jmerry

Sounds intriguing, and definitely worth testing. I might whip something up once I'm done with my current little project.

My general stance here? Shapeshifting is cool. I want it to work. And if that takes a whole lot of changes under the hood, so be it. "It never worked before, and often crashed the game" is no excuse for not at least trying.

Those are the pre-placed kobolds on the map. Creature kobold7, starting neutral and with a script that makes them essentially passive until provoked. Then, in vanilla the area gives them the specifics script HELPMUL, which makes them listen to Mulahey when he starts calling for help.

SCS changes them by moving HELPMUL up to the override slot so it takes first priority, and adding generic melee combat scripts. They should get involved in the fight and go hostile when any of the enemies calls for help. But, unfortunately, SCS also changes how the minions are summoned. In vanilla, it's a dialogue action and Mulahey shouts for help - in a way that reaches everyone in the area. With SCS, it's in the area script and Mulahey doesn't get that global reach. There should be shouting anyway, including the minions, but it might not have the reach to pick up Xan's guards.

Funny. I was leaning toward the BGEE architecture myself, because of the Ust Natha problem. Adalon's transformation has to be attached to a spell for multiple reasons, and that means it effectively blocks all weapon-attached transformations because of the order things get evaluated in.

The closest to a fix you can get for that in the BG2EE architecture is to make the transformations cosmetic-only, move all the creature stats over to the weapon as equip effects, and have characters that look like drow while they fight like werewolves (or whatever).

Having played SCS/Ascension myself, that final area is definitely a difficulty spike. The boss fights before that are a bit harder than what's around them. but it's well within what a bit more preparation can handle. The Throne itself is at least one to two difficulty levels tougher than anything that came before; if you're handling things on Insane, you might want to drop down to Tactical for it. This is an area where demons that gate in more demons are the breather fight between boss fights.

On some of those specific abusive tactics ... with SCS (at least the settings I was using), Chain Contingency is non-combat only. Sure, you can open the battle with a triple Incendiary Cloud or whatever, but you can't make a new chain contingency until there's an actual break between battles. And using Wish outside of battle is probably more abusive than using Wish in-battle. Sure, I had fun with the party led by a Dragon Disciple using PI and Wish to keep the turn/level buffs on everybody all the time, but that was also seeking feats of strength. (Can I kill a Balor with fire? Yes! The one in Suldanesselar inexplicably lacks immunity. Can I kill Yaga-Shura with fire ... no, he still has 110% resistance even after he lowers it with Aura of Flaming Death, because he's wearing that +FR armor. Can I kill an enemy in the fire temple with fire? Yes - the clay golem. Can I kill a hundred enemies with fire in a single battle? Yes - the forces of Ust Natha. And counting that took way too long. Do SCS mages ever re-up their elemental protections after you dispel/breach them once? No, so they burn. Is magic resistance any obstacle at all? Not really, especially once I got the Chain Contingency/self-targeted Incendiary Cloud combo going. Though that one wouldn't work in 2.6.)

@Sam. Giving both powers? Doesn't seem too hard to me, if you're willing to be slightly indirect. Create new spells "Grant Bhaalspawn Powers N", and put those in the 2DAs in place of the current powers. When used, that new spell grants both powers (171) for its chapter and removes itself (172).

All right, BG1 Bhaalspawn powers ...

The text and which powers you get are controlled in 2DAs DRMTEXT2 through DRMTEXT7. Progress is tracked with the global variable DREAM.

Other than that, I can't find anything. No scripts and no unmodded dialogues refer to that DREAM variable at all. The process seems very hardcoded. You can change a few things around, and you can piggyback on that DREAM variable for your mod stuff, but that's about it.

I checked my old (2.5, SCS v33) modded install. In that, the SCS random potions are at the end of the inventory slots used, because that's what the functions involved do when they add items. I don't see any good reason for that to have changed, but SCS is a big project and weird stuff sneaks in sometimes.

The items in that inventory before things start getting added: the key, three letters, and three specific low-level scrolls. A fourth scroll is in one of the quickslots. SCS adds a couple of no-drop items for scripting stuff, and then the random potions. The other two quickslots are used for the AC 6 bracers and archmage robes in vanilla; SCS moves those to be actually equipped by Dave and another mage earlier in the dungeon.

So, the fix here - the key should be assigned somewhere, probably one of the inventory slots. In the standard game, it's in the first inventory slot. One of your mods that added items must have bumped it - what's in that first inventory slot?

+5 to have a chance, +8 for guaranteed success. For basic turning, it's +0 for a chance, +3 for guaranteed success. The tables referenced above aren't actually correct, at least in the EE. Check the most recent posts in that thread, not just the top.

The worst areas for characters stacking up are narrow corridors - like a lot of BG1 dungeons, but also places like the entrance to the Planar Sphere. And you can reliably get out of it if you tell all characters involved to stop, then issue move commands to one at a time. They only get really stuck when more than one of them are trying to move at the same time.

Still, that's the pathfinding problem people care about. And it wasn't addressed in 2.6.

And the wand of lightning. Maybe also the Avenger/Priest of Talos versions of Lightning Bolt and Web. Potion and necklace fireballs feel a bit too far from the spell, though.

And what kind of party are you running that can kill him that fast? Drizzt is nearly immune to magic and has ridiculously good AC. In my current (near-vanilla) evil run, it took about an hour (game time) of one party member running in circles while the other five used ranged attacks to bring him down. Eleven gnolls, usually two hits to kill them (maybe one on a crit, maybe three with exceptionally low damage rolls), five attacks per round ... he'll be done with the gnolls in five rounds or so. About your only option for reliably speeding things up are MR-ignoring kit abilities that deal damage (Thief/Bounty Hunter traps, Blackguard Absorb Health, Dragon Disciple Breath Weapon). And if you have enough of that stuff to kill him quickly, the gnolls are irrelevant. Or an obstacle - wouldn't want those gnolls triggering the traps you laid before Drizzt is in range.

Also, if Drizzt prioritized party members over gnolls, that would open up a new cheese tactic: let him chase a party member while the gnolls continue to take potshots.

The 1-tick duration? kjeron's suggestion in this Beamdog forum post: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1178754/#Comment_1178754. It works reliably for the version with all of the 206 effects in the fireshield subspells, but apparently not with those spells themselves casting a new subspell.

And I don't think that a longer duration would fix the issues. Particularly not when the fireshields do less than one complete cycle of damage. I don't know how that happens, but it does. Sometimes.

Others are welcome to run their own tests, of course. If someone figures out a way to make something better work consistently, I'd love to see it.

A specific issue I've already touched on in my own mod, but I'm more convinced now that it's something for the fixpack:

Aec'Letec's Death Gaze includes the "Dying" portrait icon as a cosmetic indicator that you're going to die if you don't do something about it. Death magic protections, including Death Ward and Story Mode, block that icon. They do not, however, block the actual kill effect - that's via opcode 151, which absolutely nothing protects against (for good reason).

As an extreme case, Story Mode blocks the hold, the hold icon, and the dying icon. Aside from the initial sound effect and the lack of a saving throw message in the log, there's absolutely no indicator that you're in trouble until the character is gone five rounds later. (Still in the party, just not actually present anymore. And the log does say they died.)

Story mode should absolutely include (206) protection against the Death Gaze, and death magic protection in general probably should too.

I ran a quick test on the subspell method, using blue and red (mage) fireshields. I wasn't entirely consistent about it, placing the cast effect before the damage effect in red and after in blue.

It stopped the loop, but not in a consistent way. When red attacked blue, I got one round of blue damage and that was it. When blue attacked red, I got either one round each way or two rounds each way.

Then I retested, with the effects in the same place on each spell. That was even worse, running anywhere from no fireshield damage at all to about a second's worth of loop.

I think we're stuck with the long list of 206 effects.

If version compatibility is an issue, mods can (sometimes) test for it. 2.6 versus 2.5 is easy; I use the presence of #rdremov.SPL as a marker for 2.6 in my own stuff. Whether other mods do this when they would need to do different things to work in different patches is, of course, up to the modder.

As a UB component, a girl comes up to you after completing the original quest and gives you a lamp. A later encounter teaches you how to use the lamp, through either pure conversation or a dangerous fight. Then you can call up the genie and make a wish; some of the possible wish options relate to Kalah.

The quest's implication is that Kalah was given the lamp for cruel amusement - the giver wanted to see how he would harm himself and others with his new wish-based power.

As a stand-alone ... that's probably an error, based on the fact that there's a .tp2 in that mod folder in addition to the .tpa that the main mod uses. The .tp2 looks like an older rough version of the modder's work, which was refined in the .tpa. It shouldn't be there for general distribution.

One thing to watch out for - in many areas, particularly the BG1 wilderness, enemies and potential enemies don't spawn until you get close to them. Only a few specific creatures (generally those with dialogue or quest content) and never-hostile animals are pre-placed. So there's a very good chance your dog will just run off to bark at the nearest squirrel, until it gets surprised by a bunch of skeletons on the way. Not a criticism of the mod at all, of course - that's a perfectly reasonable thing for a dog to do.

Yes, that's the obvious intent. The same idea is used at one point in non-mod content: the demiliches in Black Pits 2 have an "Imprisonment" that's actually a 24-hour Maze which also removes Chaotic Commands so as to bypass that protection.

That "KangaxxWalks" section is for if you let him out of the tomb - he wanders around killing random bystanders. The part of the script that's missing (and should go in his mage script, along with the Watcher's Keep demilich) is the part for using SPIN788 in normal combat with the party.

Spellcasting demiliches may well be a downgrade overall; they lose their blanket high-level spell immunity and their signature attack, so they're only a little different from regular liches in combat.

Yep. I put a component "Green Slime poison can be cured" in my mod that does exactly that.

Note that this still doesn't let you save that bartender; he has a different item "SLIMED1" that kills him. I put that down to "you didn't get there fast enough".

Though that does support having both an attack bonus and Dex negation. Creatures with Dex penalties to AC in these games are also exceedingly rare. Searching BGEE for Dexterity 5 or less ...

CENTEO (Centeol), NEDEER1 (Deer), PHEOARCH (Phoenix Guard), PHEOGURD (Phoenix Guard), PHOENIX (Phoenix Guard), RABBIT (Rabbit), Squirrel (Squirrel), TTSER1 (Jospil), TTSER2 (Brevin). Would you ever even consider backstabbing any of them?

Same search in BG2EE:

CENTEO01 (Centeol), DEER01 (Deer), GRHOG01 (Groundhog), MOOSE (Moose), PHEAS01 (Pheasant), RABBIT (Rabbit), SQUIRR (Squirrel), TTSER1 (Jospil), TTSER2 (Brevin).

Basically the only time this would ever come up is if you started applying Dex penalties to enemies, like Polymorph Other or Haer'Dalis' sword Chaos.

I'd file this one under "bug, but very low impact".

So then, in the (EE) Infinity Engine games they get both. A +4 attack bonus for attacking in melee from invisibility, and negating Dex bonuses. All characters get the former, only characters with Sneak Attack or Backstab get the latter. Then there are the bonuses for melee against unarmed/ranged; another +4 to hit and +4 to damage.

It all stacks, and it can make an utterly enormous difference. Suppose Imoen is level 5 with a +1 shortbow and normal arrows, and the +2 shortsword, fighting Nimbul. If she backstabs him, that's base THAC0 18, +2 to hit from the weapon, +4 to attack from invisibility, and +4 to hit because he's wielding a throwing axe. Against that, he has base AC 5 and no Dex bonus due to the stab. Imoen hits on a 3, for a minimum of 21 damage - a guaranteed kill. If she shoots an arrow at him instead, that's base THAC0 18, +2 to hit from her dexterity, and another +1 from the arrow. Against that, Nimbul has AC 1 including his Dex bonus and an additional -5 bonus versus missiles from his boots. She now hits on a 19, dealing 2-7 damage or twice that on a critical. 90% chance to hit and kill one way, 10% chance to hit and definitely not kill the other.

The SCS spellcasting demiliches are missing the script section that uses Trap the Soul, and have been for several versions at least. So yes, that's why you didn't see it.

I didn't use a static list in my released mod. I just posted it here because this is a fixpack we're working on. That list was in fact generated by my mod running over every spell and looking for the relevant missiles, and looked up by checking one of the altered spells in NI.

The specific 2.6 change that did this:

- Pre-2.6 fireshields had no missile, and any "out of range" issues generated "Contingency failed" messages.

- 2.6 added a trio of missiles/projectiles: One_Target_Range_05, One_Target_Range_07, and One_Target_Range_10. Fireshield subspells, and only fireshield subspells, each use one of these for their damage. No contingency messages, because now the projectile just misses, but the infinite loop is on instead.

The subspell sounds like a good idea to me. Less clutter, and an easy standard to add on to with new mod-added fireshield effects. Though, testing required - is it fast enough?