subtledoctor

Very quick shout-out to a solution that doesn’t require overhauling enemy AI: use Tome & Blood’s “level 1 cantrips” to make 1st-level spells usable at will. Then enemy mages (and you) will never lack something useful to cast.

@Angel , given that the strings may be different in different installs, it's probably a better idea to make a Weidu hotfix mod to patch out the 171 protection. And once I started looking into that, I figured, why not make an all-around hotfix to protect against sequencers being removed more generally? I've been reading a few threads about it, going back to ~2013 on the BD forums, and it looks like there are some long-standing issues: SCS Mind Blank can block the op171 effects needed for these to function, given that they need to add an innate ability. (Solved) The transition from the SoA end-battle into TOB can strip sequencers away without fully clearing them. (Is this by script, or by an applied spell?) Raise Dead, Resurrection, Mass Raise Dead, and similar spells can strip sequencers away. (See below) Pressing Ctrl-R on a character can strip sequencers away. (Probably can't do anything about this one) I just glanced at Raise Dead et al., and wow, they contain specific op172 effects to remove sequencer abilities (spwi420d, spwi710d, and spwi809d). That seems crazy - the spells seem custom-built to cause this bug! It would be easy enough to run through all spells and delete all such op172 effects; but before I do, maybe it's worth checking in with @kjeron and/or @Bubb... is there a best way to approach this? Maybe being resurrected ought to remove all sequencer special abilities? Would a possible alternative approach be something like, any time a spell contains an op172 effect removing sequencers, add an op337 effect removing all op256 effects? Would that eliminate the record of the sequencer from memory, and allow the mage to cast the spell again? More complicated, but maybe worthwhile, we could add built-in protection against this. Have the sequencer spells each apply a spellstate, and have the innate sequencer abilities remove it. Then when you cast the sequencer spell again, preface it with an op326 effect and if it detects the spellstate (meaning you already have a sequencer), have the spell use op171 to give the sequencer innate again instead of trying to create a new one. This way, if a player is hit by the bug, they can cure it in-game by simply casting the spell again. (Apologies for going off topic, but since the instant question has been resolved I thought it might be a good place to discuss possible further steps.)

Yup, when I install only the SCS IWD Arcane Spell Pack, I see this in Mind Blank: The effect is not present in IWDEE, so it seems the mechanism for extracting the spells from the source is mistakenly adding this. (There is also a duplicate 101 protection against the Maze effect, but that duplicate does exist in the IWDEE source, and is harmless in any event.) This is not the only thing that can mess up sequeners - apparently the unmodded EE 2.5 versions of Resurrect and Mass Raise Dead can as well. But this is definitely likely to be problematic. On the bright side, this is an easy fix and there is no evidence of any bugs in the SCS innate sequencers component.

I found details: someone wrote on the BD forums that it is SCS’ Mind Blank spell that includes the errant opcode 171 immunity. And that it actually interferes with unmodded sequencers as well. So your sequencers might not be glitchy at all. (But maybe look over the IWD spells component.) EDIT - now I think about it, isn’t Mind Blank added by Spell Revisions? Is there an IWD version, or something similar? Maybe that BD poster was mixed up. I’ve got SR and SCS installed currently, I’ll take a look tomorrow. Should be easy enough to sort out now we know where to look.

Oh yeah, you can certainly give a sorcerer some bonus thac0/APR and call it a fighter/sorc. And maybe give it some cloned divine spells and call it a cleric/sorc (like that geological sorcerer or whatever it’s called). But that seems hacky to me. And you could never do a thief/sorcerer. With my reinvented sorcerer casting, you can make real sorcerer multiclasses, or do funky stuff like allow every single divine caster decide in-game whether they want to use Vancian casting or sorcerer casting. (Which is a thing we have in Faiths & Powers.)

Not to advertise on the neighbor’s lawn, but Tome & Blood has several options for innate sequencers if you cannot get it to install via SCS. Also, I vaguely recall reading elsewhere that the disappearing sequencers might not be a bug with the sequencers themselves, but rather with another buff spell that applies opcode 101 immunity to opcode 171 (presumably in error). If the sequencers need opcode 171 to add the innate ability, and it is blocked by the buff, then it could mess up the sequencer. Might be one of the buffs in the IWD spells... I can’t remember.

Ah right, it’s not that the folder wasn’t found, it’s the file. Sorry, I should have read the post more thoroughly. In that case it might be an issue with SCS - perhaps that component expects the file to already have been created, and your particular set if choices is one that was not tested? This is more speculation on my part, but I don’t know how else to explain the “file not found” error. You install only the IWD spells in the first instance, and then quit the installer. Then install the rest of SCS at the later instance. (I believe Weidu v248 is going to have a feature that will make that much clearer and easier.)

Who cares? They ran Weidu just fine before, only after your comment did they start changing their setup and get to the point where the Weidu executable itself would not run. MacOS 10.11 is a bit old, and IIRC Weidu v247 has some new changes geared toward the newest version of the OS, so it's possible that v247 simply won't work on their system. But that's beside the point: v246 worked just fine, so they should stick with that. FWIW as a point of reference, I have no problem installing SCS on my computer, which is MacOS 10.14. But then I have several other mods installed first which themselves create the Weidu_External directory. (And I think I'm using Weidu v246 as well.) So it seems like the most obvious difference between me and this poster is not the difference between MacOS 10.11 and 10.14, but the fact that the Weidu_External directory already exists on my computer and does not on theirs. Simplest fix? Create it manually. Speculation? Yes... but speculation based in reason and some relevant facts.

Stick with Weidu v246 if that was working. And it seemed that was working fine. Jarno, shame on you, you should be able to tell by the first post that this isn't an OS issue, they had already installed several mods. And Weidu itself was working fine. It hit a snag in the SCS code that Weidu was running. I have never installed that particular SCS component on my MacOS system, because I don't like it/have preferred variations. But it seems like SCS is expecting the Weidu_external directory to be there, and it is not? Maybe the directory would get auto-created by Weidu, but that isn't happening here on MacOS? Which is an OS-level difference, but not something fixable on the player's side of things. Based on my informed speculation, my advice is: Go back to the former setup as described in the first post, since at least the Weidu installer was running at that point. Manually create a "weidu_external" directory in your game folder, and create a "lib" directory inside "weidu_external" folder. Try to install that component.

Small update to v0.9.5. Changelog: -- small bugfix for Sunscorch -- moderate bugfix for Shadow Monsters/Shades -- At the request (elsewhere) of @megapilhas, I added some options for nerfing Edwin's Amulet. (Limit to +1 bonus spell per level, limit bonuses to 7th-level spells, or both.)

The "More Style for Mages" mod already includes several options for changing the Staff of the Magi, so people already have options. I wouldn't bother messing with it unless you have a particular vision that you think is awesome.

For Enchanted Weapon, I think the brainstorming is a bit too constrained. Elevating the enchantment of a weapon is practically useless except against about six enemies in the whole trilogy. Who is going to devote a 4th-level slot for that? The EE version of the spell already applies it to the person, rather than to a weapon: anything you pick up becomes a +3 weapon, whether it's a simple club or a named +1 or +2 weapon with extra effects. A mod really just needs to make this spell scale to +5. Hmm, maybe my mod should do that. As far as an SR version, it would be better to temporarily add an enchantment to a weapon - not just "what enemies can it hit" but an actual, useful - but temporary - enchantment. Like, enchant a sword to do extra fire damage if you're facing trolls, or enchant a bow to cause sleep when you are about to assault the bandit camp. Not sure exactly what the best implementation would be, but something like the EE spell could work, casting it on a person instead of an item. Basically code up a bunch of on-hit effects that seem balanced and fun, and create a method to choose one when casting the spell (either an invisible creature dialogue, or opcode 214). Magic Missile is a 1st-level frackin' spell, and is already more powerful than most other 1st- and 2nd-level spells. It does not need a boost. There are any number of mods out there that add more powerful variants of MM, which are appropriately set at higher spell levels. Off the top of my head, Tome & Blood adds "Melf's Fiery Missiles" as a 2nd-level variant with added fire damage, and IWDification/SCS adds "Mordenkainen's Force Missiles" at 4th level, and IIRC the Made In Heaven spell pack adds several mid-level missile spells.

Seemed fine when I played it.

Remove or edit every line that includes "opcode = 104" from lines 860-950 of scales_of_balance/components/200_SBO_revised_stats.tpa. Just notes to myself, don't read too much into them. If the feat is still selectable then it is meant to be selectable. Not really. The dumb stat-rolling mechanism of these games means that players are going to roll 90 or whatever regardless of their race. The "lopsided" penalties are only meant to emphasize each race' strengths and weaknesses, and acknowledge that the difference between 18 and 19 is more consequential than the difference between 16 and 17 or 17 and 18. Consider also the 3E point-buy system, in which you need to trade 2 or even 3 points to raise a stat that is already at or near the max.

I;m pretty sure it adds bonuses appropriately; but be aware it only adds bonuses to the creatures summoned by SR's Summon Animals spells. It doesn't work with other mods' animals (like SCS/IWDification beetles), or with charmed animals or the like.

I'm pretty sure you took that code from my fork of Item Revisions. You're welcome! BTW and FYI everybody, my version includes a bunch more fixes and AFAIK it is currently the best version of IR for people to use. (Pull requests have been made, and I think Mike has incorporated all that and maybe more into the IR repo; but an official "release" has not yet been made that includes the fixes.)

It’s a % chance to happen, on every hit. I don’t remember the chance, but if it’s 20% and you have 5 APR and you never miss, it will happen once each round on average. If you have 3 APR and hit 2/3 of the time, then it will happen every 3 rounds or so. (And I believe the target gets a save then... so realistically, you might see these effect once or twice per battle. I want them to be a bit fun and special and to differentiate different fighters (remember, enemy fighters use these against you!) without being boring and constantly happening.

It’s good enough to let people enjoy the story? Like, people are criticizing the appearance of SPOILER in The Mandalorian, but it didn’t bother me. I didn’t look too close (luckily only watching in HD, not 4K) and it was a nice scene. Or take the Marvel movies. They are almost entirely CGI. Some if the actors basically aren’t even on the screen (Hulk, Spider Man). But who cares? It’s a live-action comic book, representing hand-drawn books. If you like the kind of schlock that Marvel has been putting out, then the CGI is perfectly serviceable, way better than it was when I was a kid. (Which is not to say it’s a good thing. The freedom to make an adequate depiction of anything they can imagine makes lots of movie producers forget the power of practical effects, even if it means working under constraints. For me, I much prefer the Daredevil/Jessica Jones/Luke Cage shows to the cartoony Avengers movies.)

Oh good idea - that would be safer and more compatible. Should probably be fine. There could be weird little bugs - like, say, if he has some kind of variant Magic Missile spell and he edits Shield to block his new spell? Then Shield would not block your copy of it. Or if any actor is scripted to detect a spell cast and react to it. But those situations are pretty unlikely. You should be fine. Yes. The Mana Sorcerer (and Multiclass Sorcerers, and if you install the spell-switching component, then vanilla sorcerers as well) do not rely on spell.ids to choose spells. They use a custom UI interface (a version of Kjeron's spell-learning UI) to choose from any spells in d5clonmn.2da. In a game with only the vanilla spells, d5clonmn.2da will probably be identical to the set of wizard spells in spell.ids. But the spell learning function only cares about the .2da file, so you can pad it out by expanding the regexp to catch more spells not in spell.ids, and those new spells will be available to sorcerers. (Similarly, in Faiths & Powers you can add any spell filename you like to the sphere system and it will be incorporated during installation. As an example, the sphere system auto-converts the Shadowdancer's Shadow Step innate ability to a cleric spell, because I included the "spsd" filename. My custom versions of Animal Growth and Magic Fang are also added this way.) EDIT - of course spell.ids might be used for other purposes, including in my own mods. It might be used for imbuing familiars with spells...? Maybe. I forget. Maybe also for determining which spells can be cast spontaneously in the Revised Specialists component... maybe. Possibly also in other places, like in Might & Guile. Again, I can't recall off the top of my head. But for these specific purposes (Mana Sorcerer and Multiclass Sorcerers), you should be able to add any arbitrary spells you want by naming them between SPWIx51 and SPWIx89. (Heck, maybe that regexp should go to 80 by default, just for this purpose...

I think the list will be generated in earlier components - possibly the multi sorcerers component, possibly the sorcerer spell-switching component. Basically whichever of those three is installed first will generate the sorcerer spell list. You can see which spells it contains - after installation - by looking at d5clonsc.2da and d5clonmn.2da. The former is for sorcerers and the latter is for mana sorcerers, but they should be identical. (EDIT - I mean the first and 6th columns should be identical. The support spells created by the mod in the other columns will differ.) Spell.ids is meaningless for these purposes. (I think!) The only thing that should matter (I think!) is that the spells match the regexp at line 655 and are handled by the name replacements at lines 669-702. If the Olvyn spells - Oh, sorry, I guess the regexp would need to be expanded as well if you give them numbers above x50. So in line 655, change [Ss][Pp][Ww][Ii][1-9][0-5][0-9] to [Ss][Pp][Ww][Ii][1-9][0-8][0-9] In other words, expand the tens digit in the filename search from 0-5, to 0-8. (Probably best to stop at x89, since IIRC the unmodded game has some support spells in the x90 - x99 range, which you don't want being given to sorcerers.) Be warned, I have no idea what the effect will be on the OvylSpells mod itself, if you change the filenames for the spells. If the mod adds scrolls, then the 146/147/148 effects in those scrolls will need to be changed to match the new filename...

I believe the innate ability to switch out prepared spells is "d5prepb.spl." You would need to use the console/NI/EEKeeper to give yourself that innate. Maybe the spells slots for your character differ from the game's spell table? Spell slots are always set to the appropriate number when you level-up, so you might just need to play with one less known 1st-level spell until you level up. I think this kit is chose in-game now...? I forget, this has changed around a bit. IIRC the current way is, you play a vanilla sorcerer and you will be given an innate ability that lets you choose whether to use traditional spell-level slots, or use mana points. I'm pretty sure the Arcanist list is determined by checking every item of type = scroll that has an opcode 147 effect (learn wizard spell). Any spells referenced by such 147 effects are deemed to be wizard spells and included in the Arcanist system. If OlvynChuru is adding scrolls to learn his wizard spells, then the Arcanist should be able to learn them and cast them. The Mana Sorcerer and multiclass sorcerers use an older system that is less flexible. If you look at tomeandblood/lib/misc_tnb_functions.tpa, around line 655 there is a regexp search looking for SPWI files; you can change "[Ss][Pp][Ww][Ii][1-9][0-5][0-9]" to "[SsMm][PpEe][Ww][Ii][1-9][0-5][0-9]" to include spells with the MEWI prefix. However, if you look at line 669-702 you can see it uses some basic prefix replacement for the various support files. If you add substitutions for the MEWI prefix, assuming Olvyn uses the same integers after his new prefix (101-150, 201-250, etc.), then some of the support files would be overwritten and would not work. The only way it can be done easily is if Olvyn's spells with the MEWI prefix use different integers after the prefix, e.g. 150-199, 250-299, etc. To really make his spells compatible would mean changing the Multisorc and Manasorc systems to use a more arbitrary and flexible system like the Arcanist's... but that would be a major overhaul of the code and I cannot even begin to think about such things at the moment. For now at least, my recommendation will probably annoy you: while Olvyn's innovation is to circumvent the spell.ids 50-per-level spell limit is cool, you are best off not using it. Figure out which 50 spells you want in each spell level and just use them. Add them the normal way, with SPWI/SPPR in spell.ids. You will miss out on some spells that you will likely never cast anyway, and in return your game will be more stable and your chosen mods more compatible. ------------ EDIT - it's off-topic here, but you can add Olvyn's spells to FnP's sphere system with a bit of effort. Just copy the contents of this file into a text file, and name it "fnp_sphere_list.tpa" and then edit it, adding the RES filenames of Olvyn's spells into the appropriate spheres. Use the same format as is already there, and probably best to keep their spell levels the same by using zero. So like so: mewi101 0 = Protection Then put that file into your override folder and choose "custom sphere system" when installing FnP.

Well that explains why the problem was not apparent to me! I’ll update the Launcher with the newer version of Weidu. But of similar issues arise in the future, be aware that the MWL will defer to your own copy if Weidu if you have one. So you can download new versions of Weidu, chuck them in your game folder, and the MWL will use those instead of the one it is bundled with. So if I ever disappear or stop updating the MWL, it should be pretty straightforward to keep using it and stay up-to-date with the latest versions of Weidu.

Apple seems to be locking down their OS more and more and more. This is the third time in a three years that an OS update has seemingly broken this app. I think one day using a Mac will be like using one of those pretend computers that you give to a 3-year-old. I don't have Big Sur, and don't plan to get it anytime soon - heck, I won't even install Catalina - so I don't know what the problem is. Could be your file/folder permissions are locked down; could be that your Gatekeeper settings won't allow anything run except stuff from the Mac App Store; could be one of the new security measures in Catalina that I'm not sure ever got a name; or it could be some newer security measures in Big Sur. Who knows? Do you ever have problems with viruses or being hacked? I don't, and I'm on Mojave with the most permissive settings just about everywhere. I don't know what problem Apple is trying to solve with these updates. Except maybe they just need to be hostile to old-fashioned types like me who just want to use their computer like a computer... Okay I'll stop grumbling now. If anyone knowledgeable about Big Sur can give this a look and talk about it, I'm happy to update the tool.

The current crop of psi powers are described in the readme here. But yes, discrete spell-like abilities. It is a refinement on the simpler method of adding wizard spells and calling them from op214. 214 has the timing mode issues I described above which make it annoying for simulating something like 'normal' spellcasting. And it requires an extra click every time you use it; you have to choose [abilities -- use a power -- select power to use] whereas with my more complex system you just choose [spellcasting button -- select power to use], i.e. it is utterly indistinguishable from normal spellcasting in the UI. Further, there are finicky issues with counting power points. With 214, if you use a point to select a power, but then get distracted and click something else, you spend the point but lose the chance to use it. Even just idly browsing through your available powers costs a point that you can't get back. My innate abilities are, as I say, indistinguishable from normal spells. You can click the button, browse through them, decide that none is appropriate at that moment and swing an axe instead, and it won't cost you anything. So like I say, for a full spellcasting replacement system, I found it worth the effort to set up the more complex system. But for more limited applications - and especially in situations where the [choose a power] ability is not limited by finite uses and you instead set up some other method to limit power use, like depleting health or stats - then 214 can suffice.

Worth saying, there are loads of other potential uses for this kind of thing, on smaller scales than adding a whole new psionic class and ability system to the game. E.g. one of my mods changes Archers' weird, monolithic 'Called Shot' ability into a series of distinct trick shots that can be learned over time. In my mod, each one is added as an innate ability; but it would probably work better if they were added as wizard spells, and the 'Called Shot' ability simply used op214 to let you decide which one to use at any moment. (Would work well because Archers cannot multi or dual with the mage class.) Likewise for druid shapeshifting, as I said. I also contemplated giving thieves access to various illusion-/shadow-themed magical abilities (another nod to Dark Sun optional rules), the use of which could be governed by a single pool of points or slots or whatever. I could also envision a gladiator or other fighter kit who could learn different fighting styles, and you could switch between them via an ability with op214. You could have a bard kit that doesn't cast spells, but can learn all sorts of new and special bard songs, and use op214 to choose which one to use at any given moment. (I once figured out a way to have the bard song modal button turn itself off after a moment, so you could use the button for one-off effects instead of boring passive stand-around-and-strum songs.) Lots of possibilities. If an idea precludes a combination with the mage class, then learning new abilities from level-ups/dialogues/items/scripted events becomes very easy, just code the abilities as mage spells and use op171 to add them to the wizard spellbook. The only tricky thing with op214 is that it involves a few technical glitches. If you use timing mode 7, then it operates as if you are under Improved Alacrity. This is fine for abilities designed to be used at will, like appropriately balanced trick shots for Archers. But it can be problematic for real magical spells and the like. The solution is to use timing mode 5, but that can in turn be problematic, because then op214 does not let you choose a spell while the game clock is paused. If you like to give orders while paused, this can be frustrating.