subtledoctor

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?

Wait - so Weidu's SAY doesn't always create a new string? If it matches an existing one it just grabs the first strref it finds and uses that? Or maybe the last - I assume this is for ease of uninstalling/reinstalling components. I'm totally happy to make a change in my end. But I'm not sure how. I've only ever looked at weapprof.2da in NI and I only see text there - I didn't even realize it contains strrefs. I suppose NI must automatically translate them? (I think this issue tripped me up once a few months ago.) Would I do something like: COPY_EXISTING ~weapprof.2da~ ~override~ REPLACE_TEXTUALLY 25000 @100 ...? Or would I need to first RESOLVE_STR_REF, get the result, and pass that into the text replacement? Something like, SET %bsword% to RESOLVE_STR_REF @100 COPY_EXISTING ~weapprof.2da~ ~override~ REPLACE_TEXTUALLY 25000 %bsword% ...?

Bit of a bug here: after installing the latest beta, various weapons get assigned the wrong string in the name field. (Edit: okay I just looked two posts up, and this is what Darkersun is talking about. The precise problem is described below.) Example: in BGEE, the item name for an unenchanted bastard sword ("Bastard Sword") is in strref 6646. An identical-looking string, which also reads "Bastard Sword" is in strref 25000. That string is the one used for the bastard sword proficiency. They are not redundant; it is good that both strings exist because it means a modder can change the proficiency but not the item name, or vice versa. Installing IR switches the string used for the name of SW1H01.ITM from 6646 to 25000. If a player installs a mod (like mine) that changes the bastard sword proficiency, that player will end up with incorrect names for the items. This should only affect a few items, specifically, the unenchanted ones, because those are the only strings that are identical to the names of proficiencies. If it helps: - The proficiency strrefs in BGEE are all near or between 25000-25050. Item name strings are probably grouped somewhere else - probably far earlier, somewhere near 6646. - The proficiency strrefs in TOB and BG2EE are all near 31110-31130, 34140-34175, and 35442. - The proficiency strrefs in IWDEE are all near 36799-36825 and 37710-37735.

Explanations: Actually Jarno hit the nail on the head. Imprisonment/Freedom = UNsummoning someone, and summoning them back. Using the conjurer's skills for a more advanced effect. Flame Arrow could go anywhere. You don't actually need to script an arrow disappearing, it could be assumed. Yeah it's a bit arbitrary but no more so than it being Conjuration. And Invocation doesn't need *three* direct damage spells in the same level. Originally I thought, make Lightning Bolt a Transmutation spell. It could make sense, but Call Lightning would work better, since changing the air/weather is appropriate for s Transmuter. I'd also probably give Cone of Cold to the transmuter if Mord's Force Missiles are in play for Invocation at 4th level. And yeah, all the fog spells = alteration effects. turning the air/moisture noxious, turning it poisonous, turning it acidic, turning it dry and moisture-less... they're all transformations. Wizard eye: a diviner wouldn't need the eye, they would just *see.* An actual floating eyeball is gross enough to be a necromancer's idea, to use necromancy' skills to achieve effects normally in the province of other schools. Likewise Glitterdust: picture an invoker wanting to see invisible assassins. How to do it, when invocation spells normally just make stuff explode? Well, just explode sparkly motes all around an area. Clumsy but effective. Illusionists desperately need something else besides Yet Another Invisibility Spell at levels 4-6. Confusion works if instead of simply putting people in a confused state, it confuses by way of visual hallucinations. Isn't that exactly what happens to the PC in the Windspear Hills? and Invisible Stalker is admittedly aggressive. But it's advancing the illusionist's art, making an illusion so powerful that it takes on a life of its own. Blend this effect together with the more refined but substanceless Mislead clone, and you get the more powerful effects of Project Image and Simulacrum. Wail of the Banshee is the *only* vanilla 9th-level spell the could possibly work as an illusion... so, that's what I chose. Figure it's a hallucination so powerful it kills. Maybe just change the name and description to Weird. I give enchanters spells that manipulate psychology, thus Resist Fear. I suppose they could therefore have Horror too, but it could go either way (like Confusion: induce it directly or induce it visually) and Illusion needs it more. Enchantment also involves imbuing items with power; thus the Sequencers (one of which in vanilla actually describes putting the spell into an object) and the weapon spells (making an actual weapon take on the characteristics of Mord's Sword or Black Blade etc.) You can gloss over having a spare one in inventory, because let's face it, this game *entirely* glosses over material components for spellcasting. It could be a small knife that is enchanted to become a huge gloating sword. I also give enchanters the PW spells, because Words = communication, so they are essentially incredibly powerful advancements of the Charm Person effect. Blur is a heavy concept change, but the effect is precisely what would occur if a diviner was a split second ahead of everyone else. Similar concept for Luck and Greater Malison, glimpses of the future letting you subtly alter the odds of certain outcomes. Likewise Contingency, using temporal powers to retroactively prepare your earlier self with a spell at the ready. And I figure the Symbol spells involve symbols of vast arcane power, dangerous to normal perception. To understand and direct the power of such abstract and secret forces requires arcane comprehension - and "arcane comprehension" is basically the definition of divination magic. Eh, I think that's it. If you want to try to justify the ridiculous PnP/BG allocations, I guarantee mine will sound more reasonable. (EDIT okay I'm sure you could come up with a sensible rationale for the vanilla game, where for instance Enchanters get no spells above 5th level. But... why? Why not use the rationale that makes each school balanced and useful and interesting?) But again this speaking about a vanilla install. Balance concerns affected those judgments, and adding mod spells changes those concerns. I haven't yet done a playthrough with SRv4, but it seems like you've done a ton of work to improve the utility of all schools at all levels. So I may make a mod with the above changes, but I would probably have it just skip the component if it detects SR.

Well you could 'conjure' a fireball or 'conjure' a spell shield or 'conjure' an illusion... but for purposes of spell schools I adopt a narrower definition of the word. To me it just means creating or summoning matter or beings. Talking about spell schools, starting from first principles, I had these thoughts: Applying those principles, I came up with a much more balanced distribution of the vanilla spells: Arranged by level: Arranged by school: Look, every school has useful spells! And it actually makes sense conceptually! I'm considering whether to code that up in a mod... but I generally use SR, and Demi has gone to such great lengths to balance the schools in SR that it's really not necessary.

Isn't it more or less how it's already working within V4? Death Gaze instantly paralize, and then kills you on 5th round unless dispelled in the meanwhile. With SR's FtS you get instantly slowed and then petrified on the following round. I do said I'm open to tweak it (e.g. petrified on 3rd round? save vs death after petrification or die? etc.) but I think we are pretty much doing what you are asking for. Kinda pointless imo. If you can target a mage or druid (aka they don't have spell protections up) then using a 6th lvl spell to remove Stoneskin is likely the least efficient move possible. Just cast Disintegrate and obliterate it, even Hold Person is better then your suggested Stone to Flesh. I think an important part of his suggestion is collapsing StF and FtS into s single spell, which gives it great utility. Maybe you memorize for its vanilla use, to insta-kill an enemy. But then maybe one of your allies gets tagged by a basilisk gaze - you're prepared. Or maybe an enemy mage Contingency's a Stoneskin and you're fresh out of Breaches - Again, you're prepared. It really has the ring of "I am a powerful Transmuter, my power over matter prepares me for many dangers." If it could also be used to weaken golems, that would be icing on the cake.

Those are all fantastic ideas.

A quick note: this has been updated to v1.6, fixing some bugs and improving compatibility with IWDEE. Also all file names have been made lower-case, making it Linux-friendly. Cheers!

5 times 6 seconds = five ROUNDS. Five TURNS should be 5 times 60 seconds, or 300 seconds. Of course maybe the intended duration is indeed five rounds - I haven't looked at it. So this is either a bug, mixing up turns and rounds, or not a bug at all. But Demi is a PnP fanatic, he doesn't need me pointing this out...

Right - there are a couple different ways to do it, each of which is bugged in its own special way. But I'm just interested in specifically how DR approaches it, so that I know precisely what else I have to do (if anything) to make mod kits compatible with sphere system.

So, I want to make sure I understand things here. Please correct me if any of the following is inaccurate: As of DR v8, the sphere system is optional. Installing that component essentially makes the mod run like DR v7, in that: 1) Spells are stripped away from all divine casters and granted to each kit according to the sphere system. Mod kits can hook into this system via the macro described in the first post. 2) Kits have more innate abilities, as they did in v7, and have special weapons they can summon once per day, which grow in power as the cleric levels up. Mod kits can emulate this by creating some fun/cool innate abilities and creating special summonable weapons. Nothing a few hours in NI can't take care of. 3) Kitted clerics cast one fewer spell per day of each level compared to the trueclass cleric - essentially, all of those innate abilities take the place of casting one normal spell per level. Mod kits can... And that's where I trail off. How is the reduced spellcasting implemented? Is it even still implemented in v8? Do modders have to do anything special to work right? Does DR mess with the base spellcasting table? Or just grant an extra spell to trueclass clerics? Inquiring minds want to know! Thanks in advance.

This made me think about the whole concept of spiritual weapons. Check out my thread on them, I'd be curious to know what you think.

THIS MOD IS DEPRECATED REVIVED!! EDIT - it is deprecated again. Forever this time. For my tweaks related to weapons, armor, and other items, now you should use SubtleD’s Item Tweaks. For my revisions to the weapon proficiency system, and a feat system tied into proficiency points, now you should use Combat Skills & Proficiencies. For my tweaks related to ability scores, hit dice, XP, etc. now you should use SubtleD’s Stat Overhauls. Those three mods should be installed in that order. Generally, Item Tweaks goes after kits but before SCS; Combat Skills and Stat Overhauls go after SCS. ————————————— DESCRIPTION OF THE OLD MOD: This has some overhaul and tweak components: - Item/Weapon Overhaul (in 4 parts) - Weapon Proficiency Overhaul (in 5 parts) - Magic Resistance Overhaul - Stat tweaks - Hit dice tweaks - XP table tweaks That's it! If you like the SoB cleric and druid kits, you can still find those at the link for v4.3: https://github.com/subtledoctor/Scales_of_Balance/releases/tag/4.3.2 But really, those are totally old and busted. Instead of using them, you should ask me for a copy of the Faiths & Powers beta. Even now, in beta form, it's miles better! Btw, part of the reason for breaking things up this way has to do with load order. Might 'n' Guile as usual should be installed after other kits but before SCS. This new version of Scales of Balance should be installed very very late: especially if you use the MRO, that should be installed after all mods that add creatures and items. So after SCS, and after aTweaks. Cheers! Again, to recap what's happened since v3: my single old mod got too big and unwieldy, and I also got better at this stuff and wanted to do more. So the old Scales of Balance has been broken up into a number of other mods: Faiths & Powers (cleric & druid tweaks and kits, by Grammarsalad): https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/43174/faiths-and-powers-gods-of-the-realms-kitpack-and-divine-caster-spell-tweaks#latest Tome & Blood (wizard & sorcerer tweaks and kits, by Aquadrizzt): https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/31274/mod-beta-tome-and-blood-more-options-for-wizards-and-sorcerers#latest Might & Guile (warrior & rogue tweaks and kits, by me!): https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/43878/might-and-guile-a-tweak-mod-and-kit-pack-for-warriors-and-rogues NPC_EE (customize NPCs) https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/43305/npc-ee-non-player-characters-enhanced-for-everyone --------------------------------------------------- Just want to introduce people to my new mod, Scales of Balance (or SoB for short). What is this? This started out as my own personal set of tweaks that I did on top of a fully modded game. It includes some basic mechanical tweaks (e.g. modified stat bonuses and an overhaul of the proficiency system), some cosmetic changes (e.g. FR-themed paladin kit names, and magic items that don't break immersion by putting '+2's and '+5's in your face), and more than 25 new kits. This is all about improving gameplay. I love mods that bring the game closer to PnP, like Rogue Rebalancing and aTweaks. But BG is a single-player computer game. If tweaking a rule makes this specific game more fun, then it's a good tweak, PnP be damned. Consider this mod as a collection of 'house rules' specific to the BG campaign. Every choice has been made with an eye to the particular gameplay mechanics of BG2 and the EEs. I try to make this as compatible as possible with other mods. Notwithstanding the above paragraphs, this mod is 100% compatible with RR and aTweaks. This is meant to be applied alongside those mods - not instead of them. Everything is completely optional. You can use as many or as few of the mod components as you like. None of them rely on each other, there is no 'core' component. Use what you like, ignore what you don't.

Hear, hear. I must say I don't think Erg is *unduly* critical (and I hope I am not). I think (and judging from his activity on the Beamdog forums I think Erg agrees) that the EE games are fantastic, superior to the originals in countless ways. IWD:EE's state at launch seems to be really impressive. Erg and I have specific, targeted criticisms, which all basically stem from ToBEx capabilities that were not carried over to the EE engine, and which have all been explained in tempered, realistic feature requests over on Beamdog's forums. My main requests of Beamdog were 1) externalizing the applicability of proficiency-based APR for warriors vs. non-warriors; 2) enabling the player to control the direction the party faces in tablet versions of the games; and 3) enabling/externalizing a method for modders to apply ToBEx's concentration check for spell disruption. In the last few patches Beamdog has made 2 of those 3 things happen. This gives me hope that they are listening and maybe the 3rd will appear in v1.4. If so, I'll probably switch to playing the EEs exclusively (and buy more, non-tablet copies of them as well). But until it happens, that feature of vanilla is more important to me than the various advantages of EE. I suspect Erg (not to mention many others who aren't as vocal about this stuff) feels similarly. I mean, he and I have both released EE-only mods!

Man - DR compatible with EEs and (presumably, without the sphere system) SR?? I never would have made the effort to create my own cleric kits if I thought this was going to happen! Oh well, always nice to see progress on great mods like this - good work!