Bartimaeus

If trying to fit that special SRR Remove Magic into normal SR, I think the best way to approach it would be to replace both SPWI302.spl and SPWI326.spl in spell_rev\spwi3## folder with your spwi302.save.spl before installing SR. It still wouldn't update the description, but it would result in both the player and AI having access to and using that Remove Magic. It wouldn't change how the divine or Inquisitor Dispel Magic work though, but SCS AI doesn't use those.

The issue with SCS is basically... A. SCS will often duplicate spell resources as they currently exist to other names/resources. B. SCS will then use the duplicate spells for special uses. C. Any updates to those spells after SCS has been installed will not be effective - you would've had to make those changes before SCS was installed so that the changes could be applied to the duplicated resources. Honestly, between SCS and both Dispel Magic/Remove Magic existing in SRR but not SR, putting those .spls in your override is kind of just a bad idea in general.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/93jimnb7nqmnm0b/spwi302.save.spl https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/7zu2a2wgkf4b222/spwi326.save.spl Remove the ".save" from both filenames and place it in your override and both Dispel Magic and Remove Magic will work that way instead. The descriptions of those spells will be busted, but the spells should work. Maybe make a backup of spwi302.spl and spwi326.spl first. (e): I don't know that this will work if you currently use SCS though, because SCS does a lot of spell duplication for use with its AI. So I definitely do not make any guarantees of this working here.

That's fine, just that...one person disagreeing with everyone else is probably a lot closer to consensus than you seemed to imply in your initial reply.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I actually believe you are the only one that maintained that particular position. Even subtledoctor said that Assassination should be corrected given that there is absolutely no mechanical basis of any kind for it to be considered a combat protection, unlike the others - even though he still agreed with you that those others should be changed as well. Let's not cut off our noses, shall we?

It's an optional tweak in settings.ini. Here's what the SRR readme says: alternative_dispel_magic (default 0) When set to 1, Dispel Magic (arcane, divine, Inquisitor's, and Yeslick's) no longer uses the caster level vs. target level mechanics as per vanilla, but instead a simple saving throw that scales with level (-1 for every 5 levels of the caster, up to a maximum of -4 at 20th level). When set to 0, the vanilla dispelling mechanics are used. When set to 2, Dispel Magic becomes a sort of lesser Breach AoE effect - one combat and one specific protection are removed from each creature, growing to two of each at 10th level, then three of each at 15th level. alternative_remove_magic (default 0) Identical to the component above, but instead applies to the Remove Magic.

I was really thinking more when you run into venerated and ancient vampires, the few Bodhi fights (especially if you install the improved Bodhi from SCS...), and maybe a couple of others. No saving throw level draining in those more difficult encounters are...well, certainly quite difficult without any Negative Plane Protection, and I'd say those fights are very likely to last longer than 5 rounds. I have memories of running into those super vampires in Firkraag's lair at like level 9 or 10 and having a very bad time. The more random vampire encounters with generic vampires are obviously not nearly so big a deal. I'm all for making changes to how both level draining and petrification work, but...it's not something you can assume that other players will want/use, so you kind of have to make do with what you assume the majority of players will have installed.

Man, I had no memory of NPP being only 5 rounds in vanilla. But...it's kind of the same old Protection from Petrification problem, really: without its protection, the relevant encounters become unmanageably difficult; with its protection, those encounters get a bit trivialized. Make the protection too short and...what, the player fills up their entire 4th level spellbooks with only Negative Plane Protection when they have a difficult series of vampire encounters? Or worse, they just rest in between every battle so they have their spell slots again? Ugh. Level draining and petrification as currently designed in the official games are two really annoying mechanics that don't leave a lot of operating room to avert besides these stupid "I win" spells. Probably a good idea to use subtledoctor's "level draining has a saving throw" component.

Are the spells you've pointed to with the 2DA named? I changed the Spell Immunity 2DA in both oBG2 and BG2EE to point to SPWI101, and in both games, it showed the Grease spellbook icon and displayed "Grease" when I hovered my mouse over the option - no other modifications necessary.

@NdranC My own bias speaking here, I personally don't really love the majority of stationary spells (e.g. Cloudkill) compared to instant effect spells, so for me, it's really a no brainer to use Spell Deflection Blocks AoE Spells. Might as well give those stationary spells that unique advantage to make them more attractive options for myself - certainly can't hurt them. Dispel Magic: Well, you can make it so Globes of Invulnerability completely protect against it via the dispel_globes option, you can make Spell Protections protect against them as if they were any other hostile spell via the spell_protections option, and there are also the two alternative Dispel Magic options via the alternative_dispel/remove_magic options. For myself, I leave dispel_globes at 1 (globes can't be dispelled but don't protect against dispelling either), spell_protections at 0 (dispels go through spell protections), but change alternative_remove_magic to 1 (scaling saving throw Remove Magic). I feel like that gives the optimal amount of power to Remove Magic as used by SCS while making it a bit less insane - there's no blanket immunity to it, but even if a lich casts it at you, a -4 saving throw is by no means insurmountable for the player. Combined with a Dispelling Screen, and some of your characters might be able to make it through even a 3x Remove Magic sequencer. Plus, it makes it so that the player can also use it against higher level enemies and have it succeed some percentage of the time, as opposed to typically no percentage of the time as it generally is with the ridiculous level/percentage-based system. What a cloddy idea that whole thing was.

Is this BG1EE or BG2EE? (e): Don't think it matters, IRR doesn't touch the Gold Digger's icon as far as I can tell. Does doing a file search for "isw2h22.bam" in your entire game directory turn up any results? Interesting thing about BG2EE is that icons are always auto-sized and auto-aligned purely based on the dimensions of the image, which...can be helpful but also an issue. In the original games, icons were never auto-sized and always had to be manually aligned using offsets, but BG2EE ignores these values. A number of EE icons are mis-sized or misaligned because of this feature with Beamdog never noticing or bothering to fix the issue. Look at all them baby icons! ...But I don't know the issue with Gold Digger here, I installed IRR on BG2EE just to make sure and it seems fine.

I probably didn't speak clearly enough: what I meant is that I didn't want the text of those item/spell descriptions to reflect those bonuses, not that I didn't want those bonuses to actually be applied. You know, a hobgoblin might have 16 base HP, which is what the spell description says, but if their constitution happens to give them a bonus to that base HP, it doesn't get listed in the spell description...but it could still apply. Mind you, I didn't love this approach either, because certain bonuses can become...difficult to estimate (your example of a pit fiend having 24 strength is a good one: the player might not remember offhandedly that 24 strength gives a whopping +12 damage and +6 THAC0 with the standard strength bonus table) but I figured it would be better to let players who have played this game for 20 years to be able to roughly estimate rather than force my own calculations that won't be right across different most game and mod installs. Yeah, I don't really know what to do with the fiend summoning stuff. I personally go with atweaks' fiends instead and then just use a mini-mod I made to SRR-ize the spell descriptions, but...I don't know, I feel like fiend summoning spells are really better left for the AI to abuse rather than the player, so I tend to avoid them. SR creatures being wildly different from actual creatures of the same type is something that really bothers me - I don't mind if they're a little different/better, but sometimes the disparity is just so great. That was actually the motivation for me switching MS2 and MS3 from vanilla SR (and upgrading baby wyverns to normal and greater wyverns, and otyughs to neo-otyughs, and...), because the way those slimes and hobgoblins had their stats setup made zero sense to me. I'll probably never be able to get that quite how I would ideally want it though, because I know that if I go too far in changing certain summonables to be more like their actual game incarnations, it just makes those spells unattractive or downright unusable, and I don't want to do that, that's even worse. But I've tried to make sensible adjustments where I could.

Kind of: vanilla IR/SR came up with a format, but I found it to be...messy, so I changed it. For example, the otyugh... IR: Otyugh (7 Hit Dice): STR 14, DEX 10, CON 13, INT 5, WIS 12, CHA 5; AL Neutral HP 70, AC 3, THAC0 10, Saving Throws 10/12/12/14/12 3 Attacks Per Round, 1d6+3 Piercing or Crushing Damage (Bite & Tentacles +3) Combat Abilities: Disease: creatures struck moves at half speed and suffer 1 point of damage per round for 1 turn Special Qualities: Immune to disease effects Slashing, Crushing, & Piercing Resistance 5%; Missile Resistance 100% IRR: Otyugh (7 HD): ST14, DE10, CO13, IN5, WI12, CH5 HP 76, AC 3, THAC0 10, APR 3 1D8 Piercing/Crushing (Bite & Tentacles +3) Saving Throws 9/11/10/10/12, AL TN SR 5%, CR 5%, PR 5%, MR 100% FR 0%, CR 0%, ER 0%, AR 0% Special Characteristics: Protected Against: Disease Diseasing: target suffers 1 damage per round and slowness for 1 turn (save vs. poison at -2 neg.) Mostly, I was annoyed with inconsistent line breaks as a result of lines getting too long. And anyways, I needed to go over all the creature statistics to make sure they were 'accurate' while also re-calculating certain stats anyways (primarily to ensure that only the base values of HP, AC, THAC0, and damage were being used, not any attempt at combining HP+CON or AC+DEX or THAC0/damage+STR/proficiency, mostly because that can get pretty crazy quickly while also opening up the possibility of being very inaccurate depending on which game and with what mods a player is using). Item descriptions for mod-added content, especially pre-EE mod-added content like RR where there wasn't really any agreed upon format/style between games and modders, is a bit of a disaster. I had thought about trying to provide direct support for re-descripting the items of a few "important" mainstay mods like RR, but it ended up being a can of worms that I decided not to commit to due to how much of a pain it is.

Yeah, so basically, the component takes a list of wands that it knows of (both vanilla and mod-added), changes them to be usable by thieves, tries to strip the usability text mentioning not being usable by thieves (not applicable to the EEs since usability text is generated on the fly, so no issue there), then also tries to add the intelligence requirement text. If the intelligence requirement text already exists, it's not supposed to add duplicate text obviously, but the formatting is different between oBG2 games and EE games, so it would appear to not be catching it correctly in the case of the latter. Will look into it, thanks.

Are you using the "Thieves Can Use Wands" component, by chance?

@subtledoctor Thanks, I didn't even consider the issue of the specific version of SCS. Kind of forgot that it's only been within the past few versions that that change happened. I wonder if it's the case that @WanderingScholar was insistent upon mixing these versions together, whether it might be a good idea to simply disable all spell.ids-related changes in spell_rev\components\main_component.tpa for more optimal results.

That's not something I have personally interacted with during working on IRR, but I recall mention of Weapon Changes making it so that composite bows have their bonuses tied to the equivalent level of strength that is required to use said composite bow. So if a composite bow has an unusually high strength requirement, I believe it will get unusually high bonuses to match; alternatively, if your strmod.2da is radically out of line from the original game, then strange things may result across the board as well.

Looking over similar spell.ids-related REPLACE_TEXTUALLYs, I would think you're right. The only time REPLACE_TEXTUALLY seems to be used except for this one case is to make it so that a spell cannot be found (i.e. where the spell has been hidden/deprecated), presumably so that it's not erroneously chosen as a part of SCS's spellbook choices (or any other mod similarly trying to use spells based off of their IDS identifiers). In this particular case, I know that SCS has different spellbook assignments if it detects SR being installed and presumed that it would expect "WIZARD_WAVES_OF_FATIGUE" and not "WIZARD_CHAOS", so I figured it would be best to keep it as WIZARD_WAVES_OF_FATIGUE. So that raises three questions: 1. Does SCS ever put SR's Waves of Fatigue into spellbooks? I thought it did, or at least at one point that it did, but I can't rightly say for certain right now. 2. If so, why isn't the original Chaos being put into spellbooks right now when it uses the same/expected identifier? 3. If not, then is there a way we can change SCS's mind so that it does get into spellbooks from the point of SRR? Would not doing the REPLACE_TEXTUALLY to WIZARD_WAVES_OF_FATIGUE (or changing it into an APPEND) actually accomplish anything, or would SCS still not care and skip it over thinking Chaos should not ever exist in an SR game? If it's both true that SCS doesn't like to assign Waves of Fatigue and that it also doesn't believe Chaos should ever exist in an SR game, there's probably nothing SRR can do to change its mind. But if it does like to assign Waves of Fatigue, then it's something SRR has somehow broken and it should be fixed.

Not touched. IR/R couldn't really touch this even if it wanted to, seeing as all of IR/R's components are supposed to be installed before SCS. I find the meshing of the two systems to be incongruous at best, but there are absolutely others who enjoy them together. I personally think it'd be a better idea if SR were to just bring some of the most worthwhile spells over (while getting them more in line with the rest of SR's design) while letting the rest be optional with the use of such components, but that's something that would have to be done from the point of official SR, not SRR.

Found the issue: you're using V1.3.800, not the latest repository version. I do need to make a new release sometime soon, it's been quite a while, but the "latest repository version" means...this: I generally recommend the latest repository version, not the latest release. The "latest release" is supposed to be the latest "stable" release, but...well, it's been over a year since I updated it and there have been nearly 80 changes since then. The latest repository version should have the helmet issue fixed, though I'm not exactly sure why it didn't correctly detect an EET game for your install, but I did just try an EET + IRR install with the description styles set to 0 and it correctly detected it, so...it should work. There are...two, I think, outstanding issues that I want to resolve before a new "release", but neither of them are by any means critical. The first is finishing up the Store Revisions' masterwork weapons rework, and the other is ensuring that ioun stones/circlets do not protect against critical hits even when you do not have the Revised Critical Hit Aversion component installed. (e): ...As well as further compatibility with the "lite" version of Anthology Tweaks' Unique Icons.

...Strange. There must be something wrong with the detection here, because the description style shown in your image is oBG2/IR (i.e. ee_style_item_descriptions = 1), not the EE style (which would be 0 or 2, as "2" is forced EE style, while "0" is "will pick depending on what game type you're on", which in your case should be 2). When I install the main component and and Revised Critical Hit Aversion with it set to 0 on BG2EE, this is what it looks like for me: Notice the dash before "Armor Class", which is how properties on EE items are formatted (which they aren't in oBG2). What's even odder to me is even when I set the description style to 1 for forced oBG2 style descriptions on my BG2EE game, everything still looks right for me (albeit in oBG2 style). Hmm...

There's been some revision to that component recently to try to fix some of its issues. Are you using oBG2-styled descriptions on BG2EE? I don't think @MikeX (who was the one primarily putting work into the component) or I tested this particular configuration.

Isn't that the exact type of evil I just mentioned? Pure vanity and selfishness? There's no real guiding principles behind the way he looks at himself or society, or the way treats other people - just his own ego and how much others will serve (or annoy) him. If good characters serve him while treating him with the respect and admiration that he thinks he deserves, I don't think he'd spend any more thought upon them than absolutely necessary, not unless they get in his way for some reason or another. Although if someone fawns over him to manipulate him, maybe that'd be even better? Yeah, he'd probably love that a lot more - the low wisdom score and being street-stupid as he is, I suppose. Tiax seems to be the more unhinged and less intelligent version of Edwin, but otherwise they seem to be largely one and the same. Strangely, one of them is chaotic and the other lawful... Well, IIRC the law vs. order spectrum of D&D is predicated upon the society one inhabits, so Tiax having his own unique albeit insane ideals of how the universe should serve him and only him run pretty contrary to...how everything else in existence feels about it, so I suppose it makes sense he'd be chaotic. Edwin doesn't seem nearly so concerned with that sort of nonsense, so I would've figured him to be Neutral Evil. But I get your point regarding specific issues/motivations, and that it's really just the gamey mechanics that are the real issue here. I'm kind of the opinion that most evil characters probably shouldn't care about their reputation, because most evil characters are not really the "I have to be known for my lying, cheating, stealing, and murdering" types. Probably only Viconia really cares about not being thought of as a "hero" - most of the rest of the lot would probably smirk, say "why yes, I am a great big hero", and then use it to their advantage wherever possible (note: I don't know anything about the EE companions, maybe one of them is more like Viconia...and maybe Shar-Teel is also more like Viconia, now that I think about it).

You know...most "evil" people/characters, including in these games, are of the utterly vain and selfish variety rather than the more idealistic "I have grand ideas about how the world and everyone in it should be, it's just that they're evil" types. You know who really selfish people don't generally get along with? Other really selfish people. You know who really selfish people do usually like being around and taking advantage of? Unselfish people. Like...Edwin should be just as likely (if not more) to backstab and murder someone like Shar-Teel compared to Jaheira, and vice versa. Now maybe Lawful Evil people are more likely to be an exception to this (hello baatezu and other well-organized evil!), but it doesn't really feel like there is a lot of actual Lawful Evil being put into meaningful action for the most part. Well, what was my point? I guess just that the generic evil person is probably more likely to get along better with a generic good person rather than another generic evil person.

Hey, lord knows I barely ever test anything I do these days... That's how all my best work is done! Heck, if I wasn't very personally familiar with the _.itm series of BG1 items being specifically my own creation, I might've believed they were from official IR myself.