@kamigoroshi I tried opening it in DLTCEP and it says it is corrupted. It's ok, I'll leave the spell description bams til later. I have some spell description strings I could finish off until I get BG2:EE for the mac.
Near Infinity also gave me a reading error on that file, as well as similar ones for that matter. Ah well, maybe I have more luck with extracting it with DLTCEP.
Edt: I don't know why, but it looks like both softwares aren't all too happy with the GUIBTBUT.bam of BG2:EE.
Just need an opinion on some spell names. There are a handful of spells with alternate names which include their creator. For example:
Blade of Doom can be called Shaeroon's Scimitar Ruby Ray of Reversal can be called Nezram's Ruby Ray
Should I go for the alternate names? Cause Blade of Doom sounds a little too corny to me.
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Also I think I'm going to remove the teleportation spells. The p&p descriptions of Teleport, Mass Teleport and Dimension Door involve teleportation of long specified distances. Instead I'm adding Fire Gate which is the Red Wizard version that at least can cause fire damage, a pocket plane like spell called Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion and a Divine spell called Recall Word which lets you warp back to a "sanctuary". There is also another spell added called Bowgentle's Fleeting Journey which is pretty much a Teleport Other spell for enemies.
I'm also hesitant to add them in because apparently there was problems with Dimension Door letting you 'jump' over story barrier. Like being able to cross the river to Baldur's Gate earlier than you were allowed to.
Go for creator names it will add a little immersion if done right.
As for the teleportation spells maybe you could add them in a separate package or as an optional part ? personnaly I wouldn't have much use of those and seems much trouble to make them reliable.
I hope this pack will be ready for my next playthrough as I'm probably gonna play a cleric and I'd love to play an other one than the three basics (and boring) ones =p
@Mordeus In Magnificent Mansion, you'd really be teleported to another area? If that's the case, then we need a good area artist, it must live up to its name of being "Magnificent", not to mention, a "Mansion ".
@Illustair I was just thinking of using an edited version of the Tutorial map which looks kinda like a mansion. Outside of the tutorial it was used as a secret area in the temple district, so I think I can get away with using it. The idea of Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion is to give an alternate "pocket plane" that isn't so demonic looking. I'll just remove the door and create a spectral butler NPC that lets you teleport out of the area.
There's a spell similar for Priests called Word of Recall that sends them back to their 'sanctuary' which will probably be a temple map from the city of Baldur's Gate. These are level 5-6 spells so they will only be in use during BG2.
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Ok I'll use the Creator names for the spells. There's something like 50 viable p&p spells that use creator names.
Yeah, that would do IMO. Don't mind me, I shouldn't have mentioned such trivial issue to begin with; I forgot that there are plenty of existing resources, and you don't have to start from scratch on them. How about placing a storage chest there though?
50 spells? Nice! I always fancied having such unique spells in every D&D game, there are only too few and worse, most are Bigby's.
@Mordeus are you working on this alone or have you touch @Requiem for help?He's awfully quite lately and I don't know if he lost interest or just RL stuck in his way. I'm wondering how long is it take for you to finish this mod. I'm really waiting for it, you know.
@Cahir I'm working on this alone at the moment just because a lot of it is reorganisation stuff. I've decided to leave the graphics heavy spells til later, so I'm rushing a release with the bare minimum spells. I have a couple of weeks break coming up so I'll be able to catch up. Once I get all the boring stuff out of the way, I'll try to contact Requiem and might ask for some others to jump onboard the project.
I've decided to add the spells via the SPPR/SPWI filenames, instead of having a separate group of spells. This will mean that enemies will use the new spells. I just have to make sure that I don't change pre-existing filenames or their IDS entry, otherwise it would break enemy scripts. So "Bless" will stay as SPPR101. While other non p&p spells like Doom will be replaced with spells that are incredibly similar, so they will be used properly by enemy scripts. For example Doom is replaced by Light and Armor of Faith is replaced by Call Upon Faith.
This gets a little tricky at the higher levels but it's doable. I'm going to make sure the existing spells are converted successfully, then I'm going to gradually add new ones in each update. The only downside is that the structure of the files will be messy and confusing, but they are already disorganised in vanilla BG.
lame idea #1 transmuter sucks. how about glitzing him up by giving him an (opt. install) ability to recharge wands? there's a transmutation spell (later edition, druid) called spellstaff which is essentially imbuing a staff with a spell. that's why i'd associate, more than other specialists, a transmuter with charging, recharging and generally making ...wands - yeah it's far fetched but i don't think it would look bad in-game
it could be done for example through dialogue (initiated from item description) through which you transmute, say, a specific gem in you inv into a wand charge
something could maybe be done to make such staves a weapon that is meant for transmuters particularly - they could posses other, more powerful (say, agannazar's) spell-effect attacks, but only in the hands of transmuters who could charge them with such. ...via gems maybe or some other means; -gold? too easy; -casting spells into the item? dunno if possible.
is there even a kit that focuses on wand use? have you already had it in mind? sry if yes, haven't read the whole thread; i'd love to, no time.
I went through the Cleric spells to see if the non-P&P ones can be removed and they can except for three which I can't really subsitute at the moment.
Cure Medium Wounds, Mass Cure and Lesser Restoration aren't in 2nd edition but they are fairly vital to some enemies, so I'm forced to leave them in for now. Cure Medium Wounds probably should be left in as the third in the line of Cure spells. While I could make Mass Cure and Lesser Restoration enemy exclusive spells or just rename them Heal and Restoration. They'd be duplicates but at least be in line with p&p lore. Since this mod uses a sphere system, I can easily remove these two spells from the player's selection.
The "Quest" Spells are largely unused by enemies so they can be swapped. Nature's Beauty, Wondrous Recall, False Dawn, Negative Plane Protection (Cleric), Pixie Dust and Farsight aren't used in scripts so they can be swapped. However the following are used by scripts, so I changed them with similar spells:
Armor of Faith = Call Upon Faith (Nearly the same thing) Doom = Light (Nearly the same thing) Holy Smite = Continual Light (Stronger form of Light) Unholy Blight = Continual Darkness (Stronger form of Light) Death Ward = Cloak of Bravery (Immunity to fear and increases morale) Holy Power = Recitation (Increases ally's attack potential while decreases that of the enemy) Ironskin = Unceasing Vigilance of the Holy Sentinel (Increases defensive abilities) Magic Resistance = Grounding (Negates lightning attacks and spells in the area) Greater Command = Mindshatter (Tricks a class to act like another, so a warrior would act like a mage, etc...) Righteous Magic = Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (Sends allies into berserker mode) Repulse Undead = Undead Ward (Nearly the same thing) Dolorous Decay = Asphyxiate (Causes target to choke to death) Bolt of Glory = Spiritual Wrath (Nearly the same thing) Shield of the Archons = Impervious Sanctity of the Mind (Immunity to charm, hold, command, etc... spells) Storm of Vengeance = Uncontrolled Weather (Nearly the same thing but more unpredictable)
Some are near matches but some aren't. I don't know what effect these changes will have in game but it would interesting to see what happens. If anything bad does happen, I can easily undo the changes. In some cases the new spells are actually more potent.
I'm going to do the same with the wizard spells now.
Hey Mordeus, I briefly looked at your last post and I have some concerns about some changes you intend to do about divine spells.
First of all, the change of Death Ward. At higher level, A LOT of spell casters tend to use spells like Power Word: Kill or nasty spells like that and in my experience, the Death Ward has proven extremely useful on my years of playing BG. Even more with all the tactical mods out there.
Changing it to a spell that protect from fear (there's already a level 1 spell that does this) could prove to be problematic for a lot of people.
Next, I know that you want to be close to the 2nd E. as much as possible but some of the names you intend to use for the spells are weird at best, and for some, completely break the sense of epicness.
For example, I don't really understand the change of Doom, Holy Smite and Unholy Blight to Light, Continual Light and Continual Darkness. I find it weird and not very coherent. Then again, I'm not a huge fan of the 2nd edition and my knowledge of it is limited, but Doom, Holy Smite and Unholy Blight are much more appealing names in my opinion. Maybe replace Doom with Holy Light, but keep Holy Smite and Unholy Blight as it is (just the names ^^)
Storm of Vengeance => Uncontrolled Weather : here is where I practically felt from my chair. Why not just change the spell effect but keep the totally epic spell name ? Or maybe Uncontrolled Storm ?
Don't take my critics in a bad way, I'm not here to sabotage the work you're doing, but It's just some thought from a long time player, and even if I salute the fact that making a more in line 2nd edition spell revision could be great for purists, I fear it could also break a lot of immersion and gameplay if you're not careful.
Also, I'm eagerly waiting for your mod to be again usable for my next playthrough and I'll be sure to test it when you release it
I was going to switch the effects of Death Ward to the third level Arcane spell Delay Death. So it would go from being a Divine spell to an Arcane one, primarily used by Necromancers. To me it just makes more sense for a Necromancer to be the one to cheat death. Not to mention with a sphere system, several cleric/druid kits would miss out on the death immunity spell. So it would be better to give it to the wizard, since there are more arcane kits that could use it.
Death Ward in pnp is a 9th level Arcane spell that is an advanced form of Symbol: Death. It's not a ward against death but rather a ward that grants death. I also seem to remember that there are some other spells that grant immunity to the death effect. Like the level 7 Abjurer's spell Sylune's Secret which grants immunity to a specific spell effect, instead of choosing immunity to fire, charm, etc... you could choose immunity to death.
As for the fear effect, that is covered by several different spells. There is a 8th Arcane spell called Fear Ward that creates an 5 ft aura of protection against the effect, emulating the pnp's Cavalier's anti-fear aura. Then there is several Clerical spells (around 5) that protect the caster or allies for fear or a drop in morale.
As for epicness, pnp treats it as a matter of level progression. As in level 1 spells aren't all that epic, while level 7 or 9 ones are really epic. So your character's level is a indication of how 'epic' you are. For example the 1st level Magic Missile sends out five missiles at max but the improved version called 9th level spell Tempestcone sends out a spray of magic missiles, I think the number is 20 magic missiles. The Spook spell is upgraded at level 4 to Phantasmal Killer, and later again upgraded to Weird at level 9, these upgrades adds a death effect on top of the fear effect.
There are some epic sounding spells but they are pretty much at the high end of the level spectrum.
Clerics can get stuff like: - The Black Circle/The Great Circle (pnp's version of Unholy Blight/Holy Might but much stronger) - Undead Plague (summons 10-20 undead) - Fear Contagion (Creates a virus that spreads the fear effect from creature to creature while destroying their morale rating) - Spiral of Degeneration (Destroys memorized spells, weapons and armor) - Spacewarp (Changes the area's center of gravity, repels creatures to a target causing impact damage)
Wizards get stuff like: - Sphere of Ultimate Destruction (Summons a black orb that kills anything it touches, 5% chance to teleport target instead) - Elminster's Effulgent Epuration (Summons 40 at max level silver orbs, each acting as spell traps) - Celestial Army (Summons several Archons) - Symkalr's Deathbane Fireball (Summons a purple fireball that only damages undead) - Zone Perilous (Summons a zone that regenerates undead while sapping the strength and health of the living) - Dragonrage (Grants the powers of a dragon to the caster) - Tyranteyes (Polymorphs caster into a Beholder)
Funnily enough while Light doesn't sound as epic as Doom, it is actually more powerful. It delivers a 4 point penalty to saving throws compared to Doom's 2 point penalty. Not to mention a 4 point penalty to Armor Class, so if anything it is too epic. As for Continual Light and Continual Darkness, it's the same but can be cast in a 60 ft radius area instead of a single creature, has a long duration, and there is no alignment restrictions placed on it. The Light spells are pretty much classic DnD, they've been around for decades while Doom has no DnD background. Light is usually used by heroic characters while Darkness is used by creatures native to the Underdark. Druids get their own version called Faerie Fire, which does the same thing but has a pixie dust like visual.
As for Storm of Vengeance that is still in play but I want to move it from being a level 7 spell to a level 8 one which will be used to signify Quest level spells. So that means if an enemy gains immunity to spells up to level 7, they will still be affected by Quest spells. The Quest spells will be in the innate skill menu like all the other HLAs, instead of the spellbook. I'm putting Uncontrolled Weather in Storm of Vengeance's file's place, so NPCs will use that instead. That spell is similar to Storm of Vengeance but more unpredictable in what kind of storm it generates (thunder, fire, hail, etc...).
But still, if such changes are truly game breaking. It would take 5 seconds to reverse them. I'm curious to see how different gameplay would be with 2nd pnp concepts.
I'm glad you took the time to explain all of this, it's much clearer now and I can see what you're trying to achieve and It sounds very good ^^
Do you have an ETA for the mod ? (I'm not too impatient as I have a ton of games to finish and I can wait, but you got me intrigued and excited and I will definitely play with this mod as soon as it's possible )
What you intend to accomplish is epic indeed. It's a huge undertaking too by the looks of it though. Best of luck! Finish the mod before real life issues arise (pray there won't be), will you? :-)
Progress has been a bit slow since I've been working 6 days a week but after this week, I'm going to have 4+ weeks break. Strings, spell icons, and the very basic spells are done. I just need a couple of days to sit down and do the more complex ones.
I'm also getting one of those new imac computers this week so things will also speed up with that. I'm atm using a really old computer, so alot of the testing I'm doing now is actually with BG2 vanilla :S
I've been tackling some fairly complex projectiles at the moment. Unfortunately the area of effect animations that spells like Cloudkill, Grease, etc... have are hardcoded. So I can only really work with what is currently there. Which are:
Cloudkill Colour Spray Cone of Cold Entangle Fireball Grease Green Dragon Blast Holy Smite Horrid Wilting Ice Storm Meteor Prismatic Spray Purple Fireball Red Dragon Blast Stinking Cloud Storm of Vengeance Teleport Field Unholy Blight Web
Each area effect is tied to a specific .bam animation. So if I mess with that specific .bam I can change the area effect. So let's say I took Teleport Field that has those strange red spirals and swapped that with a graphic of rock spikes. Then instead of an area filled with those spirals, it would be an area where all these spikes would pop up from the ground.
Also around 3 of these area effects allow you to apply a colour overlay. So for cloudkill, you can change the colour of the smoke to anything you want. However with an area effect like entangle, the colour stays the same. I know it isn't a bam related issue since I tested things out by switching the cloudkill animation with the entangle one to get black tentacles... it's something that for some reason wasn't applied to the entire group of area of effect animations.
Now the reason why I'm messing about with these is because there are certain effects that are hardly used like Teleport Field which could be replaced with something useful or relevant. Not to mention that certain area spell effects are 'invisible' and having some sort of visual graphic would be help the player.
For example the Detect spells don't give you an idea of their in game range. So I'm thinking it would be useful to give them an area effect, nothing flashy just some spell sparkles, so you know how far that detect spell has reached. For example Detect Evil is cast and faint sparkles of magic fill the area it is cast in, so those outside the animation's range are left unaffected. It could even be used for more than Detect spells, like Ward spells, so you will know where you have cast something like Repel Undead.
Sadly the only area spell effect that is a duplicate is "cloudkill" and "stinking cloud", so I only have space for one extra coloured spell effect to be made without being forced to do some drastic alterations. "Horrid Wilting" is identical but doesn't allow a colour overlay.
Not to mention that there are two types of spell area effects, you have the "fireball" type where it starts at the center and works outwards and then you have the "cloud" type where the entire area is filled and randomly animations are triggered. The colour spray, prismatic spray, cone of cold, etc... spells are "fireball" types while grease, web, holy smite, storm of vengeance, etc... are "cloud" types.
It's not the most desirable course of action but it's either this or waiting months for area spell animations to be externalized... Alternatively, the developers could make 20 or so copies of both a "fireball" and a "cloud" area effect and have them lay dormant, so all the modder has to do is alter the .bams they are linked too... but that's not so elegant either.
My idea of what do with the area effects is the following.
+Cloudkill - I'll keep this as the master version of the cloud effect, I'll use it for Cloudkill, Horrid Wilting, Obscurement, Darkness spells, Stinking Cloud, etc... Since the only difference between these will be shifts in colour. +Colour Spray - I can free space up by going back to the BG1 version. +Cone of Cold - This will be used for "sleet" animations. +Entangle - This will be left untouched. I just wish I could edit the colour so I could create Evard's Black Tentacles. +Fireball - This will be left untouched. +Grease - This could be replaced since it is a niche spell, and I could find a single .bam that looks like a slippery puddle instead. +Green Dragon Blast - This will be left untouched. +Holy Smite - I might use this for the light/sun spells, although I might modify it so the beams of light are perpendicular not angled. +Horrid Wilting - I'll replaced this with a coloured version of the cloudkill effect +Ice Storm - This will be left untouched +Meteor - This will be left untouched +Prismatic Spray - This will be left untouched +Purple Fireball - This will be left untouched +Red Dragon Blast - This will be left untouched +Stinking Cloud - This will be replaced with a coloured version of the cloudkill effect +Storm of Vengeance - This will be left untouched, except that I might change the mini clouds for big thunderbolts +Teleport Field - This will be replaced +Unholy Blight - This will be replaced because it could be replaced with a purple version of the cloudkill effect +Web - This will be left untouched
So Colour Spray, Grease, Horrid Wilting, Stinking Cloud, Teleport Field and Unholy Blight are all free to be changed with new effects. If Dragon Blast and Fireball were colour editable, then I could have had Purple Fireball and Green Dragon Blast free to mess with. All up that is 1 "cloud" effect that is colour editable, 4 "cloud" effects that are not and 1 "fireball" effect that isn't either.
NEW: Earth Spikes Divination Sparks Magic Pixie Dust Sound Acid/Poison +plus one more space for something that I haven't thought of yet. Maybe static electricity?
I would love to include some other area effects like a massive spray of arrows, stones or arrows. But again there are those hardcoded restrictions... so I'm going to have be incredibly selective.
Luckily there are only 20 or so spells that require area of effect animations. Others are single target animations which are so much easier.
I can get away will combining an invisible area of effect field with a single target animation. For example Zone of Sweet Air is an example of that. The shock wave that appears is a single target animation. So I can create area of effect spells like Hilather's Blacksphere by using the Blacksphere animation from PST and apply an invisible area of effect field. The IWDification mod does this for spells like Acid Storm.
Apologies if this sounds like convoluted rambling but it makes sense to me. I hope this wasn't externalised while I was away, because if it was then I'm just making life harder for myself...
I'm a third of the way through the spells. So that is 100 spells completely done and 200 to go. It's mainly just going through the motions applying opcodes and creating .spl, .itm, etc... files. The creative work like icon creation, etc... has been completed. I've changed the appearance of the spell icons and got a bit lazy where I'm using the same one for both scroll, menu and battle icons. I figure no point in creating three times the icons if I might end up changing the style once again in the future.
I'm thinking of ditching this thread altogether, since I kinda want a clean start going into the new release. Especially since the name is going to change. Faiths of Faerun doesn't really make much sense since we are going into arcane and non-magical kits. So I'm going to make a new progress thread. Doing so will help clear my thinking a bit. I've got so much going on with this mod, that I need to simplify things.
Still haven't figured out a new name though. When this first started I called the project TSRkits because the whole thing drew from the TSR era of DnD. Then I thought about 2KO as in the 2nd edition Kit Overhaul project but that doesn't quite fit since there are some 1st edition concepts in the mod. So what should I call it? Once that is decided I'll create the new thread.
Good stuff all around. Like you say, it's a large project. Maybe calling it something generic, like "Secrets of Faerun: Kits and spells" would be suitable. Whatever you decide, please make a link to the new thread here.
Here are the icons I've been working on. The interface and spellbook icons are the same, I had to cut corners there because rendering them to be different was just a waste of time. In the past I was spending 5 minutes per icon, now it's closer to 20 seconds. I'm just working on some scroll icons now which are the same but minimised by 75% and with a very slight transparency to them, so you can slightly see the scroll backdrop.
The colours are a tad bright, but going any darker makes them a little too dull. Something goes weird in the conversion from bmp to bam that makes them more vibrant.
That's so stunningly pretty! Seriously, I'm stunned and just stared at it for minutes! By the way, you might want to consider asking the creator of Psionics Unleashed mod if he could share some spell effects, as he has done wonderful effects and it wouldn't hurt to try. Or having another co-creator for this mod surely would serve for the better - he's a veteran and a very talented one. Especially considering that requiem sadly hasn't been around for quite some time already.
Comments
Edt: I don't know why, but it looks like both softwares aren't all too happy with the GUIBTBUT.bam of BG2:EE.
Blade of Doom can be called Shaeroon's Scimitar
Ruby Ray of Reversal can be called Nezram's Ruby Ray
Should I go for the alternate names? Cause Blade of Doom sounds a little too corny to me.
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Also I think I'm going to remove the teleportation spells. The p&p descriptions of Teleport, Mass Teleport and Dimension Door involve teleportation of long specified distances. Instead I'm adding Fire Gate which is the Red Wizard version that at least can cause fire damage, a pocket plane like spell called Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion and a Divine spell called Recall Word which lets you warp back to a "sanctuary". There is also another spell added called Bowgentle's Fleeting Journey which is pretty much a Teleport Other spell for enemies.
I'm also hesitant to add them in because apparently there was problems with Dimension Door letting you 'jump' over story barrier. Like being able to cross the river to Baldur's Gate earlier than you were allowed to.
Gotta say I look forward to M. Magnificent Mansion though! Hoping for a tasteful experience for the discriminating wizard.
As for the teleportation spells maybe you could add them in a separate package or as an optional part ? personnaly I wouldn't have much use of those and seems much trouble to make them reliable.
I hope this pack will be ready for my next playthrough as I'm probably gonna play a cleric and I'd love to play an other one than the three basics (and boring) ones =p
Btw, is there a way to play with one of the three basic kit ?
In Magnificent Mansion, you'd really be teleported to another area? If that's the case, then we need a good area artist, it must live up to its name of being "Magnificent", not to mention, a "Mansion ".
There's a spell similar for Priests called Word of Recall that sends them back to their 'sanctuary' which will probably be a temple map from the city of Baldur's Gate. These are level 5-6 spells so they will only be in use during BG2.
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Ok I'll use the Creator names for the spells. There's something like 50 viable p&p spells that use creator names.
50 spells? Nice! I always fancied having such unique spells in every D&D game, there are only too few and worse, most are Bigby's.
This gets a little tricky at the higher levels but it's doable. I'm going to make sure the existing spells are converted successfully, then I'm going to gradually add new ones in each update. The only downside is that the structure of the files will be messy and confusing, but they are already disorganised in vanilla BG.
transmuter sucks. how about glitzing him up by giving him an (opt. install) ability to recharge wands? there's a transmutation spell (later edition, druid) called spellstaff which is essentially imbuing a staff with a spell.
that's why i'd associate, more than other specialists, a transmuter with charging, recharging and generally making ...wands - yeah it's far fetched but i don't think it would look bad in-game
it could be done for example through dialogue (initiated from item description) through which you transmute, say, a specific gem in you inv into a wand charge
lame idea #1'
there's now a fancy mod for magic missile shooting staves - http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/18108/item-mod-more-style-for-mages-ranged-wizard-s-staffs-circlets-robe-visual-tweaks-weidu-released
something could maybe be done to make such staves a weapon that is meant for transmuters particularly - they could posses other, more powerful (say, agannazar's) spell-effect attacks, but only in the hands of transmuters who could charge them with such.
...via gems maybe or some other means; -gold? too easy; -casting spells into the item? dunno if possible.
is there even a kit that focuses on wand use? have you already had it in mind? sry if yes, haven't read the whole thread; i'd love to, no time.
Cure Medium Wounds, Mass Cure and Lesser Restoration aren't in 2nd edition but they are fairly vital to some enemies, so I'm forced to leave them in for now. Cure Medium Wounds probably should be left in as the third in the line of Cure spells. While I could make Mass Cure and Lesser Restoration enemy exclusive spells or just rename them Heal and Restoration. They'd be duplicates but at least be in line with p&p lore. Since this mod uses a sphere system, I can easily remove these two spells from the player's selection.
The "Quest" Spells are largely unused by enemies so they can be swapped. Nature's Beauty, Wondrous Recall, False Dawn, Negative Plane Protection (Cleric), Pixie Dust and Farsight aren't used in scripts so they can be swapped. However the following are used by scripts, so I changed them with similar spells:
Armor of Faith = Call Upon Faith (Nearly the same thing)
Doom = Light (Nearly the same thing)
Holy Smite = Continual Light (Stronger form of Light)
Unholy Blight = Continual Darkness (Stronger form of Light)
Death Ward = Cloak of Bravery (Immunity to fear and increases morale)
Holy Power = Recitation (Increases ally's attack potential while decreases that of the enemy)
Ironskin = Unceasing Vigilance of the Holy Sentinel (Increases defensive abilities)
Magic Resistance = Grounding (Negates lightning attacks and spells in the area)
Greater Command = Mindshatter (Tricks a class to act like another, so a warrior would act like a mage, etc...)
Righteous Magic = Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (Sends allies into berserker mode)
Repulse Undead = Undead Ward (Nearly the same thing)
Dolorous Decay = Asphyxiate (Causes target to choke to death)
Bolt of Glory = Spiritual Wrath (Nearly the same thing)
Shield of the Archons = Impervious Sanctity of the Mind (Immunity to charm, hold, command, etc... spells)
Storm of Vengeance = Uncontrolled Weather (Nearly the same thing but more unpredictable)
Some are near matches but some aren't. I don't know what effect these changes will have in game but it would interesting to see what happens. If anything bad does happen, I can easily undo the changes. In some cases the new spells are actually more potent.
I'm going to do the same with the wizard spells now.
First of all, the change of Death Ward. At higher level, A LOT of spell casters tend to use spells like Power Word: Kill or nasty spells like that and in my experience, the Death Ward has proven extremely useful on my years of playing BG. Even more with all the tactical mods out there.
Changing it to a spell that protect from fear (there's already a level 1 spell that does this) could prove to be problematic for a lot of people.
Next, I know that you want to be close to the 2nd E. as much as possible but some of the names you intend to use for the spells are weird at best, and for some, completely break the sense of epicness.
For example, I don't really understand the change of Doom, Holy Smite and Unholy Blight to Light, Continual Light and Continual Darkness. I find it weird and not very coherent. Then again, I'm not a huge fan of the 2nd edition and my knowledge of it is limited, but Doom, Holy Smite and Unholy Blight are much more appealing names in my opinion. Maybe replace Doom with Holy Light, but keep Holy Smite and Unholy Blight as it is (just the names ^^)
Storm of Vengeance => Uncontrolled Weather : here is where I practically felt from my chair. Why not just change the spell effect but keep the totally epic spell name ? Or maybe Uncontrolled Storm ?
Don't take my critics in a bad way, I'm not here to sabotage the work you're doing, but It's just some thought from a long time player, and even if I salute the fact that making a more in line 2nd edition spell revision could be great for purists, I fear it could also break a lot of immersion and gameplay if you're not careful.
Also, I'm eagerly waiting for your mod to be again usable for my next playthrough and I'll be sure to test it when you release it
I was going to switch the effects of Death Ward to the third level Arcane spell Delay Death. So it would go from being a Divine spell to an Arcane one, primarily used by Necromancers. To me it just makes more sense for a Necromancer to be the one to cheat death. Not to mention with a sphere system, several cleric/druid kits would miss out on the death immunity spell. So it would be better to give it to the wizard, since there are more arcane kits that could use it.
Death Ward in pnp is a 9th level Arcane spell that is an advanced form of Symbol: Death. It's not a ward against death but rather a ward that grants death. I also seem to remember that there are some other spells that grant immunity to the death effect. Like the level 7 Abjurer's spell Sylune's Secret which grants immunity to a specific spell effect, instead of choosing immunity to fire, charm, etc... you could choose immunity to death.
As for the fear effect, that is covered by several different spells. There is a 8th Arcane spell called Fear Ward that creates an 5 ft aura of protection against the effect, emulating the pnp's Cavalier's anti-fear aura. Then there is several Clerical spells (around 5) that protect the caster or allies for fear or a drop in morale.
As for epicness, pnp treats it as a matter of level progression. As in level 1 spells aren't all that epic, while level 7 or 9 ones are really epic. So your character's level is a indication of how 'epic' you are. For example the 1st level Magic Missile sends out five missiles at max but the improved version called 9th level spell Tempestcone sends out a spray of magic missiles, I think the number is 20 magic missiles. The Spook spell is upgraded at level 4 to Phantasmal Killer, and later again upgraded to Weird at level 9, these upgrades adds a death effect on top of the fear effect.
There are some epic sounding spells but they are pretty much at the high end of the level spectrum.
Clerics can get stuff like:
- The Black Circle/The Great Circle (pnp's version of Unholy Blight/Holy Might but much stronger)
- Undead Plague (summons 10-20 undead)
- Fear Contagion (Creates a virus that spreads the fear effect from creature to creature while destroying their morale rating)
- Spiral of Degeneration (Destroys memorized spells, weapons and armor)
- Spacewarp (Changes the area's center of gravity, repels creatures to a target causing impact damage)
Wizards get stuff like:
- Sphere of Ultimate Destruction (Summons a black orb that kills anything it touches, 5% chance to teleport target instead)
- Elminster's Effulgent Epuration (Summons 40 at max level silver orbs, each acting as spell traps)
- Celestial Army (Summons several Archons)
- Symkalr's Deathbane Fireball (Summons a purple fireball that only damages undead)
- Zone Perilous (Summons a zone that regenerates undead while sapping the strength and health of the living)
- Dragonrage (Grants the powers of a dragon to the caster)
- Tyranteyes (Polymorphs caster into a Beholder)
Funnily enough while Light doesn't sound as epic as Doom, it is actually more powerful. It delivers a 4 point penalty to saving throws compared to Doom's 2 point penalty. Not to mention a 4 point penalty to Armor Class, so if anything it is too epic. As for Continual Light and Continual Darkness, it's the same but can be cast in a 60 ft radius area instead of a single creature, has a long duration, and there is no alignment restrictions placed on it. The Light spells are pretty much classic DnD, they've been around for decades while Doom has no DnD background. Light is usually used by heroic characters while Darkness is used by creatures native to the Underdark. Druids get their own version called Faerie Fire, which does the same thing but has a pixie dust like visual.
As for Storm of Vengeance that is still in play but I want to move it from being a level 7 spell to a level 8 one which will be used to signify Quest level spells. So that means if an enemy gains immunity to spells up to level 7, they will still be affected by Quest spells. The Quest spells will be in the innate skill menu like all the other HLAs, instead of the spellbook. I'm putting Uncontrolled Weather in Storm of Vengeance's file's place, so NPCs will use that instead. That spell is similar to Storm of Vengeance but more unpredictable in what kind of storm it generates (thunder, fire, hail, etc...).
But still, if such changes are truly game breaking. It would take 5 seconds to reverse them. I'm curious to see how different gameplay would be with 2nd pnp concepts.
Do you have an ETA for the mod ? (I'm not too impatient as I have a ton of games to finish and I can wait, but you got me intrigued and excited and I will definitely play with this mod as soon as it's possible
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Progress has been a bit slow since I've been working 6 days a week but after this week, I'm going to have 4+ weeks break. Strings, spell icons, and the very basic spells are done. I just need a couple of days to sit down and do the more complex ones.
I'm also getting one of those new imac computers this week so things will also speed up with that. I'm atm using a really old computer, so alot of the testing I'm doing now is actually with BG2 vanilla :S
Cloudkill
Colour Spray
Cone of Cold
Entangle
Fireball
Grease
Green Dragon Blast
Holy Smite
Horrid Wilting
Ice Storm
Meteor
Prismatic Spray
Purple Fireball
Red Dragon Blast
Stinking Cloud
Storm of Vengeance
Teleport Field
Unholy Blight
Web
Each area effect is tied to a specific .bam animation. So if I mess with that specific .bam I can change the area effect. So let's say I took Teleport Field that has those strange red spirals and swapped that with a graphic of rock spikes. Then instead of an area filled with those spirals, it would be an area where all these spikes would pop up from the ground.
Also around 3 of these area effects allow you to apply a colour overlay. So for cloudkill, you can change the colour of the smoke to anything you want. However with an area effect like entangle, the colour stays the same. I know it isn't a bam related issue since I tested things out by switching the cloudkill animation with the entangle one to get black tentacles... it's something that for some reason wasn't applied to the entire group of area of effect animations.
Now the reason why I'm messing about with these is because there are certain effects that are hardly used like Teleport Field which could be replaced with something useful or relevant. Not to mention that certain area spell effects are 'invisible' and having some sort of visual graphic would be help the player.
For example the Detect spells don't give you an idea of their in game range. So I'm thinking it would be useful to give them an area effect, nothing flashy just some spell sparkles, so you know how far that detect spell has reached. For example Detect Evil is cast and faint sparkles of magic fill the area it is cast in, so those outside the animation's range are left unaffected. It could even be used for more than Detect spells, like Ward spells, so you will know where you have cast something like Repel Undead.
Sadly the only area spell effect that is a duplicate is "cloudkill" and "stinking cloud", so I only have space for one extra coloured spell effect to be made without being forced to do some drastic alterations. "Horrid Wilting" is identical but doesn't allow a colour overlay.
Not to mention that there are two types of spell area effects, you have the "fireball" type where it starts at the center and works outwards and then you have the "cloud" type where the entire area is filled and randomly animations are triggered. The colour spray, prismatic spray, cone of cold, etc... spells are "fireball" types while grease, web, holy smite, storm of vengeance, etc... are "cloud" types.
It's not the most desirable course of action but it's either this or waiting months for area spell animations to be externalized... Alternatively, the developers could make 20 or so copies of both a "fireball" and a "cloud" area effect and have them lay dormant, so all the modder has to do is alter the .bams they are linked too... but that's not so elegant either.
My idea of what do with the area effects is the following.
+Cloudkill - I'll keep this as the master version of the cloud effect, I'll use it for Cloudkill, Horrid Wilting, Obscurement, Darkness spells, Stinking Cloud, etc... Since the only difference between these will be shifts in colour.
+Colour Spray - I can free space up by going back to the BG1 version.
+Cone of Cold - This will be used for "sleet" animations.
+Entangle - This will be left untouched. I just wish I could edit the colour so I could create Evard's Black Tentacles.
+Fireball - This will be left untouched.
+Grease - This could be replaced since it is a niche spell, and I could find a single .bam that looks like a slippery puddle instead.
+Green Dragon Blast - This will be left untouched.
+Holy Smite - I might use this for the light/sun spells, although I might modify it so the beams of light are perpendicular not angled.
+Horrid Wilting - I'll replaced this with a coloured version of the cloudkill effect
+Ice Storm - This will be left untouched
+Meteor - This will be left untouched
+Prismatic Spray - This will be left untouched
+Purple Fireball - This will be left untouched
+Red Dragon Blast - This will be left untouched
+Stinking Cloud - This will be replaced with a coloured version of the cloudkill effect
+Storm of Vengeance - This will be left untouched, except that I might change the mini clouds for big thunderbolts
+Teleport Field - This will be replaced
+Unholy Blight - This will be replaced because it could be replaced with a purple version of the cloudkill effect
+Web - This will be left untouched
So Colour Spray, Grease, Horrid Wilting, Stinking Cloud, Teleport Field and Unholy Blight are all free to be changed with new effects. If Dragon Blast and Fireball were colour editable, then I could have had Purple Fireball and Green Dragon Blast free to mess with. All up that is 1 "cloud" effect that is colour editable, 4 "cloud" effects that are not and 1 "fireball" effect that isn't either.
The area effects I want in the game are:
OLD:
Cloud
Sleet
Hail
Tentacles
Flame
Light/Sunlight
Meteor
Coloured Prismatic Light
Lighting
Web
NEW:
Earth Spikes
Divination Sparks
Magic Pixie Dust
Sound
Acid/Poison
+plus one more space for something that I haven't thought of yet. Maybe static electricity?
I would love to include some other area effects like a massive spray of arrows, stones or arrows. But again there are those hardcoded restrictions... so I'm going to have be incredibly selective.
Luckily there are only 20 or so spells that require area of effect animations. Others are single target animations which are so much easier.
I can get away will combining an invisible area of effect field with a single target animation. For example Zone of Sweet Air is an example of that. The shock wave that appears is a single target animation. So I can create area of effect spells like Hilather's Blacksphere by using the Blacksphere animation from PST and apply an invisible area of effect field. The IWDification mod does this for spells like Acid Storm.
Apologies if this sounds like convoluted rambling but it makes sense to me. I hope this wasn't externalised while I was away, because if it was then I'm just making life harder for myself...
I'm thinking of ditching this thread altogether, since I kinda want a clean start going into the new release. Especially since the name is going to change. Faiths of Faerun doesn't really make much sense since we are going into arcane and non-magical kits. So I'm going to make a new progress thread. Doing so will help clear my thinking a bit. I've got so much going on with this mod, that I need to simplify things.
Still haven't figured out a new name though. When this first started I called the project TSRkits because the whole thing drew from the TSR era of DnD. Then I thought about 2KO as in the 2nd edition Kit Overhaul project but that doesn't quite fit since there are some 1st edition concepts in the mod. So what should I call it? Once that is decided I'll create the new thread.
The colours are a tad bright, but going any darker makes them a little too dull. Something goes weird in the conversion from bmp to bam that makes them more vibrant.