@Mordeus you doing a great job... keep the good work up...
on the matter of shai'rs of 2nd edition I would advice that to make it flipcoint of sorcerer... A 2nd edition shai'rs knows all the elemental based wizards spells and he knows all divine spells but he can cast less spells per day than an average wizard as counter balance (in pnp the shai'rs casting time was insane and that was becouse of the gen travelling to elemental plane to get that spells in 3rd and 4th edition they simplyfy it by saying while you are asleep the gen gets those spells you want to cast the next day).. you could add the genie summons in later lvl to help out this class in battles and lack of spells to cast per day... and making the familiar stonger for every lvl shai'rs get and shai'r don't lose con point eveytime the familiar dies (they just resummon them)
anyway of all ninja kits i've seen the Shadow warrior and The spirit warrior are the best to add maybe you know this already shadow warrior gets weapons specialization as a fighter but their thaco will be as thiefs and they start with no point in thiefs skills.... the spirit warrior has the same exp chart as wizard and their thaco are as thiefs and they gain spells like paladin spells chart... that means from lvl 9 and up they can cast illusions spells... anyway i might have said something wrong..but do check them out if you still havent. http://www.tsrinfo.net/archive/dd1/phbr15-2.jpg
@darkersun We are starting by overhauling divine magic and then moving to arcane magic. With the last big overhaul being about bringing a non-weapon proficiency system into the game. These three components are the foundation for this mod. From there we are introducing some 2ed kits that take advantage of these new gameplay additions. There's also another major fix being a workaround of the usability flags, to give more specialised equipment combinations.
In regards to the Rouge Rebalance mod, we will be overstepping on some of its' territory. Namely the HLA abilities and some of the pen & paper fixes. But I don't think installing both would have any side-effects, although we'll have to test this out. The non-weapon proficiency system will be pretty much the high level abilities system with new abilities that are available from as early as level 1. For example makes no sense to give the Tracking skill to a lv20+ character when you could give it to a lv1 Ranger.
This will give the more melee orientated classes some features to distinguish themselves from other warrior based classes. The idea is to give up to 25 non-weapon proficiencies to each kit but only allowing enough points to specialise in around a third of them. So the player will have alot of options in how they will develop their characters. You might find the need to bring along two of the same class because together they share all the non-weapon proficiencies.
We feel this makes alot more sense than giving 10 or so HLAs to be used in Throne of Bhaal. We'll set aside 5 or so skills to be used in Throne of Bhaal but our focus is expanding gameplay for BG1 and BG2.
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@The_Shairs_Handbook The Ninja's Handbook is a little strange in that the kits aren't really all that remarkable. It's probably worth just using the main Ninja and leaving out the Spy/Killer kits. Maybe we could keep the Shadow Warrior since it's allowed for the Dwarf and Halfling but there's many more sophisticated kits than the Shadow Warrior. Much easier to combine the best traits of everything in the handbook into one single kit, so there will be a little of the Shadow Warrior in the Ninja kit we produce.
The magic for the Ninja will be a mix of its' own unique spells and some of the more generalist/non-elemental Wu Jen spells like Iron Kimono. Probably best to make it a Ranger kit since it would give the ability to cast spells and to hide in the shadows. It means losing out on major thieving skills but the Assassin pretty much fills the role of a Ninja thief.
That sounds better than I ever expected. If I can support what you doing let me know. (At the moment only with ideas, I have no idea how to mod BG, maybe I should change that)
Just kind of building on what Mordeus was saying, compatibility with other mods is going to be something we aim for, and it's definitely something we will consider. Obviously the scope of our mod is quite large, and that leaves a lot of room to run over with other mods. As the time comes when our mod starts causing problems with others we will look into it on a case by case basis.
I'm having a little bit of a mess around with the con combat proficiencies and it is looking good, if it a bit awkward to get working properly. I've worked out most of the kinks and am probably going to go back to testing the core stuff until after release, however it has given me a lot to consider.
If you have any ideas they are always welcome, obviously me and Mordeus may decide not to include them but extra input never hurts.
I have no issue with you being a replacement for RR, but the point of RR to me is that it makes the core bard not-so useless (And pretty damn close to P&P) So Needing to install one less mod to obtain that would be great.
@LordsDarkKnight185 I know Mordeus' favourite class is bards although i don't often play with them, so they will definitely be getting some looking at in the future.
I'm starting work on creating icons for the special abilities and innate skills. This is going to be slightly easier because I don't have to create spellbook or scroll icons, just ones for the interface.
But the question I really want to ask the community is about wizard scrolls. We're going to redo them to get them in line with the new look spells. However instead of using just the standard scroll background, maybe we can vary it a little. To give them an immediate visual appearance that shows what kit or class they belong to. Here are some of my ideas.
- Mage scrolls would be the standard parchment scroll. - Wu Jen/Ninja/Oriental scrolls would have a recoloured parchment to look like they were made of ricepaper, with their spell icons looking like Japanese calligraphy. - Lich/Pure Necromancy scrolls would be dark and decayed. - Red wizard scrolls would have a blood-soaked colour like their robes or have a decorative border.
Though I'm not sure what I'd do visually to the priest/general scrolls.
Another thing we'll need advice on is the non-weapon proficiency system. We might as well get the planning on it underway. The limits at the moment are that we can only have 24 abilities available per character, at the moment 10 of them are used up for HLAs if you are a single classed character, 20 if multi-classed.
So that means we can either keep the HLAs as they are giving us 14 or 4 ability slots to work from. Or we can restructure the HLA menu from scratch. My preference is we largely start over. We can keep some of the existing abilities and merge ones like Whirlwind Attack and Greater Whirlwind Attack together into a single ability that improves as the character gains levels. So for the majority of BG1 and BG2 you'd get something like a weak Whirlwind Attack but when in ToB it would be upgraded to a much stronger version.
I'm thinking that there might be a way to structure this. Non-Weapon proficiencies in 2ed are grouped in General, Warrior, Rogue, Mage and Priest categories. So we could structure it like this.
So there's 65 abilities we can get started on to lay the foundations, and then later expand it in regards to the kits.
The way the HLA progression works is that you can the point rate once. So we could give the player 5 points at level 1 and then reduce it to 1 point per level for the rest of the game. Or do 1 point per level until level 10 where it becomes every 2nd level, etc...
It might be worth creating a level system for item creation abilities. So everytime you select the ability, a variable goes up by 1. Then when you use the ability in game it runs a check for that variable and executes it depending on what 'level' it is. So a level 1 Tailor ability would only create a rag like robe, but a level 10 ability would create a magical robe. Alternatively we could have 4 ability slots for tailoring, blacksmithing, leatherworking, instrument crafting (useful for Bard characters), etc... with 1 leftover for general artistry. Everytime you select the 'artistry' ability it stores a variable that increases the quality of the 4 creation abilities. The artistry skill could have a limit of 20 points to be used as a bit of a point sink to balance out the kind of items that can be created.
So if one spot is taken up for 'artistry' and another is taken up by a profession, then we can use the other three 'general' abilities for racial abilities. So the first racial ability would be simply the switching to a subrace that unlocks the Racial Battle bonus and the Racial Non-Battle bonus. The latter two abilities would run a check to see what sub race you picked and then apply the bonus that sub race offers. So a Sylvan Elf gives a Battle bonus to Bows, an Aquatic Elf gives a bonus to spears/tridents, a High Elf/Gray Elf gives a bonus to swords, etc... Then the non-battle bonus would be something like Heat/Cold Resistance, Hit Point Bonus, Hide in Shadows modifier, etc...
We could also be a bit bold by removing the usual ability progression for classes and put it in the HLA menu. So when you start a Paladin you must choose between a couple of Lay on Hands or a couple of Protection from Evils. Or a Druid must select what animals they will shapeshift into. Or we could delay the backstab multipliers until the player selects it from the HLA menu. Or move the 3 points in two-weapon style that Rangers get to be selected through the HLA menu. The Player's Options ruleset has a whole list of abilities that the player selects on character creation that really varies your character.
So the HLA menu could be broken up into 12 'passive' abilities that the player must settle on at level 1-5 that will shape the character for the rest of the game, they get 6 points so they can only specialise in half of the possible class traits. And then the other 12 can be kit specific 'active' abilities they gain for gameplay beyond level 5. So it would be a Low Level Abilities and High Level Abilities breakup of the HLA menu. Now that I've typed this out, maybe this is the easier approach. Since we could split the number 12 down the middle, so a dual multi-class character can have 6 from either class, and triple multi-class characters can have 4 from either class.
I've rambled a bit but I'm not deleting anything because these are ideas I've had about going about the non-weapon proficiency system. The best place to go from here is to compile a list of proficiencies from the sourcebooks and then discuss their use and how to balance them for the game. Once we get a plan together for the system, one that is scrutinised, then we can start on getting it done for the mod.
But the question I post is simply, what are people's thoughts on having item creating abilities, racial abilities, kit based abilities down through the HLA menu?
PS: If we can't get the Priest mod released on time. We can just either launch 5 of the best kits we've got or just release an iconpack.
Priest Scrolls can have some gold embossing to make them appear holy, or possibly different embossing depending on their sphere?
To be honest, I'm worried that a major HLA restructuring would make compatibility with other mods incredible painful. Would it be possible to do something like this:
~Keep HLAs the same (high level rewards)
~Add LLAs to the same table that can be taken multiple times, that just do little things like +5 HP (Hardiness) or a greater chance to dodge arrows (Arrow Catch). Some would be universal, others would be restricted to certain classes.
~Certain subraces and the like would gain racial-specific LLAs. (such as Drow getting to choose to upgrade either their Globe of Darkness or reduce their daylight penalty)
Players would only be able to choose to take one of the LLAs until they reached high levels.
The amount of LLA points gained before HLAs are unlocked (at which point they revert to what they are like currently) depend on class and, if possible, subrace. Fighters would gain a lot more LLA points than mages for example, and subraces with loads of bonus abilities would get fewer LLAs than the standard races.
Hope you like the suggestion, although I guess a lot of it will be unfeasible.
- Lich/Pure Necromancy scrolls would be dark and decayed. - Red wizard scrolls would have a blood-soaked colour like their robes or have a decorative border.
This may be a bit much. We don't know which scrolls come from Red Wizards (and Red Wizards use normal Wizard scrolls so there shouldn't be a difference). Necromancy is a spell school like any other, making Necromancy scrolls look different is probably just confusing.
This keeps getting bigger and better each time I visit. I vote for the total reconstruction of HLA:s, the old system was quite poor in my opinion. Also I would like iconpack to be usable as seperate mod too if possible. Thank you.
@Tome Gold embossing may just do the trick. Although maybe the general/priest scrolls should be the plain version. Then the generalist arcane scrolls get some gold embossing, the Red Wizard gets red embossing and the Lich scrolls get dark embossing. The Wychlaran scrolls could get a green-ish colour.
@Drugar The Red Wizards have around 12 spells that are uniquely them, kinda like a high level mix of Fire Elementalism/Necromancy. So it might be worth visually singling them out. Same with the "Pure Necromancy" that's a group of spells that can only be used by Liches and Necromancer specialist kits. So the average Necromancer cannot use them but the Ghul Lord, Anatomist, Undead Master, etc... can since they are restricted to only use spells from the general and pure schools of Necromancy, and not the other 7 schools.
@Darksheer Ok, I can release the iconpack today actually.
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We've discovered some limitations with the HLA system. But there is a way around it using a combination of HLA, non-weapon proficiencies and ability traits. As a bit of a compromise, it's going to be an optional component to the mod. So users don't have to use it. However if you want to use certain kits like the Runecaster, it may be required.
We've also decided to make the racial abilities available through tutorial NPCs. So they've be present around Candlekeep, Waukeen's Promenade and Saradush for the tutorial portions of the game. Also item creation tutors will be there in place of item creation abilities. Then there is also the specialist mage scroll vendors.
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I'll run by you guys the 2ed sub-races available in the Player's Option: Skills & Powers guide.
Dwarves: - Deep Dwarves - Gray Dwarves (Duergar) - Hill Dwarves* - Mountain Dwarves*
*Hill and Mountain Dwarves have the exact same racial abilities, so we're going to have to just pick one.
Elves: - Aquatic Elves - Dark Elves (Drow) - Gray Elves - High Elves - Sylvan Elves
Gnomes: - Deep Gnomes (Svirfneblin) - Forest Gnomes - Rock Gnomes
Half-Orc: - Half-Ogre (not really a subrace of the Half-Orc but we'll consider it in there)
Should we add in the races that appear in IWD2? Namely the Shield Dwarf, Gold Dwarf, Wild Elf, Strongheart Halfling and Ghostwise Halfling? Not sure which ones of these fit into the 2ed lore except for really the Wild Elf. There's also other subraces from 2ed like the Jungle Dwarf which I haven't managed to track down rules for yet.
As for Human subraces, I'm thinking of ditching the popular Aasimar and Tiefling for more localised humans, since having planetouched races would be a bit much. Like Rashemi (human from Rashemar), Chultan (human from Chult), Thayan (human from Thay), Uthgardt (human worshipper of Uthgar), etc... The regular human of the sword coast would just be your regular human.
I've been trying to track down the origins of the HLA system and it seems largely taken from DM's Option: High Level Campaigns. But the interesting thing is that they were designed to be accessed as early as level 10 and designed to improve incrementally as late as level 30. Here is the list of HLA abilities from 2ed. The first number in brackets is the level that the skill is made first available, with the successive numbers being the level for where it upgrades.
Nearly all of the BG2 HLA skills come from this list aside from Resist Magic, Power Attack, Critical Strike, Set Spike Trap, Set Exploding Trap, Set Time Trap, Use Any Item, Assassination, Avoid Death, Tracking, Magic Flute and Enhanced Bard Song. Of which could have been either made up, taken from 3ed or from the 2ed non-weapon proficiency list.
Some of the above abilities are clearly junk skills if they were ported into BG but some are really quite useful. I also like how the p&p HLA list give priests and even wizards some HLAs instead of just quest spells. So what we can do is have a set of non-weapon proficiencies you choose from at level 1, then when you reach level 10 some of the HLAs are open to you. There's one unfortunate problem with the HLA list that needs to be addressed which is that there needs to be an available skill for every level or the HLA menu is shut off permanently.
We could make it that you learn one non-weapon proficiency per level until level 5 when they get shut off. Then have the HLAs open from level 10 to the early 20s. Then there's just the gap of level 5-10 and somewhere after that that needs to be sorted out. We could have a set of feats or traits that do real minor things like give a +1 HP bonus or a +1% thieving bonus or for mages a random spell learned or an increased skill in crafting. Just anything that keeps the HLA menu up and running. For most kits the HLA menu just needs to be open until level 21 or 24 because the abilities will be automatically upgraded in regards to the player's level.
@Mordeus - The Player's Option books are general D&D books, and in Forgotten Realms the names of the races are different (Gray Elf=Sun or Gold Elf ; High Elf=Moon or Silver Elf etc.). It may be a good idea to use the FR terms, as BG takes place in Faerun.
So incredibly close to releasing the first beta. Requiem's done his part, now I'm just fixing up some icons and descriptions that are a little jumbled, then I'm going to post it online.
It seems like the mod doesn't work for multi class clerics, like a cleric/ranger. So far, he has only access to the druidic spells, but no cleric spells at all. The Celestial didn't appear to give me the choice for the kit, even with a CreateCreature to spawn it. For a true class cleric though, I have so far tested so far only the Dweomerer of Mystra, but it seems like it works fine !
@Jaeldyn Good catch. I think the problem here is that we forgot to edit the cleric class's spell tables. I see that there are druid, paladin and ranger files but no cleric ones. To get our sphere system working we had to disable all the original spells to wipe the slate clean and then re-add specific spells. What's happening here is the spell removal file has removed both spells from the cleric and ranger, but only spells from the ranger have been added. We'll add the required cleric file in the next day or so.
As for the Celestial NPC, atm it only works if the Cleric is the protagonist in the main Baldur's Gate game. For some reason it doesn't appear in the Black Pits and it won't appear in a multi-player game unless you are in the first player slot. If you are having problems getting it to appear in Candlekeep, then that's quite strange.
We may have to switch to plan B if the dialogue box method is presenting too many problems. One option is to have the kits selected through the HLA menu, the downside would be that the character starts off at level 0 and will have to immediately level up to change into their kit.
@Jaedlyn@Mordeus Fixed and tested, the problem was as mordeus described above. This now works and gives an extra option to have a cleric who follows no specific deity, multi class clerics have the same sphere access as this non-deity cleric.
What I did was making a Cleric/ranger in the main BG I (I didn't try it in the Black Pits) and it didn't appear. So what I tried to do was spawn it with the CLUAConsole:CreateCreature("initsele") to see if it would work after I noticed the lack of cleric spells, but it gave me no dialogues at all. I suppose that multi classes clerics aren't considered clerics for that purpose. On a True Cleric though there are no problems with it appearing and the dialog working.
@Jaedlyn the new version hasnt been uploaded yet, but the problem in simple terms is that a multiclass uses the base class ability files of the different classes. I hadn't edited the priest base class so it didn't add of the new spells.
It was a little more awkward than that due to overlapping spells etc but it is fixed now, I will send the new version to Mordeus shortly.
We've moved the downloads to a 'dropbox' within Google Drive. So multiple versions will be held here as an archive. Be sure to download the latest version to avoid any bugs.
Latest version uploaded, i'm signing off for a bit now, but if anyone has any other issues then please report them to Myself or Mordeus either in this thread or through a private message.
Incredibly hyped about downloading the mod, but I think I will wait until multiplayer support is added-planning to do a runthrough with 6 different types of cleric to see how different they all feel. Thanks so much for all your hard work on this guys!
@Tome I will have a multiplayer and black pits compatible version uploaded either late tonight or early tomorrow (UK time that is).
@Eudaemonium I wish I could say, however I don't own a Mac or any apple product for that matter and so it will be @Mordeus who can enlighten you (i'm not sure when he will be back on sadly). I always thought that weidu worked fine on the Mac, I never even considered that anything would be different.
Comments
you doing a great job... keep the good work up...
on the matter of shai'rs of 2nd edition I would advice that to make it flipcoint of sorcerer...
A 2nd edition shai'rs knows all the elemental based wizards spells and he knows all divine spells but he can cast less spells per day than an average wizard as counter balance (in pnp the shai'rs casting time was insane and that was becouse of the gen travelling to elemental plane to get that spells in 3rd and 4th edition they simplyfy it by saying while you are asleep the gen gets those spells you want to cast the next day).. you could add the genie summons in later lvl to help out this class in battles and lack of spells to cast per day... and making the familiar stonger for every lvl shai'rs get and shai'r don't lose con point eveytime the familiar dies (they just resummon them)
anyway of all ninja kits i've seen the Shadow warrior and The spirit warrior are the best to add
maybe you know this already
shadow warrior gets weapons specialization as a fighter but their thaco will be as thiefs and they start with no point in thiefs skills.... the spirit warrior has the same exp chart as wizard and their thaco are as thiefs and they gain spells like paladin spells chart... that means from lvl 9 and up they can cast illusions spells... anyway i might have said something wrong..but do check them out if you still havent.
http://www.tsrinfo.net/archive/dd1/phbr15-2.jpg
can't wait to see your finished work
Best Wishes The_Shairs_Handbook
In regards to the Rouge Rebalance mod, we will be overstepping on some of its' territory. Namely the HLA abilities and some of the pen & paper fixes. But I don't think installing both would have any side-effects, although we'll have to test this out. The non-weapon proficiency system will be pretty much the high level abilities system with new abilities that are available from as early as level 1. For example makes no sense to give the Tracking skill to a lv20+ character when you could give it to a lv1 Ranger.
This will give the more melee orientated classes some features to distinguish themselves from other warrior based classes. The idea is to give up to 25 non-weapon proficiencies to each kit but only allowing enough points to specialise in around a third of them. So the player will have alot of options in how they will develop their characters. You might find the need to bring along two of the same class because together they share all the non-weapon proficiencies.
We feel this makes alot more sense than giving 10 or so HLAs to be used in Throne of Bhaal. We'll set aside 5 or so skills to be used in Throne of Bhaal but our focus is expanding gameplay for BG1 and BG2.
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@The_Shairs_Handbook The Ninja's Handbook is a little strange in that the kits aren't really all that remarkable. It's probably worth just using the main Ninja and leaving out the Spy/Killer kits. Maybe we could keep the Shadow Warrior since it's allowed for the Dwarf and Halfling but there's many more sophisticated kits than the Shadow Warrior. Much easier to combine the best traits of everything in the handbook into one single kit, so there will be a little of the Shadow Warrior in the Ninja kit we produce.
The magic for the Ninja will be a mix of its' own unique spells and some of the more generalist/non-elemental Wu Jen spells like Iron Kimono. Probably best to make it a Ranger kit since it would give the ability to cast spells and to hide in the shadows. It means losing out on major thieving skills but the Assassin pretty much fills the role of a Ninja thief.
(At the moment only with ideas, I have no idea how to mod BG, maybe I should change that)
I'm having a little bit of a mess around with the con combat proficiencies and it is looking good, if it a bit awkward to get working properly. I've worked out most of the kinks and am probably going to go back to testing the core stuff until after release, however it has given me a lot to consider.
If you have any ideas they are always welcome, obviously me and Mordeus may decide not to include them but extra input never hurts.
But the question I really want to ask the community is about wizard scrolls. We're going to redo them to get them in line with the new look spells. However instead of using just the standard scroll background, maybe we can vary it a little. To give them an immediate visual appearance that shows what kit or class they belong to. Here are some of my ideas.
- Mage scrolls would be the standard parchment scroll.
- Wu Jen/Ninja/Oriental scrolls would have a recoloured parchment to look like they were made of ricepaper, with their spell icons looking like Japanese calligraphy.
- Lich/Pure Necromancy scrolls would be dark and decayed.
- Red wizard scrolls would have a blood-soaked colour like their robes or have a decorative border.
Though I'm not sure what I'd do visually to the priest/general scrolls.
So that means we can either keep the HLAs as they are giving us 14 or 4 ability slots to work from. Or we can restructure the HLA menu from scratch. My preference is we largely start over. We can keep some of the existing abilities and merge ones like Whirlwind Attack and Greater Whirlwind Attack together into a single ability that improves as the character gains levels. So for the majority of BG1 and BG2 you'd get something like a weak Whirlwind Attack but when in ToB it would be upgraded to a much stronger version.
I'm thinking that there might be a way to structure this. Non-Weapon proficiencies in 2ed are grouped in General, Warrior, Rogue, Mage and Priest categories. So we could structure it like this.
1st row: General abilities. (5 abilities)
2nd row: Warrior/Rogue/Mage/Priest Generalist abilities. (20 abilities)
3rd row: Fighter/Ranger/Paladin/Cleric/Druid/Mage/Thief/Bard Generalist abilities. (40 abilities)
4th & 5th rows: Kit specific abilities.
So there's 65 abilities we can get started on to lay the foundations, and then later expand it in regards to the kits.
The way the HLA progression works is that you can the point rate once. So we could give the player 5 points at level 1 and then reduce it to 1 point per level for the rest of the game. Or do 1 point per level until level 10 where it becomes every 2nd level, etc...
It might be worth creating a level system for item creation abilities. So everytime you select the ability, a variable goes up by 1. Then when you use the ability in game it runs a check for that variable and executes it depending on what 'level' it is. So a level 1 Tailor ability would only create a rag like robe, but a level 10 ability would create a magical robe. Alternatively we could have 4 ability slots for tailoring, blacksmithing, leatherworking, instrument crafting (useful for Bard characters), etc... with 1 leftover for general artistry. Everytime you select the 'artistry' ability it stores a variable that increases the quality of the 4 creation abilities. The artistry skill could have a limit of 20 points to be used as a bit of a point sink to balance out the kind of items that can be created.
So if one spot is taken up for 'artistry' and another is taken up by a profession, then we can use the other three 'general' abilities for racial abilities. So the first racial ability would be simply the switching to a subrace that unlocks the Racial Battle bonus and the Racial Non-Battle bonus. The latter two abilities would run a check to see what sub race you picked and then apply the bonus that sub race offers. So a Sylvan Elf gives a Battle bonus to Bows, an Aquatic Elf gives a bonus to spears/tridents, a High Elf/Gray Elf gives a bonus to swords, etc... Then the non-battle bonus would be something like Heat/Cold Resistance, Hit Point Bonus, Hide in Shadows modifier, etc...
We could also be a bit bold by removing the usual ability progression for classes and put it in the HLA menu. So when you start a Paladin you must choose between a couple of Lay on Hands or a couple of Protection from Evils. Or a Druid must select what animals they will shapeshift into. Or we could delay the backstab multipliers until the player selects it from the HLA menu. Or move the 3 points in two-weapon style that Rangers get to be selected through the HLA menu. The Player's Options ruleset has a whole list of abilities that the player selects on character creation that really varies your character.
So the HLA menu could be broken up into 12 'passive' abilities that the player must settle on at level 1-5 that will shape the character for the rest of the game, they get 6 points so they can only specialise in half of the possible class traits. And then the other 12 can be kit specific 'active' abilities they gain for gameplay beyond level 5. So it would be a Low Level Abilities and High Level Abilities breakup of the HLA menu. Now that I've typed this out, maybe this is the easier approach. Since we could split the number 12 down the middle, so a dual multi-class character can have 6 from either class, and triple multi-class characters can have 4 from either class.
I've rambled a bit but I'm not deleting anything because these are ideas I've had about going about the non-weapon proficiency system. The best place to go from here is to compile a list of proficiencies from the sourcebooks and then discuss their use and how to balance them for the game. Once we get a plan together for the system, one that is scrutinised, then we can start on getting it done for the mod.
But the question I post is simply, what are people's thoughts on having item creating abilities, racial abilities, kit based abilities down through the HLA menu?
PS: If we can't get the Priest mod released on time. We can just either launch 5 of the best kits we've got or just release an iconpack.
Priest Scrolls can have some gold embossing to make them appear holy, or possibly different embossing depending on their sphere?
To be honest, I'm worried that a major HLA restructuring would make compatibility with other mods incredible painful. Would it be possible to do something like this:
~Keep HLAs the same (high level rewards)
~Add LLAs to the same table that can be taken multiple times, that just do little things like +5 HP (Hardiness) or a greater chance to dodge arrows (Arrow Catch). Some would be universal, others would be restricted to certain classes.
~Certain subraces and the like would gain racial-specific LLAs. (such as Drow getting to choose to upgrade either their Globe of Darkness or reduce their daylight penalty)
Players would only be able to choose to take one of the LLAs until they reached high levels.
The amount of LLA points gained before HLAs are unlocked (at which point they revert to what they are like currently) depend on class and, if possible, subrace. Fighters would gain a lot more LLA points than mages for example, and subraces with loads of bonus abilities would get fewer LLAs than the standard races.
Hope you like the suggestion, although I guess a lot of it will be unfeasible.
@Drugar The Red Wizards have around 12 spells that are uniquely them, kinda like a high level mix of Fire Elementalism/Necromancy. So it might be worth visually singling them out. Same with the "Pure Necromancy" that's a group of spells that can only be used by Liches and Necromancer specialist kits. So the average Necromancer cannot use them but the Ghul Lord, Anatomist, Undead Master, etc... can since they are restricted to only use spells from the general and pure schools of Necromancy, and not the other 7 schools.
@Darksheer Ok, I can release the iconpack today actually.
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We've discovered some limitations with the HLA system. But there is a way around it using a combination of HLA, non-weapon proficiencies and ability traits. As a bit of a compromise, it's going to be an optional component to the mod. So users don't have to use it. However if you want to use certain kits like the Runecaster, it may be required.
We've also decided to make the racial abilities available through tutorial NPCs. So they've be present around Candlekeep, Waukeen's Promenade and Saradush for the tutorial portions of the game. Also item creation tutors will be there in place of item creation abilities. Then there is also the specialist mage scroll vendors.
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I'll run by you guys the 2ed sub-races available in the Player's Option: Skills & Powers guide.
Dwarves:
- Deep Dwarves
- Gray Dwarves (Duergar)
- Hill Dwarves*
- Mountain Dwarves*
*Hill and Mountain Dwarves have the exact same racial abilities, so we're going to have to just pick one.
Elves:
- Aquatic Elves
- Dark Elves (Drow)
- Gray Elves
- High Elves
- Sylvan Elves
Gnomes:
- Deep Gnomes (Svirfneblin)
- Forest Gnomes
- Rock Gnomes
Halflings:
- Hairfoot Halflings
- Stout Halflings
- Tallfellow Halflings
Half-Orc:
- Half-Ogre (not really a subrace of the Half-Orc but we'll consider it in there)
Should we add in the races that appear in IWD2? Namely the Shield Dwarf, Gold Dwarf, Wild Elf, Strongheart Halfling and Ghostwise Halfling? Not sure which ones of these fit into the 2ed lore except for really the Wild Elf. There's also other subraces from 2ed like the Jungle Dwarf which I haven't managed to track down rules for yet.
As for Human subraces, I'm thinking of ditching the popular Aasimar and Tiefling for more localised humans, since having planetouched races would be a bit much. Like Rashemi (human from Rashemar), Chultan (human from Chult), Thayan (human from Thay), Uthgardt (human worshipper of Uthgar), etc... The regular human of the sword coast would just be your regular human.
ALL WARRIORS
- Adaptation (10)
- All-Around Attack aka whirlwind (10/15/20/25/30)
- Bravery
- Captivate (requires Bravery)
- Death Blow (15 requires Bravery)
- Frighten aka war cry (10 requires Bravery)
- Hardiness (15/20/25/30 requires Bravery)
- Inner Focus (10/15/20/25/30)
- Signature Item (10)
- Signature Mount (10)
- Sense Danger (15/20/25/30)
FIGHTERS
- Breech Immunity (21/24/27/30)
- Intimidation (21/24/27/30)
RANGERS
- Extra Followers (21/26)
- Priest Scroll and Priest Magical Item Use (21)
- Priest Scroll Writing (24)
- Scrying (27)
PALADINS
- Priest Scroll and Priest Magical Item Use (21)
- Priest Scroll Writing (24)
- Disease Immunity (27)
ALL PRIESTS
- Divine Strength (10/15/20/25/30 requires Eminence)
- Divine Voice (15 requires Eminence)
- Divine Will (10)
- Detect Deception (15/18/21/24/27 requires Eminence)
- Eminence (10)
- Invincibility (21/24/27 requires Eminence)
- Loan (15/20/25/30 requires Eminence)
- Smite (15/18/21/24/27/30 requires Eminence)
- Improved Undead Turning (21)
- Improved Access to Quest Spells (20)
- Increased Spell Sphere Selection (21/25/27)
- Holy Army (21)
- Spell Talisman (12/15/18/21/24/27/30)
ALL WIZARDS
- Sage Ability (21/24/27)
- Mental Focus (12/17/21/26/30)
- Signature Item (12)
- Spell Sculpting (12/15/18/21/24/27/30)
ALL ROGUES
- Adaptation (11)
- Classify Traps (11)
- Evasion (16)
- Fall/Jump (11/14/17/20/22/25/28)
- Featherfoot (11/14/17)
- Improvised Attack (16)
- Inner Focus (11/16/21/26)
- Nondetection (16)
- Sense Danger (16/21/26)
- Shadow Flight (21)
- Shadow Travel (16)
THIEVES
- Extra Thieving Skills (21)
- Improved Arcane Scroll Use (24/27/29)
BARDS
- Extra Thieving Skills (21)
- Improved Arcane Scroll Use (21/24/27/30)
- Improved Item Identification (21)
- Magical Item Use (24)
- Item Creation (27)
Nearly all of the BG2 HLA skills come from this list aside from Resist Magic, Power Attack, Critical Strike, Set Spike Trap, Set Exploding Trap, Set Time Trap, Use Any Item, Assassination, Avoid Death, Tracking, Magic Flute and Enhanced Bard Song. Of which could have been either made up, taken from 3ed or from the 2ed non-weapon proficiency list.
Some of the above abilities are clearly junk skills if they were ported into BG but some are really quite useful. I also like how the p&p HLA list give priests and even wizards some HLAs instead of just quest spells. So what we can do is have a set of non-weapon proficiencies you choose from at level 1, then when you reach level 10 some of the HLAs are open to you. There's one unfortunate problem with the HLA list that needs to be addressed which is that there needs to be an available skill for every level or the HLA menu is shut off permanently.
We could make it that you learn one non-weapon proficiency per level until level 5 when they get shut off. Then have the HLAs open from level 10 to the early 20s. Then there's just the gap of level 5-10 and somewhere after that that needs to be sorted out. We could have a set of feats or traits that do real minor things like give a +1 HP bonus or a +1% thieving bonus or for mages a random spell learned or an increased skill in crafting. Just anything that keeps the HLA menu up and running. For most kits the HLA menu just needs to be open until level 21 or 24 because the abilities will be automatically upgraded in regards to the player's level.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BwxUZXZbu5bpeTVBV3RUMFJTQjg&usp=sharing
An OSX version is currently in the works and will be ready for download soon.
The Celestial didn't appear to give me the choice for the kit, even with a CreateCreature to spawn it.
For a true class cleric though, I have so far tested so far only the Dweomerer of Mystra, but it seems like it works fine !
As for the Celestial NPC, atm it only works if the Cleric is the protagonist in the main Baldur's Gate game. For some reason it doesn't appear in the Black Pits and it won't appear in a multi-player game unless you are in the first player slot. If you are having problems getting it to appear in Candlekeep, then that's quite strange.
We may have to switch to plan B if the dialogue box method is presenting too many problems. One option is to have the kits selected through the HLA menu, the downside would be that the character starts off at level 0 and will have to immediately level up to change into their kit.
On a True Cleric though there are no problems with it appearing and the dialog working.
@Requiem Cool I'll give it a try now
It was a little more awkward than that due to overlapping spells etc but it is fixed now, I will send the new version to Mordeus shortly.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BwxUZXZbu5bpeTVBV3RUMFJTQjg&usp=sharing
Requiem will shortly be adding the newest version here for downloading.
@Eudaemonium I wish I could say, however I don't own a Mac or any apple product for that matter and so it will be @Mordeus who can enlighten you (i'm not sure when he will be back on sadly). I always thought that weidu worked fine on the Mac, I never even considered that anything would be different.