention" is incorrect as of 35.10. The number in the token ID is now equal to the spell level, read conventionally. And random scrolls are limited to levels 1-3 in BG1, 1-7 in BG2.

The system is now significantly more generous than in vanilla BGEE; some enemies that didn't drop scrolls can now drop level 1 scrolls, some enemies that dropped level 1 scrolls can now drop up to level 2 scrolls, and enemies that could drop level 2 scrolls (ghouls and ghasts, for example) can now drop up to level 3 scrolls.

42 minutes ago, Trouveur80 said:

I remember having high level scrolls dropped in an EET game there, with the BGQE A failed picnic quest.

It looks like EET does some tricky things with random treasures, separating the BG1 random treasures (that can drop level 1-3 scrolls) and the BG2 random treasures (that can drop scrolls of much higher level) into different items. The old token name goes with the BG2 table, while a new token name points to the BG1 table. And if a mod that doesn't take this into account is installed onto EET, you can end up with random treasures that are significantly more generous than intended.

[Delior]

Thanks, Jmerry.  It was likely a ghoul in the map just south of Beregost that dropped the Melf's Minute Meteors scroll I mentioned earlier.  

[Trouveur80]

58 minutes ago, jmerry said:

OK, looks like the comment "levels are on a 0-8 convention" is incorrect as of 35.10. The number in the token ID is now equal to the spell level, read conventionally. And random scrolls are limited to levels 1-3 in BG1, 1-7 in BG2.

The system is now significantly more generous than in vanilla BGEE; some enemies that didn't drop scrolls can now drop level 1 scrolls, some enemies that dropped level 1 scrolls can now drop up to level 2 scrolls, and enemies that could drop level 2 scrolls (ghouls and ghasts, for example) can now drop up to level 3 scrolls.

It looks like EET does some tricky things with random treasures, separating the BG1 random treasures (that can drop level 1-3 scrolls) and the BG2 random treasures (that can drop scrolls of much higher level) into different items. The old token name goes with the BG2 table, while a new token name points to the BG1 table. And if a mod that doesn't take this into account is installed onto EET, you can end up with random treasures that are significantly more generous than intended.

Thanks for the hindsight.

[jmerry]

... Correcting something I said earlier, random treasures in vanilla BGEE allow for at least some chance of scrolls at all treasure tiers. Plus there's a small chance of upgrading to higher level scrolls; you roll the "random magic item" possibility on the random treasure table, and then roll the "random scroll" option on the random magic item table. There's also a token for random level 4 scrolls in vanilla, but no way to get there from the standard random treasures so it never comes up.

Anyway, ignoring that small chance of an upgrade, here's what levels of random scroll are possible in BGEE from the various levels of random treasure, under vanilla rules and recent versions of this SCS component:

Token     Vanilla  SCS 35.7  SCS 35.10  Drops from
RNDTRE01  Level 1  None      Level 1    Hardly anything
RNDTRE02  Level 1  None      Level 1    Bandits, gibberlings, gnolls, kobolds, tasloi, xvarts, etc.
RNDTRE03  Level 1  Level 1   Level 2    Ettercaps, hobgoblins, half-ogres, ogrillons, etc.
RNDTRE04  Level 2  Level 2   Level 3    Ankhegs, flinds, ghasts, ghouls, gnoll chiefs, ogres, ogre berserkers, etc.
RNDTRE05  Level 3  Level 3   Level 3    Basilisks, doppelgangers, ogre magi, skeleton warriors, etc.

For some reason, the lowest-level random treasure is basically unused. The remaining four are where it's at for the BG1 campaign.

[Delior]

Hey @DavidW, since you're looking at the scrolls component for 35.10 in response to the unhelpful complaints in another thread, I wanted to make sure you saw jmerry's last response on this thread above.  The key question I have is whether you intended for level 3 scroll drops to occur at the RNDTRE04 token level.  Per the chart above, that did not occur on either vanilla or in prior versions of SCS.  

[Delior]

I wanted to revisit this topic just to note that on a separate installation of 35.10 than the one I was using when I made this post, I have not seen a single level 3 scroll drop from the RNDTRE04 group of enemies.  Per Jmerry's chart above, this grouping never drops level 3 scrolls in either vanilla or SCS 35.7, but in my prior installation I had 3 such scrolls before my party even reached level 3.  In my current playthrough, my party is almost level 6 and we've cleared most of the southern half of the map without any level 3 scroll drops.  

Based on that, my conclusion is that the component is likely working as intended, except that in my prior playthrough, the RNG gods were being a bit too generous to my party.  As any longtime player of these games knows, the RNG roller is not always reliable and can get "stuck" at times, leading to odd results such as multiple instances of the same random treasure dropping, or the loot tables being overly stingy or overly generous.  So, this component may be working as intended, and my OP questioning the generosity may simply have been prompted by overly generous random rolls.  

[DavidW]

Helpful, thanks.