subtledoctor

Yes Conjurers get screwed by this, a bit, and there is a thread about how to address that. There are still several options available to Conjurers: Oracle cast by someone else should make someone visible (but it’s possible Nondetection blocks that, in which case you need to bring down the Nondetection with Spell Thrust..?) Glitterdust can make someone visible and can be cast by Conjurers, and Faerie Fire can as well. My ‘SubtleD’s Spell Tweaks’ mod has components that beef up those two spells in this context. It also has an invisibility overhaul that generally improves this. It also has a component that lets specialists use low-level spells from opposition schools, which would allow Edwin to cast See Invisible (which is allowed per the actual AD&D rules). Of course Glitterdust and Faerie Fire don’t work on liches, or someone with spell protections. I don’t think Oracle works on liches, notwithstanding your recollection. Liches are supposed to be very dangerous, even to high-level wizards like Edwin! Someone like Edwin challenging a lich should 1) be very high level, and 2) chuck pit fiends at the lich and drop Death Fogs and Acid Clouds and Firestorms and Meteor Swarms in the lich's general area. If you install IR as well as SR (they are designed to complement each other) then Edwin can use Potions of Sight to very easily target invisible enemies. He can also use Wands of Spell Piercing since wands can target invisible enemies. And summons distract enemies, wasting enemy spells and attacks and gaining you a resource advantage. They are extraordinarily useful. So while the situation is not perfect, there are still options here.

1) Oracle is a 5th-level spell and liches are immune to 5th-level spells. I assume that immunity is defeating Oracle in this instance. More generally, with SR you want each spellcaster to have their own way to see invisible creatures. Oracle in particular allows one caster to reveal targets to other casters, but you have the problem of Oracle being 5th level. There have been talks about how this system disadvantages Edwin and what to do about it. The short version is, for now, have Edwin do things like chuck summons at the lich (he is a Conjurer after all) and have Nalia be the one who directly targets the lich with spells. 2) I'm pretty sure PfMW has indeed been turned into protection from all weapons. Maybe? I know that's how it is in my game, and I like it better - bypassing an archmage's protections with a common chair leg is honestly a dumb workaround in the vanilla game. 3) Prismatic Mantle does not protect you, rather it kills enemies who attack you. I don't love this - my mod "SubtleD's Spell Tweaks" has a component that changes this into a souped-up version of Stoneskin. 4) No, I don't think it anything is broken, instead it is encouraging you to engage with the game's systems and Breach them. (Or, wait out the PfMW which only lasts 4 rounds.)

Yes. Spells’ filenames or IDS names can be added directly to the various sphere system documents. Each has a list of the available spheres at the top of the file. I don’t think we made a way to add spells to the system from other mods, which on reflection would be nice… but OTOH this mod is already so damn complicated, I don’t know if we should be adding more systems to it! (I had a thought the other day to moving the druid and shaman components to a new mod, for the sole purpose of simplifying and slimming down this one.) For kit mods, you grab the fnp_compatibility file and INCLUDE it in the kit mod, then run the spheres-defining function like so. Most deities and ranger kits already have defined spheres in the sphere system files, so you can just specify the kit’s deity like that one does; or you can do it the more involved way per the linked instructions. Just a caveat, defining spheres “the more involved way” requires defining them according to the original FnP sphere system, and the spheres don’t always line up to similar spheres in the “2E” or “Nu FnP” sphere systems. Assigning a deity makes sure the kit gets appropriate spheres no matter what system is used. And even if a deity is not there, you can just assign a deity with similar domains. Like if you make a cleric of Amaunator you could just assign “lathander_spheres” or for a cleric of Jergal or Myrkyl you could assign “bhaal_spheres” or “kelemvor_spheres”

It would still be super kludgy. Your character sheet would say “favored enemy: doppelgangers” and you would have a silent bonus against werewolves too? Kind of weird. And maybe hard to communicate the categories adequately to the player. My mod adds variants of the Trueclass ranger, and conceptually says “these Trueclass ranger variants are true rangers, and other kits are more like pseudorangers.” Archers, Stalkers, Justifiers, Forest Runners… nothing about those kits implies specialization with singular target species. And the mod expands but controls favored enemies. Because the vanilla game’s choices are kind of dumb. Why would a Mountain Ranger be able to specialize in killing snakes? Why would a Forest Ranger or Beastmaster have expertise in killing elementals? Why would anyone have expertise in killing vampires or fiends at 1st level? It’s hard to see that “conflicting” with other ranger kits if the player chooses that concept. I struggle to envision a kit specifically designed to lean into the vanilla game mechanic. BUT I could totally see wanting to overhaul the mechanic itself. And although DavidW apparently hates it, I think the best way to do this is with an in-game dialogue. Basically you would: — Zero out HATERACE.2da just like I did, and then give all rangers the same innate ability — The innate ability summons an invisible creature that starts a dialogue with the ranger. The ability would remove itself with op172 and prevent itself from working twice, with op206. — The dialogue would present various categories to the player: mammals, spiders, giants, corporeal undead, whatever. They could overlap if you like, some could be broad and some could be narrow, whatever. — Each category choice would cast a spell with various op178/op179 effects for bonuses against enemies in the listed category. — The dialogue could be tailored such that each kit could have its own list of options. Snakes could be excluded from Mountain Rangers, yetis and winter wolves could be excluded from Desert Rangers, etc. — You could have more limitations too, like gating certain options by level - so you could choose fiends in an SoA start (maybe gained expertise by defeating Aec’Letec) but not in a BG1 start. Sky’s the limit here, it would be very flexible. — Give each 178/179 spell a custom portrait icon… they could be visually identical but with different strings, so you would have an indicator on the character sheet. — You could even have certain game events allow rangers to change their favored enemies, or even add a second category. It would make a good feat or HLA. (I would certainly tie this into my ‘Combat Skills’ feat mod.) Install this “Favored Enemy Overhaul” mod after kit mods, and it could contain a simple 2da table of all extant ranger kits and which favored enemy categories each kit has access to. Broad or narrow access for certain kits could be a de facto kit advantage or disadvantage. And it would be human-readable so players could change kits’ access if they wanted. All of this is totally doable, if you can tolerate using a dialogue to choose favored enemies. (I used to prefer GUI modding but have since come back around to preferring dialogues, which are straightforward, comprehensible, and more broadly compatible.) I have code snippets in the CSP mod which could be easily adapted and could reduce the time and effort needed.

I feel there are two categories here: 1) basic tweak mods that, like EET Tweaks says, must come after other mods that add ITM, SPL, EFF, BCS, and DLG files; and mods that really want to be installed very late, after SCS. The first category is, basically, game tweak mods, and I would install them right before or right after EET_end. But before SCS. Most of these mods could be installed around the same time as Tweaks Anthology, except the few that really do need to be after EET_end. (EET_Tweaks claims to need to be later, but a lot of that mod can be installed earlier and in fact a lot of it does not relate to EET at all. I kind of hate that one for not being what it says on the tin.) The second category is things that really want to be installed very late, after SCS. Most people think this includes aTweaks, and if you are likely to uninstall/reinstall the lighting/shader pack I would install that one dead last. Here is my current order, if it helps as a point of comparison.

Thanks for the report, I’ll take a look at it. Really need to get 4.19 out as a proper beta/release. Incidentally, if you are playing the EE games you don’t need that component - The EE engine already fixes MI IIRC. But the SR main component ‘unfixes’ it, and thus requires the MI fix. Again, IIRC.

This is basically what I do with my “Regional Rangers” component. Unfortunately what you have to do, basically, is zero out the normal favored enemy choices and directly apply bonuses for the kit. Which can conflict with any other mods that touch favored enemies. Avoiding doing that, you could give your kit extra bonuses against some group of enemies, like giants or lycanthropes… but they would also get to choose from the list, and they could choose something unrelated to or even inappropriate for your kit. The mechanism is quite hard-coded and anything you do kind of has to be a kludge.

That’s just the same old IWD2 game - 3E, single-platform, loading screens and everything - but with a broad-ranging fixes & tweaks mod applied. In other words it is not any kind of enhanced edition, it’s just a mod some people made. Seems to be very comprehensive, a lot of work went into it. Tipun’s mod for EET shoves the game into BG2EE. This changes a lot - it converts the game from 3E to 2E - and it is still beta quality (a bunch of items don’t work… I’ve heard of scripting problems in Dragon’s Eye, though I didn’t make it that far when I played it recently). And it is geared for playing at high level, within BG2. But on the bright side, it plays on the modern EE 2.6 engine, and can be played on any platform that can play modded BG2EE. And within that EE, 2E context, my integration mod changes it to what it originally was, an independent campaign you play from level 1. So each version has its place. If you are a 3E aficionado and want to play the best version of IWD2, get the original and use that new mod. If you want to play the campaign with 2E rules and/or on a platform other than Windows, use tipun’s mod on EET.

I like this mod, I always use it, it’s kind of a convenience tweak. The ProNM thing is not a bug per se, but just how that spell works: it doesn’t actually have anything to do with missile enchantment, instead it just blocks the projectiles of the nonmagical missile weapons. It’s a fudge, but it works in the vanilla game because the ammo for those projectiles is unenchanted. With this mod - and in fact with vanilla EE 2.6’s Enchanted Weapon spell - those projectiles can carry an enchantment… but they are still blocked by ProNM. I don’t think that can be fixed - the projectile-blocking effect cannot filter by enchantment, and the enchantment-blocking opcode used by ProMW/Mantle cannot filter melee vs. ranged. My advice, adopt the Spell Revisions rule changing Pro Normal Missiles into Pro All missiles, then the intersection of these rules will be in agreement.

Hm. Combining point pools for different kits with pooled abilities is a nice idea, but doesn’t quite work. Each group of abilities only works with itself, with files named for that kit rather than for the stat that governs the point pool. On reflection, I should have different abilities that share a point pool stat join together. It won’t change the way they function alone, but would be better for compatibility. Will take some work though.

After bringing Breagar into my party and discussing his kit in my playthrough thread, I’ve been inspired to create a new kit, the Ironsmith, for him. It will start with the basics of Ascalon’s kit: bonus Lore, some Fire Resistance, GM only with hammers/axes (I’m actually inclined to say only hammers?) and no weapon styles other than SWS. But I’ll spice it up a bit. I’m thinking: — GM with hammers, Mastery (+++) with everything else. Maybe even more restricted (+) with ranged weapons - these guys spend time in the smithy, not the archery range. — No proficiency with 2-handed weapons?? These guys swing a hammer all day with their dominant arm, imagine the 1960s American factory worker with one huge arm and one baby arm. Thoughts? — 8 Lore per level. Nobody apart from proper bards are more knowledgeable about the magical artifacts and knick-knacks that litter Faerun. — 20% bonus to fire resistance, period, end of story. No need to go to the effort of increasing 1% each level. A 20% bonus is fine. — Spiritual Hammer 1x per day per 3 levels. It’s… fine I guess? It’s in Ascalon’s kit. I don’t love it but I do like the idea of getting SR’s “hit-from-across-the-room” Spiritual Hammer if you install SR. Would be this kit’s primary ranged attack. — “Resounding Strike” 1x per day per 3 levels. The next strike does 4d4 force damage and has a 50% chance to deafen any enemies within 5 feet of the target. Like SR’s Sound Burst spell, applied via war hammer. — Ironsmiths spend so much time around hammers striking anvils that their hearing isn’t great. This means they are resistant to Command and Power Word spells. This could be an extra saving throw or something like a 50% chance to avoid the effect. Thoughts? — Starting at level… 10? (Thoughts?) Ironsmiths can imbue weapons or armor with transient bonus effects, which last for 8 hours. (Permanent magic item crafting requires more time and expensive ingredients and an established smithy.) Like the Enchahted Weapon spell, but with bonus effects. ** ** Actually I’m not sure this can be done. I’m not about to make clones of every weapon in the game. A possible milquetoast alternative would be, a permanent passive self-only application of the EE Enchanted Weapon effect - due to better handling and treatment of their weapons, an Ironsmith always strikes as if with a magical weapon. This is of extremely limited utility - early BG1, and the Spellhold maze if you use SCS’ Remove Items In Spellhold component. Meh? I want like one more fun thing for this kit to do. Thoughts?

Every STR increase from 14 to 25 (plus 18/51) is accompanied by a +1 bonus to either to-hit rolls or damage rolls. 21 and 23 give you a thac0 bonus.

Mostly it drags some of the bonuses in the 18/xx range down to lower scores, and largely eliminates the different steps within 18/xx. You can see the bonuses in the first table in this Readme. EDIT - and I guess it reduces by 2 the overall damage bonuses at 18 and above.

Alternatively - maybe a bit easier to implement - put Korlasz in the fight at the top of the Iron Throne, with the same min1hp technique. Or even with Rieltar in Candlekeep. The implication being that she was (one of) Sarevok’s person on the inside of that organization… could add a short line confirming it in SoD. It would make sense given her presumed wealth and status (what a family tomb!) and her near-death at the party’s hands would explain her absence in the BG1 end battle.

It has its uses, to be sure… but many mods use it when they ought timi use something else. Mostly SUBCOMPONENT. “Which travel times do you want, 1 or 2?” is a terrible use of READLN.

That looks line it is using READLN, which as I understand things, cannot be automated. Sad thing is, there is no reason to use READLN there, if you are just giving two choices (or four or six, whatever), the mod is better off using subcomponents. Several NPC mods I have installed did this, and it is pretty annoying.

Unfortunately it’s not that simple. Hang on, I don’t remember, need to look at the code. Ah, actually it may not be difficult. In SubtleD_Stat_Overhauls/lib/semi_stats.tpa, at line 70, line 313, and line 568 are three arrays for wizard/bard (INT), sorcerer (CHA), and divine casters (WIS) respectively. You can see from thise arrays how it works: the stat value is in the left side, the spell slot bonus is on the right. Xa is a bonus Xth-level slot, Xb is a second bonus slot, and Xc for sorcerers is a casting level bonus. By changing those three arrays you will change the bonuses. That’s for 5E casting slots. For memorization slots, i.e. vanilla spell slot bonuses, it is more annoying. Look at SubtleD_Stat_Overhauls/components/stat_bonus_spells.tpa at lines 131-175 (wizards, bards, sorcerers) and lines 508-523 (divine casters). These are harder to edit but you can see the stat scores in parameter1 of the op326 effects (13 through 25) and the resources ending in letters ‘m’ through ‘y’ apply bonuses in the same order as above (m=1, n=1, o=2, p=2,q=3, r=3, s=4, t=4, u=5, v=5, w=6, x=6, y=7). So you can change the resource values’ last letter to the bonus you want for each stat value. I would make sure both sets of values apply the same bonuses.

That’s not the mod asking that, it is weidu itself. If you install any mod snd answer that question, it will generate a weidu.conf file. Then you can uninstall the mod and then do your batch-install and as long as that weidu.conf file is present, it won’t ask for that second language input anymore.

Heh, maybe I should put them in install order in my sig, instead of categorized!

My signature! …is basically the only place. Which I am realizing is a problem. Annoyingly, the mods are split between two different Github accounts, so I couldn’t even point to Github. And both Github accounts include a bunch of small/test/garbage repos. There was some talk a while ago of setting up a subforum here for all of the Unearthed Arcana mods, but that petered out and never happened. (Maybe because of the poor state of the Readmes… I’ve been noodling around with the Readmes and Tome & Blood is in decent shape… but man, FnP is such a huge beast of a mod, trying to write up the descriptions for all the kits, adapting them to html… it’s brutally slow and annoying.) I suppose SHS would host them, but that place is down half the time… AFAIC G3 is the place to be for BG modding.

Incidentally I’m going a bit crazy with Minsc, mostly because I don’t expect him to spend much time in the party. Usually I change him to the fighter class and the Barbarian kit. Greatswords/axes/clubs and he can use a shield to offset the lack of plate mail, or rage out and go 2-handed to mow down enemies. But this time I gave him… the Cavalier kit?? Might & Guile puts it in the fighter class so it works in that you don’t have “Minsc the Paladin” which would be stupid. Fearless, extra tough (poison resistant), protective of others, and “full plate and packing steel!” I mean, it sounds like Minsc. Or, it sounds like how Minsc sees himself in his head. So I’m going with it. And of course he still has his personal Berserk ability to rage out. So, I’m rolling with Minsc the Cavalier.

Actually my mods make him less bad. In my game: — SWS gives better thac0 and APR — DW gives better APR but worse thac0, and a slight melee AC bonus — 2-Handed gives better thac0 and damage — Shield-fighting gives better defense and shield bash With Item Revisions’ Revised Shields, you really want a shield for tanking, and dual-wielding is second-best. Breagar can do neither of those things, and I’m not about to have him pitch stones from a sling. However, with mastery in axes and specialized in SWS, he has 5/2 APR and very good thac0. So he is kind of in the same role as a Kensai or something. I gave him the Dodge and Parry feats to keep him alive while dishing out damage. The kit I think has less power and less utility compared to other fighter kits and other classes. Not good for tanking, can’t dual wield (the usual way to be a damage dealer), nothing to protect against magic… it feels like the way to make him good is to give him magic items. But you could give those magic items to a warrior with any kit. As far as what to do about it: with FnP and NPC_EE I could make hime a Champion of Moradin. (Moradin being god of the forge and the breath of life which actually kind of makes sense for a baker’s apprentice? Kind of?) That paladin kit is sort of similar to the Smith: great with war hammers, and innate Spiritual Hammer IIRC. But it would give him a few spells eventually, and let him Smite and Lay On Hands. But that’s dangerous, because I don’t know if he has any script/dialogue checks for his kit (don’t know why he would, but it seems more likely for this mod than others); or less importantly, whether he has dialogues/story elements talking about just being a fighter, not using magic, etc. The alternative, which I lean toward, is to code up some fun bonuses for his existing kit on my own machine. Like, doing a sound-based Smite-style thing that can deafen targets? There’s an anti-caster skill. And maybe in fact he is half-deaf himself, and thus resistant to Commands and Power Words? Maybe he can imbue weapons with a selection of bonus abilities - not permanently, of course, without a full smithy and rare elements. But maybe temporarily, for 8 hours or so? There’s three ideas just off the top of my head, which would all be pretty fun and useful. If I sit and think for half an hour maybe I’ll come up with more/better ones. Or if anyone has other ideas, I’m open to coding it up. (Not for distribution, but just for personal use.)

Yes Yes Not really. Paladin/ranger spellcasting is so late and so weak that I find it annoyingly useless. Even in my games where their spellcasting comes online much earlier, at 3rd level, it still feels late, and weak. I started think about 5E’s designation of classes as “full caster” vs. “half caster” and the 2E bards and multiclasses do kind of feel like half casters. But rangers and paladins feel like one-fifth casters. This tweak gives them more uses per day of what they can already do, but what they can do is still rather weak. In my game, with the norm being that all arcane and divine casters and multiclasses get 5-6 low level spell slots by late BG1, rangers and paladins getting two seems extraordinarily stingy. Another way to look at it: if giving rangers a few more 1st- and 2nd-level slots is unbalancing, then how much moreso is giving wizards extra 5th- and 6th-level slots? That said, I can probably make it optional. I’ll put it on my to-do list.

Good idea. I edited the first post in this thread to point to the new mods. To bookend things, the relevant information is: Scales of Balance is deprecated again. Forever this time. For my tweaks related to weapons, armor, and other items, now you should use SubtleD’s Item Tweaks. For my revisions to the weapon proficiency system, and a feat system tied into proficiency points, now you should use Combat Skills & Proficiencies. For my tweaks related to ability scores, hit dice, XP, etc. now you should use SubtleD’s Stat Overhauls. Those three mods should be installed in that order. Generally, Item Tweaks goes after kits but before SCS; Combat Skills and Stat Overhauls go after SCS. If a moderator could close this thread, that would be great.

The Arcanist uses very different mechanics for memorization and casting. I would be very surprised if Artemius’ stuff addresses it. Not that particular tweak, no. I mean, unless Artemius wants to support my Arcanist/5E spellcasting system, which I’d be happy to help him with.