Jarno Mikkola

OK, so I have been -not not really, but I can pretend ^{after which there's maniacal laughter}- persuaded to give up the no PfMW effects on the Mantle spells, I'll give you that, only with a good leeway with an oversite of other things. And yes, I am aware of the consequences... such as it will take various spell changes to allow this to happen. And the SCS need to be re-optimized.

 

- First we make the Breach spell an area of effect spell, 1 feet is all we need. And the target of course needs to be changed to area(=4, or "dead actor" according to a DLTCEP version I have).

- Second of all, we need to change the PfMW worse but still ensuring it's protection of the caster, so we allow it to cover all the enchantment levels, but this involves the movement speed factor of the caster, the spell should effectively entangle the caster where it stands, and immunity to haste spells for obvious reasons. Enemy protection rings or not, this will allow the party to run away if so is desired. Also making the Breach area of effect will allow the PfMW to be removed at leisure of the caster, as long as the mage is busy with other targets.

- Third, we make two more Breach -like spells, but with added area of effect(instead of the 1 feet; 10 feet, and 30 feet) and spell power level as the levels rise, yes, so a level 6 and a level 7 spells. Or we could mutate the present spell, but I would vote for new spells as they won't exactly match the old.

- Forth, we remove the Globes of Invulnerability spells.

- Fifth, we add in a secondary effect for haste spells that allows the character move at +2 rate at a few instances. Notice the plural(well, the Improved could be +4 too).

- Sixth, the Mantle spell protects from all the Weapons damage and effects, we also add in the Globe of Invulnerability effects to it making him immune to all spells of level 4 and below with a few exceptions, well except we allow the caster a minute movement rate, say a 3(if the normal is 9). And the Hastes secondary effect adds to that. The Invisibility spell works as normal, as well as the stone skin, armor etc.

- Seventh, The Improved Mantle(8th level spell) is similar to the previous, but it takes the Improved Globe of Invulnerability(6th level spell immunity), without the movement penalty, well except this time he is immune to Haste/slow -effects. And it's protected from the original Breach spell. So it's like the Absolute immunity, but a lesser variant.

- Eight, the Absolute immunity stays almost as is.

- Ninth, we set up the Spell Strike as an area of effect spell and it strikes multiple times the same area, say 3 times in 3 seconds.

 

Hmm, I am sure I forgot something.

Hmm, it could be that we should allow the PfMW to last longer... well at least longer than 3 rounds. That's with the movement penalty(unmovable fact).

Ouh, the spells effect looks exactly like the original Globe of Invulnerability... the dragons need to use their own variety, which involves a larger globe animation. Yes, that's a large thing to ask... but we should see if the 9 other points can be meant first. Yes, I am open to suggestions.

I'm not really bothered by PFMW including immunity to normal weapons. The only place it matters is aVENGER's scripts, and honestly I don't like the behavior much because I never use normal weapons to bypass PFMW.

Erhm, it doesn't come with it... but all the creatures that have the NW protection will never use the Mantles EVER ! After all, "it's not logical."

And either of my proposed solution would guarantee that the protection spells would get a new looks and hoops. But ahh well... you can't be reasoned with ...

IMO PFMW should stay as it is.

Question, how do you balance the 6th level spell that gives the same effect as the 9th level spell ? In all the cases it actually matters...

Yeah... see the mages have more than 1 type of protection ability... and your solution just makes the others redundant to what comes to the spell levels ... well unless you wish to protect the Protection spell. Which can be done with any Invisibility spell and a random spell protection spell for the divination spells... which are not meant to be there for that, but for other purposes.

Yes, the game has way too many I am immune to all your efforts type of combinations that rely on the fact that they are supposed to be short duration effects but in fact are totally not when considering the damage they help out to put out.. and up with.

 

You missed the point of why the PfMW should actually allow the normal weapons to get through... it makes the NPC immune to the other touch effects of the magical weapons, they do less damage and all the other effects also matter like stone skins, mirror images, invisibility AC etc ...

Unlike with the Absolute Immunity, in where you don't need to worry about such petty small things as AC.

If Mantles turn into really superior spells than vanilla's PfMW is fine imo, and it surely doesn't need to be buffed.

I will argue arduously against this...

 

My issue with PfMW isn't strictly with PfMW but rather that in vanilla there was absolutely no reason to use Mantles because they were inferior to their little.

Why not make the problem spell worse, not the non-problematic spell have the same problem ?

We can make the PfMW remove the Protection from Normal weapons with two step program... we first of all restrict the spell to have only the normal enchanted weapon protection, and then set an AI that drops all the protection items that concern the Normal Weapon protections as the primary override AI. Yes, this will leave the party free to switch items to the normal variety or breach the spell if they so want to. PS, the creatures have two ring items, one can be use to facilitate the switching the immunity effect from one item to another that can be dropped without causing a "catastrophic" effect like loosing spell level protections etc. In addition there's of course cloak slot etc spaces the item can be at.

And yes, there's specific code series that checks if the items in the slots are actually correct type, and one of those should be used to make sure the items end up in good spots.

 

There's another more interrupting way too, remaking the Protection from Magical Weapons spell to what is known as "Lesser Mantel"... which is the vanilla type Mantel, that allows +2 weapons to get through it.

PfMW needs to keep its weakness imo.

Erhm, could you remind me what those are ? If we remember the fact that the 90% of the enemies that use the spell are actually immune to the normal weapons, naturally.

I think scripts rely on the duration of spells.

Nope, it relies on the effect flags the spells produce.

Short story - immunity to +X just doesn't work if you can't predict ahead what weapon enchantments you'll be facing the next battle. Which is why I suggest to skip it entirely and make all the 6-9 spells immune to all weapons with target/duration/speed/etc. as variable parameters.

Well actually it is easy to detect them... you just use a script that does this... yes, usually the enemy already has the normal weapons protection which makes the PfMW the same thing as the Absolute immunity in the regards that come to weapon damage, making it overpowered spell for the level it is on.. the only way for the player to gain the same advantage is to have the Bhallspawn power or one or two armors that give it.. in comparison to the fact that there's dozens of monsters that have the ability as a permanent enchantment. This fact actually makes the dual and multi -classes better than the standard classes as the pure mage can't actually use the armors and the Bhallspawn usually should be a nonmage -class as it lacks the HPs to take advantage from the most powers. And what's good for a mage to have the evil powers as they can naturally cast similar or exactly same spells, while a fighter gets a larger advantage from being able to cast spells.

Now you just wish to make the other spells more alluring to be casted as they give the same effect ... is not going to make the spell more usable ... that much, in comparison to the other possibility where only the AI would give the benefit, as then, the monsters would need to rely to other effects for their defenses, not to pure cheese "you can't hit me" and "ouh, yeah, I am invisible so bye bye to your Breach spells, as you can't target me. " .."instead of option to the Absolute Immunity, I opped the Spell Trap as it gives me a few more of those fun PfMW spells while you destroy it" ...

If I might suggest, to add this:

BACKUP ~polytweak/backup~

AUTHOR ~Polytope, hatpinlamma@yahoo.com~

VERSION ~v1.02~

LANGUAGE ~English~ ~english~ ~polytweak/english/setup.tra~

 

BEGIN @50 DESIGNATED 50

On the next version... and by the way, the post looks much more pleasant, so well done.

Does/Can this work with Balders gate enhanced edition? This looks like a really amazing kit and the closest I'm going to get to be Druid/Mage multiclass. When I try to run the setup.exe it says that it cannot find the dialog.tlk?

That's cause you need to extract the latest weidu.exe to the game folder(the Windows Binary archive in here), remove the setup-*modname*.exe and then rename the weidu.exe to be that setup-*modname*.exe you just deleted, and then run it.

Seeing as i am making a nuisance of myself in the kit revisions forum, it occurred to me as I was limping back to the FAI from Cloakwood that a Ranger ability to have the option to avoid random encounters would be quite handy.

 

Probably can't be done but thought I would share anyway

Actually something like that could be done imo, but not within KR. An eventual Quest Revisions (I think that would be Arda's favourite Revision project) could check via scripts if the party has a ranger PC and react accordingly (e.g the supposed ambushers could not be prebuffed if a Ranger is detected), but I fear things like this are just dreams.

How about a different approach, you could make the game check that the player has entered to different areas, and then make an ability that summons an invisible creature that checks those global's and gives options to travel safe to via dialog... and the safe travel to means a cutscene of a teleportation to the passed area and area check which will advance the game timer etc. The would be safe areas could be Friendly Arms Inn, Copper Coronet, and the Guilds after gaining one of them... etc.

@Miloch; I know of lvl 1 NPCs but it does things in a different manner; you can't create a dual-classed character, hp are re-rolled for new recruits ...... Not to bash that mod, it's just rather different in implementation.

Well, the character being at level 1 actually makes it easy to cheat to make a dual-classing very easy, as you just need to set the XP level after requiting the NPC the two times. And the HP max is easy to archive by setting the difficulty level under the D&D rules(to ~normal). Yes, it's totally different approach. Both are valid of course.

 

You might make the readme a little more formative(as in, use the forum codes to make it less uniform) by editing it.

Hmm, would it be too much to ask to put the Shield spell to good use here and make it remove the very first MF's Missile, while being canceled by it(provided there are no other spell protection spells) ... unlike the Magic Missile which cannot pierce the spell at all ? While using the Magic Missile animation perhaps recolored...

If you think about it the reason why the Dragon's Breath HLA bypasses magic res is probably because it summons the head of a dragon who is then compelled by the spell to breath fire, and spell res doesn't stop dragon fire, ie it should really be a conjuration spell.

I find it hard to believe this spell really conjures a dragon to just breath one time before dismissing it. Not to mention it would just summon a decapitated head of a dragon. I do think the dragon's head is just a cosmetic thing, and the only real reason HLAs such as this (or Comet) bypass magic resistance is that developer wanted them to be the ultimate spells. For the same reason Dragon's Breath is party friendly, even if something like that is pretty much impossible to explain.

Actually it summons the extra dimensional dragon to breath on the target, the dragon then moves on to other pastures... just like the gate spell summons the demon, but the demon is more willing to pass to the primary material realm, so it jumps at the chance, while the dragon is not.

Also of a late note, when I entered the second level of the Temple of the Forgotten God I was attacked by only one verbeeg. Shouldn't there have been three?

This area ? Or the Red Toe's ? Erhm, the priest should summon two, but Red Toe is there alone, and they are in different areas... and there are more Verbeeg's in the real temple area.

AR4004 - I didn't encounter any yuan-ti mages or archers - on core difficulty. Am I missing something? I recall encountering them in v7 at this setting.

Well yes, after sneaking into a locked room, thief something, or just wonder and talk to the "people" there, and then enter to the further backrooms and they should have elite yuan-ti's that are archers, and yes, the Summoner and a few others of the primary levels creatures are mages, but not many.

how would I restrict a class to a certain alignment (and gender, too, if possible)? Like, say I want to make a kit for a Priestess of Lolth; obviously, she isn't going to be worshipped by the good-natured folk.

Well you take this line from the kit install tutorial and make it match what you wish in game:

 // appended to ALIGNMNT.2da
 ~C!Selune			    0	   0	   0	   1	   0	   0	   1	   1	   0~ 

I'm very sympathetic to making Mantles immune altogether (why hadn't I thought of it myself? ) Which drives me to the following consideration:

 

5) Protection from Normal Weapons - creature, x/level duration, speed 5, normal weapon immunity

6) Mantle - self, 4 rounds, speed 1, all weapon immunity

7) Protection from Weapons - self, x/level duration, speed 7, all weapon immunity

8) Improved Mantle - self, 4 rounds, speed 1, all weapon/death/energy/etc. immunity

9) Absolute Immunity - party, 4 rounds, speed 1, all weapon/death/energy/etc. immunity

 

Again, we won't have to worry about AI, even aVENGER's weapon switch, because 6-9 spells will be labeled as vanilla Absolute Immunity.

Or you could make the whole thing linearly exponential... cheese the names and go with the protection levels as this:

 

Spell level:

3) Protection From Normal Missiles - self, 4 rounds, speed 1, effect: protects from no enchanted arrows/bolts/stones.

5) Protection from Normal Weapons - self, 4 rounds, speed 1, effect: normal weapon immunity(so +0's), non enchanted arrows/bolts/stones and throwing axes.

6) Protection from Magical Weapons - self, 4 rounds, speed 1, effect: weapon immunity of (+)0, +1 and arrows/bolts or stones/thowing weapons... other than their effects and ... I would personally name this as Lesser Mantle.

7) Mantle - self, 4 rounds, speed 1, effect: weapon immunity of (+)0, +1 and +2, plus the spell protection of levels so and so forth, as in original game, and ranged attacks. ... that do not pierce the Mantles effect(say the +3 Arrows, Arrows of Slaying and Arrows of Piercing will get through as do the +5 throwing weapons).

8) Improved Mantle - 1 touch target, 4 rounds, speed 1, effect: weapon immunity of (+)0, +1 and +2, +3, +4, plus the spell protection of levels so and so forth, as in the original game, and ranged attacks.

9) Absolute Immunity - 1 touch target, 4 rounds, speed 1, effect: weapon immunity of (+)0, +1 and +2, +3, +4 and +5, +6, +7, +8, +9, +10 etc. plus the spell protection of levels so and so forth, as in original game, and all ranged attacks.

 

And no, those enchantment levels are not definite for me... but approximate from what I remember.

Why don't you just assume that they try to play the whole BGT experience and ... ouh yeah, you forgot the HLA's again... so that's a no, great. It's not like it's intergated part of the game.... yes, that's irony.

Thinking about HLA's, class which suffers the most delay is monk. Given the abilities they get instead (most notably Slow Time and 19th level Ki pool upgrades) it's kind of balanced out.

Well the largest change is for the druid... and I thing the componet probably should also change the druid stronghold quest a bit...

But if you wish to force something, I would set the new kit abilities to a set level, remember that you can set the level requirement to what you wish. If the Monks Ki pool enlargement has this, then you are welcome to set it to the level 50 for all I care... just make sure you have 23 other abitities available to fill in the caps between that and the preset 18th level and about 10 of those should be able to be taken multiple times.

 

Ouh, and I would propose to have the HLA summons have their own component which makes them(vanilla) either 7th and 9th level spells or(like Refinements) a 10th level special abitities. Erhm, I think I said this before somewhere... didn't get a responce then... like with most of my posting, nope I am not crasy, just insane.

@Demi

Apart from Ranger and Archer, is there any other specific kit you need more feedback on? I usually run test playthroughs with 3 KR - revised kits, so I'll have room for 1 more warrior-type.

I don't know, BG1 or BG2?

Why don't you just assume that they try to play the whole BGT experience and ... ouh yeah, you forgot the HLA's again... so that's a no, great. It's not like it's intergated part of the game.... yes, that's irony.

/*------ REVISED XP PROGRESSION ------*/
BEGIN ~Revised XP Progression~
DESIGNATED 130
COPY ~kit_rev/data/xp_table~ ~override~  // All classes uses Paladin table

Again you forgot the HLA .2da table... making the component useless without further moding.

 

PS, you also need to extent the xpcap.2da to 9600001 .... to reach the 40th level cap... I would recomend the 50th level cap and a -1 as the XP itself, but that's just me.

Wizard Slayer - 40% miscast for SCS compatibility (49% sounds silly imo - I know I could lie about it within description saying it's still 50%, but I prefer to not do it)

Actually you could say that the effect makes the caster miscast half the time. ... as without persentage, the 1% difference doesn't count for anything... large.

 

See, this way you don't actually have to lie, you just don't have to tell everything... take a lession from Imps, and implie...

I see several issues with this. If you give this to True Ranger, he'll be just as good for backstabbing as a Stalker in BG1 is now, making him redundant.

If you give this to Stalker, his backstab gets too big and on par with thieves, which is imo wrong.

In my view, this can be set in balance with the thieves ... as long as it's high enough level, it doesn't matter if the ranger(&stalker) gets a x2(x3) damage when the thief get's a x4 and x5.

PS, with IR, you can only backstab with so many items...

True Ranger

..... in the long run we might indeed discover we need one of the two classic "disadvantages" from 3E (medium armor and d8).

I'd vote medium armor. Even the in-game description of constitution says that it's important for rangers. And honestly, I fail to see ranger in full-plate.

I would vote for the 3 prof stars at the start... yeah, the weapon type prof only is a given penalty for the other benefits, dah.

 

Animalistic Power - I'm not convinced myself, it's pretty much a copy of cleric/paladin Draw Upon Divine Might

Since it's Animalistic, why not disable stealth, potions and spellcasting - could work I guess (and I see a nice combo with Berserker here)

Erhm, the penalties could also be lessened at level ups... allow: potions at level 5, stealth at level 10, and spell casting at level 15.

True Ranger

Right now I'm not limiting True Ranger's armor proficiency, even if I believe medium armor is more than enough. I'm only considering it because at level 1 this class gets too many things compared to a True Fighter. At least heavy armors blocks Stealth (even with IR where you can hide with heavier armors you still need very high stealth skill before even try it), and Wild Empathy is situational, but the free spec (++) in two weapon style is really a huge bonus early on (leaving aside that I don't like it is forced on you - not everyone wants to play a clone of Drizzt).

 

On a side note, if we'll ever need a small nerf for Rangers, I'd dare to suggest making them get d8 HDs as per 3E (if I'm not wrong ToBEx allows to do things like this now).

 

Regarding Mastery (+++) with bows - I don't know if I like it, probably not. It makes the Archer look slightly less special, and all rangers in general a little bit too much like fighters.

One option to give the ranger less of an advantage at that start is to adjust the prof.2da to reduce the rangers(and ranger/clerics) to 3 point picks... 2 is too much in my mind. And yes, I would allow the all rangers to have 3 points in bows/crossbow.

...Spellstrike - I'm not sure, ST in particular might keep it imo, though the upcoming tweak to True Seeing (the one you have seen with KR's Inquisitor) will make these AoE less relevant.

Erhm and when the TS is blocked by a high level spell trap-like effect, that can't be gotten rid of because of the invisibility, you just created the invulnerable bad ass idiot that can't be killed until it runs out of spells(the PfMW etc...) ... or as the invisibility has short time of casting, meaning that after the TS the SS has a chance of getting blogged ... and no, the every turn repeat of the TS means absolutelly not much of anything if it's not in effect the half of a second the SS casting times comes to contact with the  enemy that hides... actually to fix the True Seeing, the hostiles and maybe the party members too should become immune to the effects of all invisibility effects after first being seen by the spell for the duration of the one round effect(after which it gets repeated again which makes the effected targets actually detectable the whole time if they remain too close)=True Seeing.

So no change to SS... yeah, that's what I always say.

But no, I am not saying that the SS needs a large area of effect, just enought to get rid of a liches protections when you know where it is, the area of effect is actually there to make sure the the spell doesn't get the player only goofball counter that the game has... as the spell is stopped from being actually casted because it no longer has a "valid" target... an effect only affecting the player as the AI only needs to detect the hiding player character ones after which is can cast the single target spells even if the player goes invisible during the casting time.