subtledoctor

Wait - how do you remove the dispelling screen if the guy's invisible? I hope this isn't an instance where the AI can become invulnerable. The game's only fun when you can use problem-solving abilities to overcome stuff. (That's why stupid PFMW needs to be torn from SCS' clenched hands and murdered and thrown out with the trash... ahem - I greyed out there, what happened?) (Man, I really need to get all this stuff installed and do some testing. If my Elven Archer's Faerie Fire arrows can bypass all that and turn the wizard visible... that would be pretty boss.)

Well that is more accurate... but then again I said it in 6 words and you used 60. Maybe we should return this discussion to the IR beta... I've got it installed in IWDee but I only just made it to Kuldahar since I spent most of the day doing emergency surgery on my mod. As I progress in my game I'll report anything that seems worth mentioning.

After all other items-related mods.

Ha ha, my mod does that too. (The APR change, not the d4 damage, but that's fairly easy.) I'll update the above mini-mod to have both changes later today when I have some time. UPDATE: okay try downloading it again, now it should change both quarterstaff and darts https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/86011511/StaffAC.zip

This code is already in my mod - here, I can extract this bit pretty easily and make it a tiny little extra mod. (It won't be reflected in staff descriptions though, that's a bit more involved.) Install this after IR and anything else that changes quarterstaves: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/86011511/StaffAC.zip

Do you want to mention which mod it was, in case someone with a similar problem finds this thread? Incidentally, a similar thing happened with my mod: I had a CLAB reference to a file that hadn't been COPIED over. Ordinarily this is no big deal: the spell effect wouldn't happen, but you can still play the game. With SCS however, it choked and refused to install. Now, this was actually helpful for me, since it called my attention to the bug. But for the player it's very frustrating - they are unable to install a mod that they see dozens of other people installing, and they don't know why. The retort is, of course, "it's a bug in the other mod, not SCS, so it's not SCS's problem." And point taken. But I'm curious, what exactly is SCS doing that causes it to choke so hard on a simple missing CLAB .spl reference? What, exactly, is the function that the other mod's bug is causing to be interrupted?

Damn... I just did a new IWDee install and I couldn't figure out how to fix that error (I was seeing something to do with ".../item_rev_inlined/main_bracers_of_speed.tpa" and I couldn't find any such folder.) I also noticed that the main component, unlike most others, does not have the little commented-out "/* || ENGINE_IS ~iwdee~ */" line, so I just assumed the main comp is not for IWDee. I just rolled a party and made my level-1 save. With that fix, can I install the main component on IWDee? Is it worth reinstalling all my mods for that? Not the end of the world, probably 30 minutes' work, but I'd avoid it if you tell me the main comp is incompatible even with this fix...

Except, the AI ends up shooting itself in the foot. This is yet another unintended consequence of trying to make AI mages "perfect." Unfortunately, in this regard SCS kind of undermines the very nature of how the spell battle system works. Minor Spell Deflection blocks 4 levels of spells and Spell Turning blocks what, 12 or 14 levels? So MSD is objectively inferior, it offers less protection to the defending mage. You would only need to sacrifice a single Confusion or 2x Deafness to burn through MSD, while it would take 2x Finger of Death to burn through the Spell Turning. By refusing to "burn through" defenses, SCS renders irrelevant the # of spell levels of protection. With SCS, MSD only differs from Spell Turning or Spell Trap in what is required to dispel them (Spell Thrust vs. Secret Word vs. Ruby Ray). No more Ruby Rays and no spell Thrusts memorized? Congratulations, now a 3rd-level spell makes you completely invulnerable. I guess that's a reasonable system, but it is certainly not the system that is implemented by the devs in BG2. I know SCS generally tries to stick to AI improvements, but this example makes clear that something more needs to be done here.

1) Easy to fix: give Spell Thrust to every mage of 5th level or higher 2) For increased robustness, players can apply my mod and turn spwi321.spl into an automatically renewable innate ability. That way, all mages with spwi321 (i.e. all mages, if 1) is applied above) will *always* have Spell Thrust available for Minor Deflections and Spell Shields.

A suggestion regarding LARLOCH'S ENERGY DRAIN: I recently took WotB away from necromancers in my mod, and found myself looking at what they had left at that level. Ah yes, Energy Drain: 9th-level magic, same as Timestop and Wish, replicating an at-will innate power of the game's principal mid-level enemy. SR's changes are great, but I submit they are not enough: it still looks like a 7th- or 8th-level spell, power-wise. My solution (and suggestion) is to cause the target to die from the system shock if he fails a saving throw. (The caster would gain the spell's benefits regardless.) I think it's a nice effect for a single-target 9th-level spell. Weak targets might likely die, more powerful enemies probably won't. Far less powerful than PW Kill, but with interesting other effects (the Drain) to balance it.

Hmm. The code is very similar, in fact I'm pretty sure Camdawg helped me figure out how to do this. There is only a very slight difference: DR has this While I have this: I don't remember why I counted 8 rows instead of 9, and then set the variable to "%index%"-1 instead of "%index%"... theoretically it should reach the same result. I *might* have done that because pre-EE games have one fewer column in kitlist.2da than the EE games do. What game are you trying to install this on? Anyway I've edited the DR .tp2, try unzipping and dropping this into the "divine_remix" folder, then install again. If this doesn't fix the issue then it's probably a "too many uninstalls/reinstalls" thing. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/86011511/setup-divine_remix.tp2.zip

The problem I describe doesn't depend on *cleric* kits being installed earlier; it can be triggered by *any* kits being installed earlier. I think this is a newish part of DR; it might simply have a few kinks to work out. I'll take a look at the DR .tp2 tomorrow. If that's the problem, I should be able to supply a fix. If that's not the problem, then my next best guess is that you've uninstalled and reinstalled mods one too many times instead of starting from a clean install. Or, you uninstalled and reinstalled something and then loaded a savegame from beforehand (which always causes problems).

Whoa, I am way late to the conversation. Ah, sorry, don't pay any attention to me...

Eh, the 24-spell limit isn't *necessary* but it is a good guideline. You don't need more than 2-3 spells per school at each level to keep things fun. And for the sake of the AI it makes a ton of sense to make tweaks to existing spells - like Deafness --> Sound Burst or Carrion Summons --> Summon Shadow - re-using the original filenames and IDS entries, than to just add all sorts of new spells willy-nilly. Like, unless and until Demi releases a 9th-level illusion spell, my personal, very simple solution is to just change WotB into Weird. Very minimal changes - almost completely cosmetic - and the AI will never know the difference... but PC illusionists will just feel less shafted. So, if the scope of the final v4 is more limited than the discussion on the first page of this thread, and there are fewer than 24 spells/level, I'll be fine with that.

FIND FAMILIAR May I ask (years after the important conversations have already been done) why is this being changed to an innate ability? The concept of that seems odd. How about making it a single-use spell? I.e. learn it from a scroll, cast it, and it removes itself from your spellbook. If your familiar dies, you'll have to track down another scroll. In this way you can have "learnable innates," it's what my mid does with Sequencer spells. That way the (generally single-use) spell doesn't clutter up the innate ability bar all game; but if you *do* need to cast it again, the option is there (unlike if it were actually a single-use innate). Also, you could move the spell to a new filename since it doesn't need to be in any selectable lists, so in this way you could keep it as a memorizable spell, but still gain a level-1 slot for new stuff.

Ah - so all of SR's stuff will be fit into the SPWI files? Cool - I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Out of curiosity, where are the new spells? (That's not a demand for more spells, I'm literally asking where they are in the game files.) I've gone through NI looking for all wizard spells to make a list, for a specialist school re-allocation mod. I see the SR spells that have directly replaced vanilla ones (Obscuring Mist, Sound Burst, Dispelling Screen etc.) but I don't see new ones like Icelance, Weird, etc. I've basically just looked at spells starting with "spwi" and spells starting with "dv". Are there more files somewhere else? Are we waiting on icons/BAMs for the new stuff?

I'm kind of in the same boat - just waiting to hear back. In the meantime I've figured out how to use GitHub. Once I got over the initial learning curve I've found it an extremely convenient place to host a mod. It's super-easy to make small updates etc. You might want to look into it. While I'm here, I guess I'll throw my (curmudgeonly, non-powergamer) voice into the stat discussion: I think 20 WIS is probably too high. I get that 90 total is kind of reasonable - well not reasonable for 2e DnD, but kind of reasonable for BG2, sort of, if you bump up the average with the super-munchkin NPCs and squint a little. But, it's still a god stat. 20 WIS means he literally had god-like wisdom. Does he? From the character bio it seems like he's just a wise old man. Which in my mind puts him in the 16-18 range, maybe 19 if he found a stat tome back in his adventuring days. But perhaps the better question is this: what does he lose by going to 18 WIS and an 88 point total? Almost nothing, I think. And you will stop getting that knee-jerk reaction from players of "oh great, another silly OP NPC mod." Even reduced, he's still a cleric/mage with 18 INT and 18 WIS... that's completely unmatched, even in this super munchkin-oriented game. Functionally it makes very little difference, as you say; therefore, best to think about it from the PR angle. My 2 cents!

Another update, this is getting relatively mature so I'm calling it v2 http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/33657/scales-of-balance-post-hac-kits-and-tweaks/p1 New features for v2: - This version includes a reorganization of the components into the 30 main tweaks/additions, and then the NPC changes afterward. Hopefully this makes installation a bit smoother - 5 new kits: the Meistersinger, a forest bard; the Loremaster, a bard who can figure out how to Use Any Item; and the Purifier, a druid devoted to fire; the Gloryblood of Tempus as a fighter/cleric kit; and the Elven High Mage as a cleric/mage kit with powerful spellcasting. - The wizard tweaks have been expanded, with innate metamagic and tweaks to the spell battle system. These are major changes for wizards, check out the readme to learn more - A new component that changes the school of a few dozen wizard spells so that all schools are balanced, and each school has at least one or two useful spells at each level. Now you can actually kick some butt as a Diviner! - Within the proficiency overhaul component, each cleric kit will attain specialization with a favored weapon. This includes mod kits from Divine Remix and Frosty Journey. Now your Battleguard of Tempus can rock a battleaxe! - More robust kitted NPC components, with options to use Divine Remix kits for Branwen and Viconia - The multiclass component will now detect the .ini setting for ranger/cleric spells in IWDee and BG2ee, and react appropriately - The Bladesinger now works on TOB/Tutu/BGT! - Enhanced compatibility with Tome & Blood, and with the forthcoming v4 editions of Item Revisions and Spell Revisions - An .ini file for enhanced configurability

Ha ha, was I being too polite?

How is it even possible to have an opinion on whether a given mod is "useless" to another person's enjoyment?? (On the other hand that's a ton of mods, and the load order is less-than perfect, so lots of possible conflicts.) For serious?? Man I hope that's not true. Tobex is essential to me, incompatibility here would probably boot SCS right out of my modlist...

It sounds like DR thinks that, Holy Strategist is, say, the 8th mod kit installed and Priest of Shar is the 9th. So it adds the 9th kit to Viconia... but if you installed another mod kit before DR? You see the problem. In other words it sounds like this component DR is not aware of or does not allow for the addition of other kit mods beforehand. (I had a very similar problem with my a component in my own mod that gives Viconia my own Priest of Shar kit. I solved it, but I don't remember how.) So the quick answer is that you should install DR before any other kit mods. The longer answer is that Camdawg should feel free to rip out the code from my mod and use it, or something like it, in DR. (Then again I can't really imagine a world in which Camdawg needs help from me with this stuff, so perhaps this is another bug, just a typo in the .tp2 or something...)

Ah - I was looking at the spell.ids name I guess. Banishment is currently school: Necromancy and animation: Abjuration. So then I guess the school is mistaken. Incendiary cloud is school: Invocation and animation: Conjuration. Same thing. Also my copy doesn't have many of the new proposed spells (Force Missiles, all the stuff in the "new for v4" thread). Just want to make sure I'm using the latest beta - I don't want to report things that have already been fixed. My copy has a changelog that runs through October '14, and then a bunch of "to do" items. EDIT: okay per kreso I'm using the correct version so I'll keep reporting anything I find.

Very minor: Contagion is a Necromancy spell, but it is set to the Enchantment casting animation. Edit: and Farsight has the Invocation casting animation. (Assuming this is helpful, I'll keep reporting these unless/until someone tells me this stuff is intentional.) Shadow Door has the Alteration CA Oracle has the Abjuration CA Death Spell has the Abjuration CA Incendiary Cloud has the Conjuration CA Bigby's Icy Grasp has the Enchantment CA

Think of how many strings it would need to do for all the unidentified "unique" equipment. There's only one of them for each item type in the original game, so weidu.exe uses the same trick.Actually that's different. As I described above, the game does in fact have multiple different strings that are identical in content, when they have different uses. E.g. one for unidentified item names and one for entries in the proficiency table. Another example: most kit names have two identical entries - one to appear in the CharGen screens and one to appear in the character record. This is handy, because you can edit the latter strings to names that might be too long to work well in a button during kit selection. Weidu is just grabbing random identical entries for the sake of efficiency, to avoid bloat in dialog.tlk. Which I get, in principle. I don't quite get why IR is using a SAY NAME1 command on items when it isn't actually changing the names. Why not just comment that out and leave that field untouched? But like I said, I understand IR is big and complicated and I'm happy to accommodate it on my end. I could fairly easily COPY_EXISTING all bastard swords and use my own SAY NAME1 command to switch them to a new string. But editing the proficiency strings sounds a LOT more efficient. I just need a little help in implementation, since it involves a technique I'm not familiar with. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?