subtledoctor

It's one of those tweaks where I ask, "sure it sounds cool in general but can I name a discrete instance of when it might actually make my game better?" And since the answer is probably no, then I don't bother with Yet Another Mod that Might Introduce Bugs (YAMMIB). (A bit like all of those variant spell tables, which have interesting names, but when I look at them they don't really differ until level 25+, and my mages rarely go past level 25 or so in TOB, so I realize I can completely skip all of that.)

I don't love that, I worry about the stability and potential interactions with other mods when it has so many possible caster level values. For a modded version that is simple and static, but with more interesting/sensible/PnP-friendly values than "everything at 10th level," I have been using Astrobryguy's Scroll Caster Level Mod. I believe it casts spells from scrolls at the higher of 1) 5th level; or 2) the level required to actually cast the scroll's spell. So Magic Missile would be cast at 5th level, while Chain Lightning would be cast at 12th level. Something close to that, anyway.

I think I recall seeing in-game options to toggle this stuff in the "fine-tune difficulty" part of the new difficulty system. I'm playing on EE though, where that stuff is done through UI tweaks. I don't know what it looks like for the old engine. EDIT - ah right, I think it's controlled by dialogue triggered from an innate ability, or something like that.

Off the top of my head: zero out every value in SPLSHMKN.2da, which will preclude use of the existing spell-picking mechanism. Then choose which spells you want them to know, and add them manually just as the special ones already are in CLABSH01. This will break the class for any kits, though. (edited the filename typo)

Glancing at the patch notes (such as they are), there’s not actually any improvement in 2.6 that ever bothered me. I suppose pathfinding, but that’s really it. All the improvements that I was looking forward to apparently got lost and were not backed up (*I shit you not), and have been pushed to the 2.7 patch. Whenever and if ever that happens. So, I’m not upgrading anytime soon.

Or, forget about the 2.6 patch and just play the 2.5 patch with a well-tested version of mods. Installing a brand-new and untested patch, and then waiting to install a bunch of brand-new and untested versions of mods on it, is just asking for trouble.

I think SR no longer removes Pro Petrification... right? It used to change it into Expeditious Retreat (right?) but since SR4b17 started using ADD_SPELL, it now just adds Expeditious retreat as a new spells and preserves the original Pro Petrification. I think. Anyway, yes it is a stupid spell, not much more interesting than CLUA'ing yourself a few thousand XP since it basically turns basilisks into rats. My "Random Tweaks" mod has an option to change it into "Mirrored Eyes," which uses my generalized version of IWD thieves' "Evasion" ability to give you an extra chance to save against any gaze attack - which includes basilisk petrification but also vampire charm, umber hulk confusion, and Aec'Letec's death gaze. So it gives less-than-full protection, but broader utility that is helpful even through BG2. Note, that only works in the EE engine. TBH you don't even really need Pro Petrification with SR, you just need to boost your saves as much as possible. Even if you are affected by petrification, you have some time before you are totally frozen, and you can undo it by simply casting Break Enchantment. I think the Dimensional Anchor HLA-level ability in my psionics mod can currently resist it... but I guess that's a bit further afield from what you are thinking about...

Oh, this guy doesn’t do search. It’s beneath him apparently.

Whoops, I didn't spot that. That may be the error. Or, another error. Good eye, Jarno.

If this is the EE game, they coded the proficiency screen to only display options that are available to the base class. So you would need to also edit the unkitted cleric column in weapprof.2da and allow trueclass clerics to use longswords and spears. Yes, that obviously entails other consequences that you may not like. It’s SUPER annoying. Another option is to leave the trueclass column alone and install the UI mod calked “hidden game options” or something like that. It has a component to display all weapons in the proficiency screen. (Or maybe it’s an option in lefreut’s UI tweaks... I forget.)

That's part of the "multiclass bards" component that you installed. It changes bards into multiclass wizards, but the idea is that they approach magic in a musical way, through repertoires and improvisational patterns instead of rote memorization; this lets them cast spells spontaneously, but limits them to 7th-level spells. When you say "I'm a bard myself," it sounds like you are an actual bard in the unmodded bard class - not a multiclass wizard bard. The original bard class is left intact and operates normally; but when you install the multiclass bards component it changes NPCs into new-style bards with the new-style casting. You can turn that off - set it up such that bards are multiclass wizards with normal wizard spellcasting plus bard songs. You have to change a value in the settings file to do that, and it has to be set before installation.

Well, Project Image is a broken and poorly-designed spell to begin with. This sounds like another facet to its poor design: it is entirely possible for the spell to suppress not just the innate ability button, but all innate spells in any location. But I guess they did not do that. Yeah. Vanilla sorcerers are stupid and munchkiny. Vanilla sorcerers with vanilla Project Image, even moreso. Note, that sequence is also possible with unmodded HLAs, since unmodded HLAs are spells and the unmodded Project Image allows you to cast them with 9th-level spells slots. SCS isn't designed to address any of this. Though, *cough* there are mods that do... *Cough* there are also mods that address this. My versions of innate sequencers, for example, have the option to preclude sorcerers from getting them at all. I think this is a really nice way to balance things, keeping sorcerers focused on raw power, casting everythign innately while making mages the masters of magical study and techniques (which I think is a good characterization of sequencers and contingencies.)

Yes, I believe so. Innate abilities can appear under either button. Since HLAs are sort of approximating 10th-level spells, most mods that make them innates put them under the spells button (where they conveniently appear after 9th-level spells). But they function just like innate abilities in all other ways - you don't need to memorize them, and they are automatically refreshed when you rest. The difference, in other words, is purely cosmetic.

Could try just removing Comet from your override folder and playing with the vanilla version...

Ability score-based bonus spells gives bonus spells up to 7th levels for mages with high INT, and bonus spells up to 5th level plus caster level bonuses for sorcerers with high CHA. It’s described in the in-depth 0.7 Readme, linked in the first post.

Might want to try externalizing the item removal to a SPL. Put an equipping effect on the crown with opcode 146, timing mode 1 or 2. (I forget which; might not matter.) Have it cast a spell on self, Remove Item, with timing mode 1 or 9.

They did that in 1998...

Yeah, I’ve been trying to give more informative answers lately, I figure it’s good in general for as much of this information to be public as possible. Enjoy! (And, if you like the Arcanist, I’ve recently expanded that casting system to cover every class in the game, instead of just one kit.)

Was the game running in the background when you installed it? If do, don’t do that. Did you install it on Siege of Dragonspear bought from Steam or GOG? If so, you need to install ModMerge or its new variant, before installing other mods. ...Those are my only two ideas.

Yeah, I've heard this one before. I've never played with a version of the game that shows spell AoEs, so I haven't seen a comparison. Like most older players, I've simply internalized what the range numbers mean: 40' roughly means the distance between the caster and the edge of their visibility/fog of war. So a 30' AoE, like Fireball, cast at the edge of your vision will cover about 3/4 of the distance back the the caster, and that much distance again past the point you cast it at. A 20' AoE, like Grease or Glitterdust I think, works out to about half that area. And a 5'-10' AoE, like the clerical Produce Flame, means a small area just around the enemy. The new EE thing that shows you the AoE for each spell is nice, in much the same way that training wheels are nice . But unfortunately, it is incompatible with a lot of my mods. The Arcanist has to cast a spell that itself casts a subspell with the actual effects. I.e. instead of casting Fireball, you cast a spell and the effects of that spell are "cast Fireball!" The initial spell, the one your Arcanist casts, has no AoE; it is simply cast on a spot on the floor, and then it casts Fireball from that point. If the initial spell had an AoE, then it would cast Fireball from every spot in the AoE. i.e. it would cast like 50 Fireballs at once. This came up a bit in testing, and while it can be funny and impressive, it is no way to play the game. So under this system, there is simply no way to hook into this new, rather limited aspect of the EE engine. Theoretically, instead of casting a spell that casts Fireball, I could simply make the spell you cast be a clone of Fireball. It would like the same, but in the engine it would really be Fireball'. That would work fine on first inspection... but then you realize that there are various places where the game looks for whether someone has cast Fireball, and if you cast Fireball', it would not register. Examples: Shield is supposed to block Magic Missile, but it would not block an Arcanist's Magic Missile'. The game registers when you cast Restoration on Raissa in the Skin Dancer quest in Trademeet, but if you instead cast Restoration', which is identical but a different .SPL file, then the game doesn't detect it and doesn't advance the quest. Et cetera. I could try to identify and account for every possible example of that behavior, but it would be craaazy... especially when you consider all of the mods people add to the game, some of which might be installed after this one and therefore would not be adjusted for this purpose. Also theoretically, I could do something like what Spell Revisions does to make Spell Deflections block AoE spells: change every AoE spell to have an individual target, and put the AoE projectile in the outer spell that the Arcanist casts. To make this work, I would have to do the same thing with the normal version of spells that regular mages cast. But that would be a lot of changes to a lot of spells that aren't even covered by the Arcanist casting system, and this again could falter if the player installs mods after this one, and could possibly screw up the spells cast by enemy AI scripts like SCS. Any bugs resulting from this would be really bad ones. Given the choice between 1) possibly screwing up AI spellcasters, 2) screwing up some of the massive amounts of interactions between spells, and 3) losing visible AoE indicators and playing the game the way it was always designed to be played... I opt for #3. Take those training wheels off!

Wait, am I crazy and/or misremembering things? (Actually don't answer the first part.) Vanilla BG2/TOB: proficiency = 1 APR plus warriors' 7th/13th level bonuses specialized = 1.5 APR plus etc. mastery = still 1.5 APR high mastery = still 1.5 APR grandmastery = 2 APR (i.e. +0.5 from high mastery) The "True" Grandmastery mod: yadda... high mastery = still 1.5 APR grandmastery = 2.5 APR (i.e. +1 from high mastery) Greenhorn said, "I didn't like that the mod gives a full +1 at GM, I prefer a smaller +0.5 bonus." Isn't that what the vanilla table gives? That's partly a question about Greenhorn's post, but also for the BartyMae readme, which seems to claim this for vanilla: proficiency = 1 APR plus warriors' 7th/13th level bonuses specialized = 2 APR plus etc. mastery = still 2 APR high mastery = still 2 APR grandmastery = still 2 APR (i.e. same as high mastery, and in fact same as specialized) If I'm not mistaken that is totally wrong. Question then being: am I mistaken?

Maybe neither here nor there, but this sounds like you favor the unmodded BG2 rule? In which case rather than being bothered by that mod, you can just not install it.

I think the issue is my ability score bonuses mod applies a repeating spell to all creatures, and the SR nishruu interprets that as “someone is casting spells at me, so heal.” I don’t love this mechanic anyway; maybe I’ll make a little tweak to remove or change it. The trouble is, I could not find any record of this contingent healing on their .CRE file, among active effects or items being worn. So I’m not sure what exactly needs to be modified. Maybe I just missed it...

Ya. IIRC, Banishment just clears the field of garden-variety summons. Dispel Magic takes care of nishruu/hakeashar. Genies and fiends are high-level extra-planar creatures that are gated, not summoned, so they are not subject to Banishment.

That mostly looks correct. The content of TnB #69 is included with TnB #67. The MnG revised Stalker and Shadowdancer are included in the Feat System component. The Marksman/Slinger/Sniper are included in the MnG revised archery component. The other MnG ranger kits are included in the FnP rangers component. And the MnG discrete bard kits are skipped because the multiclass bards component installs different versions of those same kits. The only one I’m not sure about is the DR cleric of Tempus kit... that might have been skipped because the 2.5 game already has that kit? In any event FnP installs more kits for Tempus. One way or another you won’t notice the DR kit missing. In short, that looks like a successful install to me. Have fun!