Silverstar

No, in correct scs, mages also walk in between spells (to foil melee attacks and keep their distance) and attack with whatever is in hand (darts or melfs meteors) when suitable. This is very similar to how a smart, real player would play with their mage. When a smart player plays a mage, he does not cast a spell and then stay rooted to the spot, taking the melee hits in. You will try to kite and avoid melee attacks in between spells when possible, and attack if you think you have a chance in between spells. The correct scs ai does that. In the broken v33.7 ai, mages never do that. They cast a spell-then wait for their round in their exact spot, never moving an inch. Taking melee hits freely. They never attack in between spells, they never attack with melf's meteors or energy blades, they never attack when their spells run out, they just sit there and wait to die. This makes them far easier than intended. It also feels robotic, and not realistic enough. And yeah I do cry 'it breaks my immersuhnnn!' To test this, here are the the dw#mg299 script my scs gave to ohnredw.cre, and the cre file itself. I editted the cre file to add my atak script patch as general ai. Now, drop the cre and dw#mg299 scrip to your override (without atak.bcs in your override), spawn ohnredw.cre and fight him (Do not kill him instantly with an overpowered character, just aggro him and try to see what he does!) You will see the broken ai I described, the mage will NEVER move or attack, just cast a spell-wait-cast a spell. Now exit the game, drop the atak.bcs to your override in my previous post, and try again. The mage will act smarter, will walk around, attack when necessary etc. Far more realistic, engaging and challenging. You will see a world of difference. (also set scs mage ai difficulty to the max, ie: mages will attack with meteors in between spells) I manually added this atak.bcs as a general script to most of the mages in my game...using dltcep and handpicking each and every enemy mage. (I skipped most neutral mage npcs I will never fight) it took a few hours, but at least now my game does not feel broken. I can't create a weidu mod to do this automaticaly, though. dw#mg299.bcs ohnredw.cre

This broken mage ai in 33.7 made me rather unhappy, I thought I had the perfect installation, too! You know how long it takes to create the perfect mega mod installation. And uninstalling-reinstalling scs is a big noooooo in my game, it took quite a few hours (no ssd) in the first place, I am afraid something will be broken badly if I do a reinstall using the fix above. So what I did, I cut some part of the script from an ancient, original bg2 scs installation I found in my harddrive and created a basic support script for the now broken mages of scs. I named the script atak.bcs basically, this script enables the mages to walk around and attack when needed. I don't think it is perfect but it works, as explained below. Normally, v33.7 mages just stand there, never move, never attack even if they run out of spells. Which is a bummer. Makes fights not realy realistic and far easier than intended with the realistic ai of scs. To test it, I tried ohnredw.cre, a red wizard enemy from Neera's quest. In my installation, scs gave this guy the default script of DW#MG299 (every mage gets a special script in this current version of scs) so I used dtlcep and added ATAK as general script to the guy and console spawned him and tried. Oh wow, I never hoped it would work but it works perfectly. The red wizard guy now uses all the normal lines from its original dw#mg299 script, but also walk around when needed and attack with weapons! To try it in your v33.7 game, here is the ATAK.bcs script. Manually add it to a mage guy in your game (just type ATAK to general script with dltcep), put ATAK.bcs into your override folder, spawn the guy via console and try fighting him. If only I was weidu savy enough to code a little mod to add this script to every v33.7 installation mages as a general script. -as a patch to v33.7 mages, for example. Oh I can do this manually but I have more than 400 mages to go through in my game, I think. I tried using clab files, making sure that every mage kit gets a level 1 effect with opcode 82 (change ai script) to get ATAK.bcs as general script. But it does not work. I think such changes do not work unless the npc is in the party. Shame. ATAK.BCS

By using the weapon changes notepad file in the mod's library, is it possible to change weapon type's base damage? I want to do some radical changes so that bladed weapons are far more lethal in-game. It never makes sense to me that a dagger does a mere 1d4 damage while a club does 1d6. I would prefer to be beaten by a club, rather then stabbed by a dagger in real life. (Unless club hits my skull, which is like a critical hit anyway) I want to make these changes: Dagger- 1d8 Shortsword-1d12 Scimitar-1d12, but %5 better critical hit rate Longsword/axe- 2d8 Bastardsword-2d10 Katana-1d20 Halberd-2d10 Spear-2d8 Two handed sword-3d8 truly lethal, such a heavy and large blade will cleave any normal human (4-8 hit points) dead in most situations. No change to crushing weapons, this will also make cleric ethos meaningful. They will never be as deadly as true blade wielding warriors. If I edit the file in library folder like this and then install weapon changes only, will it work? Will all mod added weapons also be affected correctly? Also what is your opinion on this, it will make melee significantly deadlier for warriors, it affects enemies too so it is balanced, I think. To compensate I will reduce theif backstab to a maximum of x3 at level 15, otherwise thief backstabs are far too deadly.

Open up rndscrl.2da with dltcep, and change all lines to 001 so random scroll drops will all be 1 gold instead Irenicus dungeon has placed scrolls, though it makes sense as it is the home of a powerful mage.

Heya, I just got an idea for the Flesh to Stone spell. When the spell is cast, this powerful curse starts to turn the victim into stone slowly, starting from his feet and going up. The victim is immobilised (an entangle effect without that yellow wine-animation) without a save (since his feet are petrified and stucked to the ground) and starts to slowly convert into stone. It takes an entire round for the spell to go up and reach the victim's heart and kill him, turning it to stone completely. During this round, the victim must make a save vs spells (at -4 penalty, or whatever is appropriate for this lvl) or is affected by a powerful fear effect. Cos it is pretty scary to watch your limbs being converted into stone, as the curse slowly creeps up to your waist and chest. It's like:' Holy! I am turning into stone! Oooh it is close to my chest! Gaaaaah! HEEELP!' Those who fail this saving throws are helpless, (horror effect) they just scream in terror and flail their arms around helplessly (remember they can not run cos their feet are cased into the ground, ala entangled effect. They are but 'Horror'ed and 'entangled') Those who manage to succeed this saving throw find their courage, and can attack, cast a spell, or drink a potion in that single round. They are still immobilised (but not held, their hands and mouths are still working, just like entangle effect) At the end of the round, the curse has come up to the victim's chest and attempts to kill the victim by turning it to stone. At this point the victim gets a save vs petrification (at whatever penalty you think okay) if succesful, he has resisted the spell, the curse withdraws from his body, the stone parts crumble fast, revealing his normal flesh, and he's freed from the entangle effect, he returns to normal. Although since his limbs are very stiff and achy, he is slowed for 3-4 rounds till he feels the blood pumping back into his limbs. (no save) If the victim fails the save vs petr., that's it. He wails in agony one final time, as his heart is cased in cold stone, and he turns into a complete, lifeless statue. This one round-delay is important, since this spell actually kills the victim, it needs to be a not-so-instantenous death. The scary, instantenous, 'point your hand and he dies!' kind of 'death ray' effect is reserved for the aptly named higher lvl spell:Finger of Death. Technically, Disintegrate is an insta-kill spell too but it just does humongous amounts of damage now, which can be resisted and/or may not be enough to kill the victim still. But you'll still get petrified even if you have 300 HP or something, so this effect is much more powerful technically, and thus one round-grace period is okay. As you can see, the petrification effect is delayed, in coding terms I don't know if it can be coded. You can make the saving throw at the start of the spell, and the 'immobile' round still occurs, but I think it is more scary if the real save is made at the culmination of the round. The victim can drink a potion of magic protection, or cast break enchantment or dispel magic (which will stop the spell) or pro from petrification spell etc. in the one round interval. (if he has not succumbed to fear and panic, that is!) It is like the Nabassu's death gaze ability from ToTSC, but with 'entangled' with a chance of 'fear' instead of merely 'held', and petrification instead of being turned into a ghast. I always thought that Disintegrate is fast and clean and final, it is like 'ZAP! You're gone, dust in the wind, bye!' while Flesh to Stone is much more sadistic, watching the victim turn into stone slowly and all to create a realistic trophy-statue with agony and fear etched on your enemy's face forever...I remember seeing this in a fantasy cartoon back in my childhood, it was pretty scary. What do you think?

All of my gibberlings survived the battle, (I played darn good after the tenth reload)and they instantly got disintegrated when the last enemy mage fell. So I guess no dialogue or consequences.