polytope

The thing about implementing a bonus active while outdoors is that it may be difficult to gatekeep and ensure that it can't be used while just outside an entrance to some underground area where enemies lurk, and persist for the battle ahead. Area type is something detectable by scripting and by spell header field, not by any particular stat on a creature. What kind of buffs do you think rangers should get outdoors through tracking? Backstab immunity? Bonus to attack speed factor? Bonus to hide in shadows/move silently? Those are all justifiable by AD&D standards, it makes sense that a ranger's better at hiding in a forest than an urbanite thief. All a bit weak for a situational HLA though. I think every warrior passes on War Cry though, and most on Magic Resistance since it's a set percentage although in vanilla game it can be stacked with a potion of Magic Protection for 100%. There's one other mod that replaces tracking and various other HLAs, Improved Anvil, it's most probably not what you're looking for though.

Not just for this specific interaction, but because multiple mods redo the vorpal thing as part of a purview to tweak a much wider variety of items. Incompatibilities appear if two mods are making changes to the same file, but at least if the modifications of a certain class of item that multiple authors have different solutions for (such as dispel-on-hit weapons or vorpal weapons) are moved from global changes to a subcomponent then the mods would be more configurable and interact better with each other. It's the main reason I put my changes to Carsomyr & arrows of dispelling as part of my revisions to Dispel Magic, and released a separate modification of vorpal weapons rather than bundling them all under a single item mod, because those are two different aspects of the game. As for Connelly's original complaint, since this mod reduces the % chance of a vorpal hit, the excess damage would either apply on a larger fraction of attacks, those which weren't successful vorpal procs, which doesn't make sense, or there would be less average damage if I enforce the percentiles, I don't see a good solution there. Also, I don't see the point of excess damage from a vorpal weapon on an immune target/successful save (there's the base damage anyway on a successful hit and if the creature is supposed to be unaffected by vorpal weapons, well, why would it take extra damage?). Those are a spear and bow though, so conceptually need not have exactly the same type of effect as chopping weapons. I also didn't modify, say, Deathblow HLA or the assassin kit's Death Attack special from Rogue Rebalancing, because while those are (potentially) instant death physical attacks they aren't "vorpalling" and there's no need to standardize.

Yes, I've been saying so for years, the cosmetic benefits of a functionally identical cloned spell are outweighed by emergent bugs in mod interactions.

It should probably be mentioned here that if you use the optional component of my other mod Revised Dispel Magic, and want PnP Carsomyr, that should come after Forgotten Armament. However, RDM ideally comes before SCS (not a huge incompatibility in current version if it doesn't, but fails to catch the cloned fast-casting Remove Magic used by fiends, which would then function as in the unmodded game). Now, on the actual subject, there are multiple mods like Item Revisions, Daulmakan's Item Pack, Forgotten Armament - too many others to list really - which tweak in game items, however, clearly one of the most frequent mechanics targeted for systematic overhaul by modders is that of vorpal weapons either for nerfing to some degree or for added effects (like extra damage) on enemies that are normally immune to instadeath. I'd therefore propose to other modders that item changes to vorpal weapons specifically be packaged as a separate component to more global item rebalancing, which minimizes the extent of cross-mod conflict, this way the player can decide on install which version they want. Tagging @Bartimaeus and @morpheus562 , since after all this pertains to more than just my own modifications of vorpals.

Just put a zero-duration #166 magic resistance modifier at the top of the spell's feature block. Similar to how "typeless" damage can be faked to bypass resistances. Haven't tested if it works on all engines/versions though, effect order application has always been weird and inconsistent.

The save penalty with level for casters is imbalancing esp if you solo and once you get access to items which reduce casting time (or Spell Sequencers) which practically guarantee the player can go first. However I'd like to see something along this line, but with a penalty to magic resistance instead dependent on either caster level or offensive spell level. I.e. for caster level it could be -2% at lvl 12 -4% at level 14 etc. all the way up to -50% at level 36. Alternatively for spell level, MR is decremented by -5% for 2nd level spells, -10% for 3rd level etc. up to -40% for 9th level spells (this system at least gives some advantage to mid level casters when they prioritize their highest level slots for offense, and makes previously weak spells like Chain Lightning a bit more appealing because of the improved chance to punch through MR). I coded up the 2nd option once, but it only applied to offensive spells existing in the vanilla game, no hot detection of new and PC usable spells with e.g. a damage effect or debuff found in the spell's header (might not be the best way to determine if a spell is hostile either, it would catch Spirit Armor, Haste etc.). With so many new spell packs and IWDification a modification like this should definitely search for new spells on install.

I like the concept compared to original HLAs, and it means e.g. high level archers, kensai or berserker/barbarians are no longer choosing to use a HLA or kit ability in any given round, but I have some suggestions. This basically removes any incentive for dual wielders over 2-handed weapon users or even single weapon/sword and shield style, since each will be at 5 apr, and dual wielding has a penalty for offhand attack rolls. Less so for a paladin/ranger/barb or anyone else restricted to specialization but they'd still be at 9/2. I'd like it if GW gave attacks a chance per hit to spread (like Chain Lightning) additional damage to nearby foes. +5 damage as a permanent passive bonus is a lot for a single ability chosen once, equivalent to 15 levels of kensai or 20 of swashbuckler, even +2 would be pretty good. Deathblow, Critical Strike, Smite these look fine, as does War Cry but iirc single or two handed weapon styles actually double the chance so instead you'd be critting on 17-20 after taking it once (as per my earlier comment about +2 passive attacks per round making two weapon fighting redundant). 100% MR is not such a big deal, it's achievable in the vanilla game, mages can lower your resistance, some spells outright bypass it Imprisonment, Dragon's Breath etc. as do actual breath weapons. I'd be more concerned about having 50% undispellable permanent physical resistance really.

Actually I discovered a while ago that opcode #283 ignores #101 protection from effects (on both oBG2 and EE). So could move both the morale break and a protection from the reset morale thing to individual effs applied through #283, then it would require an actual Remove Curse (aka Break Enchantment in SR) spell to get rid of it. If you think it's worth it or really needs any other changes that is.

I'm glad you liked my initial suggestion, since changing the usability flags of a spell and its associated scroll are minimally likely to cause cross-mod bugs compared to game-mechanical changes to spell effects. It also allows enemy AI controlled Conjurers to justifiably cast Detect Invisibility when they suspect unseen players are near. I'm legitimately unconvinced Conjurers are the best, unless perhaps in late-game dual classes like Conjurer->cleric (who does that?). I think if you're not playing ironman/no-reloads (which most players don't) Wild Mages have the highest power ceiling of any mage kit, and the sorcerer is obviously better than any single class mage if you are. Although the Conjurer may seem not to give up much utility, they also don't benefit much from the specialist penalty to saving throws on their spells, whereas an Invoker or Necromancer or even an Enchanter does (but Enchanters are really bad in vanilla actually because of a lack of [Chain]Contingency/Sequencer/Trigger type spells): Conjurers just throw Glitterdust with a harsher save, along with Flame Arrow and the Symbol spells. (Most) Symbols are better in SR, but even so, it's a long wait to get lvl 16, whereas an Invoker is disadvantaged by their lack of Sleep only until they get lvl 3 and can cast Stinking Cloud or better yet Web spells. Prismatic Spray is changed to alteration school by SR, so Conjurers no longer benefit from that one either.

Yes, as I said: It will be contingent on who wants to update their mod first. However, the behaviour in a default SR install is undesirable in that certain mage kits are nerfed in an unadvertized and unbalancing way, that's most visible when going up against SCS spellcasters with their layered protections, but it exists even without SCS. That is very much dependent on WHICH proposed solution is used for SR, if any. We've had several completely different suggestions in this thread so far, no decision from the authors yet, it's harmonious only if both modders choose the same fix.

The answer will depend on whether SR's developers/maintainers want to change the underlying mechanic. If not, SCS should modify the antimagic-type spells even if SR is detected, rather than skip all those. However, if it's decided to update SR before the next SCS, and systematically address the underlying issue of Conjurers being unable to pierce mages with Improved Invisibility, then it would be unnecessary (and undesirable) for DavidW to fix it on his end. As I said, it potentially affects other AI mods, not just SCS, and leaves Conjurers as disadvantaged as Transmuters, who were considered to be tied for the worst mage kit, players don't expect to find a previously good character suddenly unable to fulfill a role they typically had.

3 other posters in this thread have noted this problem, but your criteria is flawed, to wit, of SR players, the subset who will notice must also install SCS and bring Edwin or their own Conjurer. Remember your complaints of how my revisions to Dispel Magic were breaking things? After more than 1 year, only one person (you) had noticed this can happen in certain combinations of other mods. I could have equally casually dismissed your report as being contrary to the silent majority consensus, instead I conceded that because it could happen in certain installs, it was worth fixing. It's already the default in SCS & (current) EE, I don't feel strongly about whether this option is chosen over any of the other several proposed alternatives so far, but it's a Spell Revisions issue, not something that needs to be bundled into SCS. It could very well turn up in combinations of SR and other content mods.

You shouldn't assume a lack of complaints is evidence of a lack of problems. No businessman would. The majority of players who download a mod and find something broken proceed to uninstall rather than create an account to complain. Many players over the years have relied on the only recruitable Conjurer as their sole mage, because of his excess spells gimmick, said NPC is now ineffective in SR + SCS and not obviously so from the outset, but an unwelcome surprise for the player after continuing their campaign for a bit and investing scrolls & xp on him. Another example, in SR the 4th level arcane spell Protection from Elemental Energy had no in game effects until recently, because the 2da file it relies upon is not copied to override. That wasn't widely reported on either, but it was still definitely in need of a fix, because it did absolutely nothing when cast except use your action for the round. Besides, how many new players created accounts to praise the mod over the same timespan, if it's only a handful of people complaining, how many are congratulatory?

If you don't want to give Conjurers Detect Invisibility you could instead make Improved Invisibility (and Shadow Door, Mislead etc.) into a superior Blur, i.e. strip the secondary opcode #20 type 1, leaving only regular invisibility and apply instead opcode #66 with a value of about 170 as the fade amount along with a +4 bonus to AC vs all weapon types and whatever saving throws you think pertinent, a mild aqua opcode #9 (colour pulse) would make it look more similar to current II. On the plus side this would make II more useful against monsters that naturally see through plain Invisibility, and why not? It's supposed to be better. On the negative side this would probably trigger the same problem as stripping opcode #16 from Haste as discussed in the other thread, the AI may pointlessly recast II if not truly under STATE_IMPROVEDINVISIBILITY, I think it will happen less frequently though. My earlier suggestion about expanding the low level spell choices of specialists is indeed the most boring way to do it, but also the least likely to break things and the best fit with the existing game since NPCs have really never stuck to the rules about what can be memorized. C.f. druids totally casting Hold Person, high level evil clerics casting Creeping Doom etc. Yes, but some form of fix really needs to be integrated into a basic install of Spell Revisions. @Graion Dilach published another alternative on the first page. We can't assume every player who downloads SR & SCS will know about these supplemental mods, I believe the underlying SR should be updated to ensure it functions properly rather than relying on users to familiarize themselves with 3rd part additions.

Cone of Cold/Prismatic Spray etc. have too-slow projectiles by default, but it's fixible. It wouldn't be my preferred solution though, waiving specialist restrictions for spells of level 3 and below (making those universally accessible) is, so that Conjurers have Detect Invisibility. It's really more of a SR-problem to fix though, because it is the Conjurer who's specifically disadvantaged against Improved Invisible enemies with SR, and this is true even without SCS. All Conjurers in an SR game now have the same problem that a solo Conjurer would, but the solo at least doesn't have to share xp with n other party members.

I remember this edition of SR (barely) the problem was that the projectile wasn't fast enough and the casting time too long so that the enemy wizard often wanders out of range. Ruby Ray could use a cone-shape projectile actually, or even a line like Lightning Bolt (for EE anyway) instead of a round AoE, that would fit the spell description better.

IWDification wasn't part of SCS 15 years ago, and that was before I discovered SCS. How are damage spells handled in your games, save vs magic as originally, or vs breath? Does it extend to the IWD added spells?

Sorry, I missed your link to Miloch's mod. There are 2 options for you, the spells Haste and Improved Haste by default use opcode #16, this could be changed to #317 in the spell feature block. #317 is very similar to #16 but it isn't prevented by FA, just make sure to leave it type 0 for 3rd level Haste, type 1 for Improved Haste. Otherwise I think you'll have to edit every item/spell granting Free Action in the game, the ring ofc, the potions, flail of ages +5, Ixil's spike, Keldorn's armour. Also, depending on your install, you might see #206 effects protecting from Haste spells (mostly to protect from fatigue debuff) in Free Action spells or items. All of those need to go, and yes it's quite a few files to edit.

It feels very strange and awkward, to me at least, much like the casting time of (Chain)Contingency, that the "rules" and expected behaviour are suddenly suspended. I have much less problems with some of those spells (NOT Pierce Magic, because it has other effects) simply gaining a small AoE, fast projectile and low casting time.

Actually the boots did in oBG2 prior to the fixpack, the boots apply haste opcode #16, type 2, which rounds up fractional APR. It doesn't stack with regular haste though. There was a mod by Miloch which did something like this, but it was on SHS, also @Daulmakan I think made something similar.

I think this one is essentially a Spell Revisions problem, not an SCS problem. However if you want to change it I'd support one or two AoE antimagics like Ruby Ray as opposed to "can-target-invisible" even if it's the "outdated" concept. Spell Revisions currently tries to give some uniqueness to Detect Invisibility & True Sight in that those allow the targeting of Improved Invisible creatures, which disappears if all antimagic spells also have that property.

I'm not sure at all that SR and IWD spells are conceptually compatible, I'd choose one or the other. At any rate, the version of IWD spells packaged in the current release of SCS is potentially bugged on non-EE games (only for the player, the AI doesn't use the broken spells) although that's not an issue for your install, and the combination of Spell Revisions and SCS has problems for certain kits.

No, not really a bug as the fiend summoning spells are explicitly described as less useful to PCs (as offensive AoE magic is to the AI). I was replying to @boof 's complaint that it's difficult to use those spells in a caster run. Boof has noticed a lot of bugs so far though, looking through their profile might actually be a better source of issues for fixing than this extremely long release thread, if you're planning on a new version.

Perhaps monsters with larger "personal space" than the default humanoid (like Balors) shouldn't get Teleport Without Error but instead just a version of Telekinesis that doesn't have a save (call it Irresistible Pull or something along those lines?) and drags the target toward them. Opcode #274 for phasing might be less bugged than teleporting, but it doesn't allow targeting of a specific PC. Otherwise I can only reiterate my earlier suggestion to fake the teleport spell by breaking it down into a sequence of more reliable scripted actions: Although actually I'm not sure if polymorphing to and from a smaller creature won't also trigger the bug in some circumstances, as I said, larger animations probably should get some substitute like a better Telekinesis. If you're trying to replicate the bug I'd test it in an area with lots of thin corridors, like the planar prison accessible in Haer's quest.

Of course, you can't install an "un-fixpacked" EE, the interaction is problematic for this reason. If Slow is to have an additional associated debuff (doesn't need one, really), it should be applied as a series of 1-round subspells rather than falling under the feature block of the main spell. This allows more seamless reversion of cumulative Slow and Haste effects whilst the THAC0/AC penalties don't stack, and standardization between the various Slow effects from spell or item.