Demivrgvs

Blindness/Fog Cloud Well, that's a daring change indeed. It's not written in stone that Fog Cloud has to replace Blindness in the official release but they perform an almost identical role and the beta was the right occasion to test it. As a completely new spell the AI would not use it, while SCS seems to use Blindness quite often and against warriors, exactly what FC is made for. Blindness had several "issues" imo: - it's almost a save or die when used by players against AI, even more so against spellcasters - good against PC warriors, but completely useless against PC spellcasters - its main concept (no line of sight) actually do not affect players at all, making it not a Blindness spell but just another "reduce thac0 variant" - I'm not sure if PnP Blindness is considered "a classic", but it surely isn't a cheap1st level spell there Fog Cloud tries to "play fair" and even if it's not full blindness it makes players at least experience a glimpse of what the original spell was supposed to make them feel - reduced line of sight. I admit that I would not mind FC to replace Blindness even on the final release, but it will depend on beta testers feedback, or if we find an even better looking solution. The beauty of having having this beta is that I can try things like this.

Don't worry, this is probably the right place to discuss the beta instead, I can always use the first post to gather all the change-logs. Btw, all those daring changes and you are only nitpicking a small thing about trap-like spells? Skull Trap You do have a point, but from my experience a 10 feet AoE is a bit inconsistent. We risk to create a situation where you have to "lead" the intended target directly on top of the trap to make it activate.

Just wanted to say the beta is proceeding well. V4 - Beta 3 (July 22th 2014) - tons of small "adjustments" to make the build work fine with BGEE - Sanctuary duration reduced to 6 rounds - Armor of Faith grants 10% res against all dmg types, 2 turns duration - Draw Upon Divine Might capped at +3 STR/DEX/CON at 9th level, no longer causes fatigue - Grease save against knockdown is made at +2 bonus - Charm Person save is made at +2 bonus (it was +3 in vanilla) - Blindness replaced by Fog Cloud (halved line of sight, -4/-8 melee/ranged thac0 penalty) - Haste fatigue duration reduced from 5 to 3 rounds - Lightning Bolt dmg dice reverted from d8 to d6, save penalty increased from -2 to -4, projectile speed increased from 20 to 60 - Skull Trap dmg dice reverted from d4 to d6 but capped at 10d6 (SCS did the same to balance its own 3x triggers) - Dire Charm save is made with no penalty - Hold Monsters save penalty reverted from -4 to -2 - Phantom Blade no longer deals increased dmg vs. undead - Spell Shield now grants immunity to dispel effects (only a temporary solution - part of a bigger plan) - Horrid Wilting save penalty reduced from -6 to -2 - Bigby's Clenched Fist "replaced" by Bigby's Icy Grasp (dmg type changed to cold, small refinements)

As mentioned elsewhere the beta testing has begun. For those that do not want to beta test but are still interested to know how the build is evolving I'll post here the various change-logs. Note that some of the following changes may not be part of the final release. I'm taking advantage of the closed beta to try some daring or even crazy stuff and then decide. View on GitHub Download (Windows) Download (OS X) Download (Linux) With the release of SR V4 Beta 16, I'm closing this discussion. Please leave comments for SRv4b16 in this thread.

Just wanted to say that Beta Testers finally started putting their hands on the current build, which includes all the planned changes listed in the first post and followed by a Done flag. If anyone is interested on this build just contact me. I'll try to keep that post up-to date and inform everyone about the ongoing process of refining we are doing. In the meanwhile, check here if you haven't already, you may even found cool new entries such as... Break Enchantment Exploiting the pre-existing 'disabling' sec type we have tweaked this spell to finally counter charm effects. At the same time this change made it also counter the following spells: - Doom - Silence - Miscast Magic - Emotion - Malison

@Incantatar, thanks for joining the discussion. Armor of Faith What Kreso described with his graphic is the very same reason that made me tweak AoF in the first place back then (from an increasing 5-25% to a fixed 20%). A % dmg reduction scale by itself exponentially the more the character gains hp, and the more dmg he has to sustain from his opponents. I am sympathetic to what Salk says in general, but uber high damage resistance in this game can be easily achieved even by "random players" with many different setups without meta-gaming, with or without Revisions mods. Btw, 80-100% res for extremely short duration may not be a huge deal (it is imo), but values above 100% that makes you fully heal because the enemy is using Critical Strike against you -that's just stupid imo. My only concern is that at low levels a 10% reduction doesn't "look cool" by itself for many players, and unless coupled with other resistances it's clearly inferior to something like ProEvil imo. This is not really a problem with IR's armors (e.g. a cleric casting AoF in medium or heavy armor would have res 20-30%), but without IRv4 you have to wait for BG2 to make this spell shine imo. That being said, even without IR the suggested change would still make this spell work better than vanilla's one for BG1 (higher or equal %, better duration). Draw Upon Divine Might Well, +6 to all stats means you can get to 23-25 STR/DEX/CON very easily imo. Unless your starting stats are a joke it means you are probably going to get at least +3 thac0, +5dmg, +3 AC, a good bunch of hit points and a slow regeneration. With certain stats it gets even better, such as STR 17 becoming 23 for a ridiculous +10 dmg bonus on each hit. Doesn't that sound great to you for a 2nd lvl spell? That's why I put the winded effect there, which btw was there even in PnP (and harsher!). If I had to remove the fatigue effect I do think the bonus to STR/DEX/CON should not be higher than +3. Blindness @Salk, I cannot reduce any penalty because what makes this spell a "save or die" for the AI isn't the -10 thac0 or -4 thac0/AC, but its "no field of view" hardcoded effect. What I don't like of this spell is that it's waaay more powerful when used by players against the AI. The only case where the player would "feel" blindness the same way would be an AoE Blindness which blinds the entire party. When I say I'd like to change it "with style" I mean something daring like I've done with Deafness (I love that change). I'm talking about something like replacing it with Fog Cloud (blinds - or almost blinds - everyone within it making it "fair" when used against players) or moving it to its appropriate level (it's a 2nd lvl spell in PnP, not a super cheap 1st lvl). I'm not suggesting this, it's only to try explaining my point, but if this spell had a heavily reduced duration, but caused both blindness and deafness it would still be better than now imo (AI casters do not cast spells anyway while blinded, thus no change for them, but finally players would be limited too). I know I'm crazy. Teleport Field This spell was OP in vanilla because of its no-save and "stackability" but I would not nerf it more than I already did. @Incantatar, I'm slightly boosting its save penalty (save at -4 vs. spell is harsh enough to work extremely well against its intended targets, melee warriors) but while I don't think its still too powerful like kreso I also do not think it's too weak.

@Salk & Sergio, I will leave kreso answer for himself, but I think both you and him have a point, and I generally try to please both types of players (sometime it's not possible). When it comes to Armor of Faith, I'm taking into consideration the suggested tweak (10% res against all dmg type instead of 20% vs physical dmg only) because I do want to take into account possible uber-combos, but at the same time I would not opt for a tweak which makes a spell appealing only in limited circumstances or only when used in those uber-combos. I'm not 100% sure I will implement it, but I think 10% res against all would not make the spell unappealing at all, especially if we are rasing the currently short duration. It would still be better than vanilla's AoF for BG1 (it was 5% for levels 1-4, and extremely short lasting until level 10), and still good for the entire game because of the increased duration and great interaction with TONS of stuff (physical and/or elemental resistances are almost everywhere). On a side note, I have no intention of removing Fortress Shield's physical res. I really like its current state and do not find it a "problem" for the above mentioned uber-combos. Blindness I'm aware of this spell OP-ness against AI and I'm trying to figure out a way to change it "with style". Simply reducing its duration would make it kinda against players though (at least imo). They already ignore its most prominent feature because the blinded character field of view is not limited as long as you have another party member nearby, and the extremely long duration was meant to make this spell "annoying" for players (AI obviously cannot care less of such duration). On a side note, I'd like to remind that Deafness will no longer be the useless spell you are used to but a much cooler one. Check here. True Stike Mmm...I have to think about it. Haste Yeah, that's a common problem of all those spells with 1 round/lvl duration, they last too little within BG1. What about a fixed 1 turn duration? Protection from Missiles I'm in favor of making it self-only. I cannot reduce the duration so heavily because afaik SCS uses it as a long lasting pre-buff. Maybe we could try 1 turn instead of 2, but it requires testing to see if it lasts long enough. Also note that Arrow of Dispelling still work against this spell. Ice Storm I'm sure you know it, but just to remind everyone, this spell "only" reduces the movement rate of those within the storm, they are not affected by a slow opcode (thus no apr reduction and related stuff). Considering it is not party-friendly I'm not convinced that this spell needs a nerf. Mmm... Teleport Field Why do you feel duration is too long? It's only 10 rounds... Draw Upon Holy Might The winded duration is the standard one, and it's not long imo. In theory it's there to force you to time the use of this spell instead of spamming it as you please, especially at high levels where this spell becomes both cheap and powerful. Otoh one thing I always felt wrong of this spell is its scaling. Similarly to vanilla's AoF this spell starts as an underwhelming spell (+1 to all stats is meh unless you are so lucky to go from STR 18 to 19) but later on turns into an absolute monster (+6 to STR, DEX and CON is insane for a 2nd lvl spell imo). Am I the only one feeling this? Blade Barrier/Globe of Blades I don't remember why it's working like this, but I guess it can work with a save for half dmg too. I'm not sure instead about heavily reducing the dmg in favor of no save at all.

I'm stuck on IR's beta right now because Arda pretty much abandoned me (temporarily - I hope). Thanks to beta testers help I'm fixing few things (e.g. vampiric and bleeding effects could potentially cause small issues) while doing a massive amount of small refinements to the main component. I also have SR on hold, and without Arda I'm not sure I can handle all KR stuff (probably not) but I should be able to package thief kits by myself. I'll be at home tomorrow and look into it. Short story: expect more news within 24 hours.

Sorry I forgot to answer. I'll spare you the long story, the engine simply doesn't allow monks to use 2handed weapons. It's something related to its unique animations and their fists.

I actually contacted theacefes a bunch of days ago and mentioned you. She quickly fixed a similar issue I had but she may have forgot about you. Try to contact her yourself maybe.

Weapon Changes Yes, you are correct. Revised Armors I'm not sure what you are confused about. Is there any instance where we say hide isn't light and splint isn't medium?

With Arda partially back and beta testers actively helping me it's time to prepare for updating the beta with both Arda's stuff and mine announced changes. When it comes to the former, there's something I discussed with beta testers and that I'd like Arda to work on if he can. Armor Movement Rate Penalty Even those who like the concept find the current penalties too harsh. Long story: The current values were based on the assumption that base movrate was 9, but I ultimately discovered that it's 8. In both cases with 10%, 20% and 30% values you get -1, -2, -3 movrate penalty, but applied over base 8 such penalties are indeed more harsh than I thought (e.g. with full plate you get movrate 5, which is pretty much a 40% penalty, almost identical to a character affected by a Slow spell!). Short story: we need to tone down those values. Apparently we have many possible % values, but we can only work with -1 and -2 penalties, thus we actually don't have many options imo. Solution A: * 5-10% for hide and chain armor (-1 penalty) * 15% for splint and plate (-2 penalty) * 20% for full plate (-2 penalty) Solution B: * 0% for hide and chain armor (no penalty) * 5-10% for splint and plate (-1 penalty) * 15-20% for full plate (-2 penalty) The consensus between beta testers was to opt for B.

Weapon Changes Point taken, but the above mentioned change isn't going to nerf short swords much, no? It's mostly there to buff daggers a little bit, giving them at least one small niche. That is exactly what we did for the current beta. It may sound complicated on paper, but when you actually play it's much more simple imo. Hardcore players can take advantage of all small refinements to get the best from each weapon/armor, but casual players can still play the game normally and feel at home imo, probably without noticing most of our base stat changes.

I asked the admin and hopefully this issue will be fixed. Ironically I have the same problem since I changed my profile e-mail.

Before starting to discuss changes to specific items that may be included in future updates of the beta, there's a couple of things that are already implemented in the current build but not yet mentioned in the first post. Weapon Changes Short Swords now use slashing dmg type instead of piercing. This change may sound odd but we've done this in an effort to give every weapon type some sort of "role". Short sword advantages over long swords: - no backstab penalty - can be dual wielded more efficiently - better speed factor - better thac0 against armor (because of piercing type) Long sword advantages: - +0.5 dmg Short sword advantages over daggers: - +0.5 dmg - range 1 instead of 0 (not a big deal I know) Dagger advantages: - better speed factor The above mentioned gloabl change would remove short sword advantage against armor compared to long swords, while giving daggers a bit more value. What do you think? Shield Bash I'm still not sure about this component because I love the concept but I'm not sure about its implementation. @Beta testers, if you use this, let me know how you feel about it.

@Yarpen, sure man, you also know a bit of modding which is a good thing to both track down issues and suggest tweaks. @Beta testers, I'm sending you a PM (right now) with the link to my dropbox where I uploaded the current build. If you don't receive any PM within a couple of hours and you are interested on helping me just write me here or via PM. The build I've uploaded right now includes everything mentioned here, and it's pretty much the same build which has recently leaked from Arda's git repo (except few fixes regarding 1PP stuff). Within my internal build I'm working on TONS of small changes to specific items (will post about them later this afternoon), but testing them is not as important as everything else (Revised Armor, Store Revisions, BGEE compatibility, etc.) thus feel free to start testing if you wish. Else, you can wait for those changes to be implemented after some discussion. - other than very few "overlapping" items (such as World's Edge & Harbinger) I don't think there's much to be tested, am I wrong? Anyway, I prefer to start doing some testing on what we have rather than waiting for Mike and Arda. I do hope they manage to find some time to help me, but in the meanwhile I want to do something rather than just "wait" like we did the last 6 months. - I tried to handle compatibility with 1PP v4 myself re-working on helmet and shield animations, but the beta testing can surely help detecting eventual issues (e.g. wrong animation displayed). BGEE uses 1PP by default, thus any beta tester using BGEE will help on this matter.

Testing main goals are: 1) finding and fixing any bug/issue we may found (for a polished official release) 2) playtesting of the new features 3) Store Revisions review 4) eventual refinements of specific items 1) Simple as that. The more we find now the more polished the official release will be. 2) There's quite a few global changes with noticeable impact on gameplay: - Revised Armor (Is physical resistance a good and functional addition? Does weapon speed factor finally play a real role in the game? How do you feel about armor's speed factor penalties? etc.) - Revised Backstabbing (how do you feel about the currently used values? Is ranged backstab a valuable new addition or not?) - Critical Hit Aversion (how dramatically does it affect game balance?) - Weapon Changes (how do you feel about the whole system? do you think slings should have STR bonus? etc.) 3) With your help I'd like to compile a comprehensive list of Arda's changes, and eventually refine some re-allocation if needed. Ideally it would be great to get the following for shops/vendors: - main "role" (e.g. general store, fletcher, armor smith, alchemist, fence, etc.) - for each shop "role" a list of what can generally be found - for each unique shop/vendor a list of semi-unique or unique items And the following for both shops/vendors and re-allocations: - new locations (e.g. creature x now wears/wields item y, store x now has item y) 4) IR has reached a state where I think 90% of items are as good/unique as they can be, but there's always room for improvement. I already have a small list of things I'd like to discuss, and I'll post them later. View on GitHub

Barbarian Cool. Good to know we can make Cleave even better both functionally and cosmetically. LOL sounds like we had pretty much the same idea. Do you think some sort of penalty would not be enough to prevent its spam? a) for now, but yeah b) well, stances are not supposed to be activated often, and this ability should only be activated once per encounter before going in melee. No big deal in both cases imo. Regarding Tireless Rage, I'm still undecided about it, and I'd limit it to HLA levels. I also thought about using a reduced fatigue for high levels (much less severe effects, lowered duration or maybe even both) but your solution is kinda fine as well albeit strange looking imo (a tireless effect which displays the tired icon). Berserker You know I do like the auto-frenzy thing, but it's incredibly difficult to implement well. I will surely work again on the Berserker in future versions, but it's already quite cool as it is imo, and I'd prefer to focus a bit more on the other classes unless other beta testers find this kit a bit lacking. a) current -2/-4 is fine imo, if you stack both Rage and Reckless OS you deserve a big hit to compensate the insane dmg output b) indeed c) still undecided how to handle this, though the current implementation is mostly fine imo because it's only lacking when you get TONS of dmg in the very same round. d) I agree, and I do think it will be back in some way. Kensai I don't like SCS AI behaviour in this case. The huge AC bonus would accomplish almost the same, but leaving the kensai extremely vulnerable to criticals, and this ability was actually intended as a late game counter to Critical Strike HLA. I obviously wish the same.

I'm glad you like it. @Jarno, yes KR's monk "have 2 attacks with every thief weapon by default" similarly to PnP Flurry of Blows that can be applied to monk weapons too. I also remember beta testers reporting some kind of issue when we had the apr bonus applied to fist itm files. On a side note, I re-read almost all feedback from beta testers (thanks again Kreso, Kalindor and Lawlight) and finally added the notes to the first topic to hopefully better explain what we did and why.

Well, guess it's time I fill that "note" stuff in the first post. Anyway, I'll try to summarize the differences: - the monk now starts with 2 attacks per round instead of 1 (this is a huge difference, especially at low levels) - fists damage still improve with levels but caps at a lower dmg output (1d12 instead of 1d20) to prevent OPness at high levels - fists enchantment level is +1/+2/+3 at levels 6, 12 and 18 respectively instead of 9, 12, 15 (the +1 at level 6 is crucial for BG1 and early BG2 imo) - base innate AC is 2 points better than vanilla's monk (again a crucial thing for low levels), than scale as per vanilla - does not gain fast movement rate (but Ki Step ability more than make up for it) - immunities are pretty much unchanged - no longer gains magic resistance but in exchange he gets the best saves of any other class (even better than paladins) - Quivering Palm is mostly unchanged - the real big new entries are to be found within the Ki Pool. It contains vanilla's Stunning Blow and Wholeness of Body, but now adds TONS of new abilities like Ki Dodge (later upgraded to Etherealness), Ki Step (later upgraded to Abundant Step, aka a super fast Dimension Door), Ki Arrow, and the outstanding Ki Shout. - Slow Time is pretty much a lesser Time Stop HLA, and a real game changing ability I think KR's Monk is way better than vanilla's one in every aspect. It's much more usable at lower levels, and still extremely powerful later on despite the loss of the uber magic resistance (which was stealing Wizard Slayer's role while making the Monk a bit OP at high levels) and capped dmg output (countered by the increased apr). The Ki Pool is the real class defining feature of KR's Monk, offering the class a lot more options and potential, while making the gameplay more unique and fun imo.

Thanks man. Barbarian Using 'speed factor bonus' for Cleave sounds cool. I thought it would have been wonky together with IR armors giving speed penalties, but it sounds like you used the latter too without problems. I remember multiple effects not correctly stacking, have I to assume either the latest or the highest speed bonus/penalty takes precedence? Regarding OS and Leap Attack, what about merging them into a sort of Charge feat? Something like a usable at will "stance" which lasts a single round, granting thaco (dmg too?) and movement rate bonuses in exchange for lowered AC (to prevent its spam in melee). Is it worth trying? Berserker I think we are not far away from its final state. It's a real shame we had to give up the "out of control" aspect, but it can be great anyway. The only real problem is that without that feature it's hard to make him as devastating as it should while keeping him balanced. Kensai & Monk I don't think the Kensai kit is overcomplicated. I like how we expanded upon the Ki concept offering a bit more options without making it as "complicated" as the Monk. Otoh, I think we may remove the Defensive Stance from this class. The Monk is indeed waay more "complicated", but I really really like what we did for it and I think this class deserves to keep a wider range of options compared to other warriors. Inquisitor Believe it or not, I do thought about using similar tricks and I didn't only because I was expecting to add custom sec type soon. Nice job tweaking it for yourself though. Mages Yep, I've already worked a bit on spellcasters for my internal build and plan to include them too in future releases.

I'll spare you the long story, let's just say I'm secretly doing a lot of things for all 3 Revisions mods. KR is the last one on the priority list, but it's not dead at all. I gave up giving ETAs, but I can assure you BIG things are right around the corner for all three mods.

Just so you know, any discussion we might have is not going to delay the release because I'm fine releasing it as it is. Release date is not based on my stuff because I'm fine tweaking a bunch of specific items later via hotfixes. As soon as Arda and Mike say they are ready, so am I. Xbows vs Bows (Weapon Changes) I think this matters probably deserves its own topic where we can discuss base weapon stats and suggested tweaks regardless of IR version. I will probably create it sooner or later. Now that you mention it, isn't it exactly what we wanted to achieve when we were discussing the whole "xbows should not go beyond specialization, they should be better than bows for non-trained users but weapon masters should clearly perform better with bows, bla bla"? Within PnP xbow's apr is capped to 1 without multiple feats, so we would not do something so strange either imo. Capping rate of fire to 2-3 apr is not going to affect a proficient user or even a specialized warrior, it would simply make bows the clear best choice for mastery and Whirlwind Attacks. Short story: I'd suggest 1-2 seconds pause for light xbows, and 1 sec more for heavy ones. Both keep v4's speed factor 0 (or was it 1?). @Arda, what do you think? On a side note, Kreso's videos kinda convinced me that "pause" would also look much better in terms of "animation", and you know how much I value the cosmetic aspect (the only reason I still don't like the wonderful Shield Bash stuff you coded)

Weapon Changes a) I wasn't aware of this issue back then, but it's more an issue of Haste itself considering it is kinda standard within BG to have 3/2 or 5/2 apr depedning on character level and proficiency. b) Again, this is a "problem" specific to LXbow of Speed rather than "bows vs xbows". This unique xbow actually has a kinda big feature which completely counters what is supposed to keep xbow power in check (lower apr) and may not be balanced to what magical unique bows offer within BG1. On a side note, you should have not compared it to a plain short bow +1, but at least to Tuigan or a plain +3 (because Speed itself has a +2 value). Overall I think the problem here eventually is the LXbow of Speed, not the whole weapon class. This is expected. Base proficiency and basic ammo favor xbows, higher proficiency and magical ammo favor bows. Add there even just ammo +1 or specialization (aka +2 dmg) and the short bow takes the lead. Not to mention a single miss with a xbow reduces your total dmg by 50%, while the bow loses only 33% dmg from a missed shot. I always said darts are amazing and that their 3 apr makes them hard to balance in case of "on hit effects" (e.g. Assasin's poison), but I can assure you most players still believe darts suck and there were quite a few requests to buff them. Balancing everything is harder than it seems, and often times it's not easy to determine the objective "power lvl" of something because of the huge amount of variables (e.g. class, ammo type, added effects, unique variants, circumstances, etc.). I'd vote yes. While I can envision Whirlwind with bows (Legolas) I can't really see crossbows as a fast reload weapon. The cosmetic issue of movement0 really irks me. Capping xbow rate of fire may not be so bad (PnP generally cap it to 1 without multiple dedicated feats), but I have to think more about it. Mmm...

Azlaer's Harp Yep, I do had in mind to work again on this item, mostly because I think these magical musical instruments should give something unique to the bard, not just a 1/day use of a spell they already know. Azuredge +3 I do tried this out (I think it was for the Werebane silver dagger) and using "immunity to regeneration" on hit didn't worked. Taragarth +2 This is a very rare case where I didn't followed PnP. Note that IR's Taragarth has a completely new lore compared to vanilla's one (which already wasn't PnP one). A heavy bastard sword with non-detection makes little sense imo, and fire resistance is almost everywhere. Xbows & Bows (Weapon Changes) First of all I'm so glad you got your hand on the beta, so I have at least some feedback about these semi-secret change. It was a last second addition before closing v4 five months ago (I expected the official release to follow shortly back then). In exchange for this "nerf" we heavily buffed xbow's speed factor ever (from worst to best). The idea behind it is kinda clear I guess (you stay put for 1-2 seconds to reload), and in theory IR's xbows already have superior thac0 too. It's only +1 yes, but more than that seems overboard within BG1 imo considering IR also raised bolt's dmg from 1d8 to 1d10. Two questions: - does the "only trigger on a successful hit" ruin too much the concept behind his change? - what's the conceptual or technical advantage of using "pause caster" instead of "no movement rate"? Mmm...within v4 we tried to give shortbows a bit more advantage in terms of speed factor (widening the gap between short and long bow), and we cannot nerf shortbow dmg imo considering it's already 1d6 (no STR bonus). The problem is that +1 apr is extremely powerful both in BG1 (where hit chance is a problem, and 2x attacks mahes a HUGE difference) and late BG2 (where you have have tons of "on hit" effects that would trigger way more often because of this). I had a in-depth topic on this matter somewhere in this forum. Short story, without a drawback a full 2 apr is really OP (it's math, not an opinion), and your suggested one is not viable imo.