subtledoctor

There is little risk here. Even if it is not an exact match, SAY will just add a new string and set the description to it. Which is fine. The game can handle many thousands of added strings. But a bigger question is why this is happening in the first place. You speak as if it should be expected, but my installs include hundreds of mods and I see very few mistaken string references. You might want to run “./weidu --change-log spwi694.spl” to find out which kods changed the file. Drop the .SPL files tgat generates into /override and see which one(s) have correct descriptions. Then match up the first broken one to the --change-log output to see which mod broke it. Then you can move toward figuring out how to make an install where this doesn’t happen.

Sorry this question has been hanging out there for so long, I didn't see it. The short answer is, the way the mod is coded, the SWS and DW style changes in particular are inextricably bound together. It would be quite a bit of work to disentangle them and potentially introduce bugs... I just can't do that right now. You could remove both of those by commenting out the entire SWS/DW section of Combat_Skills_Proficiencies/components/fighting styles.tpa from lines 440 to 810. That may work to just get the shield-fighting and two-hand weapon skills from this mod, leaving the vanilla single-weapon style and dual-wielding. That is much easier: just find WSPECIAL.2da in your override folder or in Near Infinity, and you can edit those values yourself. These issues are fixed in version 1.4. Notably: Assassins now get an invisible bonus to backstab multiplier, instead of a bonus to the backstab proficiency Archers now get an invisible bonus to ranged thac0 and damage, instead of a bonus to the accuracy proficiency Swashbucklers now get an invisible bonus to AC and melee thac0, instead of to those proficiencies Swashbucklers no longer get bonuses to the SWS/DW proficiencies Halflings no longer get a bonus to the sling proficiency but they still get two free pips in thrown weapons. If I can find out how @DavidW is giving free initial pips in Talents of Faerun via UI modding, maybe I will add some more fun bonuses here. But only if it is a pretty surgical technique - I prefer to stay away from UI modding as much as possible, the compatibility situation just isn't great with that stuff.

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.

Having looked into it further, I think that might be a losing battle. If I understand things correctly, it is not just those values that are affected by the mage specialist bug (or if not bug exactly, then “hard-coded compatibility issue”)… it is in fact all values that are bit-equal to them. Which is a LOT. The only real way to avoid is to do something like front-load all added arcane caster kits. But that may not be feasible, depending on the install. All that said, “ * “ is in fact the specified default value for that table.

Okay I think I see the problem here. When you level up from zero, when it comes to proficiencies, the game is buggy and treats a jump from 0 to 1 (works normally) differently from the jump from 0 to 2 or higher (bug, the game robs you of several proficiency points). I mistakenly remembered thief skill points working the same way, so I coded the “Skill Focus” innate to only appear if you jump from 0 to 2+. What actually happens is, the game gives you as many skill points as you usually get on level-ups, regardless what level you jump to. So as an example, I just tried changing Montaron into a single-class Assassin with 1 XP. Upon leveling up from 0 to 1, I could choose two proficiency points (good) but only allocate 15 skill points (what Assassins usually can allocate for a single level-up at higher levels - bad). I did not get the “Skill Focus” innate (bad). Then I reloaded and gave Montaron 4,000xp. Then used the Tome and changed him to a single-class Assassin. Because my XP was higher, his two level 1 proficiencies were chosen within the dialogue (good). From level 0 he went to level 3. I had no proficiency points to spend (but I already did, so, good) and I could allocate 45 skill points. After leveling up I had the “Skill Focus” which gave me an extra 20 skill points (good). So the fix here is to simply give out that Skill Focus innate ability even at low XP values. Easy-peasy, will get on it. EDIT - fixed in version 6.5. Cheers!

So, I have not forgotten about this. I have been trying to adjust it every which way and it seems beyond fixing. The 2.5/2.6 UI seemingly just cannot handle opcode 233 effects applied with the “increment” parameter. So I will need to either 1) re-think this aspect of the mod and maybe just remove it; or 2) maybe see how Talents of Faerun does this via UI modding and implement a similar solution.

The Tweaks component moves level 7/13 APR bumps into kit ability tables. Sounds like… maybe SCS is overwriting them? But, that would be odd. EDIT - oh, apparently it does, in its “read the table then write it back” routine. Still blows my mind that SSC does that.

Heh, yeah. As I was glancing at the ToF forum for some reason I reflected a bit on stuff I have worked on: Revisions to ability scores A feat system Revisions to the proficiency system A divine sphere system Spontaneous spellcasting for clerics New classes New kits Revisions to the original kits Multiclass kits Revisions to arcane metamagic abilities Revisions to the arcane magic duel system Miscellaneous spell tweaks Miscellaneous item tweaks ...Like, if you took all my mods and smushed them together into one single mod, it would look a lot like ToF, with some bits of SCS added in So, thinking of it that way, my sense is that ToF should be installed right about where I install a bunch of my mods: after all other kits, before CDTweaks/SCS.** In this case, I would install 5E Casting right after ToF. Or maybe even something like ToF-->CDTweaks-->5E Casting ** I have no idea what ToF looks like structurally or whether it will need to be broken up in a big install. I don't think DavidW really accounts for that kind of thing. From what i can glean of his personal practices, my guess is that his install order probably looks something like: Ascension Wheels of Prophecy Talents of Faerun SCS When you think about it, that doesn't create any cause to worry about install order at all. It is very simple and obvious.

Agree. Given that they will not fight for you, they are basically a mule. Best I can tell, you are meant to use them the way Hodor was used in Game of Thrones: “carry stuff/people!” “hold the door!” etc. So very strong in some contexts, but not necessarily translating into a high score generally - your descriptions make sense. 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.)

I have updated the mod to version 2.5. This addresses several issues: This is a long-standing issue; it was addressed but it seems the solution was imperfect. I have rewritten the code that handles this in v2.5. It appears to be working now, for all classes. Version 2.5 now includes a settings.ini file that allows you to keep the vanilla druid spell table. I'm not going to change the XP table in this mod, there are already plenty of other ways to change it. In version 2.5, the mod now defaults to using the base game's MXSPLWIZ.2da/MXSPLPRS.2da/MXSPLDRU.2da etc. tables for both memorization and casting slots. So ranger and paladin memorization and casting should sync up by default. And you can amend the tables beforehand, by hand or via another mod, to tweak things to your liking. Note, however, that the vanilla cleric and druid tables, if converted to both memorization and casting slots, would give you an extremely large amount of spells and effectively nerf shamans in a major way. So the mod defaults to reducing the cleric table to 5 slots per level, and defaults to having druids use the cleric table. You can change these in the settings.ini file before installing. I didn't have a chance to test before updating, but I just tested a ranger and paladin with a default install of version 2.5, and they seem to cast spells just fine. So hopefully this is no longer a problem for you. Finally, version 2.5 has provisional support for new spells added by DavidW's newer mods such as Talents of Faerun.

Before the Barbarian's Handbook was a thing, Barbarians were a kit in the very first "Complete" brown-cover handbook: PHBR1, the Complete Fighter's Handbook. In fact Barbarians, Cavaliers, and Swashbucklers were all originally fighter kits! Then later they migrated to a distinct subclass, a paladin kit, and a thief kit, respectively.

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. The EE games just made it appear as it was always coded: as a kit. (Also, in 2E AD&D the Barbarian was in fact a fighter kit before it was broken out later as a subclass. So the EE way is true to the source material. For whatever that is worth!)

I think the idea of the list is specifically to identify conflicting mods that cover the same ground. So you would use DR or FnP or DoF or ToF for priest spheres; S&A or CSP or ToF for revised proficiencies; etc. But, like, AKP and MnG and ToF might all coexist just fine. As far as compatibility goes: I can’t tell from the Readme, is this modular or an all-or-nothing deal? Is there a valid install in which someone would add ToF priest kits but not the ToF sphere system? Is there a file or label to detect the ToF sphere system? I’m working on an update of another mod (5th Edition Spellcasting) right now and it would be nice to make it compatible. Neither here not there, but I’m suuuper curious to see how Use Scrolls/Wands is implemented.

Out of curiosity (I suppose this is as good a place to ask as any, since it bears on compatibility): stuff like subraces, druid multiclasses, auto-supplied initial proficiency pips… is this stuff basically just accomplished by UI modding? EDIT - a more concrete and immediate question: does the sphere system work like e.g. the DR system, zeroing out the values at 0x1c and adding spells to spellbooks via kit ability tables or a similar mechanism? Assuming that is the case, is there a marker file or LABEL etc. that I can use to detect the ToF sphere system?

Would an air elemental really be a nerf? Fire elementals and earth elementals are fantastic summons. Why wouldn’t an air elemental be equally fantastic? It would just be less… wrong.

This is nice. To nitpick a bit, Scales of Balance has been retired for a short while. Most of it can now be found in Combat Skills & Proficiencies and SubtleD's Stat Overhauls. EDIT - and yes I am aware my signature is in dire need of updating. Should try to get around to that...

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!) So given @jmerry’s data above, and that @DavidW is apparently taking spell tweak requests, here is one: just replace the Aerial Servant cleric spell with Conjure Air Elemental. Boom, several problems solved on one fell swoop.

Look for SubtleD’s Spell Tweaks in the miscellaneous mods section. Probably up your alley and completely modular. Not sure what the problem with SR is, as that mod pretty clearly shares your sensibilities with regard to Bless, Sleep, Glyph of Warding, Cloak of Fear, NPP, Disintegrate, Finger of Death, Earthquake, and more. It’s, like, everything you are asking for. (Not modular like my mod is, admittedly… but let’s be real, DavidW is not going to do this stuff in a modular way either.) More generally, it’s pretty disheartening to see players say stuff like “sure I know this other mod has X, but I’d rather it be in SCS” and then it goes into SCS and everyone is like “wow! SCS has X feature, it’s so amazing and inventive!” and I’m like why tf do I even bother.

Almost every one of these suggestions is already available thanks to the diligent effort of hardworking modders…

I can look it at some point in the next few days, probably. A bit weird that v33 and v34 work fine, though. I’m a bit suspicious that the backslash thing might be a red herring. EDIT - yes, lib_general.tpa looks exactly the same in v33 (“COPY ~.../stratagems-inline/blank~ ~%workspace%\autolib.slb~”), and it has no problem in MacOS. I wonder if that user just has more general permissions issues or something. That “illegal backslash sequence” error seems pretty specific, but it’s not an error I’ve seen before so I don’t know what it actually means.

The addition of a spell pack is interesting. But it sounds like it may complicate things for the AI component. Formerly the AI handled more or less three spell systems: 1) vanilla; 2) vanilla + IWD spells; 3) vanilla + Spell Revisions. Does v35 still handle those three systems, with and without the new spell pack?

The mod works for EET but it adds (unnecessary) entries to PDIALOG.2da that EET_end does not like.

I comprehend that is pretty rare - a crit on the first attack? That could happen with any number of enemies - it’s BG1! You’re supposed to reload. Last I saw the aerial servant here, Minsc was in front and got Held by Bassilus. And I had no cure for being Held. So the aerial servant was whaling on Minsc with automatic hits, I had two priests working together to heal Minsc every 3 seconds, and two members with bows whittling down the aerial servant. It was chaotic and not at all how I might have expected the encounter to go. Sure, that first attack had a 5% chance of killing Minsc outright… but I love it when the game is set up to provide the possibility of that kind if unexpected chaos. That stuff, to me, is what makes these games so endlessly playable. And I do think on the whole, SCS helps that. (But I don’t use all the tactical components, some do not move things in that direction.)

In the vanilla game some tables have that column and others don’t… mods should already be designed to work both with and without it.

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.