Bartimaeus

Most of them are covered up by the fact that they're either not stackable (extend duration by 1 and there's no longer an issue), or it's difficult to notice that it's just a little bit off for a second or less (can also extend by 1 and just have that momentary blip of a double bonus that's unlikely to change any rolls). Bonus AC doesn't have either of those factors going for it, so it's difficult to hide. Stationary spells like Ice Storm have the same exact problem, too - the timing of the "per round" effect is a little bit off, so effects have to be set to a duration of 7 instead of 6, and that creates small little windows of double-applied effects as well. Haven't seen anyone come up with any solutions for that, either, since it's simply hardcoded behavior, .

Sadly, doesn't fully work either, though it's closer. There's just a small delay between dispelling and reapplying, so if you're looking at your AC with the game unpaused, you'll see it blip back to normal for like 0.2 seconds. Might be better, though.

So, from my testing, it seems like the problem is unfixable. For whatever reason, the "aura" effect (opcode 272 "apply effect [at frequency]") seems to have a timing inconsistency. The first instance of the aura will be applied, then the second instance is applied like 0.1 seconds after the first one has ended (so close to but not quite seamless), and then the third instance is applied about a full second after the second instance has ended (big delay, not at all seamless), and then the second and third instances will be alternating thereafter, creating an inconsistent aura. There's nothing I can think of to fix this - the very base effect, which is hardcoded, simply has timing consistency issues. What I might be able to do, though, is have the aura last a second longer (7 instead of 6 - already the current behavior, as inconsistent as it is), and then have it dispel/replace the original instance of the aura so they aren't applying at the same time. I'm not one hundred percent sure if this will create other inconsistencies, though.

To be honest, I might not be able to completely fix it, but just get close. Auras are basically a spell being silently cast over and over at a given frequency - for this shield, it's once per round, or every 6 seconds of game-time. You don't want the effects to stack in some cases (e.g. AC bonuses), but you also don't want the effects to disappear before the next cast (this shield applies a Shield icon to let you know that it's in effect, but imagine if every single round, it would disappear and then reappear after a half second - this happens if you try to make it so there's no overlap, because it takes time for the invisible spell and its invisible projectile to travel, too, even if it's a very small amount). Like I said, auras are finicky. An AC bonus is especially troublesome because AC bonuses stack and are also very visible to the player on the inventory and character screens, so you're likely to see the aura act a little inconsistently no matter what I do - if it were something like...immunity to level drain, I could just set the effect to last, say, 7 or 8 seconds instead of 6 seconds, and nobody would ever notice that it's actually a little longer than it should be in order to make it seem clean and consistent. Don't have that luxury with an AC bonus, so you can only do the best you can with it.

Supposedly, biffing has absolutely no effect for EE games, or at least that's what I've heard from other posters. It'd be neat if you could try it out and see if it has an effect anyways, though.

Can someone explain to me how a 5' radius (or...whatever 42 units is) is not large enough for characters THIS close to be affected? The dwarf in the middle has the shield equipped, and literally none of the other characters have the buff applied while standing that close. I can at least get it to work if someone is standing directly in front of him, but that's pretty much the only place. That's not really usable. Okay, now I increased it to 10' (85 units). There must be some sort of weird directional crap going on, because the character on the far left of the screen is affected, but the character up top, who is at roughly half the distance as the left character, is not. The projectile must just be being cast at like...the very, very front-most point of the character for the disparity to be that great. How annoying. Anyways, the effect: aura-like effects are pretty finicky, and coincidentally, I've been struggling to get a different sort of aura effect to work consistently. I'll circle back to this once I figure out exactly how to make it as consistent as possible.

Hey, I'm not the one trying to pick apart someone else's statements here. All I'm saying is that 1pp was very literally installed, via the weidu installer, on top of the EE builds. Whether or not those modified resources were then integrated into rebuilt data .bifs afterwards is a different matter entirely, but unless someone else can offer some kind of other reasonable explanation as to how the exact same weidu installer patching bugs (and note that I'm saying patching bugs, not even just COPY-ing/overriding bugs) appear on EE resources that would appear if you actually used the installer on a vanilla game, it sure seems like 1pp was straight up installed on the EE builds at some point or another. A small subset of those changes must have been reverted (e.g. the last official version of 1pp deletes the Boomerang dagger icon by overriding it with Dagger of Venom's with no replacement for no apparent reason, switches Albruin's and Daystar's graphics for no apparent reason, deletes the Harbinger icon by overriding it with no replacement for no apparent reason, etc.), but those are some of the more obvious bugs - some of the more difficult to notice ones that'd be difficult to accidentally replicate from the weidu installer still remain.

All very excellent information, thanks! Very limited experience with Near Infinity's .bam editor, so I'm probably not the ideal person to be writing tutorials for it, . Been stuck in the dinosaur days with DLTCEP's bam editor, which is much, much less convenient on a number of fronts. @NdranC The difference between Globe and Spell Deflection is that the globe effect [opcode 155] was modified for the EE games to allow the graphical effect to be specified. I'm also not sure what, if anything, this effect otherwise does, because the actual invulnerability to spell levels effect is in the specified opcode 102 effects. Might be a scripting thing - but either way, you have easy options to introduce a different graphical effect. The spell deflection graphical effect, on the other hand, does not have its own effect - it is hardcoded to the spell deflection opcode itself, which is opcode 201, and as far as I can see, does not allow a specification for a custom graphic. There may still be a way to do it - there is an "animation removal" opcode (305) that may be of use (I've never used it myself, but I've heard other people mention it), and you could also null out the original hardcoded animation entirely and then simply play your own additional animation on top. The danger with the latter approach is that it would remove the animation game-wide, so any spell or ability that you don't specifically patch to then play the correct animation will simply be invisible entirely, which would obviously be a terrible situation for you. @Hold graphical effect: I already re-enabled this graphical effect for hold effects in the latest repository. I didn't think it was necessary for fear (and confusion already has its own overhead graphical effect). If you want to install them without having to redo your entire install, you can copy the related .effs and .spls from the latest repository and just fix the strings (name and description) for the base .spl in Near Infinity. Hold Person (SPPR208), Hold Person or Animal (SPPR305), Hold Person (SPWI306), Hold Monster (SPWI507), Halt Undead (SPCL742), Halt Undead (SPWI324) and their subeffects and subspells are what you'd be looking for.

Anti-magics like Secret Word: No, there isn't. I wish there was, that'd be great, but as far as I know, when a sectype is dispelled (e.g. a spell protection like Globe of Invulnerability), it's always hardcoded to display the same dispel message every time, regardless of what the spell is or what it was dispelled by. Graphics: Okay, so it's a bit complicated, but here we go. For Globe of Invulnerability (I do not believe the Spell Deflections can be modified, so I would not suggest doing so at this time - with some hackery, it might be possible, but I wouldn't recommend it due to the game-wide problems it'd create): Original tutorial that you may skip in favor of the new tutorial below it because I discovered Near Infinity has its own tinting tools but which may nevertheless be useful if you ever actually need to fully export a .bam: New tutorial (if you need pictures/more info, let me know - I'm not sure how good you are at figuring out things on your own/how much you need explained): 1. Near Infinity. You can probably figure out how to get Near Infinity working on your own. 2. On the left side, there is a file browser which lists stuff like "2DA", "ARE', "BAM" - these are file types. The graphic is called "minorglb.bam" under the "BAM"s section, so look for it under that section (I suggest opening the section, then clicking on a file within it, then typing "minor" to shortcut to it). There wasn't a good way to figure out what the graphic is called since the graphic is hardcoded, and I just happened to find it by searching for "MINOR" and seeing it. 3. After selecting the MINORGLB.BAM, you should see the globe graphic pop up on the right side at this point after a moment. Click "Edit BAM" in the bottom right. 4. In the new window, there's a post-processing tab in the top right, select that. 5. Under filters, select "Color: Hue/Saturation/Lightness" and then click "Add". 6. Play around with the sliders until you find something that you like. Try some of the other filters like saturation, brightness, contrast, etc. if it doesn't look quite right/too bright/too dark/etc. 7. Hit "save output file" in the bottom right once you think you've got how you want it to look. 8. Save it somewhere nice. If you get this far, I can then explain how to get it in-game.

Okay, I'm poking around in Near Infinity, I found the resource (MINORGLB.bam), and I want to export it in .pngs. I see an export option, but the only two options are for as the "original" bam or as a "decompressed" bam, both of which are still overall .bams. ...Maybe I need to update Near Infinity? (e): Yep, that was it. Okay, so figured that out...and poking around some more, it looks like there's a much more convenient-than-DLTCEP option of adding images to a .bam creator, neat.

I finally got around to trying this - same result, fighter starts with 11 base HP, mage started with 2, thief with 5, etc. I can only assume that one of my other mods is causing some sort of funkiness, but I guess I'll just have to live with setting the base HP to be correct at the start of every BG game. At least it's not CDTweaks' fault.

There are a lot of very smart people in this world who have the general expertise and intuition to allow them to make stunningly accurate assumptions with very limited or virtually no information/evidence to base those assumptions on. However, those same very smart people would come across as total fools to everyone else if they, say, became completely full of themselves and started constantly making unwise or flat-out incorrect assumptions on situations where they do not have either the necessary expertise or the intuition to do it correctly (or at least correctly enough to provide value to others). Though people might start assuming such a person is stupid, it doesn't actually necessarily mean they are - but it does mean they'll continue to be thought to be until they wisen up and learn to stop constantly opening their mouths about things they don't know enough about. Knowing when you don't know enough to confidently speak about something, and keeping in mind that there's always more to learn from others are two very valuable skills. This message, obviously, is not directed at you, DavidW.

I'm, uh, aware, but nevertheless, it's pretty easy to tell that it was installed on top, as a few of the bugs from the original installer continue to live on in the latest EE versions (one example off the top of my head: the last version of the 1pp installer forgets to actually set the 1bull04 projectile for bull04.itm, which you can coincidentally see in the latest version of BG1:EE is also very coincidentally not set - however, I'm happy to report that at some point, someone noticed that it wasn't set in BG2:EE, and so it is now set in that game...but I guess they forgot to do the same for BG1EE; another example would be that shld02 in BG2EE, which is also shld02a in BG1:EE, never got its original colors cleared before new ones were added to it, so you can see in both games that it has double and incorrectly set colors).

The saving throw text is a bug, but not in the way you might expect, that I recently fixed - essentially, you could cast Banishment on any type of creature, summonable or not, and they would roll a saving throw die. You can test this on any group of random enemies and see that a couple of them will probably display "saved vs. spell" message. Of course, if they're not a summonable, then even if they fail the saving throw, nothing would actually happen - this is what's happening here, those creatures are not marked as summonables. Why that would be...I'm not entirely certain. Possibly an SCS interaction, but if you could provide your weidu.log, that'll make looking into it easier. I'll get back to you on the graphical editing stuff. @ptifab Okay, thanks, will look into it - I've always used DLTCEP for importing/exporting, but I will admit that is quite difficult, clunky, and outright mystical to use, so I'm hopeful NI is a bit better in that regard.

I do use AHK to automate some stuff...buuut I never thought of using something that records input and makes it repeatable on the fly. (e): And I see what you mean by Photoshop's Automation. Neat. What tool do you use to change from .bmps to a .bam so quickly?

For the sake of knowing how to do it, I took a crack at it. It took an hour, and the result is borderline unusable. Good job, me. Graphical stuff sucks - it's difficult to see how something will turn out until you actually see it in-game, but the process of getting it in-game is the most labor-intensive part, so making small tweaks is a huge amount of work (I'd say it was 15 minutes actually doing the graphical work, 45 minutes putting it all back together, so I'm not terribly interested in trying to fix it, haha). https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/i9g5x069bhcqwel/DAiKegSfM8.mp4

The former at least, but the second to a degree as well. Additionally, I believe Globes' and Deflections' graphics are hardcoded to their effects in at least non-EE games, which makes them...problematic to change for those games. It's possibly more modular in EE games.

Yeah, I'll see about restoring the graphic for holds. I also agree that having different graphics for the different levels of similar spell protections would be a good idea...but uh, very difficult to implement, as editing spell graphics is a lot of work (every single frame must be extracted, edited individually, and then reconstructed back into one animation file). Might be a bit beyond me.

I added the LOCATIONS macro to that file, you can see it on line 4147...but uh, I failed to launch it. Whoops. Can't ever get anything to work if I don't always manually test it on a BG2:EE install, I swear. ...Okay, finally fully fixed, sorry for the trouble.

I remember that graphical effect - at least for hold, didn't remember it applying for fear effects as well, but it's been a long time since I played without some form of SR. Not something I remember ever touching, so I'd assumed it was removed by base SR for unknown reasons - possibly because it's kind of garish and obnoxious? I don't think fear effects need it, considering they already get a yellow circle and run away, but I don't think it'd be crazy to restore it to mental hold effects to make it more clear when someone's being held. Feel free to keep testing out Banishment to make sure it works - it's possible SCS does stuff to summons that's making it not function as it should.

V1.3.100 released. Fixes since V1.3.0: Anti-web items should correctly protect against Web Sack. Anomen's shield should no longer trigger the Cowled Wizards if you use the Protection from [Normal] Missiles ability (activated abilities, even spells, should not trigger Cowled Wizards - not unless there's actual spellcasting involved). Also, Anomen's shield should now cast Protection from Missiles instead of Protection from Normal Missiles (limited to 1 turn) if you have SR installed. A number of immunity suppressors were added, including one reported for the Sensate Amulet by @Antipatiko. Telbar's Armor gets its original BG1 icon back. Versions of Edwin's Amulets were accidentally swapped for EE games (+2 spells in BG1, +1 spells in BG2, whoops). The scroll of Dispel Magic that IR adds to the game now remains Dispel Magic even if you have SRR installed. Buckler +2 and +3 had the wrong missile/piercing weapon penalties defined (bug from vanilla EE games - also note that Shield Revisions removes the piercing weapon penalty entirely from bucklers if you use that). Dart +2 and +3 have the correct quantities for EE/non-EE games (80/40 respectively). Also, made sure that they will not crash the game on non-EE games. Staff Spear gets spear range (3 instead of 2), but loses spear speed (-2 penalty, IIRC). Staff Mace gets the same damage as an actual mace - still unique in that it's essentially a one-handed mace with the staff proficiency and usable by mages and such, of course. Varscona's icon (red/gold long sword) was mistakenly getting overwritten with the Long Sword +3 (blue/black sword) icon - thank you 1pp, very cool. Rashad's Talon's icon was missing as a result of 1.3's icon cleanup, forgot to re-add it back. Additionally, 1pp/the EEs were setting Rashad's Talon's colors to that of Belm's, and Belm's to that of Rashad's Talon, so that's fixed too. Potion of Perception had wrong usability and targeting. Various Non-Detection items were missing a resource used for generic invisibility detection by SRR. Valygar's katana is no longer considered to be a heavy weapon (other katanas aren't, I'm not sure why his was specifically getting set to one, especially considering it's the same weight as other katanas and makes no mention of being especially heavy or unwieldy). Twinkle's vanilla icon had some green pixels that were clearly meant to be transparent - now they are. Quarterstaff (+0) had some notably wacky colors that deserves its own mention for getting fixed. Maybe a couple of other things, but my github patch notes are the worst. Changes since V.1.3.0: A large variety of items spanning the game had their colors updated to more accurately reflect their icons while also attempting to make them not look terrible. This affects...by my very rough count, about 200 items. I was only considering items that seemed clearly wrong to me - this ended up being a lot more exhaustive than I expected. The effect should be pretty subtle overall, though. Splint Mail +2 and Scimitar +2 were added to the game via backporting them from the EEs and including them in some spots in Store Revisions. As before, they're usually found later in the game and not easily stealable. New icons for Sword of Flame, Scimitar +3, Short Bow +3, Klogarath, Flail of Submission, Everard's Morning Star, Storm Star, Club of Detonation, Firetooth, Runehammer, Dagger of the Star, The Sleeper, Ring of Regeneration, Hammer of Corrosion, Flail of Submission, Ring of Sorcery, Ring of Acuity, Ring of Regeneration, Dak'kon's Zerth Blade, (Long) Sword of Balduran +2. Some of them fixed, some of them repurposed, some of them new (most of the "new" being pretty simple but I think effective recolors, of course). I especially like restoring the original/lost Sword of Balduran icon, but tweaking it to look more like a long sword since the non-gold Sword of Balduran is a long sword. Plate of the Dark is moved from Samia to Tarnor the Hatchetman (sewers), who was already wearing a Full Plate Mail +1 anyway. Samia's party already has enough stuff, especially with the dragonslayer stuff sitting right by. I feel much better about placing this on a group that already had a Full Plate Mail +1.

Yeah, introduced yesterday while I was fixing Enchanted Weapon's item colors, looks like I forgot to define a macro. Should be fixed now, thanks.

No better time than the present to test it out. MS1-MS9: Banished. Lesser Elemental Summonings: Banished. By the way, I don't *think* elementals except for the elemental princes count as gated, but I'm not 100% sure off the top of my head, so they should be auto-killed without saving throw. Summon Shadow: Banished. Animate Warrior: Banished. Invisible Stalker: Banished. Mordenkainen's Sword: Banished. Summon Nishruu: Banished. Death Knight: Resisted (gated creature), but Banished on a second attempt. Summon Djinni and Summon Efreeti: Banished. Summon Fiend: Banished. Gate: Banished. Summon Planetar: Banished. That's not quite everyone (and I didn't test druid/cleric summonings), but includes some of the ones that you said were not working. Do you have any mods installed that might affect summonables in any conceivable way? SCS? (e): On a side-note, this made me realize that every type of creature was presenting a saving throw message if they happened to be targeted, as opposed to just gated creatures, which could be a bit annoying. I'll fix that.

Thankfully, in both cases it's just a case of forgetting to copy some files over, rather than anything wrong with the actual implementation. 'Bout to lose my mind if those two were somehow broken *again* in the implementation after so many times of testing them. You can drop and drag the .eff files from this .zip file into your override to get them working: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/or5gytpva82la5v/Missing Mestil and Fire Shield effects.zip

I think the mod jimfix can add "[spell] expired" messages for when spells expire? That might help some. For made saving throws, I'd imagine that's hardcoded and can't be changed. The log could definitely be better and more modular for feedback, but it's a 2000 game, haha.