boof

I just realized that the improved shapeshifting component adds a lot more changes than was implied in the readme. I installed it thinking it basically just changed shapeshifting to be instant via the tokens. "Other than that, the effects of the shapeshift are largely the same as previously, though some of the ability score and attack bonuses have been tweaked slightly" That's from the readme, but the changes to greater wolfwere and HLA transformation are rather massive (50% permanent physical resistance on earth elemental, wtf). Can someone help me out and tell me which files I would need to edit, and what to edit within them exactly to remove these changes? Or if there's a way to install the component without these changes? I don't disagree that the base game shapeshift powers are rather useless, but some of this stuff is kinda bonkers.

True, I wasn't really thinking when I did it. But damn, a 12 round planetar is really bad, especially once you get into some of the more drawn out and difficult Ascension fights. Was really hoping there'd be a simple solution like switching its duration to a flat duration instead of level scaled.

Oh ok. I went into eekeeper and just put Nalia's thief level to match her mage level. It fixed the planetar duration, but for some reason when I loaded up the gate, it triggered a bunch of banters that I already went through long ago. Any idea what simply manipulating this level value might be breaking? edit: I guess this isn't really a great solution as it messes with saving throws and hp when you level up, and probably other things I'm unaware of.

Potential SCS related bug when using HLAs as innate abilities component. It seems like when a dual class mage or cleric summons a planetar or deva, the game is not reading the character's level correctly to determine the summon's duration. Level 20+ Nalia's planetar always lasts around 12 rounds, whereas Edwin's last ~22. Viconia's deva also lasts the proper amount of time, whereas Anomen's is around 14. Both also level 20+. I tested this with player made characters as well, and the result is the same, so it's not something NPC related. Multi classes seem to function just fine. Also tested in an unmodded game where the HLAs are regular spells, and the duration isn't broken there. If anyone could confirm this bug, or better yet provide a solution (other than don't use HLAs as innates component), that'd be great.

Some of these are bugs and odd behaviours, some are just my opinion as a player seeking a more challenging game (as I would assume most of us playing this mod would be) and random observations. I've played a ton in the last many months on a fully cranked SCS (through fine-tune dialogue) and double damage on, but have been slowing a down a bit lately, so I decided while some of these memories are still with me, I'd share them. Enemy priests casting circle of bones works against them. I have never, ever once been concerned about an enemy priest's circle of bones. In fact, the opposite. It's more like, "Oh good, he put put circle of bones. Time to move out of sight and clean up everything else before dealing with him." It would be overpowered for the player to allow movement with this spell, so I suggest it be removed from ever entering enemy priests' spellbooks or precasts. Entropy shield has no visual on enemies. I don't know what the technical reason for this is, it's just something that's a little bit annoying, that's all. It would be nice if there was some visual indicator. Speaking of Entropy Shield, it seems to still be removable by remove magic, as long as remove magic is not cast at the priest with the shield. I've noticed this happen mostly with demons (a Balor will cast remove magic on someone nearby, and fully dispel the priest with entropy shield, but will never cast remove magic if the priest is there solo with entropy shield up). Not sure what the intended behaviour here is; are demons using a slightly different version of dispel that simply wasn't accounted for when coding entropy shield? Or are demons intended to be able to bust it? In which case, why do they never cast remove magic when facing the priest solo? Precast aoe spells like incendiary cloud hurt enemy more than player. Maybe this catches some players that like to do dangerous encounters unbuffed off guard, but realistically from my experience, any mage that's cast a spell like incendiary cloud as a precast and also had allies in close proximity, did way more harm to his friends than my party. Enemies don't change targets when attacking members with divine protection/greater divine protection. Setting aside the fact that DP and GDP are beyond stupidly overpowered even without this AI hiccup for the moment, this is something that really needs a fix, so that it at least works as protection from magical weapons, where enemies will change targets once they see they're doing nothing to you. Temple dispel should be high enough level to always work. Don't known if this is really SCS's domain, but I may as well bring it up here. As it is, temple dispel is pointless (believe it uses whatever the selected character's priest level is, which of course unless it's a priest, is going to be 0). This can be quite a problem in no reload runs when it comes to getting polymorphed. The painting room in Spellhold has all the creatures that can do some kind of teleport attack you once you start combat, before any of their doors are opened. So you walk in, start the fight with the yuan-ti, and before you know it you have the Ulitharid and Noble Djinni on you too. Doesn't seem intended given the context of the area, but if it is, fine. Kangaxx and WK demilich need a fix so they cast Trap the Soul between casts, as the readme states they should. There are some temporary fixes that a few helpful people have posted on the forum, but yeah, don't forget these guys in future versions! Also making them anything that isn't a conjurer or invoker seems like a waste of an epic encounter. My current Kangaxx is a conjurer and the madness caused by summoning a planetar, several Balors and even more lesser demons back to back to back, all while popping off Trap the Souls, is so hilariously dangerous and fun. A few spell grievances: Create boneguard is super weak. That it's a level 9 spell is embarrassing. I wouldn't use this spell if it was at level 6, probably not even at level 5. I as a player would never use it, and it's honestly a big disappointment or a huge relief when I see an enemy cast it (depending on your perspective - challenge vs survival), as it's basically a wasted level 9 slot. Spell needs a huge buff, a BIG level demotion, or at least taken away from enemies having access to it. If the player wants to roleplay some sort of necromancer bonelord, fine, but give the poor AI a break and get this shit out of their spellbooks. Divine protection/Greater divine protection are ridiculous spells in general. I know the SCS philosophy is to "play fair" but I think this is one instance where the cast time for the player should be at least 7, while staying at 1 for enemies. Having full invulnerability at 1 cast time, and instant with amulet of power is mind bogglingly overpowered, especially considering the sheer volume of these spells a priest can pack. This just barely starts to chip away at this ludicrous spell, but it's something. That's all that's coming to mind right now. I've enjoyed the mod a ton and appreciate the work you've put into it DavidW. My only real grief with it, as a no reload player, are the evocation sequencers. Were it not for them, I'd probably be reinstalling the mod every few runs to keep things more interesting! I might add more here if anything springs to mind later. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Added later: Dumping some more feedback. This will more or less just be a random collection of notes I've made as I've played over the months, along with some suggestions. - Mages are casting spell thrust against priests with entropy shield. At first I thought they were trying to remove the spell shield effect from impervious sanctity of mind, but I've consistently seen them casting it on just entropy shield. This of course does nothing, as spell thrust removes lvl 5 and below protections, and entropy shield is a lvl 6 spell. - Continuing with entropy shield, mages regularly and repeatedly cast missile type spells at priests that have this buff. Spells like magic missiles, Melf's acid arrows and others. Entropy shield gives you immunity to missiles. This results in a lot of wasted actions on the enemy mages' part. - Speaking of entropy shield, this is another spell that went way overboard on how much power it adds to the players' hands. I can understand its need for the sake of enemy priests, but what it does for the player is so over the top. Just to go over it, it gives: 50% all res, 6 AC, 2 all saves, immunity to missile attacks/spells, and protection from remove magic/breach. All in one spell. If this spell did ONLY ONE of any of those things (save for maybe the missile immunity, though that too can be very situationally useful) it would be worth picking up. Something to think about. - Spell shield and Impervious sanctity of mind provide indefinite protection against mind flayer ballistic attacks and beholder anti-magic ray attacks. - Mages continue to cast confusion/chaos on to party members that have the exaltation buff. - Mages will repeatedly try to cast sleep on characters that have dual-classed at level 4 or below, but have reached level 5 and above (thus becoming immune to sleep). - The AI does not seem to know how to use the spell Mordenkainen's Force Blade. It is a spell that summons a magical weapon in your hand, but the AI uses it as if it was a targetable damage spell, trying to cast it over and over. Suggest removing the spell from enemy spell books, unless the AI fix is easy. - Suggest removing or greatly decreasing occurrence of the Control Undead spell in enemy spell books. I've often seen enemy level 7 spell slots jam packed with this useless spell. - There seems to a weird preference for the AI mages to use low level spells, especially during time stops. The number of times I've seen an enemy spam magic missiles, chromatic orbs, shouts and other garbage at me while having very solid high level spells of similar damage types available is really just plain old disappointing. - I'd like to suggest an increase occurrence of the SI: Abjuration precast. Parties with Haer'Dalis, Keldorn, and even a slightly higher level cleric begin to trivialize all mage encounters with their dispels. SI:Abjuration will at least give them an extra round of screen time. - While the randomized spells on install do add some flavour to generic and low level encounters throughout the game, please consider making pre-set/hand picked spell books for the truly climactic encounters. At least for the top end difficulty settings. When half my liches come packing and spamming suffocates, bone guards, mordenkainen's force blades and control undeads, it is just... so lame. My previous install's Kangaxx spammed demon summons. Between that, the dispels and trap the souls (trap the soul also needs to be fixed by the way) it was super chaotic and fun. My current install he casts a few horrid wiltings and like 5 suffocates, and then transitions to chromatic orbs and cloud kills. So disappointing, and reinstalling the mod over and over again until I get a lucky high percentage on the high level mages not having trash spells is not something I'm up for. - On a similar note, I've noticed that "invoker" type high level mages never come with a planetar. I can understand having them have a preference for some of the other HLAs first, but to never give them one, regardless of how high level they are? The difficulty difference between fighting a mage that comes with a planetar (every type except invoker) and one that doesn't is enormous. It's not a flavour or a "mixing it up" type of thing. A third/half the high level mages in my current install seem to be invokers with no planetars. Kind of a snooze. Especially paired with the issue I went over above, where they're more than likely going to end up spamming shouts, magic missiles and other low level nonsense at me. - Speaking of high level casters, I think the game is in dire need of more high level clerics. The number of high level mages you encounter in the game (primarily SoA) is in a pretty solid spot. On the other hand, you will see just about zero high level clerics. How many times do we see a Deva or an Implosion get cast on us throughout the trilogy? Just about never. I suggest bumping some clerics up so we at least see the occasional priest HLA in SoA (while being careful not to blanket increase levels and overpower druids. Seeing druid HLAs while doing the druid grove would not be a good time.) I think that's all I've got for now. If I had to pick one thing to be changed for the future, it would be a hand-picked spell book - or several variations of spell books if you'd like to maintain some level of randomness between installs - for high level mages. Having lame and weak climactic encounters is really a downer. ---------------------------------------------------- - Casters try to cast sleep on lower level skeleton summons repeatedly.

Yeah I see it now, I don't know what I was looking at before. Will definitely put in some of these components in the future and hopefully it works with scs and tweaks anthology.

I don't see the beholder fix in jmerry's mod, at least not in the readme. Nice of you to put some of this stuff into one post.

This is what I'm using. Drop it in after you've installed your mods. SPIN774.spl

Now that you mention it I haven't heard Mulahey use his help voiceline a single time since I started playing again. I've seen the kobolds work on some streamers' games though, but they were using older SCS and game versions.

The kobolds in this screenshot stay neutral and inactive through the Mulahey fight. Latest scs/game version.

The readme states this regarding the battle horrors in Davaeorn's lair: "The battle horrors, instead of being summoned by traps, are there already. They're enchanted to be immune to fire, lightning and web" In reality, they've only got immunity to the spell fireball, lightning bolt and web. They can be nuked with any other source of fire or lightning damage, even a fireball from a wand of fire. Why not just give them the fire and lightning resistance instead of adding these specific spell immunities? And if this is intended, then... ????

Nice, thanks for the speedy help, everything seems to be in order now. Throwing the anti-magic ray on them was a nasty move.

Thanks for the reply, but I've done as you said, inserted the line in both places, and they still sit there and spam keening. To be clear about what I did: Inserted the line in the ssl file. Opened the bcs file in NI, inserted the line, clicked compile, then save.

I think the Burning Man is broken. It just sits there endlessly spamming its fear ability at an absurd rate and doesn't use its cinder ashes ability ever. Did a recent patch break it, or scs? Could this be easily fixed with nearinfinity or something? https://streamable.com/hl3thp

Liches (and maybe casters in general, my experience here is with liches) seem to be confused regarding how the spell Mordenkainen's Force Blade works. They will cast this spell multiple times within a few rounds, like they think it's a targeted damage spell or a summon. Had a lich recently cast this three times within five rounds. Also, mage AI seems to be pretty weak vs. Entropy Shield. They repeatedly chuck magic missiles, chromatic orbs, melf's acid arrows, one after another, with no effect. They also try to spell thrust more than once in a fight against it. Another "bug" I've come across is that with the teleportation abilities that some creatures get and better calls for help, in the painting room in Spellhold, the djinni and ulitharid are able to exit their rooms before they're opened the moment you engage the yuanti in the main room.

Ah all right, interesting.

The remove annoying visual component removes all such visuals from spell effects when one of the relevant items are equipped. For example, I'm running reflection shield on Aerie, but the bubble sphere from spell immunity never shows up on her until I take the shield off.

The druid vs troll fight that takes place in the druid grove, right after the earth elemental, has a part where one of their druids summons two bears. Those bears are always under the party's control as if we summoned it, whether the druid is hostile or neutral. Kinda goofy. Not sure if it's an SCS thing though I don't see what else it could be.

The icon for the spell Cat's Grace doesn't show up on portraits, just like Emotion: Hope.

This is happening to me now, on my second playthrough. Weird, because it didn't happen on my first. This is my weidu log now https://pastebin.com/sj3gErqM On my first playthrough I had in addition to the above, SoD + the dlc merger installed, scs and tweaks install order flipped, and had a few cosmetic components from atweaks installed at the very end. I really don't know which part of that would account for it not crashing. EDIT: This has been fixed by changing the animation of tanar.cre from fiend_green to tanarri. Still weird because on my first playthrough he did use the green tanarri appearance just fine.

Appreciate your continued work on all things BG mr Dawg.

Right that's how it should be. In the clip in my OP that timer seems to activate upon his death.

Timestamped for the guards. He also aggressively teleports here.

edit: Something is definitely broken with the guard spawning. I played the fight a few more times and realized that the guards start spawning in AFTER Davaeorn dies, then they just walk down the hall and disappear. Kind of funny. https://streamable.com/k9wyll Anyone know why this could be or how to fix? The guards during the fight aren't spawning and he's not teleporting aggressively, only when you try to melee him. The latter may have been an intended change, though it makes him considerably easier because of it. The guards not spawning I don't understand however, because I'm sure that was working on this version before. I even let the fight drag out, and they never show. Can anyone tell me if they are getting guards spawning on 34.3/2.6.6 ? My log https://pastebin.com/GUiZCNug Regarding the difficulty slider, is there a difference between having the slider on core or hardcore but fine tuning everything else to max, and having the slider on insane with everything in fine tuning also maxed? I'm asking because I'm playing with it on hardcore for the 50% damage boost, but have everything else maxed. Could some aspects of ai/scripts be turned off because the slider isn't on insane, even though all the fine tuned options are?

It must be scs that changes him then, my mistake. I went into nearinfinity and changed his proficiency from longsword to katana, so at least now he's no longer a commoner-tier enemy.