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polytope

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Everything posted by polytope

  1. Stunning damage is blocked by Stoneskin (which you also shouldn't have access to at this point...) and resisted by anything that resists crushing on post OBG engines, if you want to do it that way it'd be better to use a non-physical type with mode of 1 [set to value] = 1hp (like the harm spell and the other possible effect of Nereid's kiss) no delay is actually necessary either (1 second is probably long enough to have your character use a healing potion) so long as the follow up damage is applied after the hp set it in the spell's feature block (but I'd set it to delayed with a delay of zero anyway). Using opcode #17 also allows the removal of limited timing mode effects with type set to #1 if you're worried about it being foiled by any other buffs (just as those would be lost on a character who dies and is revived).
  2. I haven't had time to properly look through everything in this quite massive and impressive mod, it's one of the most overarching and ambitious conversions of the base game rules I've seen yet, but some preliminary impressions: Original specialist wizards; each now have two opposition schools except for Diviner, since Diviners don't benefit from the specialist saving throw penalty to offensive spells or personal bonus that seems fair. There are also no divinations beyond 6th circle wizard True Sight, I think most would prefer the party priest to take care of that as well. Any plans to introduce high level divinations like Foresight, since Enchanters now have high level specialties in the revision of Symbols etc.? Elementalist mage kits; I see problems in their respective balance, an Earth Elementalist most notably loses arcane Protection from Electricity, which priests (or potions of insulation/absorption) can cover, and yes, lightning spells too, which are rarely necessary damage options, plus Cloudkill for which there's a wand and Stinking Cloud which is rarely tactically better than Web, all easy to work around. An Air Elementalist on the other hand loses - among other things - Protection from Petrification, Stoneskin and Imprisonment/Freedom. In particular the inability to protect from basilisks (and wizards...) in the early game and loss of Freedom in mid-late game is problematic if they're you're only mage. To balance things I think the counterspells of Earth related magic (pro-petrification and Freedom) should be allowed as they're thematically opposed. Also if the kit lacks Stoneskin I feel they should get a unique spell granting a mid-duration (in the region of 3 rounds, +1 round/level) self only luck-bonus - tie it flavour wise to spirits of the air watching over them - this would make Mirror Image an acceptable substitute for Stoneskin in their repertoire since positive luck diverts hits to images. Force Mages who give up all elemental related magic look like a weak choice too right now, even with the Telekinetic Storm. Possible candidates, as a list of Force Mage barred spells; Chromatic Orb, Spook, Ray of Enfeeblement, Horror, Slow, Confusion, Emotion, Chaos, Prismatic Spray, Sphere of Chaos (arguably also those spells summoning extra-planar creatures, except for Wish & Limited Wish... which would take it back to being excessively nerfed). I can explain why I'd choose those spells particularly as antithetical to a Force Mage if you care. Militant wizards; seem underpowered too (I mean, compared to the options, they're still wizards who will become very powerful) as AC isn't much of a concern for a mage, any who can cast Spirit Armor and Blur can already get it quite low, am I wrong in thinking they should have more hp? What would be interesting would be forbidding human fighter-> mage duals in your system and treating the militant wizard as a substitute to this notoriously powerful option, as I think militants might otherwise go unused. Ranger kits; I don't remember the gamut of PnP abilities of a Beastmaster that well (don't think all such are really implementable either), but I know they did get a touch range Hold Monster as a special ability, which could even be treated as a melee-hit ability like the Assasin's poison/monk's stunning blow etc. Also, about their weapon restrictions, I'd drop crossbows but allow axe/spear/dagger, the latter three make sense as things a forest dweller apart from civilization could make or maintain, whereas even a light crossbow's complicated trigger mechanism would be too much, not to mention the windlass on heavier crossbows. It would make that kit a lot more playable.
  3. Yes, this was my immediate thought, only creatures who've joined the party benefit from kit-related CLAB files, whereas all actors in game of the right classes use the WSPATCK 2DA. However, it's checked (I think) when the area is first loaded AND whenever the actor equips a weapon with a melee/ranged ability (that they could have multiple proficiencies and derived bonus attacks per round from), meaning that if a 15HD monster that starts out as a classless statue or whatever shifts to the fighter class (from some triggered event on the map) it would not immediately gain the extra +1APR of level 13+ fighters, nor the extra bonus from multiple stars in its equipped weapon, modders should be aware of that too. As most players are aware the THAC0/damage bonuses from WSPECIAL apply regardless of class.
  4. And a few hardcoded features in the original BG2; backstab immunity and 12 sided hit dice. Originally monks were a bit the same, with a mixture of abilities granted by CLAB and hardcoded.
  5. Yes, there's no reason a Nereid's drowning kiss should be considered "acid", if anything, it's "magic". That annoying bugged state can also be caused by using negative value #17 as damage, and iirc becomes especially bugged if they get past -10hp (subsequent damage immunity). Couldn't you just set hp to 100% (in the same feature block) prior to inflicting 100% damage, unless I've missed something? A similar discussion came up in another recent thread, you're unlikely to be level 7 when you meet Shoal, need to ensure it bypasses Mirror Image though which instant death effects by default do and it's toggleable for damage on EEs.
  6. Yes, I knew druids don't get it. I'd genuinely forgotten it's not in temples prior to SoA/SoD (I don't tend to use those for healing) that seems like an oversight on the current versions since in the original BG1 they'll provide the higher level Raise Dead but ofc there was no level-drain mechanic, even Kirinhale the succubus uses a faux draining effect on her attacks (which should also arguably be changed for the sake of standardization). It's an annoying fact that the engine (on my version, maybe not true for all) won't let a character gain extra levels after suffering a level drain until "cured" so yeah, you'd be burdened by a lvl 2-3 or whatever they ended up as until your cleric gets to 7th level... which is slightly less bad than permanent death. Xp earned after a drain is still recorded though (in my games) so they'd level up to match the rest of the party right after receiving the spell. EDIT: I should note, death and subsequent resurrection also removes the level drain in most cases because it's not a timing mode 9 effect, in my versions anyway, although it's immersion breaking to kill a character in order to heal them.
  7. Sorry, I probably didn't read the whole thread, I'm just not convinced that aerial servant summons should be replaced with air elementals which are a class of being whom clerics (as opposed to druids) generally don't get to summon. Although, I suppose there is a kind of logic in that druids have more of an affinity for earth (and fire), while clerics are concerned with the skies. If you don't install IWD spells or another spellpack there aren't a lot of good choices for clerics in terms of 6th level spells anyway. Ashideena isn't particularly powerful compared to, say, Varscona - which is currently more easily available and has higher damage - it's most useful against chain/plate armored enemies since armor type matters a lot more at these levels for your attack rolls, and skeleton warriors, plus cleric usability. If it's needed to boost Bassilus to provide a challenge again I'd add a wight to his group as (I see now) subtledoctor previously suggested, in some ways similar but in others a different threat to an aerial servant, since it needs magic weapons and level draining touch attacks are very worrying at this point in the game, but it's still not a 1-hit killer (probably) and makes it tactically harder to choose focusing your fire on him. Wights are worth less experience than they legitimately should be (same as ghouls, which they seem to have been cloned from statwise, most have wrong AC/APR too) but DavidW has expressed concerns about rate of XP gain from extra enemies so...
  8. Very strange, isn't it governed by WSPATCK.2da? I don't see what component of SCS would touch that, or is it the cdtweaks hack of both warrior & non-warrior APR being accidentally overwritten by SCS? What's the WSPATCK.2da file look like in your override?
  9. Iirc some cleric faiths in FR could command their servants to attack (Cyricists? Not going to try and find the reference) Still, there are plenty of things you can do in game contrary to the rules (like cast-and-attack) and most of the play is both generally more combat oriented and featuring creatures (and even spells, like Flamestrike) scaled up in power. I have a feeling that the strength score is extrapolated from one of the splatbooks possibly regarding ship towing capacity of summons like djinni, water elementals being the best but aerial servants pretty high, I think. It doesn't really make sense to derive its "strength" from the rules on escaping its grapple either though, for a non-humanoid creature: I'm sure there are animals much weaker than elephants which still could break free if held by an elephant's trunk, conversely an octopus can grip quite hard, doesn't mean they can move weight around as easily as a man. Not that big monsters generally get a strength bonus to damage in 2nd edition, they simply use more/larger dice, but that strength bonus on top of damage dice is an accepted and baked in part of this game's general power creep over the original material. FWIW in the original sources aerial servants are referred to as fighting (when necessary) as "double strength invisible stalkers", in game they have 16hd vs the stalkers' 8 and base damage 4d8 vs 2d8 (btb, should be 8d4 vs 4d4 but who cares...). Invisible stalkers have a +3 damage bonus from strength, which would indeed seem to argue for a +6 in the case of a servant (18/00 strength as you said). It depends upon your interpretation of "double strength" when 25 is the maximum, like say something with 16 strength (14 points below 25, when percentile categories are counted) could reasonably be argued to be half as strong as something with 18/100 strength (7 below 25), using that logic we'd get a strength of about 20 for the servant. I'd leave it alone though tbh, unlike the 24hd earth and fire elementals, earth should definitely be stronger (lorewise and game balance, since there are other advantages to fire). Does this need a fix though? Aerial servants are stated to be merely "large" whereas the higher HD elementals are "huge", since elementals come in 8,12,16 and 24 HD variants it sort of makes sense for the latter two to use the larger animation, which the aerial servant need not match.
  10. As you've noticed, some pre-EE kits are incompatible with the new engine because of assumptions about opcodes. If I was going to try and make something like this, the CLAB file would at lvl 1 (only) apply a .spl to summon an invisible creature which checks if LastSummonerOf(Myself) has zero proficiencies in any valid weapon type and applies by script at least 1 star for each such through secondary .spls. Or, actually, you could try to do it with a single spell and #326s (I wouldn't). Awkward, either way and there's still a wasted proficiency for each weapon you specialized in at character creation since going by the concept that should have cost you 1 star rather than 2, because on EE it's either "increment if lower" or hard set the number, not "set if lower". Has anyone ever considered making a mod that fixes all the retro mod kits that no longer work on EE? Some were duplicated in EE itself (like the Blackguard), and requires finding the authors for permissions I guess.
  11. Some players consider running away from an NPC who's just used a dangerous spell or ability (Harm, Assassination, Greater Whirlwind) to waste it a bit exploitative. I'm not going to say I never do it myself. I understand and it's too late for this release, but tough monsters worth zero or minimal XP are frustrating and people tend to find ways to avoid or escape encounters where such are added rather than waste time on them, alternatively the XP breakpoints for levels could be increased in the xplevel 2DA or (more complicated and less useful fix, considering how much xp is gained through this method) some of the extremely high quest xp rewards in BG2 particularly could be dialed down (although there are other mods that do this), 36,000 quest xp awarded to each of a party of 6 is the same as the defeat of 24 mind flayers would be worth.
  12. I for one never played with the component that disables permanent death (much like other mod tweaks; wearing multiple protection items, weapon grand mastery for multi-classes) because that's a modification that simply makes the game easier in removing a risk you'd otherwise plan around. So party member deaths, especially from an enemy capable of high physical damage, are something I assiduously avoid. It's still possible to complete SCS + Ascension solo, so even the rest of the party dying permanently can be coped with, but death and the need for resurrection is sometimes I'd want to see as few times as possible, ideally not at all. Harm is funnily enough harmless if cast by a solo cleric because they don't have the APR to finish you off, but remember some of the skeletons have ranged weapons (unless you kite him to avoid the touch spell connecting). Heal is indeed usually a wasted slot for enemy clerics, I've never seen it make a difference on the rare occasions they get it off successfully, it's most notable when (instant speed) cast by dragons and sometimes planetars. I don't have a problem with a spellcaster one shot killing party members, so long as it's something you can reasonably counter, like if he were to cast Flamestrike which is also probably instant death in this encounter but with a fair chance to interrupt or juke it.
  13. Neither the level increase nor the pre-buff/pre-summon routine are a problem, but this particular effectively uninterruptible summon - an aerial servant - starts invisible and can kill most of your characters in one hit at this stage of the game (average damage 31 once Chant is included), which seems a little unfair. Pre-summoned mountain bears wouldn't have this problem, as they're visible and do less damage per hit (and probably per round, once AC is accounted for). It also wouldn't be a problem if he actually spent a combat round summoning the aerial servant, giving the player an opportunity to interrupt the spell or at least guess where it's about to appear. Now of course. that would require a substantial rewriting of priest scripts, alternately, capping Basillus at level 10 and improving his skeletons a bit to compensate is another possibility. Also, demiliches are fixed in the most recent version? Should I note my own modifications of them are obsoleted for combination with SCS?
  14. Your report that the .cre files referenced by the 2DA aren't present in game suggests to me something didn't install properly, it's not the same bug at any rate because it was already fixed in stand-alone IWDification and the problem was a bad .cre animation reference. It's helpful to post the specific error message that accompanies a crash when troubleshooting ctds, I don't recognize most of the mods in your WEIDU log.
  15. Vanilla game AI has a lot more casters ForceSpell(). Many priests do this in their heals, and there are some random unique examples like Mekrath force-casting a Death Spell before reverting to a more typical mage script. ForceSpell() actions can be interrupted either by killing the caster before the spell is complete (obviously), or some disabling effects like hold and stun will delay it for the duration (meaning you can probably kill them). Any new action will also disrupt the casting, that is to say fear which causes the caster to move from their current position ends the spell (but repulsion-type effects like wing buffets or the ring of the ram don't, neither does Teleport Field), confusion is a toss-up as they'll sometimes move, charming the spellcaster and ordering them somewhere also breaks even force casting.
  16. Usually an area script checks an associated variable which is set when it executes to prevent it running again, but viewing saved games with an editor I couldn't find any prematurely set variables in the saves immediately before this happens, it's a bug that's very hard to pin down. I believe @Bubb discovered the blindness effect can confuse the area's character count check, my hunch is that something similar is happening, and certain area scripts are running in areas where no party member is, which could prevent them from working as intended. Still no clue as to the ultimate cause.
  17. I've seen something like this myself on a few occasions, area script simply failing to cycle for the appearance of a creature or similar scripted event. Each time it happened it was consistent between saves before entering an area, but not between campaigns, i.e. saved games of different origin/party. Nor was it an SCS problem, it wasn't an SCS install. Did you begin the game in multiplayer mode?
  18. The nymphs that arrive with Nyalee's shamblers may be the culprit, HGNYMPH has both a melee attack (not likely to connect with an armored fighter or cleric though) and a special scripted spell-like ability that can lower saves vs spell. An interesting and rare synchronisation of dissimilar creature's abilities. It's obviously pretty unlikely to see it in game as so few posters have commented on it.
  19. Yes, besides hp fluctuating due to the mode, with a lack of feedback in the combat log it's also not obvious to a player who doesn't delve into the mechanics where the damage is coming from, since it's delayed without a specific portrait icon or feedback string. Also, unlike the damage tick from bleeding, poison or disease it's counterintuitive to the player that killing the shambler won't end the problem, for a constriction attack. To solve that aspect I think it would have to be broken into several time delayed subspells, with an added death script for the shambler to use a separate .spl that removes the lingering effects on the targets. I tried something like that with mindflayers (which are supposed to kill in 4 successful hits) and it became too complex and annoying to maintain. I think we saw similar problems with aTweaks fiends and their constriction/grabbing attacks, the game engine just isn't set up to properly implement monsters which are supposed to grapple, envelop or whatever.
  20. polytope

    ADD_AREA_TYPE !

    I'm pretty sure it does, it's just that associated launched projectiles aren't processed until the Time Stop effect ends. Could use a global target type instead.
  21. I believe this is actually due to the melee attacks of the shambling mounds accompanying Nyalee. If struck by one of those mounds and failing any of several saving throws (at +4, +2, 0) then your character's hp are set to 25% with a staggered delay. However that will also actually increase the PCs hp if it were below that threshold. This looks like a fixpack thing @CamDawg I'm pretty sure the concept is that the target loses 25% of their hp per round (or half-round as implemented) while the shambler suffocates them, so decrement rather than set. Should also probably add a "dying" icon to their attack, to give the player a clue that they're in trouble if hit and failing a save.
  22. Now that I think about it, in pre-EE games rolling for a dwarf only the one in every 216 (or thereabouts, since RNG it isn't actually a fair 3d6) that has a natural 18 gets it either reduced to 17 or rerolled (however the engine does it). So 3-18 with a subsequent -2 penalty indeed puts usual charisma score for dwarves lower than 3-17 minus 1, even though the maximum is the same the midpoint of the bell curve isn't. Since dwarves were among the best races to pick for almost any fighter class/multiclass I guess it's fine to enforce their stat penalties a bit more rigidly.
  23. Yes, that's another difference between EE and classic, it amounts to the same thing though (Cha no higher than 16, and game frozen if you try to make one a paladin). I wasn't aware they'd changed these two files and don't see why anyone bothered to, it works out the same and is the source of the same bug in certain class/kit/race combos.
  24. Dwarves by default have a max rolled CHA of 17 and a further -1 penalty (2DA files ABRACERQ and ABRACEAD respectively), which leaves them ineligible for the paladins min of 17 (if a mod allows choosing new classes for demihumans anyway). It's an old bug for certain race/kit combos. Only matters in character creation screen when the game gets stuck in an endless loop trying to fulfill contradictory requirements of a minimum roll that's higher than the maximum allowable, when actually playing the game there are no further checks except maybe in dialogues and quite a few NPCs don't have stats that match their class.
  25. It wouldn't matter, the bonus for attacking with a melee weapon vs unarmed aren't contingent on the target having a useful ranged weapon - although that does count - but rather on not having a melee weapon equipped.
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