Galactygon

It would be awesome to see some of the hardcoded text softcoded so that only the tokens they use are hardcoded.

You could "fake it" by applying 326 first (using another .spl with a single instance of 139) and then 318 (the no message variant).

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, I thought it would make the most sense if DR would be installed before other spell mods.

Well, that's usually the whole point of mods like the DR, an overhall for the whole system. Unlike other mods that usually just patch a few spells by adding a few effects to them.

 

Am wondering because the readme states

Spell packs and high level ability mods

 

High level ability mods may not be compatible. Spell packs are fully compatible, though if the player wishes to use the sphere system, it is recommended that spell mods be installed prior to The Divine Remix.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I thought it would make the most sense if DR would be installed before other spell mods. The onus of making third party mod DR-friendly would be on other modders such as me since Cam was gracious enough to provide a simple means of doing so. This has the advantage that:

1. Cam doesn't have to go running around updating DR every time somebody releases a spell (or kit?) mod.

and

2. Other modders don't have to wait for a new DR update but instead can opt to INCLUDE the code as posted above.

Older mods that are not updated often can be exceptions, but usually they are installed earlier in the mod installation list.

Thanks for your effort to keep this mod alive Cam, I really appreciate you came back to this after a several year break. I'm also very touched that you included spells from SpellPack. Was thinking of writing some automatic "sphere recognition" code that reads spell descriptions and then assigns spells to spheres to future-proof spell mods but your way works just as well. When I released SpellPack B6 I did not have the installer write a centralized spell 2da list with spheres for DR to detect even though the I had that in mind and set variables at the start of each divine spell. I was unsure about DR's future at that time; I could still offer to make a centralized list for the next release of SpellPack so you don't have to write a new list each time I release something (admittedly it wasn't often the past few years).

About the mod itself: I think it's a really good idea to have a "lite" version of each kit as without new spells from mods your access to decent spells is limited. The inclusion of new spells from spell mods can make the "Sphere" version of the kits appealing and will put more effort into my own work with DR in mind.

 

This behavior hasn't been mentioned in the iesdp as well:

 

If param2 of opcode 148 is set to 2, then the target(s) rather than the original caster will cast the spell from the resource file at a spell level specified in param1. This behaviour is unchanged from BGII to BGII:EE

Do you have any examples? SpellPoint is always used just with coordinates+spellref in vanilla bg2 (and others). (Really)ForceSpellPointRES is the only exception from the spellcasting family, due to different parameter ordering. As far as I know, also only the Really* family forces the level with param1 (if also a string parameter is passed) or param2.

 

There are no examples in the game, but I have been able to reproduce it in both BGII:ToB and BGII:EE and use it my mods. I do not have access to the files atm so I can at most instruct how to reproduce this.

Open SPWI304 (Fireball), and add an effect with opcode 148 and param2=2 that casts SPWI308 (Lightning Bolt). Make sure the target type of that effect is set to 2 (pretarget) and not 1 (self) as one would expect to do in this opcode. When you cast Fireball into a group of creatures, they will then cast Lightning Bolt to the center point of the Fireball explosion.

This behavior hasn't been mentioned in the iesdp as well:

If param2 of opcode 148 is set to 2, then the target(s) rather than the original caster will cast the spell from the resource file at a spell level specified in param1. This behaviour is unchanged from BGII to BGII:EE

Opcode 146 (cast spell at target): When parameter2 (type) is set to 0 (cast normally), then it is affected by wild surge (stats 153 FORCESURGE and 154 SURGEMOD). This is possibly an engine bug in BGII:EE, so I've reported it.

Also, stats 51 SPELLFAILUREMAGE, 52 SPELLFAILUREPRIEST, and 194 SPELLFAILUREINNATE do not affect this opcode.

Haven't tested this in BGII (non EE). Nor have I tested stats 53 SPELLDURATIONMODMAGE and 54 SPELLDURATIONMODPRIEST

Opcode 148 (cast spell at point): This opcode is NOT affected by wild surge (stats 153 FORCESURGE and 154 SURGEMOD), or spell failure (stats 51 SPELLFAILUREMAGE, 52 SPELLFAILUREPRIEST, and 194 SPELLFAILUREINNATE).

Thanks for the summary Cam!

-Galactygon

Thanks, Wisp.

-Galactygon

I originally had this planned in some of my works, but if you are willing to do this in a more optimal way I'd have one less thing to worry about: A new component called PnP Infinite Book of Spells (see description).

My idea is that the installer would generate a truly random infinite book as per the AD&D description in the following way:

1.) first it would search through and record all valid wizard (and priest) spell scrolls in the game, which automatically covers mod-added spells

2.) the installer would generate an organized list of all valid spells/scrolls in the game

3.) the installer would generate the book (according the AD&D description) by randomly picking from the list.

-Galactygon

Feeblemind

I fully agree with Amanasleep. There're four disabling spells on 5th level, and each one belongs to the Enchantment school.

I know. I don't like so much having Chaos there too, but at least it doesn't completely overlap with Hold Monster, whereas Domination and Feeblemind completely overlap each other with the former outshining the latter.

 

Was my suggestion (adding non-lethal dmg) completely rejected? No one commented about it.

Let me chime in here.

In AD&D Charm spells were meant to befriend hostile creatures (turn their foot circle to GOODBUTBLUE) while Domination spells were meant to establish a telepathic link with the caster giving him/her full control of the .cre's abilities (this would include remove fog of war). The 5th level domination is only meant to affect humanoids (who save at -2) while feeblemind affects everyone (but wizards save at -4). Both are meant to be permanent.

-Galactygon

Of course an improved entangle effect would be the best

Evard's Black Tentacles?

You'd need to port over the NWN animation.

-Galactygon

In vanilla such doubts don't exist because there were no similar small details/refinements. Before SR no one would have complained about small things such as Entangle affecting incorporeal or flying creatures, whereas with SR we started to discuss all these small details and having a fire elemental destroyed by dehydrating spell like Horrid Wilting suddenly becomes unbearable.

Cough cough.

-Galactygon

Something I did was make the missile damage bypass MR but not the fire/acid damage. And I've made PfMW protect against those two spells as well.

-Galactygon

For (iii) I may add that for such tweak I should also have to remove 'sanctuary' opcode and its hardcoded animation (only the latter if possible), else players would still see it, and the whole invisibility thing would be pointless. If I'm not wrong, turning Sanctuary into a self cast Invisibility is exactly what we are discussing.

 

This reminds me that in my to do list I have something like 'II-spells make the caster immune to spell overlays', though I'm not sure it's fully doable. I do hate those supposedly invisible caster walking around with visible, sparkly animations (e.g. Spell Deflection/Turning/Trap).

Agreed (this is on my to-do list too). But actually, the awkwardness in both cases is that ideally the animation should be visible when the player casts it but not when enemies do. But implementing that in SR is probably impossible. (I can do it in SCS because enemies can use modified versions of the spell.)

 

If you like, leave the invisibility off Sanctuary and the graphic on, and I'll offer it as a tweak, for enemies only, in SCS. I don't think enemy spellcasters in vanilla use Sanctuary anyway.

I already have a working tweak (but isn't yet released) that does all of this (deactivates enemies' animations while II).

-Galactygon

My experience with potions is that even when resources are expected to be used up quickly, PCs still rapidly acquire a very large number of them.

Does this include potions used by spellcasters within the first few rounds of firing off their buffs and triggers? I'd imagine there'd be large difference between this and potions that are expected to be used by other classes in the first few rounds.

What's your estimate, how long do spellcasters usually last against a better-than-average player?

-Galactygon

It's been suggested before, but I don't find either spell failure or number of slots to be a serious constraint on my mage scripting, and I'm concerned about giving PCs too many resources (I dislike undroppable objects on principle).

With mods like aTweaks' scribe scrolls ability, only money will determine how many scrolls the party has. If we assume NPC casters have had years to accumulate wealth and resources, it's not a stretch for them to have 5-10 high-level scrolls. If enemy spellcasters fire off their scrolls in the first few rounds of combat, their chance of dropping those scrolls gets really low. I'd imagine spells that do not scale after level 12 are worth storing in a scroll, or a spell that the spellcaster does not know (this could be an excuse for lower-level wizards with connections of casting higher level magic).

-Galactygon

I don't have strong views, but I could easily be persuaded that Breach should remove Stoneskin and pro/weapons spells but not as much else as it currently does. I'm less keen on it offering a saving throw for the same reason as above. It's something I'd want to implement as an SCS component if it's deemed a good idea. On balance I think it could be: it would make keeping clerics alive a helluva lot easier.

 

Come to think of it, I could even see a case for restricting Breach to arcane spells.

 

... make me an offer.

Sounds pretty good. In AD&D, Breach was meant to

1.) Dispel any spells that granted immunity to some weapon type

2.) Suppress any spells or natural abilities that granted some sort of immunity to weapon types for some duration

On clerics staying alive: I think your best bet would be to introduce priest scrolls and have enemy priests heavily use them. They have the enormous benefit of non-interruptable spell-casting without the players saying "it's not fair". Come to think of it, heavy use of mage scrolls allow enemy spellcasters to be of lower level without decreasing the difficulty and the amount of spells they can fire.

I think the use of scrolls by enemy spellcasters is underrated by vanilla and mods like ScS.

-Galactygon

The thing is that without SCS tweak to SI you'd have AI mages "cheat" by using SI within contingencies and triggers, but with your tweak we're creating a mess imo. Sorcerers cannot learn the multiple version, and mages have both single and multiple version of SI, which is even worse imo. In this "environment" I'd probably prefer to remove the single version from both sorcerers and mages, though I don't know how to "justify" such thing. It would be easy to justify a rare spell being available only to mages who find an ancient scroll, but SI is used by pretty much any mage within SCS.

I think the best solution is nagging Ascension64 to allow contingency/trigger menus to be linked to .2da spell-immunity type menus, so that the menu of SPWI59x's appears instead of SPWI510.

My thoughts about SpellImmunity: I would rather keep this spell as it is - the most I would do at most is remove its ability to protect against level 9 spells/HLAs. I do think that Spell Immunities should not stack (in AD&D, casting a new SpellImmunity overrides the old one). Stacking is also going to create problems where DS is concerned if it uses one stat for them all, unless you find out a way of converting all the stats into state-bits (or nagging Ascension64 to do it).

-Galactygon

I am very interested, since later on I will have to deal with scripting the AI to account for all the rules and spells I have added/changed.

Looking at SCS and figuring out what everything does would be difficult without a tutorial.

-Galactygon

The tutorials are really useful - the most I could do is recommend it.

-Galactygon

Yeah, Githzerai are often chaotic neutral, but behave about as extremely Lawful Neutral as you can get. Probably only the Modorns are more lawful from some perspectives. Its one of those things that I've always wondered what was going on when they assigned racial alignments.

I think when they were assigning alignments, they did so from a human/prime perspective rather than someone from the same group. The lawfulness comes from how they interact with each other, and the "chaoticness" comes from the way they interact with the outside world.

Andyr, do you plan on adding items that level up with the wielder (similar to Dakkon's blade)?

-Galactygon

It's a shame, since I miss Nasard.

-Galactygon

Are these actual PnP kits or are they ones taken from various other sources, or ones made up by the imaginations of the modders? Curiosity caught me here.

-Galactygon