polytope

9 hours ago, Guest Royal Protector said:

Tbh I think this is the kind of situation that requires renaming a spell and switching another for something more unique.

Like for example, standardize it to a single spell, say a spell called Purge Poison, which works exactly as Neutralize Poison, and change slow poison to a different spell, say, one that simply adds or sets 50% poison resistance or more. (I don't think there are spells in the game for poison resistance, are there? Outside scrolls...). In a loose manner of speaking, halving the poison damage is slowing it, although it's not a perfect idea anyway because of how the game only uses integers for damage.

Yes, ceil rounding guarantees that such a spell would be useless if the poison deals 1 damage per second or per X seconds, even against the stronger X damage per second it's a bit situational.

Another possibility is a durational buff that heals 1hp whenever damage is taken, this negates weak poisons and (default) insect spells, but is likely exploitable and I couldn't recommend it as a solution.

Hmm, on EEs bit 8 and 9 of the area projectile flag supposedly replace number of repetitions with caster level for mage and priest respectively but that's still actually three too few for this case.

The alternative, of 20 unique projectiles lasting between 4 and 23 rounds is messier.

Currently anyone entering the area of the projectile and failing a save vs spell (at +2) is "greased" for 3 rounds + 1 round per level, this is a duration comparable to much higher level disabling spells like Greater Command  (5th circle priest) or Emotion (4th circle wizard), and exceeding Slow (3rd) although admittedly Grease only disables enemies reliant on melee attacks, having little consequence on spell-casters or archers.

If the long duration is to be kept then per the spell's description a save should be allowed every round, I'd propose breaking the effect into subspells, one each round to determine whether the creature can move normally for that round.

...20 min after posting that I realized it's a totally stupid and overly complicated idea, their morphing script should instead apply a .spl that removes all temporary effects before they ChangeAnimation() to prevent this annoying lingering of buffs.

It would make them easier though.

Oh no doubt, like I said the issues with ChangeClass() are something only modders should be aware of.

On 12/16/2023 at 10:19 AM, jmerry said:

Well, there's one trouble spot I can see: the "ChangeAnimation" script action, which keeps some things in place like hit points. And does buggy things with effects on the creature; stuff like mage buffs stay in place and become impossible to remove with the likes of dispel, breach, or spellstrike. (At least, that's how it worked as of 2.5)

What uses that action? For one, the doppelgangers that switch between various forms from Durlag's family. One of those forms - Durlag himself - is a high-level fighter. The others are a mage, a bard, a cleric, and the default doppelganger form. Plenty of opportunity for messy lingering effects.

The ChangeAnimation() action is far from ideal, in this circumstance anyway, perhaps those dopplegangers should be classed as F/M/Cs and use undroppable equipped weapons (since each form uses a different weapon) to switch their avatars through #53 along with associated changes in ability scores, armor class etc. similar to how druid shapeshifting works in SCS. It'll be a bit complicated to rewrite their script however.

PSA: I no longer recommend using this mod with the latest SCS since I produced it because of a bug in a previous version and it's not current, also I've been made aware by PM of a problem in the item assignment (which I never saw in game but it's still there and needs to be fixed). I'll test future versions if any in conjunction with SCS and Talents of Faerun.

18 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

What I might do: 1) apply 500 points (or whatever) of “stunning/barehand” damage. I think there are no sources of resistance or immunity to this (barring a couple high-level IWD spells?) but it won’t kill you, it will leave you unconscious with 1 hit point. Then 2) on a 1-second delay, apply 1 point each of several damage types (magic, poison, acid, whatever). No resisting, but no chunking either. 

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).

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:

1. 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.?
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

8 hours ago, jmerry said:

So the component is already problematic, reducing APR for all higher-level warriors outside the party

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.

On 12/14/2023 at 8:16 AM, subtledoctor said:

This is technically not true. The Barbarian was always a kit in the fighter class under the hood. It was bound by fighter rules for proficiencies, item usability, etc. It only appeared as a distinct class due to a proto-UI hack by Bioware.

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.

17 hours ago, jmerry said:

I can already see the simplest way to prevent chunking: use a different damage type. These modes ignore resistances, so that's not a problem, and magic, missile, or poison damage won't chunk.

Yes, there's no reason a Nereid's drowning kiss should be considered "acid", if anything, it's "magic".

17 hours ago, argent77 said:

Changing the effect to "Set cur. HP to 0" seems to put the target into some kind of "undead" state. The target has 0 HP and a grayed out portrait but can still walk around and interact with the world.

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?

18 hours ago, argent77 said:

That's not a solution either since Death effects can be protected against by Death Ward.

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.

On 12/15/2023 at 6:16 PM, jmerry said:

restoration is not available from temples or as a scroll in the (unmodded) BG1 campaign. The only way to gain access to restoration as a PC is to get a cleric to a high enough level to cast it. Specifically a cleric, because restoration isn't available to druids.

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.

17 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Priests of Bhaal, in fact, as I mentioned in some post way up-thread. So I actually don't mind a Cyricist like Bassilus doing it, if I squint real hard and figure it somehow goes along with Cyric taking over Bhaal's domain. Maybe? (And there is therefore a decent case to be made for Charname to order them to attack as well! But, er, Aerie not so much.)

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.

15 hours ago, Guest Noober said:

Big Thank  you for keeping the mod updated+ making it compatible with IWD!!!

If I may put my two cents in

I have an idea regarding Bassilus.  Hes wielding Ashideena but honestly,  he can't really do much with it, as a pure Cleric.  What about giving him some Fighter lvls so he's not stuck at 1APR.

Or another thing would be giving Ashideena to Taurgoz Khosann. Kinda in the spirit of the BG2 component, Move or modify some overpowered magic items.

 

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...

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?

On 12/13/2023 at 1:37 AM, subtledoctor said:

I don’t know where that STR score came from, I just glanced at wiki entries based on the Monstrous Compendium and I don’t see a stated STR score anywhere. I do see a line about if an Aerial Servant tries to hold or grapple you and your STR is 18/00 or higher, you automatically overpower it. Which makes the 23 STR score pretty suspicious. 

Of course as noted, the source material also very clear, in multiple sources, that clerics cannot command aerial servants to fight. (In fact if they do so, the aerial servant will turn around and attack the cleric!)

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).

20 hours ago, jmerry said:

Oh, hey, I found another thing about the Aerial Servant that's out of whack - its animation compared to its stats. The Aerial Servant uses the ELEMENTAL_AIR_SMALL animation. There are seven other creatures that use that animation in vanilla BG2EE. Six of those have 8 HD. The seventh has 12 HD; that's the creature you summon if you roll low on the mage Conjure Air Elemental spell. And then the Aerial Servant has 16 HD.

I also checked the small fire and earth animations. Lots of 8 HD elementals there, a few 12 HD elementals, and nothing at all bigger. The Aerial Servant is the only creature with more than 12 HD that uses any of the small elemental animations.

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.

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.

20 hours ago, boof said:

It's not even the lack of apr, it's just seeing that he cast harm means taking a brief time out until it expires.

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.

39 minutes ago, DavidW said:

I'm not sure what I think about the thematic issue, but XP is just general SCS policy of not increasing XP for harder creatures. (If I do then you gain XP faster, which sets up an arms race.)

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.

39 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I actually don’t hate this. The initial attack makes the Servant turn visible so the rest of you party can target and handle it after that. The quest is given by a temple and the reward is enough to afford you a Raise Dead/Resurrection… it is actually a pretty good time in the game to begin engaging the systems related to party member death and resurrection. 

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.

10 hours ago, boof said:

MY problem with Bassilus is that on some installs he'll get the Aerial servant, and on others it will be something harmless like harm (ironic) or heal. I've expressed the opinion in the past that randomized spells on some of these climactic encounters really hurt the experience depending on the install.

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.

4 hours ago, DavidW said:

SCS gets spellcasters with long-duration summoning spells to cast them before the party even show up. So it was there before you turned up, but that's because Bassilus cast it pretty much as soon as you landed on the map.

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?

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.

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.

On 11/18/2023 at 5:30 AM, Holden said:

I can confirm your info here.  I actually started a brand new campaign and have noticed that some of the scripts now appear to be working properly, while others are now bugged.  All magic users are now using all of their spells and are generally much harder

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.

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?

11 hours ago, boof said:

Edit: Looking at the clip again, Anomen here would've had a Spell save of 1 (not seeing any save reducing effects on him), which should allow him to make every spell save vs the shambling mound. How did he get hit by the damage then, and two times to boot.

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.

1 hour ago, CamDawg said:

edit: and agreed about with the changes. I'd like to first try changing them to mode 3/25% since that seems best in line with the intent. If mode 3 damage also doesn't leave combat feedback, then we definitely need to indicate to the player that something's happening. If we go portrait icon I don't think dying is the best option, but on the other hand, nothing existing applies either. Something generic like 'constriction damage' as feedback might work, but as always, I'm open to suggestions.

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.