subtledoctor

Check this: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1122797/#Comment_1122797

The 2.0 patch optionally enables concentration checks to avoid spell failure, like ToBEx has on the pre-EE game. But, IIRC, the EEs apply the formula incorrectly, so that you are more likely to be interrupted if you only take a bit of damage, and more likely to shrug it off and successfully cast if you take massive damage. My read on the situation is, the devs were slow to add concentration checks because they personally didn’t use that ToBEx feature; now they are failing to fix it for the same reason. It just doesn’t interest them. (Same applies to why they have never enabled party orientation control on tablet ports.)

Looks like they are not fixing concentration. Great.

Ah, I found it, it’s part of the revised bards. It is what allows me to preserve item usability differences between traditional M/T’s and the new M/T bards. There... might be a way to fudge it with kit flags, but I’m not sure. Meantime, if you are handy with NI you can add a 321 effect at the beginning of those two spells (d5fmnuse and d5mtnuse) with target=self, timing=1, resource=itself. The next time someone leaves and rejoins, it will be reduced to a single application of each op180 effect.

I've heard reports from some people that it can mess up your spellcasting slots. That might no longer be the case now, with recent improvements... or it might still be the case. I can't say. (EEKeeper doesn't work on MacOS so I can't test it anyway.) I don't know what EEKeeper does when you save the file... in fact nobody seems to know what EEKeeper does when you save a file. But it does something to your savegame without telling you. Maybe a Ctrl-R, maybe a wish-rest, nobody seems to know. But it can mess up or remove some applied spells, and the way the semi-spontaneous system tracks your casting slots is by applying spells that bump the values of various proficiency bits up and down. (Gaining casting slots upon level-up involves bumping the bits' value up permanently; casting spells bumps them down; nd when you rest a spell is applied that cancels the spells that bumped them down. EEKeeper can, maybe, interfere with this system.) I don't use Extraproficiency1 for clubs/maces; that is actually the vanilla club proficiency. SoB combines maces into the same one, but it is still a vanilla stat. Those are the group tactics and fighting posture feats; I assume this is with a fighter? I suppose they could use a 321 effect in them so each instance replaces itself rather than compounding. That sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't find it any where in my code or my current (massive) modded game. It's likely a similar solution - just add a self-referencing op321 effect to the spell. But I don't know what needs fixing. Can you give me more info? What do the "??" represent? What mods do you have installed? Which character classes are having this spell applied? (Incidentally, how many times do you kick people out and have them re-join?? I find myself letting past members back in once, max, aas I am slowly advancing through the game.) If you are using the SoB proficiency system then you don't need to worry about it, because that extra pip will actually give you the extra 1/2 APR. (It occurs to me that there is a bit of a conflict here, since with SoB a Bladesinger's focus weapon will give you +1 APR instead of just +1/2. I need to add compatibility code to remove the extra +1/2 when SoB is installed. Choosing a focus weapon will advance that weapon's proficiency by 1. You can choose a weapon in which you have no proficiency at all, or you can choose a weapon in which you have maxed out your proficiency. I highly recommend that you do the latter! Since it will allow you to exceed your normal proficiency limit. Well the Bladesong is a bard song, albeit a special one, and you can only have one bard song active at any time. (Though the SoD Bard's Hat and the IR Blade of Roses can sort of simulate having a second one active.) The defensive thing is not possible since, "damage threshold"-style effects are not possible in this engine. Changing it to an AC bonus sort of steps on the toes of MnG Swashbuckling (which Bladesingers can already do) and the Blur Aura (which Bladesingers already get). A song that hastes you sort of steps on the APR bonus from your focus weapon. I am thinking about adding a new bard aura, similar to a "bladesong" that I used earlier for a very short time. Call it something like a "harmonic strike" aura, which will add extra sonic damage to every melee attack. (There is no sonic damage in this engine, so I used blunt damage to represent "force damage." That makes sense to me, since I figure sonic damage should work against hard/brittle materials similar to blunt force, and it is especially useful in this engine since blunt damage works well against lots of enemies. E.g. this would allow a Blade with dual daggers to go up against a clay golem, etc.)

It’s not increasing your club proficiency, per se; it is setting one of the higher, bits in that proficiency stat, bits which are otherwise unused by the engine. Spells that apply poison over time are patch to apply the poison more slowly, and if the victim has that bit set in the upper range of their club proficiency stat, the damage will either slow down, or cease altogether. So simply setting that bit should be effective in slowing or stopping poison damage. So you might have gotten hit with some really strong poison (like from dimensional spiders) and you are seeing it weakened and are confused as to why it is not stopped altogether; or you are not seeing it slow down at all, which would indicate a bug. TBH it is a bit bugged in my own game, and I’m not sure what the issue is. Maybe that component is not ready for primetime...

Unfortunately it's not that simple. Well, it actually is simple - the correct ability is "D5FTPROF.SPL." However, I'm just now realizing that that spell has an eight-letter filename, which means if you give it to yourself you will never lose it, and will be able to cast it every day instead of just once ever. So the best workaround would be to cast D5FTPROF on yourself, without actually giving yourself the ability. Unfortunately I think the EE console doesn't make that easy - you have use ActionOverride, and get the formatting just right. Possibly easier would be just editing your save to increase your proficiency - but don't use EEKeeper! Use Near Infinity instead. I've added this to my fix list for the next version, and mostly done the work already. As relating specifically to the Bladesinger, I wonder whether people think you should have to select Weapon of Focus as a feat? Or should it just be a free thing at 9th level, allowing you to choose a different bardic feat in addition?

I've long thought that "paralysis" should actually make the victim fall down, not stand still like a statue. Alas, while the engine has duplicate Hold opcodes, and duplicate Charm and Movement Rate opcodes, there is only a single Sleep opcode, and that one is already overextended. (Unless you count PW:Sleep, but IIRC that one has annoying hard-coded restrictions.)

Pretty sure both “paralysis” and “Hold” are the same thing in-game, both using opcode 109.

ALTER_EFFECT was designed as an upgraded function that can cover ALTER_SPELL_EFFECT, ALTER_ITEM_EFFECT, and ALTER_CRE_EFFECT. The older ones were left in place do as not to destroy compatibility with mods that already used them. The older functions have one sole advantage over the newer, broader one: I believe they can take negative numbers as arguments. ALTER_EFFECT cannot.

I think the Parrying postures are a 3- or 4-point bonus against a particular damage type. It's supposed to be attractive, if you know what you're facing. A 4-point bonus against blunt when facing ogres, or a 4-point bonus against piercing when facing an army of gnolls, could be a serious advantage. Getting all three postures for one feat and being able to use them interchangeably could be worth a Dodge feat that gives you a blanket 1-point bonus all the time... maybe? Or maybe changing them is too finicky. Maybe parrying should be more like a small-scale aura that applies a -1 or -0.5 penalty to APR to a nearby enemy (subject to a save). Could set it up to work like the SoB Shield Bash, so it only affects one enemy each round. Hmmm... (EDIT - man, a MnG/SoB fighter with a parrying aura and the Dodge feat and defensive tactics and toughness and armor-based DR and specialized in shield-fighting would be suuuuuuper tanky. Might have to try that with... Mazzy? Auren? Hmm...) Ah, I see: the script cast the spell, and then it was no longer memorized, and since it was not memorized then the MnG semi-spontaneous script (firing later for whatever rare reason) did not give you the spell. The semi-spontaneous system disables the casting button when you decide to swap spells, but I didn't contemplate scripted casts. I can try to bolster it in two ways: 1) actually apply an opcode 145 "Disable Spellcasting" effect in addition to the opcode 144 "Disable Button" effect... I usually try to steer clear of op145 since it can mess with quickspells, but these semi-spontaneous casters cannot use quickspells anyway, so it should be fine. OTOH I'm not sure this will work, because such effects seem to be briefly canceled when you rest or move to a new area, and then quickly reapplied a moment later. Why, I don't know. But the SCS script might inadvertently exploit this to cast a spell in that small window of time. But, 2) I can apply a "Wish Rest" to restore all your memorized spells the instant before the script is applied. This way even if you somehow manage to cast something, it will still be available for spontaneous casting after the script is applied. There will still be a problem, to wit, a free casting of Armor. But in my experience getting an extra spell is far more forgivable than not getting a spell you should get. No E.T.A. for any of this stuff - time is not something I have a lot of right now. But this is all good feedback and helps me eventually make the system more robust and fun.

Forgot to address this. The short answer is, yes NPCs who have classes with access to feats will be able to choose feats. (And note, enemy fighters and thieves will employ some feats against you, as well.) The long answer is that Imoen's .CRE files are weird, and sometimes resist mod-added changes like this. I have had some success with fixing her, but not 100%. In my own current game I tried to make her a bard, but she did not get any other the feat abilities or the bardic initialization ability. Why? I have no idea. The game ran an AddKit script on her, so she definitely should have gotten the kit abilities. But she is somehow immune to it. This is SUPER annoying and I don't know how to fix it...

This is all working correctly. I'll take a look at the missing weapon focus ability. The rest are correct. (The Advanced Precise Strike ability is supposed to be dependent on taking the basic Precise Strike feat first... but that sort of thing is not very easy with the feat selection UI. I think the current function is, you can take either or both, but one is not available until 9th level. If you take both, in any order, they will stack for an overall +10% chance for critical hits.) One of the things I'm considering is consolidating some of the fighting style feats. Currently there are three "tactics" abilities, which benefit your allies and only one of the three can be used at a time; as well as five "postures" which benefit yourself, only one of them can be used at a time but they can be combined with tactics; as well as several individual abilities like Swashbuckling and Dirty Fighting which can be combined with both postures and tactics. These are separate for historical reasons - the warrior and rogue feats used to be completely separate systems. But maybe they should all be combined? I feel like Swashbuckling and Fighting Dirty (and maybe some new ones) should be part of the suite of fighting postures along with aggressive/disarming/parrying. Group tactics are more questionable... maybe they should remain separate and stackable. And, maybe choosing a unified Parrying feat should give you access to all three parrying postures? You could still only use one at a time, but you wouldn't have to burn three feats for them. Also, Swashbuckling needs to be buffed. Given that it applies a penalty to thac0 and damage, maybe a 1/2 APR bonus would be okay? A move back toward the vanilla Offensive Spin ability, without being quite so cheesy. This is all working correctly. The small delay after you wake up involves an invisible creature running a script on the bard... it relies on the HaveSpell trigger, which cannot be replicated with spell effects. So this is one of the rare times that I will tolerate the 'invisible creature+script' technique. 99% of the time you wake up, it will be in an inn or some other uneventful circumstance, so this 1-second delay should generally have no consequence on real gameplay. (I highly doubt it could be interrupted, unless you sleep was interrupted by a monster attack or something like that, and the monsters had craaazy scripts that take up your computer's entire processing power for a few seconds. Very unlikely... and even then, with sleep being interrupted you should not get your spells anyway.) Incidentally, I am considering an alternative method for this process. Right now your chosen spells are automatically "loaded" into your brain each morning. If you want to change your spells for the next day, you use the spell preparation ability and then you get access to your spellbook to swap them out. While you have access to your spellbook, casting is impossible; you must sleep in order for spellcasting to be re-enabled. A possible new method would look like this: you never have to do anything at night. Instead, every morning, your spellcasting will be disabled and you will get access to your spellbook. You can change out spells, or not. When your choices are ready, you would use an innate ability to enable spellcasting and remove access to your spellbook. Pro: you don't have to remember to prepare spells before resting. Con: you have to do something (clicking an ability) every time you wake up. Whereas right now, if you don't want to swap spells then you don't have to interact with the system at all. Thoughts? Preference? The priest spells are not random, they are part of the suite of "bardic" spells that involve manipulating sound: Command Deafness (or, with SR, Sound Burst) Silence 15' Radius Shout Remove Curse (or, with SR, Break Enchantment) Greater Command PW: Silence Earthquake The "True Bard" gets to cast these spells without needing to put them in spell slots; other bards get them in their spellbooks for free, but must prepare them in spell slots to cast them. I noticed in my game that Command is bugged, and cannot be cast by Keto (who is a Meistersinger). I think this only affects Command, and the other ones work. But it's on my radar, in any event. (The same bug affects Magic Missile if you install TnB's "Level 1 Cantrips..." though these bards cannot usually cast MM so that was harder to spot.) So: Bladesinger missing Weapon Focus Command not working when memorized (and maybe a few others) Bladesinger not recognized as bard by in-game scripts and dialogues @GawainBS is that everything? If you are not getting the "initialize bardic abilities" innate, then something weird is up. I cannot replicate this, the ability is present for me (just like hippofant) so there's not much I can do about it. (EDIT - per the recent discussion, maybe some other mod with an old version of the QD_Multi function was installed, and messed up the kit's CLAB abilities?) In my current internal builds, I've changed the way spell slots are managed, they no longer rely on CLAB-applied spells that can get messed up if someone leaves the party and then returns. This also had a bit of a bad interaction with TnB's Level 1 Cantrips, bit I think I've sorted that out. As far as making the feat selection work in multiplayer games: thanks for the tip @kjeron, I think I should be able to add that stuff into the code without much problem.

It’s been a looong time since we worked on it. (I’m frankly surprised that Roxanne hasn’t updated her mod - say what you will about her, but she’s very good at the mod-making and -updating side of things.) I think we removed the marker files because the function now only makes the clab spells as needed; if you only made them for ranger/clerics, and dropped a marker indicating they all existed, then a subsequent mod would fail to create them for mage/thieves. The old 0.2 way created all clab spells for all multiclasses, even if you only need one set. It left a lot of cruft in the override folder. Also, it had a lot of serious bugs and should not be used by anyone. Like I say, I think you might be able to drop the new function into her mod, and the old-style function calls would still work. The old function had more variables but they are harmless in the new function. I think.

Huh. The development of QD_Multi took off a bit as Argent77 made major improvements to it. (I think it's up to version 0.10!) I tried to keep a hand on the tiller to keep it compatible with the older versions, but I guess I was not successful? Did you install Sandrah before MnG? I should think (without really investigating, though) that if you install Sandrah afterward it might work. (And I vaguely recall Roxanne wants it installed as late as possible.) Alternatively, you could try replacing the QD_Multi .tpa file in the Sandrah mod folder with the newer version. Again, I think the Weidu code calling the function should still work with the new version, but also again, no promises.

The game folders are fairly hidden by Steam. You have to open a Finder window, the click the "Go" menu at the top of the screen, then hold down the option key, and select "Library." From there open Application Support/Steam/Steamapps/Common. Here, finally, you will see the game folders for BGEE/BG2EE/etc. At this point I highly recommend right-clicking the game folder and creating an alias to it, and moving the alias onto your desktop or documents folder or somewhere else convenient. Once you have easy access to the game folder, drop the Mac Weidu Launcher into it, and the contents of downloaded mod .zip files. (Not the .zip files themselves - first unzip them in your downloads folders, then move their contents into your game folder. The contents will generally be a file called "[something].tp2" and a folder called "[something]." Those are the two important pieces you need to move into your game folder.) After that, simply double-click the Mac Weidu Launcher and follow the instructions. Do this once for each mod... should be pretty self-explanatory.

Yes. I had a hard time tracking this down because I can't see the weapprof.2da proficiency limits in my game, as kjeron's "Dual Into Kit" mod has changed every value to 7. (Side note to @kjeron: maybe it is worth creating a duplicate table just for retaining the class/kit proficiency limits in a record that players can easily read...) But yeah, it looks like the block in 122_WPO_proficiency.tpa starting at line 268 might overwrite the Woodscout's bow proficiency, IF you do not install the FnP usability changes. I guess it needs some kind of extra conditional block there... or a single-kit patch added after, which would be easier but less comprehensive. Easiest thing in the meantime is to simply change it in weapprof.2da, to give yourself the 4-star limit.

Intelligence.

The idea is, you could swap out one known spell each level, but you must posses and destroy a scroll for the new spell when you do it. I’m a role player; telling me you want it to be this way or that way in game because the class is awesomesauce and it would make your character an uber-powerful munchkin will never work with me. Rather, make up some lore that fits the game setting which explains how a sorcerer can change out their known spells by snapping their fingers. How do sorcerers gain spells in the first place? How does this class actually work? Somebody make something up, something that is satisfying from the point of view of narrative and characterization. I’ve given you the argument for using scrolls: I don’t know how they learn spells because stupid Bioware /WotC never explained it. But we know they can understand scrolls, because they csn cast spells from them. So it could make sense that they can use scrolls in this new way. (Plus, the game is full of scrolls, and if you run sorcerers instead of wizards that whole aspect of the game becomes meaningless, which is bad design.) Tell me a better story than that.

Not sure it needs a new release. I’m not modding much these days. Planetar substitution (somewhat minor, mostly aesthetic) can be found among my Random Tweaks mod.

Yup! Everything has been tested, everything is functional, and I’ve played it several times through BGEE/SoD/mid-SoA. I haven’t fully playtested the HLA-level abilities in-game, since it is taking me a while to get to TOB. They all work fine in artificial testing though, so I have no reason to think they won’t be fine in-game as well. The abilities probably need to be balanced and refined a bit... feel free to post opinions here and I will listen!

The whole way sorcerers learn spells is ridiculous, with no in-game explanation. If it’s really “natural affinity” that you have no control over, then you should have to roll randomly for spells, and make the best use of whatever you get. Of course that would work much better in a real role-playing session than in a squad-based tactical murder simulator like BG2. There is a much better case for divine spontaneous casters to choose their spells, since they commune their deity/faith. With whom does a sorcerer commune to learn spells? How does a natural caster learn a spell like Otiluke’s Sphere or Mordenkainen’s Sword, which were designed and created by magical scholars? Anyway, I’m not talking about disturbing how sorcerers learn spells, dumb as it is. I’m proposing a bonus: since they seem to understand magical scrolls (how, I don’t know), allow them to use that understanding to burn the spell into their mind, replacing an existing one. It’s a pure bonus over the vanilla sorcerer.

Playing a game now with an Arcanist Charname, Jaheira and Branwen chose spontaneous casting via FnP, and Keto is an MnG bard with Arcanist-style casting. Then picked up Arath the druid, who for whatever reason can only cast spells the old way... and it is unreasonably annoying. I’m starting to see this more as a convenience tweak, than a special kit feature. Maybe I’ll turn this into a complete overhaul of the spellcasting system, possibly for @Aquadrizzt’s 5E conversions. Question is, what should that look like? How should it be balanced? How should sorcerers be integrated? Nitty-gritty stuff. Maybe something like: — Mages: can choose a specialty school.* Function as Arcanists do now: they prepare a limited number of spells each night, and can cast them spontaneously the next day. Spells in their chosen school do not need to be prepared, or learned from scrolls; they are always available to be cast. * Maybe let them choose a forbidden school? Not sure if I ever figured out how to implement this, though OlvynChuru’s recent mod might provide a way. — Sorcerers pick spells automatically, like in the vanilla game. They can know more spells than mages can prepare, and have more casting slots. So more powerful and more flexible in any given moment, but less flexible in the long term. They can swap out one known spell each time they gain a level.** ** I would like to make them burn a scroll for this. That way 1) scrolls still matter; and 2) a small constraint is applied to this rather powerful class. But not sure how to implement it. Maybe an inventory check could bolted on to the existing spell-swapping scripts? Both sorcerers and mages could have exotic kits where they get access to spells not normally available. Something like a Favored Soul or Dragon Disciple etc. But we could make such kits available in the mage class as well. Which is cool. This could be a choice as simple as, instead of choosing a specialty school, you choose to have innate access to healing spells, or animal summoning, etc. — Clerics would function just like mages: you would know a large set of cleric spells (determined by a sphere system, if you like that sort of thing); and can prepare a smaller subset of those spells before resting; and can cast those prepared spells spontaneously. — Bards... bards. I lean toward the Might & Guile model: a “bard” is anyone who can sing bard songs, and never mind the underlying character class. MnG has a pretty robust bard song system, which can be used by a cleric kit, a thief kit, a fighter/thief kit, and various mage/thief and fighter/mage kits. The spellcasting variants can use Arcanist-style casting. By forcing them to be multiclassed we naturally restrain their spellcasting, so there is no need to resort to things like a distinct spell table. (Though the Arcanist casting system makes it easy to adjust casting slots on a per-kit basis, so it would be easy to give them a slight nerf to balance their bard song and multiclass skills.) The existing systems already support all of these ideas. The only current issues are the spell-choice/feat-choice issue in multiplayer games, and the ability-score based casting slot bonuses are a bit screwy. (My Arcanist is getting about +6 slots instead of +2. Though the issue is not affecting Keto or Branwen, so I’m a bit mystified by it...)

It literally just adds a Wondrous Recall effect to all 1st-level spells - and makes some balance adjustments to account for it. (EDIT - some of those adjustments might require the EE game.) Works fine with scripts, works fine with SCS... in theory I would prefer other cantrip systems, but in practice I use this specifically because it works with scripts and enemy AI. Anyway if the AI is behaving improperly I don’t mean to take attention from that. Sorry.

That spell simply changes the targeting of Simulacrum from [self] to [target]. It’s designed to be a sort of portable Vhailor’s Helm: cast it on your fighter for an extra tank, or on your priest for extra summoning/support, as the situation calls for. But it still uses the Simulacrum effect, which AFAIK doesn’t change the AI of the target. Green targets are cloned green, and I guess red targets are cloned red. The effect does not allow you to set it the way the Monster Summoning effect does. I suppose it might be possible to add a conditional effect in SIMULACR.spl that could change a red clone to green... maybe? Or maybe that cannot be done with spell effects. (AFAIK stuff like the Mirror of Opposition is totally scripted, not done via spell effects... and I’m loath to add scripting to this spell.) Maybe @kjeron would know.