subtledoctor

Open /faiths_and_powers/lib/default_kit_spheres.tpa and go to line 82: it should begin: "LAF fnp_spell_choice STR_VAR this_kit_clab..." Add a double-slash " // " to the beginning of that line, and then try again to install it. (Incidentally that is being installes very late... it should probably be installed earlier, with the rest of the FnP_Multi components, since there are no other kits installed after that. It probably will be fine, but it means component #99 "Give FnP Kits to Multiclass NPCs" will be at least partially non-functional since you didn't install most of the multiclass kits before the bit that assigns kits to NPCs. Not the end of the world, though.)

The Slow Arrow idea is nice - though I don't like the idea of having multiple versions at different enchantment... in general, I don't think having +1/+2/etc. versions of a single item is a good idea. Things should be unique. But anyway, I think Bioware did a fairly crappy with ammo ("here is some elemental ammo, here is some x hp/y seconds poison arrows, that's all - oh, and if you use a sling you are screwed out of even this much"). I would add even more special-effect arrows, like "Fairy Arrows" (sleep on hit), arrows that entangle, etc. OTOH my mod already turns that sort of thing into special Archer Called Shots, so I don't have particular need of the ammo in my games. The Earthquake-proof boots and the Sanctuary boots are nice ideas (not at-will, though)... in general these games need fewer Boots of Speed and more varied and interesting footwear. A Mage Hood with invisibility detection is a nice idea, though it might be annoying to implement. I like the idea of triggering Turn Undead from an item instead of the base ability. I'm not a fan of filling up the game with stat-bonus items, or spell slot-bonus items, and I think casting speed bonuses should be almost entirely excised. (Casting speed and spell interruption is generally too important in these games.) Ans as I said, I don't like the idea of +1/+2/+3 versions of items. IMHO enchanted gear should be bespoke, with unique lore. (Another mod of mine removes all generic "+x" gear from the games.) My eyes started to glaze over when looking at the weapons - there's just too much stuff here. Broad advice: these games have a LOT of magical loot - way, way more than any equivalent tabletop campaign would have. And there are lots of mods that add more magical gear, often filling any perceived gaps in what's available to various classes and kits. If you are thinking of making an item mod, I would suggest being hyper-focused and add just a few very cool and interesting things, which you think fill a gap in what the game already offers. Alternatively, make a few things as replacements for vanilla gear - not additions. Quantity is not needed in this game, and will probably not be appreciated by players. Quality will.

In case it wasn't clear, "install this BGEE mod after EET" means you must install the BGEE mod onto your BG2EE game (i.e. the EET game) - not your BGEE game.

FWIW there are some good ideas there. Some ideas I don’t like, as well, but that's to be expected. I have some back-burner ideas for my item tweaks (e.g. I’ve never like IR’s Robe of the Weave) and some of these might fit the bill. (As always, though, don’t hold your breath!)

Spellstates are an EE innovation. There are 256 available in the game, which can simply be set to 1 or 0. This can handle a lot of the load that DS stats do; all of the spellstates and DS uses for them take up less space (bits) than one quarter of one single proficiency stat; it is very efficient, and very handy when paired with something like opcode 318 or 326. However spellstates didn't exist in the pre-EE engine, so DS used proficiencies instead, which were the best thing available. (IIRC there was not much sense back then of just how useful those proficiencies could be for other purposes; and anyway, a good portion of that utility was only exposed by advances in the EE engine.) So long story short I believe SCS currently applies both a spellstate and a prof. IIRC SCS when installed on the EE engine will use the spellstates... but other mods might look for an use the prof. They can work together interchangeably, but for that to happen both need to be applied, so you can free up a prof. BUT Yes. If you do it carefully, you can use some of these proficiencies in ways that don't interfere with DS. As an example, I think I recall using the "WIZARD_KHELBENS_WARDING_WHIP" proficiency (stat 132) with a feat for some kind of martial class that could not multi- or dual-class with wizard. You need to be careful, but you can find ways in which the current DS profs are circumscribed, and use one in your own way which is itself circumscribed such that they never interfere. Also, note that it is hard to give good advice without knowing details of your specific desired implementation. If you just want to add another proficency - give wakizashi its own, or something - then you can do that pretty simply with stat 134. But if you don't need an actual proficiency that is just like the other weapon proficiencies - chosen using your normal weapon proficiency points, appearing on the record screen as a weapon proficiency, etc. - then there may be solutions. Especially if you are targeting the EEs. And of course another option is to collapse existing proficiencies to free up a few. Various mods do this (CDTweaks can give the the BG1 or IWD system, SoB creates a custom one). You could use stat 89, bastard sword proficiency, for your new thing; you would check whether one of those mods is installed; if so, great, stat 89 is unused; if not, then you would yourself change all bastard swords from 89 to 90 (long sword proficiency). Something like that.

A bit inside baseball, but: the abandoned "Faiths of Faerun" used opcode 180. The more recent "Deities of Faerun" mod used opcode 319. Application of 319 is very simple, but at the time I was worried about this stuff the EE engine was suffering from some nasty stutters in the inventory screen, and there was some anecdotal evidence that opcode 319 might have contributed to it. In "Faiths and Powers" we add something like 200+ kits, and the thought of adding that many 319 effects to every weapon, which would have to be evaluated every time you go to the inventory screen, scared me away. It turns out it would have been fine, but we had to make a decision based on the infor available to us at the time. So we use opcode 181, which IMHO is working pretty great: You get red borders and the like, so it's better than opcode 180 It doesn't litter every weapon with dozens or hundreds of opcode 319 effects We are talking about kit-based usability, so applying this sort of thing in the CLAB kit tables makes a lot of sense The only hitch is that opcode 181 operates via item type, so it was necessary to swap or separate out the members of various "item type" categories (e.g. "large swords"). Getting it such that there is a 1:1 correspondence between item types and weapon proficiencies allowed us to create a functionally unlimited kit-based weapon usability system. It's very nice. We could have done the same with armors, by breaking out leather/chain/plate armors from item type 2 into their own category types, which IIRC already exist but are currently unused. But there are three varieties of armor and three cleric kit flags, so it was simpler to use the traditional usability flags for armor.

It's a nice idea though. I wouldn't mind seeing it as an ~8th-level spell, not just in the Enchantment school but limited to only enchanters. That's beyond the scope of SR... might be appropriate for a mod like Tome & Blood though.

Huh. I didn’t know shops filtered what they buy by item type. I have to double-check whether I can reproduce this, and if not, why. But if so, it should be an easy fix.

I don’t understand... I am playing a game with this component right now and I see bastard swords for sale in shops.

If any mods you want are on Github, you can look at the Releases page and find a release from ~late 2015. (Because I think the 2.0 patch came out in 2016... right?)

I think it modifies a d20 roll, so +10 in NI means 55% crit chance

Did you try STR_VAR foo = EVAL ~%bar%~ END ? I mean I don’t know enough about this stuff to try plugging an array into a function. But that’s how I usually handle string variables. (Unless you’re using AUTO_EVAL_STRINGS or whatever it is?)

So, as I said, any item category code above 30 cannot be dual-wielded; FnP has to separate various items that are lumped together in vanilla, so that there is a distinct item code for each proficiency code. This way proficiency and usability can be matched together. (Which is how the vanilla game usually works.) This lets FnP have hundreds of different unique kit-based usability restrictions, where the normal game can only support usability restrictions for 3 kits in each class. Now, FnP want to otherwise conform to the vanailla rules, in which e.g. bastard swords and katanas can be dual-wielded. This means FnP has to move some 2-handed weapons from item codes below 30 to item codes above 30, so that bastard swords and katanas can have item codes below 30. But SoB comes along and wants you to be unable to dual-wield bastard swords and katanas, so it wants top shift them back to item codes above 30. (Remember, in the vanilla game these do not have item codes at all, they are lumped in with long swords.) So SoB has to account for FnP: it says, if FnP is not installed, then bastard swords and katanas have no item codes, so we have to assign them new ones and those new ones have to be above 30. But if FnP has been installed, then bastard swords and katanas already have item codes, and the item codes above 30 that we want to give them are already occupied by 2-handed weapons. So in this case we have to do a bit of a switcheroo. That part is patching in casting speed penalties for members of certain classes wearing armor; but also adding a corresponding casting speed bonus for the Magus kit, so that the special kit bonus ("can cast in armor") is preserved in some way in a mod that lets everyone cast in armor.

That's really odd... I don't even know how to do that if i was trying to (set a kit as a cleric for one race and a druid for another race... the ADD_KIT doesn't even let you distinguish that finely). Probably it;s an instance where a kit is being removed from the elven table, and the deletion screws up. Or a REPLACE_TEXTUALLY mismatch. I'll take a look. Yeah, I made these spells from scratch and the icons I chose for them don't seem to be sticking. I think there also might be an AI problem with the AI on one of the swarm spells, I vaguely remember casting it and the critters were neutral and did not attack my enemies. That's weird... sounds like a problem with the 5E modification. Actually, it sounds like they are supposed to be castable for free by the Hivekeeper, and that is being screwed up. That should be a fairly easy fix, I have a function written just for this purpose. Ya, another new spell for FnP, this one made by Grammarsalad. I love this spell, but it's one of the many new spells that has had icon issues. We've fixed a bunch of them (at least temporarily - the current icon for Animal Growth is godawful), but there are still a few that need attention. It's been a bit tough, because Grammarsalad and I are both pretty good at making spells, but not at making new icons to pair with the spiffy new spells... Huh. I had this problem myself, and then fixed it before I uploaded the update. So that's disheartening. maybe a mod interaction, I'll look at your weidu.log. Thanks for the feedback, this is very helpful!

Most of the extra profs are used for Detectable Spells in mods like SCS, SR, and others. What they do can now (in the EEs) be done in better ways, but many of the mods using Detectable Spells will never be updated. So the lower bytes of most of the extra proficiencies are (IMO) gone and not worth trying to use. If (in the EEs) you want to use the higher bytes of a proficiency to do something similar to spellstates, then you can use any proficiency, extra or not. E.g. my mods use the Club proficiency, and it works fine and doesn’t conflict with anything. You could do the same with long sword proficiency, or sword-and-shield style, or whatever. If you really want to use extra proficiencies like proficiencies, then what is available are 134, 109, and I think 108. (I think DavidW said SCS no longer uses 108... but it’s possible it does use it, and he intends to stop using it but has not yet made the change.) In this case the lower, ‘normal’ bytes are available... but of course, if two modders want to use them, then those two mods may not be compatible.

Yes - this bug was specifically triggered by installing a 5E casting mod (5E, TnB Arcanist, MnG bards) after another one. I.e. running the 5E setup function more than once. Now it works, it can run multiple times from multiple mods and won’t get in its own way. Although TBH there’s no reason to install the Arcanist and the broader 5E casting mod; the latter just turns every mage into an Arcanist (and makes Specialist versions, which are actually pretty snazzy IMHO)

My feeling is that Spell Thrust is different in being a spell protection remover - it has no effect except against particular enemies with particular protections. So I think it’s okay to handle differently from more general AoE spells. I don’t really think of it as an AoE spell, even when it has an AoE. Like I say, I never try to actually affect multiple enemies with it; when I’m breaking down spell protections I’m generally focused on one enemy. Piercing invisibility is not designed as a feature of the spell, but just as a metagame convenience - meant to prevent [Spell Deflection + Improved Invisibility + Nondetection] from being a win-button.

Fixed!

Aha - fixed in v4.12.6. This is also an update that will filter to all other mods using the semi-spont functions, but in this case it only matters for ones installed later in the order, like MnG. So you can just use this version of MnG and leave the earlier installed mods as they are.

Truth.

I think I am seeing it more often because I have modded things a bit in a way that leads me to cast Spell Thrust more often. But the problem is not with the mechanic itself - I'm okay with other AoE spells sometimes missing. I just find it jarring here because it make Spell Thrust different from the way all the other protection removal spells work (Secret Word, Pierce Magic, etc.) Those never miss their targets... this one sometimes does. I don't think increasing the AoE is the best idea, because it has a small AoE on purpose. It is not designed to clear spell protections from everyone on the map, it is really meant to be cast next to an invisible caster, and if you happen to catch two casters in the AoE it is a happy accident. I don't know that setting the 'bypass invisibility' flag is the best idea, because 1) that requires ToBEx or EE, and 2) that means not leaning into the way invisibility detection works in SR. (That flag is unnecessary for anyone who casts See Invisible since they will have opcode 193 detection.) I am capable of treating this issue for my own setup, I was just mentioning it in case anyone else thinks it is worthy of consideration. I think the best options are: Change nothing (everyone else is okay with this, I'll modify things on my end) Change the target from 'Any Point' to 'Living Actor' (but this is a major change from Demi's design and so should be considered carefully) Just make the casting speed very quick (I don't see much downside here, how often does anyone prioritize interrupting Spell Thrust??) EDIT - Hold Person already follows its target, doesn't it? Frankly sometimes this annoys me, e.g. if the target wanders away from his friends who I am trying to catch with the AoE. In most cases I prefer AoE spells to target 'Any Point' ... only in the case of Spell Thrust am I finding it kind of jarring. (And if I misread your post and you were asking "should we allow Hold Person to target invisible enemies?" then I would say no. Again, just cast See Invisible.)

I'm sticking with 2.5 until the 2.7 patch comes out. 2.6 seems to introduce as many bugs as it fixes, and the ones it fixes seem to be cosmetic or stuff I never noticed anyway. That patch took forever and yet the end result still seems rushed.

Huh, I didn’t get that error. But it should be simple to fix if I can pin it down. I’ll take a look.

I actually recommend 2.5. The 2.6 patch looks like a bit of a mess, and it seems that a 2.7 is on the way. So I’m not even going to put much effort into the new patch until 2.7 arrives.

Not really - the code just makes bespoke multiclass cleric kits based on the Forest Druid druid kit; I always thought it would be ideal to add multiclass versions of the other kits, but doing that much work for every combination is just too much work. But... maaaybe if I could just make a single-class cleric kit template for each druid kit, then it would be simpler, because that cleric kit could simply plug in to the existing ADD_KIT_EX code to make multiclass variants automatically, with no more input needed from me. Which would be great! (Except, they would appear all the way at the bottom of the kit lists, instead of at the top with the existing multi-druid kits. That would be another bit of work to solve. So, the answer is no - there is no easy way to do this now. It would require a fairly substantial update to the mod. It's an update that I would like to do, and now I have a bit of a roadmap for how to make it work... but I still don't know when I might be able to put the time in to make that happen...