TSR Crusader Kit - Preview Version v2

Mordeus

The Crusader from the 2ed Supplement "Faith & Avatars" (1996) is pretty much done now.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwxUZXZbu5bpbTU5MWtuckFkY2c/edit
^ Go to the File tab and click Download. Have only tested it with BG2.

Class: Cleric.
Race: Human, Half-Elf, Elf, Dwarf. I've also allowed Gnomes, Halflings and Half-Orcs.
Alignment: Anything other than Neutral.

Advantages:
- May use the same THAC0 score as a warrior.

Disadvantages:
- Cannot Turn Undead.

Major Spheres:
All
Chaos (Only Chaotic)
Combat
Guardian
Law (Only Lawful)
Healing
War
Wards

Minor Spheres:
Protection
Necromatic

There are some things left unfinished. Namely the Innate skills Easy March and Lighten Load. Plus fleshing out the Chaos sphere to balance out the Law sphere, as it is outnumbered 2 to 7.

Next is the Elementalist Mage kit redone to appear as a Druid kit.

Ignatius

Very very promising. Would be delighted to run using such a mod. A couple of questions:

- will you make it BG:EE compatible?
- what do you think of the Divine Remix mod? (btw, any idea when this mod will be BG:EE ready?)

Illustair

So to make it clear...what you need help right now is on what spells would you take from Tome of Magic? I've already taken a look on some of the spells, and some are not possible in the game or may not have use at all. For now, I'm currently at level 2 wizard spells...Watery Double seems interesting. I'll list all of them if that helps. This is a huge undertaking, but I hope this mod will see the light at the end of the tunnel...this looks very promising!

Wizard spells that took my interest that may be possible or usable in-game:

L1:
Fist of Stone
Fire Burst

L2:
Insatiable Hunger (same as confusion maybe?)
Maximillian's Earthen Grasp

L3:
Alacrity (doable?)
Lorloveim's Creeping Shadow (doable?)
Maximillian's Stony Grasp
Watery Double

L4:
Divination Enhancement
Mordenkainen's Celerity
Summon Lycanthrope
Thunder Staff
Turn Pebble to Boulder


L5:
Magic Staff
Safeguarding
Von Gasik's Refusal

L6:
Claws of the Umber Hulk
Forest's Fiery Constrictor

L7:
Bloodstone's Frightful Joining
Intensify Summoning
Malec-Keth's Flame Fist
Shadowcat (I don't think I quite understand the description; +1 or better weapons also have no effect? OP!)
Suffocate (I'm sure I've seen this in-game, but I'm not sure if it's vanilla or from a mod)

L8:
Gunther's Kaleidoscopic Strike
Homunculus Shield

L9:
Element Aura

Also if doable:
Dilation
Augmentation
Far Reaching

EDIT2: Oh, I read your post late. I'll see what I can do; I don't know how I can be of help on selecting kits, so our criteria is on how interesting they can be to us? And yes please...poll would serve better for this.

Mordeus

@Ignatius It'll be EE compatible. I'm just working as much as possible with BG2, to make it as compatible with as many versions as possible.

I'm going to finish one kit at a time instead of waiting for one big release. So at the moment I'm planning on getting the Elementalist done, since that has the smallest number of spells and the bonuses are fairly easy to apply. For example It's pretty much Fire, Wind & Earth magic for a Pyromancer with high resistance against fire.

The hardest will be the Priest kits because they have 6-9 subkits. I figure I'd pick out 1 or 2 subkits and later add the others with updates. There are some obscure Priest subkits like the Amorphite of Ghaunadaur that specializes in fighting amorphous monsters which is a really niche kit. Whilst something like the Truesword of Arvoreen is a high priority subkit.

If there are enough spells available to a kit, then I'll get it released. But as more spells are worked on, I'll update the individual kits. I figure if there are 20 or so spells for a kit, then that is enough for a release.

But I should get the Crusader's glitches sorted this week for a proper release. And then I'll get the Elementalist done. From then on I'll ask people's opinions on what should be a priority release. I've got blueprints for the kits already devised, so I'll post a thread with a poll.

The Divine Remix mod is pretty impressive. But I'm taking a slightly different approach by wiping the spellbooks clean, making secondary copies of every spell and then manually applying them to each specific kit. It requires a whole lot of typing and formatting but it'll let me to do quick modifications in the long run. One plus is that I could make an Arcane Druid or a Divine Bard quite easily.

@Illustair: I'm going to need help on picking out which kits to do first. Because from then I can look at what spells from which spheres need to be introduced. I'm going to avoid the kits that require spheres like Travelers, Time or Numbers since there is currently only 1 spell implemented from those three. I just finished a blueprint of what BG2 spells fit into which spheres, so I have a good idea of what kits to avoid.

Ignatius

@Mordeaus: sounds both awesome and a titanic amount of work at the same time. Releasing kit after kit is probably the right approach.

Let us know of what feedback exactly you are looking for...

[Deleted User]

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[Deleted User]

subtledoctor said:

Also, IMHO, priest kit with fighter thac0 = overpowered for BG2. A +1 bonus every 5 or 7 levels, something like the Swashbuckler, would be a bit more reasonable.

I don't know if I'd go that far. I mean, you give a cleric +1 Hit every five levels, and they've practically got Fighter THAC0 already (A Fighter at the SoA level cap has a THAC0 of 2. A Cleric with +1/five levels has a THAC0 of 4). Not to mention that a Cleric can get as good or better THAC0 anytime they want by casting Holy Power. The Fighter is still going to be way ahead due to bonuses from Mastery and extra attacks just for being a Fighter. Now, if you start giving them bonus attacks like a Fighter (either natively or through specialization), then we can talk about being overpowered.

Mykra

Kaigen said:

subtledoctor said:

Also, IMHO, priest kit with fighter thac0 = overpowered for BG2.

I'll have to look in my old F&A book, but it's my understanding he's doing a pen and paper conversion mod. I like the sound of that as it will clearly distinguish the mod from other kit/spell revision mods, although it probably won't be as balanced as other mods of the same type. However, it opens up the possibility of a very fun run using this mod with all the other tweaks and mods that sets the game to the actual pen and paper rules and statistics.

Plus, if he's sticking to pure 2E material, I may finally get to see a Bladesinger in this game.

[Deleted User]

Sadly I never got my hands on F&A, though I did get to scan through a copy someone else owned when I was playing a Priest of Selune in his game.

Mordeus

subtledoctor said:

Mordeus said:

@The Divine Remix mod is pretty impressive. But I'm taking a slightly different approach by wiping the spellbooks clean, making secondary copies of every spell and then manually applying them to each kit.

FYI that's basically what Divine Remix does. It changes all priest spells do that they are labelled neither 'cleric' nor 'druid' and so none get added at level-up. Then it adds specific spells from particular spheres in the CLABPRxx files. It works well and is a much-loved mod, and a beseech you to make any new cleric kit/spell mod compatible with it.

Also, IMHO, priest kit with fighter thac0 = overpowered for BG2. A +1 bonus every 5 or 7 levels, something like the Swashbuckler, would be a bit more reasonable.

I probably was a bit too vague when I wrote that. I'm not talking just divine magic, but arcane magic too. The Divine Remix mod isn't going to be a big help when I make an Elemental Wizard out of a Druid. The method I'm going about will have the spells listed in one big .2da file for each class, so if certain spells become too gamebreaking, I could easily remove or add them back in, instead of just bringing in the entire sphere. I also rather create secondary copies of the spells that I can mess about with without interfering with the originals. I intend to leave the True Cleric, True Druid, True Bard, etc... well alone, so they'd use the old system.

Not to mention I've made priest versions of wizard spells, and wizard spells of priest spells. So I can work around the spellbook limitations. Especially in making a Ranger, Cleric, Druid & Paladin use 100% Arcane magic and the Bard using 100% Divine magic.

And on a superficial note the icons used in Divine Remix just stick out from the original icons. So the way around that would be to vector every single spell icon to bring about some cohesion. Leaving at least one out can be an eyesore.

So I feel that having to work around the Divine Remix and the Infinity Engine together to accomplish what I want will be a bigger headache for me in the long run.

You're probably right about the Crusader being a little too powerful. But its' really the only legit option in the 2ed Supplements for a Paladin knockoff Cleric kit. I could always combine it with the restrictions of the "Warriors and Priests of the Realms" take on the Crusader but that probably isn't enough to weaken it. On the flipside, I have some really difficult kits in the works, namely the Limbant and the Spellsinger who are really niche characters.

Wilbur

The Crusader sound really interesting. With better thac0 he will be able to hit something even when dual wielding. I have to try this at some point.

Mordeus

I just created a rough draft of the Pyromancer. It's a pretty interesting Druid kit that just uses fire attacks. The only problem at the moment is there is only one level 1 spell to chose from... And that is Burning Hands...

I think I might need to create a thread for all the kits. Especially since I'm starting the rough draft of the Racial Priest Megakit.

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trinit

This looks very promising i wish you swift and easy modding.
And just to put it out there; i really look forward to more diverse and sensible priest and druid kits not to mention geting them to be more unique. Concept of divine remix was great and it worked to some degree, but the spell sele tion was too limited.