Christian

My experience is that stacking all the Bless/Chant spells and then Emotion Hope leads to absolutely insane ST bonuses. So it is not a single spell in my opinion but how they play together.

Divine Protection I didn´t find to be out of line but I didn´t abuse it for elemental protection in a pinch but rather as a shorter PFMW. After all priests have plenty of elemental protection at their hands with IWD spells now and they now have even ways to protect against dispelling. So I never had any use for the elemental resistance of the divine spells. To be honest, with SCS and Ascension installed and all the saving throw bonuses from the additional spells I find it very hard to get killed by spells once you get past maybe 2.5 mill XP. From then on physical damage is the main threat. Making those spells have a cast time of 7 with a duration of 3 rounds or some such would all but eliminate them from gameplay. There is no chance to cast them uninterrupted at that stage in the game.

Ok, that explains my observations. 

11 hours ago, AL|EN said:

...

• Fixed not existing spell name SPIN822b.BAM to SPIN822.BAM
• ...

Thanks! Any guess on what this will boil down to while playing?

There seems to be an inconsistency with many projectiles and the spells protection from normal missiles, protection from normal weapons and protection from magic weapons. Fire arrows for example get blocked by PFNM and PFMW. On the other hand fire arrows won't hurt monsters that are immune to normal weapons. 

Same holds true for several other projectiles.

Also on a sidenote: the component that makes +1 arrows into fine ones boosts their damage since +1 arrows in BG2EE get no bonus damage but the fine ones do. Though admittedly this might be only cosmetic in the item description. I didn't actually test it.

The new component looks great. That room is quite tough with SCS, especially without equipment. And fighting that all at once is definitely not intended.

Does this mod give an additional pair of boots of speed? I just finished the the fight in the drow city and ended up with an additional pair of them in my inventory. Playing with SCS and Tweaks anthology.

It was version 8.5 installed after Ascension on a normal BG2EE install (with SCS and some other mods).

Don´t know about EET but I played it together with Ascension on BGIIEE and it nearly cost my my game. Don´t know, if it works standalone but it certainly had unresolvable issues together with Ascension. I luckily could salvage my savegame by uninstalling it before confronting Balthazar. So my recommendation is to stay away from this mod for now.

Keep in mind that innate HLAs which scale with level (Planetar, Deva, Discs) will be weaker on Dual class characters like Imoen and Nalia. Also they tend to bug out and you can lose them permanently. I had this happen in my game years ago when that component got introduced. Didn't find anything in the changelog that this has been fixed since then.

Likely the latest available from here. Started the playthrough about two months ago and downloaded the mod freshly back then. Not at home right now, so I cannot check. If I deleted the mod I won't be able to check the version number.

Edit: Just checked. It was Version 8.5

6 hours ago, boof said:

Some months back we found out that the "trap_the_soul.ssl" file was completely empty, resulting in the two demiliches in the game no getting their "Trap the Soul" ability.

Someone in this thread posted the following, saying it should be pasted into the ssl before installing.

Well, I recently did a new install and did exactly that.
The good news? The demiliches got their trap the soul.
The bad news? literally every other lich got it as well.
These are the results when doing a search for "trap the soul" in all scripts.
Maybe even more than just liches got it as well, unless there are more liches in the game than I can remember off the top of my head.

I'm going to be deleting all the blocks containing "trap the soul" from the scripts, but can anyone explain why this happened in the first place? I guess the trap the soul ssl was empty for a reason.

If I made an install like before with an empty trap the soul ssl, and then pasted the above blocks of script that reference trap the soul into the two demilich scripts, would that grant them the ability to use it?

I reported the fact that even basic Liches do get Trap the soul in this very thread here.

On 2/13/2023 at 11:41 AM, Christian said:

Since we are all gathered here: The random lich enemy spawn in the zombietown (unseeing eye quest) uses Trap the soul (additional to casting spells). I thought this ability belongs to demi liches?

I used the same fix of replacing the empty file with the old one.

Edit: I am now right before Amelyssan, so it is doable. 

47 minutes ago, polytope said:

Off topic, but it's a bug that's annoyed me for a long time that short duration buffs can wear off during a Time Stop, I mean, the idea of the spell is that time is frozen for everyone except the caster, poison and such shouldn't continue to tick during Time Stops either, EE didn't fix it.

Anyway, SCS AI does not exploit this, enemies will cast Time Stop but not specifically to wait for your protections to expire... It wouldn't matter though, because fast casting Divine Protection can be used on the fly as a reaction to what an enemy caster does, thus soaking up their most powerful offensive spells (Horrid Wilting, Dragon's Breath etc.) in exchange for the caster's 5th level priestly spells (remember with Wondrous Recall you have a LOT once caster level reaches 11), I could actually accept the 7th level variant, but not this one. In vanilla, the only way to instantly pop up a protection that could absorb a volley of such powerful spells was by the potion of Magic Shielding or Scroll of Protection from Magic, which are very rare resources.

This might be a playstyle thing, but when facing a Lich exposed party members have a protection from fire and magic damage through items and spells when the fight begins and do not need to cast it mid fight unless removed. And timestop is a huge problem because your characters auras do not get cleansed during it. If you cast Divine protection before the timestop, it will be gone once the timestop ends and the spells take effect and your aura will be blocked. So it really doesn´t matter if the SCS AI does this intentionally, it will happen quite regularly.

And to reiterate: yes, this is a buff to clerics. And dearly needed in my opinion. Unless taking some weird kits into account they are imho the weakest class by far with only vanilla spells.

2 hours ago, jmerry said:

Uh, what? Armor of Faith has casting time 1. That's one of the spells you can use reliably in combat on a warrior priest. Maybe you were thinking of a different spell?

As for what the casting time should be, there's a general pattern to follow. Virtually every buff in the game with duration four rounds or less has casting time 1 or less. The exceptions in the BG series:

Aid, when cast at caster level 3 or less. (Duration 3 + 1*level rounds, casting time 5)

Resist Fire and Cold, when cast at caster level 4 or less (Duration 1*level rounds, casting time 5)

Luck (Duration 3 rounds, casting time 2)

Improved Alacrity (Duration 2 rounds, casting time 9)

Seeking Sword, when cast at caster level 4 or less (Duration 1*level rounds, casting time 5)

Boon of Lathander, when cast at caster level 4 or less (Duratin 1*level rounds, casting time 3)

A casting time of 1 for a very powerful defensive spell that only lasts two or three rounds? Absolutely in line with the general design patterns.

Might be observation bias on my side, but even casting time of 1 is long enough to get interrupted when casting without total protection.

Apart from that I agree that the very short duration of the spells justifies the short casting time and fits to other similar spells. But I do agree too that they bring a different flavor to clerics opposed to vanilla. That being said I do find clerics to be really pushovers with vanilla spells only. And Druids really only have awful low level spells.

I won't argue that casting time of 1 is slightly overpowered. But needing basically a whole round to cast them makes them almost unusable in combat. If using your clerics offensively like I do in my current playthrough (Jaheira and Anomen) they have to leave combat to recast Armor of Faith reliably because despite armor class they do get interrupted very often if they try to cast it in combat. And said Lich will only need one timestop to wait out those protections.

4 hours ago, polytope said:

In game the spells are called Divine Protection and Greater Divine Protection, so that enemy priests (most of whom are unaffiliated with Lathander, even if you play evil!) can justifiably use those, both have casting time of 1 and duration of 3 rounds, which is a bit imbalanced with the Amulet of Power making both instant, in IWD(-ification), the spells Shield of Lathander and Greater Shield of Lathander would be casting speed 8 and 9, duration two and three rounds, respectively.

Powerful for the AI controlled priests, but even more so for the player...

With those casting times and such short durations I would never ever use them.

I have Ascension installed along Wheels of Prophecy. I got the key to the grave entrance for the monestary relatively early but did not confront Balthazar back then. I now killed Sendai and Abazigal and when I confront Balthazar I convince him to fight Melissan together. We mob the floor with her but then his talk triggers twice and something in the game breaks. I guess I am supposed to travel to the Forest of Tethir and talk with the heads, but the destination is unreachable. Meanwhile all monks and mercenaries in Amkethran are hostile now. Travelling from the pocket plane only brings me to my last destination so this doesn´t work either. Any advice on how to save this savegame would be greatly appreciated. Repeating the confrontation with Balthazar and Melissan yields the same result. 

Edit: the quest for visiting Tethyr forest again is immediately marked as done when the two talks happen after Melissans defeat.

Edit2: Problem seems to be related to Wheels of Prophecy mod. I uninstalled that and loaded a safe directly before confronting Balthazar and after the talk I straightly got teleported to the pocket plane for the final challenge and the Solar exposing Melissans scheme.

One has to wonder, if the game is still beatable once all bugs in SCS and Ascension have been fixed. 

I don´t know if it conflicts technically, but it conflicts logically. As I understand it the tweaks component removes the talk incident that leads to slaughter. So there is nothing left for your main character to "talk down".

54 minutes ago, jmerry said:

Here's the description of Spell Shield in an unmodified game:

Note the presence of Breach on that list. In fact, the only ways to protect against Breach in the vanilla game are Spell Shield and blanket immunity to level 5 spells - the latter of which is only available to player characters through scrolls of protection from magic.

Some SCS components may alter the list, by adding spells to it. Nothing in SCS takes any spells off that list.

Ok, thank you. I didn´t trust vanilla description since SCS changed breach behaviour.

7 hours ago, jmerry said:

The "breach component" I'm referring to is "More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning)". It works, at least in part, by changing around secondary types, and that means it has to change Spell Shield too to preserve the "blocks Breach" functionality ... but it doesn't catch any clones of Spell Shield.

Wait, Spell Shield alone blocks breach? I thought you needed spell trap/turning, (minor) deflection or SI:Abjuration for that. I thought spell shields only job is protecting those against Secrets words and others that remove spell protections.

Is Firkrags Lower resistance spell bugged? He cast it on one of my party members who was solely protected by the 3rd level Mage spell protection from fire and according to character screen fire resistance stayed at 100. 

Since we are all gathered here: The random lich enemy spawn in the zombietown (unseeing eye quest) uses Trap the soul (additional to casting spells). I thought this ability belongs to demi liches?

7 hours ago, Userunfriendly said:

Oh, here's another fun trick. I was reading the Wiki, and noticed a sentence that literally blew my mind. Any increase in Luck will ensure that all your generated Mirror Images will take the hit before you. Huh?

So a Minor Sequencer with Luck and Mirror image at level 18 can guarantee 7 hits MISSING you. Luck only lasts 3 rounds, however, stored in a Minor Sequencer, you have a short duration Protection from Magic Weapons.  Demogorgon has 4 attacks per round. 2 rounds of guaranteed misses.  Using 2 second level spells.  
 

Of course, it's obviously better to rely on items to increase your luck, and continually cast Mirror Image, but if you thought Mirror Image becomes obsolete at high enough levels, think again.

Those  will not be "true" misses though as on-hit effects (like planetar dispel or vorpal hit) don´t care about mirror image. At least not in the current version of the game.

29 minutes ago, polytope said:

At the very least, Antimagic Sphere and Protection from Magic scrolls alike should both disallow self buffing and healing (through potion and item usage, two more buttons need to be disabled...).

I'm of the belief that IWD spells in SCS were not tested for balance and are much more of a benefit to the player than a threat in the hands of AI controlled opponents.

As said, it is my first time trying it with those spells and I wasn´t sure what to expect. My primary motivation was making clerics a bit more competetive. Dispelling them is a joke with their vanilla BG/SCS repertoire.

As for buffs: Antimagic sphere clears buffs on the target which are not given by equipment. I didn't try using potions apart from healing potions.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. This will make dealing with beholders for some classes outright trivial (I will report back on hive mother, since I installed the component which allows Spellstrike to remove the Protection from magic effect). I am still wondering if this is intentional. If I remember correctly you get exactly two copies of the scroll in an entire playthrough. And now (I try the IWD spells for the first time now) you get basically the same effect as a level 6 mage spell.