subtledoctor

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!

FWIW getting special abilities out of order really doesn’t bother me at all.

Well, you are totally correct as far as the story goes. But the biggest question is, what kind if work needs to be done to make this a reality? If all was open and a player went Bandit Camp -> Cloakwood -> dip into BG City -> Nashkel, then the Nashkel Mines and other southern areas (xvart village, gnoll stronghold) would be suuuper boring. Not fun at all. So are you willing to completely redesign that dungeon? Maybe yes, and that’s fine. But it need not be a requirement for getting anything done; no reason to increase your up-front workload. So maybe consider starting with smaller ambition and giving yourself an easier task to begin with, and then making iterative improvements after that. Your point that we don’t even know there’s a conspiracy until chapter 3 is good, but it also cuts the other way: Charname needs to stumble onto the conspiracy somehow, right? The introduction to a plot requires a certain amount of guidance, or you might miss it altogether. The whole south of the map is very good for low-level adventuring, and the first party members you are likely to meet (Xzar/Montaron/Jaheira/Khalid) all pester you about Nashkel. So let that remain the first place to go. Just for now! Put a pin in it. After defeating Mulahey, devise two clues for continuing instead of just one. One pointing to the Cloakwood, and one pointing to the Bandit Camp. You’ll have to invent something for the former... it can be elaborate or very simple. Maybe start simple, just as a proof-of-concept... an extra letter on Tranzig’s person, or something. Replace the chapter triggers relating to those two chapters, and replace the information in the Bandit Camp that points to Cloakwood. Boom! A limited-scope mod that improves the mid-game and is a reasonable amount of work - maybe! - such that this won’t end up as vaporware. Then you can start on v2, which could maybe try opening the city earlier. That would involve a lot more work, but you’ll have familiarity with the systems now. Then in v3, you can circle back to the Nashkel conundrum. Make the Bandit Camp and Cloakwood available; maybe redesign them a bit in case the party is very inexperienced when going there; redesign the Nashkel mine in case the party is highly experienced when going there; and set up a new set of plot breadcrumbs that allow discovery of the conspiracy from any of the three directions (Naskel south, Bandit Camp northeast, or Cloakwood northwest). Or switch v2 and v3. Whatever. My main point is to strongly recommend doing that v1 first, reducing scope in order to get something real and playable out the door.

I think EVERYBODY would be very interested in playing BGEE modded such that the chapter order was more flexible. But I suspect you didn't get much in the way of a response to the 'how much effort' question because very few people probably have a good sense of that. Off the top of my head: I'd say 1) you would need to comb through every script and replace all chapter-based triggers with GlobalGT triggers, and then set the appropriate global variables upon advancing to new chapters. Then 2) you would need to consider story issues and adjust how certain things play out if things are done out of order. Then 3) you would need to consider game balance issues and adjust certain encounters. (E.g. who wants to wade through a cave full of kobolds after destroying a a nest of bandits and flooding a stolen mine?) Then, 4) you would discover a hundred arcane little facets of the game that would screw up your careful adjustments, and have to respond to them. Or not? Who knows? Now, I make rule-tweak mods; this sort of thing is way outside my wheelhouse, so I'm not sure about most of that. Again, I think most people don't have answers for how to do this, and everyone is basically hoping that you forge ahead anyway and figure it out, and the share the result with us. As I think about this I have two ideas. Nashkel should still be the first thing. It's your only lead; Charname has no direction after leaving Candlekeep except to drift down to Naskel. And, compared the other end-chapter areas it is the only one suitable for level 2 characters. So the beginning through Mulahey can be left as-is. But, after defeating Mulahey and stopping the iron from being tainted anymore, then everything could open up to you. You could get two leads to pursue, one leading to the bandits and one leading to the Cloakwood. Plus, with the source of the Iron Crisis identified, there is reason to open the bridge to Baldur's Gate. Which leads me to my next thought: Ideally, you could open up BG City at the same time, and let players explore there and set up a base of operations, and maybe do TotSC content, before heading back south to investigate the bandits and the Cloakwood. This could freshen up the way players get through the game; many have discussed how reaching BG City is often a let-down, and somewhat aimless urban exploring after a game's worth of adventuring can lead to fatigue that sometimes leads to games being abandoned. How easy it would be to open the city early, I have no idea? How many things are there to stumble upon that assume you have completed both the Bandit Camp and the Cloakwood? I have no idea. Certainly more than 1 thing... but for all I know it could be anywhere between 2 and 20. But, if you figured that out and let people intersperse city exploration among more distant adventures, it could be amazingly good.

Since I'm not getting an answer, I'll clarify a potential theory: Both Might & Guile and the thief HLAs in Refinements v4 set a SPECIFIC value on rogues. This SPECIFIC value is then removed if/when you choose the 'Use Magical Device' feat or HLA. And it is removed for all magic-using classes by default at level 1, for the case of dual-classing. If something about the chapter progression in EET is messing with SPECIFIC values, then that is very much something I want to know about. (OTOH, as I think about it, if the value is removed then the bug people would experience would be more people able to use scrolls - not more people unable to use scrolls. So this is probably just a red herring. Still, if anyone has experience of this bug, or of not seeing this bug, it would be good to know.)

Ah, that's because the Arcanist casting system was set up while you had the nonworking version of Identify... the identify hotfix changes it to a different file but the Arcanist system doesn't know that. Same is probably true of any version of Identify in the Faiths & Powers sphere system, if you play with that. It's a slightly tougher nut to crack, but I might be able to make another hotfix. Let me see. (Btw this is only an issue for games where the Identify hotfix was used... anyone who installs Revised Identify via TnB v0.9.10+ should see it working fine for the Arcanist and FnP.)

Well, not to dampen your enthusiasm, but the mod was already compatible with lefreut’s (provided lefreut’s is installed first). This bug was introduced by me, and affected all games regardless of UI. Fixed now though!

I’m pretty sure that won’t work here. And is irrelevant anyway, as we’re not talking about a passive bonus added as a CRE effect. And what’s more, I suspect that would be problematic even if it did work. We’re talking about adding an active spell on level-up, like Offensive Spin for a Blade. Traditionally this is done with a GA_ line in the kit ability table. IIRC, spells granted by GA_ are removed upon leaving the party, and granted back upon re-joining. I surmise the whole reason SCS does this via opcode 171 in an AP_ line is that removing/re-granting the Sequencer abilities can be problematic if the NPC has a filled sequencer. If that’s true, the solution is not to make them act like other granted abilities, but to just stop the AP_ spell from being applied more than once. Simplest way to do that is opcode 206 with timing mode 9 - applied by something that has a different parent resource as the AP_ spell.

Okay, I set up an account in Vimeo, I added a video of the spellcasting system in action, in the 2nd post above.

Great work!

Okay, that wasn't too hard. Pretty obvious mistake in retrospect, it was introduced when I enabled the player to decide at which level they want the Identify spell to reside. For clarity: by default the spell is a level 1 spell, but you can change that in the mod's settings file. (You might want to move to level 2 if, say, you use the "Level 1 Cantrips" component, or if you just want more slots for Magic Missile, or whatever.) It works now; you can get the latest version of the mod here. If anyone has a game in progress, this hotfix should get it working for you. Cheers!

I'll see if I can figure out the problem or, if need be, just try to transpose the working code from Will to Power into this mod. Fingers crossed.

Just need to judiciously apply 206 protection against the AP_ spell... not in the spell itself - because that gets undone upon leaving the party - but maybe in the Sequencer innate ability. (Of course the ability could still multiply if someone leaves/joins before ever using it... but who in their right mind would let it go unused?)

Thanks go to kjeron for that quick update. Interesting! Though, I’m not sure I love that idea. Most spells can fit the idea of a deity saying “I give unto thee magic!” But sequencers and contingencies and the old Permanency spell etc. always seemed to me the province of wizards, studying and experimenting, not just to do magic but to discover new and interesting techniques for doing magic. Sequencers seem more like a technique, than a spell. (That’s why I like the idea of innate sequencers - pulling them out of the spellbook. (Speaking of which, I should probably make an innate version of sequencers that work for Arcanists...))

Here's how it's supposed to work. This video is from my Will to Power psionics mod. It uses the same code as Tome & Blood; I don't know why this one isn't working. Will look into it. video (I don't know how to embed a video...)

You cast the spell and then the inventory screen magically appears in front of you. Unidentified items are highlighted, and you can click on 1-4 of them and they become identified. It's really quite nice. (I take no credit! The UI code is all by Bubb, I only used Weidu to put it into a spell.) I really need to set up a Youtube or something, so I can make videos demonstrating this stuff... EDIT Nope, it's not working. Dammit! I haven't touched that component, why would it stop working?? Sigh. Off to troubleshoot.

Huh. It shouldn't be greyed out... I think the SPWI110 file is hard-coded to be greyed out, but if you added it as a 2nd-level spell (default behavior for the mod) then it should be castable like any other spell. I'm fairly sure I've cast it in my current game, so that means the issue is somewhere in the differences between our mod lists. I don't use Lefreut's (doesn't work on an iPad AFAIK) so that might be it... I'll double check things on my end, though. The new identify is pretty cool when it works, and being able to identify 4 items with one casting later on in the game is a nice convenience. Btw I've fixed the install problem in v4.2 of the hotfix, so if anyone else wants to fix Arcanists (or MnG bards) without disturbing your install, you can do that now.

Install order might be the issue. If you install Lefreut’s after TnB, it will definitely break things. But I thought they work together if you install Lefreut’s first...

Updated to v0.7, fixing a relatively serious bug that could wipe out your spell slots depending on who you cast a spell at. If anyone has a game in progress, there is a hotfix that you can apply instead of reinstalling mods.

Meanwhile, if you installed v4.11, spellcasting might be a bit screwy for Revised Bards. That is fixed in v4.11.2, and if you have a game in progress there is a hotfix you can apply.