@Trouveur That's a good idea to use some of the IWD spells.
This is the latest list of Divine spells. I don't think there's any 2ed ones I've missed that aren't Specialty Priest spells. Not all of these will make it into the mod. After making lists for the arcane spells and kit skills, I'll go back and edit the list down.
Or we could add in all these spells but have the unfinished ones lay dormant until we get around to implementing them.
@Jaeldyn found the problem, the resistance does get applied at the start of the game, but it is dispellable. Been changed now for talos and auril and will be in the next release.
@The_Shairs_Handbook The Sha'ir is going to be a bit tricky. We're definitely going for the 2ed version. It's probably not possible to use the Sorcerer's magic system because there's alot of modding restrictions at the moment.
The method I think may work is to have the summoned genie appear with a specific set of spells memorised already, it'll depend on the type of genie you choose to summon and what level the caster is. So what we could do is either have the spells cast directly through the genie summon or do something similar to the Imbue With Spell Ability spell, where you select a target to gain that certain spell. The first option would be easier for everyone.
The Sha'ir character itself will receive spells from the Al Qadim generalist list but also gain genie summon spells. We could do this using the Druid as a base, so the spells are automatically learned or we could have them obtained through scrolls. I think if we do this using the Druid, we could implement a add/remove spell opcode, so upon summoning the genie a set of spells are added to the spellbook but upon switching to a different genie or through the genie's death, the spells are removed.
@Mordeus using Druid would be a very good choise and using add/remove spell opcode is very good.... i would thou recommend that they get 1d4 hp/lvl like wizards and not as druid... another questions do the gen and genies summons get stronger as you get to higher lvl (for people who love final fantasy 10 and final fantasy 11 summoner class the Sha'ir is the closest DnD class that comes to FFgames summoner class by that i mean you get few summons but they get stronger if you put effort in your summons or go up in lvl )???
the strongst suit of Sha'ir class is its summon genie follower (monster) and its gen familiar.... the gen in 2nd edition could take as long as 7 round to fetch and give the Sha'ir the spell to cast magic missile and casting a fireball 1 turn and it gets worse.... casting cure light wound would take 7 turns to cast..... the simples way when i think about it is to make the Sha'ir class in bg to cast less spells per day.... and focus more on its familiar and genie followers (in pnp 2nd edition you trusted on your teamates to handle the fights most of the time... you were useless in them but using the genie summon and upgraded familiar then you could join them in pnp battles...) .... in the book TSR2146 - Al-Qadim - CGR3 The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook chapter Enchantment of the Shairs helps aloot to think about how to build Sha'ir gens....
Just uploaded a new version which fixes a very small few text and spell bugs, and adds in some animations from IWD2 for the water elemental, ice elemental and histachii. It also adds the options to make some projectiles recoverable as a small extra tweak.
Took me a while but I went through the 2000 or so 2nd edition spells and picked out the viable ones from both Divine and Arcane spells. This message is fairly detailed and complicated, so I hope I get everything across. The spells in blue are the ones already in the vanilla version of BG:EE.
The first chart includes the three Divine groups of spells (Cleric, Shared/General & Druid), then the 8 main Arcane schools. The other chart includes the following niche groups/schools:
- Wild Magic (Extra spells for the existing Wild Mage) - Bard/Gypsy (Spells for Bard kits only) - Chronomancy (Time manipulation spells, variations of certain alteration spells gained a level earlier) - Drow (Drow exclusive spells, due to absence of a Drow race it could be restricted to evil aligned elves) - Elven (Mix of Elven and High Elven magic, could be restricted to good and neutral aligned elves) - Harper (Mix of Harper and Seven Sister magic) - Incantation (Metamagic; mix of spell defenses and spell dispelling/curses) - Kara-Tur (Spells for Oriental Arcane spellcasters) - High Necromancy (Spells for Necromancers only) - Paramander (Arcane Spells for Paladins) - Al Qadim (Spells for Arabian Arcane spellcasters) - Thay (Spells for Red Wizards) - Witch (Spells for Good/Evil/Neutral Witches, Wychlarans, Nature Mages, etc...)
It's looking like the Thay, Witch, High Necromancy and Harper schools aren't enough to warrant the creation of standalone kits/specialists. I'm thinking of just merging those four schools with the pre-existing 8 schools. Instead with alignment restrictions since Thay magic and some Necromancy/Witch spells are pure evil while the Harper/Seven Sister spells aren't for evil spellcasters. It would easier to just insert Red Wizard, Wychlaran, Harper, etc... gear that's themed rather than making specific kits.
As for the kits created through the new spells, I think these 4 are decent enough to make.
- Incantatrix/Incantator (Incantation/Metamagic plus Alteration, Abjuration, Divination and Enchantment) - Chronomancer (Chronomancy plus Alteration, Enchantment, Evocation, Divination & Illusion) - Wu Jen (Oriental Magic user that has a focus on elemental magic) - Sha'ir (Arabian Magic user that summons genies)
The Paramander will be used as a Paladin kit while the spellcasting Ninja will be used as a Thief kit.
I'm also thinking that it would be easier to make the Elven Dualist specialists into pure Sorcerer kits. So they would be the Sorcerer equivalent of the 8 specialist wizards. So for example a "Nelluonkkar" will be restricted to picking spells only from Illusion and Necromancy but will be able to cast 1 spell more per level. It's the closest way of following the p&p rule of it being a specialist that gets 2 extra memorization slots rather than the standard 1.
So our four new kits, plus the four Elven Dualists plus BG:EE's Dragon Disciple would fill out the Sorcerer's 9 available kit slots.
Then with the Cleric we have the kits from Faith & Avatars, the Crusader, (Spellcasting) Monk, Mystic & Shaman. In Oriental Adventures (1st ed) we have the Shugenja and the Sohei. Then in the Complete Barbarian's Handbook we have the following Barbarian Cleric kits, The Dreamwalker, Flamespeaker, Medicine Man, Seer, Spiritualist & Witchman. In the Priest Spell Compendium we have the Oracle which is supposed to be a NPC only kit but it's not overpowered.
We could move the (Spellcasting) Monk and the Sohei (Warrior Monk) under the Monk kit menu. Although we'll need to make a new name for the (Spellcasting) Monk to avoid confusion. We could call it the Holy Monk since in 2ed the Faith & Avatar's Crusader is sometimes referred to as the Holy Crusader.
As for the Druid kits, things get slightly complicated. In 2ed a Druid character is split into two halves, you must settle on a domain and then settle on a kit. The domain determines your equipment, spells and resistances while the kit determines your unique function. So we may have to do something tricky here. We could make it then when you select the True Druid, you are then forced to choose a domain and then the character's name changes into Arctic Druid, Desert Druid, etc... But if you select a kit you are also forced to choose a domain but the name and description of the kit doesn't change. So there will be up to 8 different variations of something like the Totemic Druid. To make things easier for players, we could make it that it creates a "Holy Symbol" spell in your spellbook that when clicked on has a description of the benefits you gained with your choice of domain.
Within Spoiler tags is a rough layout of the 2ed kits alongside the EE ones.
SORCERER -Dragon Disciple -Incantatrix (Metamage) -Chronomancer (Time Mage) -Wu Jen (Oriental Elementalist) -Sha'Ir (Arabian Summoner) -Alurakar (Specializes in only Alteration and Abjuration) -Dijakkar (Specializes in only Divination and Conjuration) -Encikkar (Specializes in Evocation and Enchantment) -Nelluonkkar (Specializes in Necromancy and Illusion)
CLERIC -Specialty Priest -Crusader (Cleric crossed with a Paladin) -Mystic (Potion brewer and practitioner of Candle Magic) -Shaman (Spirit summoner) -Oracle (Seer meets guardian) -Shugenja (Oriental priest) -Flamespeaker (Shapeshifter of flame) -Medicine Man (Herbalist) -Witchman (Voodoo practitioner)
(The Spiritualist is a weaker copy of the Shaman, the Dreamwalker is useless and the Seer is inferior to the Sibylite (Priest of Savras))
DRUID -Totemic Druid -Shapeshifter -Avenger -Hivemaster (Summons swarms) -Beastfriend (Kinda like a Beastmaster version of the druid) -Wanderer (Explorer focused Druid) -Savage (Barbarian version of the Druid) -Pacifist (Druid that is a weak fighter but can negate the effects of fear and rage)
If everything above is ok, then the next step is to cull the deadweight from the spell lists to around 50% of what's in the tables. Then it'll be time to slowly create all the spells and the icons. This way we'll have added in all the viable 2ed spells in one go and won't have to come back to add the ones we missed out on.
1. Some of the spells are Bard exclusives but there's also a list of Song Magic for the Song Mage. I'm thinking of turning some of those into Bard exclusives, notably the ones that involve the use of singing or summoned instruments. Should I go ahead?
2. The school of Incantation is pretty extensive, it's at least larger than Divination and Enchantment. At the moment they are being treated as spells coming from the main 8 schools. However right at the very end of 2ed's life, they were treated as belonging to their own school of Incantation. Would anyone mind if they were turned into pure Incantation spells? Since there's really no existing school that represents the concept of metamagic.
1. This sounds good to me. I think Bards should have a different spell-list than mages. I don't know if there is a spell restriction on the bard in 2nd ed. but in the 3rd there is and it makes sense for me.
2. If this is possible, a new school sounds very good to me.
The first point sounds good, it would actually make a good reason to pick up such a jack of all trade class like the bard, as right now, there is no reason other than RP wise to pick them, except the blade kit. On that note, will you change the bard kits ?
The second point doesn't bother much too, but aren't metamagic effects that are added to regular spells ? That is always how I thought it worked. You add a metamagic effect on a spell at the cost of a higher level spell slot. Hence Metamagic being of all schools. Though I don't mind another school.
Personally, I'm always in favour of adding to the bard. The 2nd ed. bard was indeed an unimpressive class mechanically (and this is coming from someone who almost always played a bard in P&P). In 3rd edition it came into its own, as one of the best (if not THE best) of booster classes (what 4th edition referred to as "leader"). Doing an overhaul of the bard spell list in the spirit of 3rd ed. should take into consideration, however, that the effects of bardic music in 3rd ed. (and even more so in 3.5 ed.) were dramatically more powerful than in 2nd ed., so diminishing the combat abilities of the bard's spell list would weaken an already weak class even further.
As for metamagic as an independent school, hoe would that work? what would the specialist be giving over? Will its spells be available to generalist mages? To other specialists? and most importantly, regardless of the size of the spell list, are the spells (as a group) powerful enough to sustain a viable class?
and finally @Jaeldyn - I think you are confusing the meaning of metamagic in 3rd ed. with the one in 2nd ed., there are no feats in 2nd ed. and so, metamagic are spells that affect other spells and spellcasting (like dispells etc.)
@Jaeldyn After all the spells have been added, we're going to look at adding in bard kits. There's some really interesting 2ed bard kits, especially demi-human ones. Not to mention that the BG2 version of the Bard left out some powerful abilities like the Counter Song which helps to deflect magic. Some kits have multiple Bard Songs, so I want do things like making an innate skill that switches between the kit's songs. So the True Bard could switch from a morale boosting song to a magic defense song rather than being stuck with the same song for all of the game.
@callimachus The school of metamagic aka Incantation was introduced in the Cult of the Dragon 2ed supplement. It's a school of magic that was organized specifically for the Incantatrix/Incantator specialist mage, a kit that was intended to be extremely rare, the supplement says there is around 5 known Incantatrix mages in the Forgotten Realms. The Incantatrix is only allowed to use spells from Abjuration, Alteration, Divination and Enchantment plus the school of Incantation. So the Incantatrix can't exploit the use of metamagic to aid in the more offensive schools of Evocation, it could help augment another offensive mage though. The Incantatrix's main focus is to negate, disable and slay spellcasters, kinda like a Wizard's Wizardslayer. They are designed to be pretty weak against non-spellcasters, not to mention that the school of Incantation has no spells below spell level 3. So even though they are powerful in a group they are one of the more challenging kits to play solo.
So the school of Incantation would be exclusive to the Incantatrix kit. Just like how the advanced Alteration spells known as Chronomancy is an exclusive to the Chronomancer. But in that case there is no need to make a separate school of Chronomancy since they are all Alteration spells.
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On a side note, the WIzard and Priest Spell Compendium changes some spells around a bit. Alongside Animal summoning I-III and Monster Summoning I-VII, there is a group of summoning spells for Necromancers called Undead Summoning I-VII, so I'm going to remove the Necromancer spell Animate Dead. So each level of Undead Summoning has a different undead creature, so one level specialises in skeletons, another ghouls, another ghasts, etc... I feel that way the undead summoning abilities of the Necromancer will scale alongside the player. Animate Dead will instead become a Cleric only spell.
As for the Clerical healing spells, I'm thinking of having a curative spell for every level. The p&p rules has one for every level except level 3, but BG2 introduces one for level 3 called Cure Medium wounds. So we might combine them, so Light, Moderate, Medium, Critical, Serious, Heal and Restoration would represent each spell level. The spell icon would mimic the summoning spell's use of roman numerals, so the player can see what level they come from instantly. The names would stay the same but visually it will read like Cure Wounds I-VII or Regenerate I-VII.
Also the Compendium introduces 7 versions of the Regeneration spell that aligns to the Cure Wounds one. So there's Regenerate Light Wounds, Regenerate Moderate Wounds, etc... all the way up to the level 7 spell Regenerate. So the player will have a choice to either heal in one go or to heal incrementally. The Druid doesn't have access to most Cure Wounds spells but they do get access to the whole list of Regenerate spells.
I'm not up to finalising the Divine spells but I'm just throwing out these ideas right now. I'm really wanting equal representation among the schools and spheres but also having the whole spell selection streamlined for gameplay. I think we will keep the idea of merging the reverse spells with their normal counterparts, but by doing so it frees up space in the spell menu to add in separate versions of the Cure Wounds spells for players that prefer to stock up their Clerics with healing spells.
@LordsDarkKnight185 I know, sorry if i came across as taking what you said as an insult, it's hard to convey tone over the internet, I took it as a compliment that you compared our work to divine remix , just wanted to say that hopefully in time this mod can exceed it
In my eyes FoF has exceeded DR. After about a month or so of playing with it, I am having more fun with it than I ever had with DR (Not that DR isn't still a fantastic mod, for its time, but what you have managed to do with FoF in bgee has exceeded my expectations).
Now if only I get to see that painbearer soon *cough cough* >.>;
I've gotten all the p&p arcane spells down to a list of 500. I'm going to try and ditch 100 more, then I think it might be best to post each school one by one with 5-10 word descriptions of each spell and see which spells people think should be ditched.
There's about 200 arcane spells already in the game, so I think 150 extra might be the goal. Sounds fairly large but most of the new spells are advanced forms of existing ones. For example Magic Missile forms the basis for Mordenkainen's Force Missiles, Nystul's Moonbow and I think Tempestcone.
I've attached the list so far, I've excluded the Wu Jen and Sha'ir spells for now because they have little nuances like elemental subschools and summons that need to be factored in.
For the school of Incantation, I think we might keep each spell within it under the banner of the main 8 just for simplicity's sake. But have those spells only usable by enemies and the Incantatrix.
So outside of the main 8 schools, we have 4 pseudo schools of Chronomancy, Incantatrix, Wild and Song (Bard) magic. But there's 4 groups of racial/alignment spells, the following is how I think they should be restricted...
- Harper/Seven Sister Magic = Good/Neutral aligned spellcasters - Elven/High Elven Magic = Good/Neutral aligned Elf/Half-Elf spellcasters - Drow Magic = Evil Elf/Half-Elf spellcasters (Closest thing to a drow subrace) - Thay Magic = Evil Human spellcasters
These spells however are going to be very rare since the vast majority of them come from Harper, Seven Sister, High Elf and Red Wizard spellbooks. So we might apply a high monster drop rate or really up the prices. Each spell in the compendium is given a rating of Common/Uncommon/Rare/Very Rare/Unique, so I think we could make a price formula where the rarity value is multiplied by the spell level.
I think ordering the arcane spells like this provides enough variation without going too crazy.
Ok I've culled all the deadweight. Now it's time to get feedback on the spells. So let's start with the smallest school, Divination. Bolded spells are already in the game and the number is the spell level.
1.Identify 1.Infravision 1.Know School - Reveals specialist wizard or kit. 1.Reveal Magic - Places an aura around those who are affected by dispel magic or magic. Can also reveal cursed items. 1.Read Magic - Can use spell scrolls in the quick item slots from outside their school restrictions for the duration of the spell. 2.Detect Evil/Detect Good 2.Detect Invisibility 2.Know Alignment 3.Clairvoyance 3.Detect Illusions 3.Find Traps - Same as the Divine version. 3.Wizard Sight - Reveals the magical aura or power level of those in the area by assigning them a strong, medium, dim glow. 4.Farsight 4.Identify Race - Reveals the race of a creature. 4.Locate Creature - Uses the Tracking ability to find location of creature. 4.Ultravision - Gives a larger range of infravision. 4.Sphere of Eyes - Summons a Wizard's Eye that repetitively detects invisibility and dispels nondetection. 4.Wizard's Eye 5.Oracle 5.Prying Eyes - Summons a 'horde' of weak wizard eyes (1d4 plus 1 per caster's level) 5.Shoondal's Seeking - Reveals location of locks and hidden items (useless thanks to the tab button) 6.Legend Lore - Increases lore score for a short duration, almost to the level of a Bard. 6.True Seeing - Same as the Divine version. 7.Anticipation - Immune to backstab 7.Exalted Eye - Stronger, improved form of Wizard's Eye. 7.Manor's Mind Vision - Reveals everything but illusions in the area of effect. 7.Vision Crystal - Conjures a crystal ball that can cast instant versions of True Seeing, Detect Invisibility, etc... 8.Screen - Immune to all detect magic (aka Detect Invisibility)
This is an easy one since most of the spells are already in the game and that there isn't really many to discuss. I think Ultravision is the only spell that can't be introduced because there are no modifiable values in opcode #63. Does anyone knows how to implement a stronger version of Infravision? And Shoondal's Seeking is useless unless there is a way of disabling the tab button.
It might seem like the Diviner will be useless but p&p rules gives it only 1 oppositional school, while the others get 2 or more. Plus its' High Level ability "Reveal" is pretty much all detect magic rolled into one.
So any objections to the new spells? If not all of them will be added (except for Ultravision if it is indeed impossible). If you know of any spell that I haven't included that could be, then feel free to suggest it.
Next school is Enchantment/Charm.
[edit] Just added some I missed, not sure if they can be implemented 100% though.
About the spells, is it possible to change some of the spell that are really not great. For example: 1.Infravision -> should give some bonus in the dark, like THAC0 2.Detect Evil/Detect Good 2.Know Alignment
Maybe they can give some insight bonus against the target etc.
4.Sphere of Eyes - Summons a Wizard's Eye that repetitively detects invisibility and dispels nondetection. Anticipation - Immune to backstab Exalted Eye - Stronger, improved form of Wizard's Eye.
are the spells i see as most usefull in the game....
I am curious as to what purpose 'Wizard's Eye' serves as the same level as 'Sphere of Eyes', seeing as Sphere would appear to completely negate it's utility.
@Eudaemonium I need to go over the description again but I think Sphere of Eyes is stationary and can't be moved or controled by the caster while Wizard's Eye is for scouting. So in battle versus an enemy that hides in shadow or goes invisible you cast Sphere of Eyes as a ward against invisibility. It's pretty much a fancy way of doing a "Proof Against Invisibility" spell.
Just wanted to say I love what you guys are doing with this mod. Fantastic stuff! Perhaps to buff the divination school and give it a more diverse selection you could include some of the nwn or iwd2 spells? I recall spells like executioners eyes, true strike and premonition being quite useful in their respective games. All i believe come from the divination school.
@Jaeldyn After all the spells have been added, we're going to look at adding in bard kits. There's some really interesting 2ed bard kits, especially demi-human ones. Not to mention that the BG2 version of the Bard left out some powerful abilities like the Counter Song which helps to deflect magic. Some kits have multiple Bard Songs, so I want do things like making an innate skill that switches between the kit's songs. So the True Bard could switch from a morale boosting song to a magic defense song rather than being stuck with the same song for all of the game.
That's a very good idea, but I hope that you will try to let them be compatible with Rogue Rebalancing Mod. From what I read on another board, aVENGER is not against others mods using the fix for dualwielding, bard and rogue kits, bard and rogue HLA, and proper spell progression for bard.
It would be a dream come true to play an half elf chaotic neutral bard able to cast all mage spells, and the specific Harpers ones, Elves ones and Gypsy/bard ones. :-)
As for kit, an halfling bard would be nice (Olive Ruskettle anyone ?).
Or what about the Fochlucan Lyrist ? It's a D&D3 prestige class, I don't know if it have an equivalent in AD&D2...
Funny you should say that, I'm toying with the idea of creating maps for modders to use. So I kinda would be making my own game...
@Trouveur I think most of what the Rogue Rebalancing Mod does will be compatible with this one.
As for Halfling Bards, there are two options the specialty priest kit called the Finder (of the god Finder Wyvernspur) or the Whistler kit. I seem to recall that there are two other kits that they can use in conjunction with humans and elves.
Not sure about the Fochlucan Lyrist, especially because there's already enough bard kits from 2ed to use.
Comments
edit: should be sorted now, i've uploaded the new version containing the fixes.
This is the latest list of Divine spells. I don't think there's any 2ed ones I've missed that aren't Specialty Priest spells. Not all of these will make it into the mod. After making lists for the arcane spells and kit skills, I'll go back and edit the list down.
Or we could add in all these spells but have the unfinished ones lay dormant until we get around to implementing them.
using Druid would be a very good choise and using add/remove spell opcode is very good.... i would thou recommend that they get 1d4 hp/lvl like wizards and not as druid...
another questions do the gen and genies summons get stronger as you get to higher lvl (for people who love final fantasy 10 and final fantasy 11 summoner class the Sha'ir is the closest DnD class that comes to FFgames summoner class by that i mean you get few summons but they get stronger if you put effort in your summons or go up in lvl )???
the strongst suit of Sha'ir class is its summon genie follower (monster) and its gen familiar.... the gen in 2nd edition could take as long as 7 round to fetch and give the Sha'ir the spell to cast magic missile and casting a fireball 1 turn and it gets worse.... casting cure light wound would take 7 turns to cast..... the simples way when i think about it is to make the Sha'ir class in bg to cast less spells per day.... and focus more on its familiar and genie followers (in pnp 2nd edition you trusted on your teamates to handle the fights most of the time... you were useless in them but using the genie summon and upgraded familiar then you could join them in pnp battles...) ....
in the book TSR2146 - Al-Qadim - CGR3 The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook chapter Enchantment of the Shairs helps aloot to think about how to build Sha'ir gens....
The first chart includes the three Divine groups of spells (Cleric, Shared/General & Druid), then the 8 main Arcane schools. The other chart includes the following niche groups/schools:
- Wild Magic (Extra spells for the existing Wild Mage)
- Bard/Gypsy (Spells for Bard kits only)
- Chronomancy (Time manipulation spells, variations of certain alteration spells gained a level earlier)
- Drow (Drow exclusive spells, due to absence of a Drow race it could be restricted to evil aligned elves)
- Elven (Mix of Elven and High Elven magic, could be restricted to good and neutral aligned elves)
- Harper (Mix of Harper and Seven Sister magic)
- Incantation (Metamagic; mix of spell defenses and spell dispelling/curses)
- Kara-Tur (Spells for Oriental Arcane spellcasters)
- High Necromancy (Spells for Necromancers only)
- Paramander (Arcane Spells for Paladins)
- Al Qadim (Spells for Arabian Arcane spellcasters)
- Thay (Spells for Red Wizards)
- Witch (Spells for Good/Evil/Neutral Witches, Wychlarans, Nature Mages, etc...)
It's looking like the Thay, Witch, High Necromancy and Harper schools aren't enough to warrant the creation of standalone kits/specialists. I'm thinking of just merging those four schools with the pre-existing 8 schools. Instead with alignment restrictions since Thay magic and some Necromancy/Witch spells are pure evil while the Harper/Seven Sister spells aren't for evil spellcasters. It would easier to just insert Red Wizard, Wychlaran, Harper, etc... gear that's themed rather than making specific kits.
As for the kits created through the new spells, I think these 4 are decent enough to make.
- Incantatrix/Incantator (Incantation/Metamagic plus Alteration, Abjuration, Divination and Enchantment)
- Chronomancer (Chronomancy plus Alteration, Enchantment, Evocation, Divination & Illusion)
- Wu Jen (Oriental Magic user that has a focus on elemental magic)
- Sha'ir (Arabian Magic user that summons genies)
The Paramander will be used as a Paladin kit while the spellcasting Ninja will be used as a Thief kit.
I'm also thinking that it would be easier to make the Elven Dualist specialists into pure Sorcerer kits. So they would be the Sorcerer equivalent of the 8 specialist wizards. So for example a "Nelluonkkar" will be restricted to picking spells only from Illusion and Necromancy but will be able to cast 1 spell more per level. It's the closest way of following the p&p rule of it being a specialist that gets 2 extra memorization slots rather than the standard 1.
So our four new kits, plus the four Elven Dualists plus BG:EE's Dragon Disciple would fill out the Sorcerer's 9 available kit slots.
Then with the Cleric we have the kits from Faith & Avatars, the Crusader, (Spellcasting) Monk, Mystic & Shaman. In Oriental Adventures (1st ed) we have the Shugenja and the Sohei. Then in the Complete Barbarian's Handbook we have the following Barbarian Cleric kits, The Dreamwalker, Flamespeaker, Medicine Man, Seer, Spiritualist & Witchman. In the Priest Spell Compendium we have the Oracle which is supposed to be a NPC only kit but it's not overpowered.
We could move the (Spellcasting) Monk and the Sohei (Warrior Monk) under the Monk kit menu. Although we'll need to make a new name for the (Spellcasting) Monk to avoid confusion. We could call it the Holy Monk since in 2ed the Faith & Avatar's Crusader is sometimes referred to as the Holy Crusader.
As for the Druid kits, things get slightly complicated. In 2ed a Druid character is split into two halves, you must settle on a domain and then settle on a kit. The domain determines your equipment, spells and resistances while the kit determines your unique function. So we may have to do something tricky here. We could make it then when you select the True Druid, you are then forced to choose a domain and then the character's name changes into Arctic Druid, Desert Druid, etc... But if you select a kit you are also forced to choose a domain but the name and description of the kit doesn't change. So there will be up to 8 different variations of something like the Totemic Druid. To make things easier for players, we could make it that it creates a "Holy Symbol" spell in your spellbook that when clicked on has a description of the benefits you gained with your choice of domain.
Within Spoiler tags is a rough layout of the 2ed kits alongside the EE ones.
SORCERER
-Dragon Disciple
-Incantatrix (Metamage)
-Chronomancer (Time Mage)
-Wu Jen (Oriental Elementalist)
-Sha'Ir (Arabian Summoner)
-Alurakar (Specializes in only Alteration and Abjuration)
-Dijakkar (Specializes in only Divination and Conjuration)
-Encikkar (Specializes in Evocation and Enchantment)
-Nelluonkkar (Specializes in Necromancy and Illusion)
CLERIC
-Specialty Priest
-Crusader (Cleric crossed with a Paladin)
-Mystic (Potion brewer and practitioner of Candle Magic)
-Shaman (Spirit summoner)
-Oracle (Seer meets guardian)
-Shugenja (Oriental priest)
-Flamespeaker (Shapeshifter of flame)
-Medicine Man (Herbalist)
-Witchman (Voodoo practitioner)
(The Spiritualist is a weaker copy of the Shaman, the Dreamwalker is useless and the Seer is inferior to the Sibylite (Priest of Savras))
MONK
-Sun Soul Monk
-Dark Soul Monk
-Holy Monk (Spell casting Monk)
-Sohei (Oriental Warrior Monk)
DRUID
-Totemic Druid
-Shapeshifter
-Avenger
-Hivemaster (Summons swarms)
-Beastfriend (Kinda like a Beastmaster version of the druid)
-Wanderer (Explorer focused Druid)
-Savage (Barbarian version of the Druid)
-Pacifist (Druid that is a weak fighter but can negate the effects of fear and rage)
If everything above is ok, then the next step is to cull the deadweight from the spell lists to around 50% of what's in the tables. Then it'll be time to slowly create all the spells and the icons. This way we'll have added in all the viable 2ed spells in one go and won't have to come back to add the ones we missed out on.
Thanks for all the work you 2 are puttingt into this
I can't wait to see the Paramander in action.
1. Some of the spells are Bard exclusives but there's also a list of Song Magic for the Song Mage. I'm thinking of turning some of those into Bard exclusives, notably the ones that involve the use of singing or summoned instruments. Should I go ahead?
2. The school of Incantation is pretty extensive, it's at least larger than Divination and Enchantment. At the moment they are being treated as spells coming from the main 8 schools. However right at the very end of 2ed's life, they were treated as belonging to their own school of Incantation. Would anyone mind if they were turned into pure Incantation spells? Since there's really no existing school that represents the concept of metamagic.
2. If this is possible, a new school sounds very good to me.
The second point doesn't bother much too, but aren't metamagic effects that are added to regular spells ? That is always how I thought it worked. You add a metamagic effect on a spell at the cost of a higher level spell slot. Hence Metamagic being of all schools. Though I don't mind another school.
As for metamagic as an independent school, hoe would that work? what would the specialist be giving over? Will its spells be available to generalist mages? To other specialists? and most importantly, regardless of the size of the spell list, are the spells (as a group) powerful enough to sustain a viable class?
and finally @Jaeldyn - I think you are confusing the meaning of metamagic in 3rd ed. with the one in 2nd ed., there are no feats in 2nd ed. and so, metamagic are spells that affect other spells and spellcasting (like dispells etc.)
@callimachus The school of metamagic aka Incantation was introduced in the Cult of the Dragon 2ed supplement. It's a school of magic that was organized specifically for the Incantatrix/Incantator specialist mage, a kit that was intended to be extremely rare, the supplement says there is around 5 known Incantatrix mages in the Forgotten Realms. The Incantatrix is only allowed to use spells from Abjuration, Alteration, Divination and Enchantment plus the school of Incantation. So the Incantatrix can't exploit the use of metamagic to aid in the more offensive schools of Evocation, it could help augment another offensive mage though. The Incantatrix's main focus is to negate, disable and slay spellcasters, kinda like a Wizard's Wizardslayer. They are designed to be pretty weak against non-spellcasters, not to mention that the school of Incantation has no spells below spell level 3. So even though they are powerful in a group they are one of the more challenging kits to play solo.
So the school of Incantation would be exclusive to the Incantatrix kit. Just like how the advanced Alteration spells known as Chronomancy is an exclusive to the Chronomancer. But in that case there is no need to make a separate school of Chronomancy since they are all Alteration spells.
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On a side note, the WIzard and Priest Spell Compendium changes some spells around a bit. Alongside Animal summoning I-III and Monster Summoning I-VII, there is a group of summoning spells for Necromancers called Undead Summoning I-VII, so I'm going to remove the Necromancer spell Animate Dead. So each level of Undead Summoning has a different undead creature, so one level specialises in skeletons, another ghouls, another ghasts, etc... I feel that way the undead summoning abilities of the Necromancer will scale alongside the player. Animate Dead will instead become a Cleric only spell.
As for the Clerical healing spells, I'm thinking of having a curative spell for every level. The p&p rules has one for every level except level 3, but BG2 introduces one for level 3 called Cure Medium wounds. So we might combine them, so Light, Moderate, Medium, Critical, Serious, Heal and Restoration would represent each spell level. The spell icon would mimic the summoning spell's use of roman numerals, so the player can see what level they come from instantly. The names would stay the same but visually it will read like Cure Wounds I-VII or Regenerate I-VII.
Also the Compendium introduces 7 versions of the Regeneration spell that aligns to the Cure Wounds one. So there's Regenerate Light Wounds, Regenerate Moderate Wounds, etc... all the way up to the level 7 spell Regenerate. So the player will have a choice to either heal in one go or to heal incrementally. The Druid doesn't have access to most Cure Wounds spells but they do get access to the whole list of Regenerate spells.
I'm not up to finalising the Divine spells but I'm just throwing out these ideas right now. I'm really wanting equal representation among the schools and spheres but also having the whole spell selection streamlined for gameplay. I think we will keep the idea of merging the reverse spells with their normal counterparts, but by doing so it frees up space in the spell menu to add in separate versions of the Cure Wounds spells for players that prefer to stock up their Clerics with healing spells.
Now if only I get to see that painbearer soon *cough cough* >.>;
There's about 200 arcane spells already in the game, so I think 150 extra might be the goal. Sounds fairly large but most of the new spells are advanced forms of existing ones. For example Magic Missile forms the basis for Mordenkainen's Force Missiles, Nystul's Moonbow and I think Tempestcone.
I've attached the list so far, I've excluded the Wu Jen and Sha'ir spells for now because they have little nuances like elemental subschools and summons that need to be factored in.
For the school of Incantation, I think we might keep each spell within it under the banner of the main 8 just for simplicity's sake. But have those spells only usable by enemies and the Incantatrix.
So outside of the main 8 schools, we have 4 pseudo schools of Chronomancy, Incantatrix, Wild and Song (Bard) magic. But there's 4 groups of racial/alignment spells, the following is how I think they should be restricted...
- Harper/Seven Sister Magic = Good/Neutral aligned spellcasters
- Elven/High Elven Magic = Good/Neutral aligned Elf/Half-Elf spellcasters
- Drow Magic = Evil Elf/Half-Elf spellcasters (Closest thing to a drow subrace)
- Thay Magic = Evil Human spellcasters
These spells however are going to be very rare since the vast majority of them come from Harper, Seven Sister, High Elf and Red Wizard spellbooks. So we might apply a high monster drop rate or really up the prices. Each spell in the compendium is given a rating of Common/Uncommon/Rare/Very Rare/Unique, so I think we could make a price formula where the rarity value is multiplied by the spell level.
I think ordering the arcane spells like this provides enough variation without going too crazy.
1.Identify
1.Infravision
1.Know School - Reveals specialist wizard or kit.
1.Reveal Magic - Places an aura around those who are affected by dispel magic or magic. Can also reveal cursed items.
1.Read Magic - Can use spell scrolls in the quick item slots from outside their school restrictions for the duration of the spell.
2.Detect Evil/Detect Good
2.Detect Invisibility
2.Know Alignment
3.Clairvoyance
3.Detect Illusions
3.Find Traps - Same as the Divine version.
3.Wizard Sight - Reveals the magical aura or power level of those in the area by assigning them a strong, medium, dim glow.
4.Farsight
4.Identify Race - Reveals the race of a creature.
4.Locate Creature - Uses the Tracking ability to find location of creature.
4.Ultravision - Gives a larger range of infravision.
4.Sphere of Eyes - Summons a Wizard's Eye that repetitively detects invisibility and dispels nondetection.
4.Wizard's Eye
5.Oracle
5.Prying Eyes - Summons a 'horde' of weak wizard eyes (1d4 plus 1 per caster's level)
5.Shoondal's Seeking - Reveals location of locks and hidden items (useless thanks to the tab button)
6.Legend Lore - Increases lore score for a short duration, almost to the level of a Bard.
6.True Seeing - Same as the Divine version.
7.Anticipation - Immune to backstab
7.Exalted Eye - Stronger, improved form of Wizard's Eye.
7.Manor's Mind Vision - Reveals everything but illusions in the area of effect.
7.Vision Crystal - Conjures a crystal ball that can cast instant versions of True Seeing, Detect Invisibility, etc...
8.Screen - Immune to all detect magic (aka Detect Invisibility)
This is an easy one since most of the spells are already in the game and that there isn't really many to discuss. I think Ultravision is the only spell that can't be introduced because there are no modifiable values in opcode #63. Does anyone knows how to implement a stronger version of Infravision? And Shoondal's Seeking is useless unless there is a way of disabling the tab button.
It might seem like the Diviner will be useless but p&p rules gives it only 1 oppositional school, while the others get 2 or more. Plus its' High Level ability "Reveal" is pretty much all detect magic rolled into one.
So any objections to the new spells? If not all of them will be added (except for Ultravision if it is indeed impossible). If you know of any spell that I haven't included that could be, then feel free to suggest it.
Next school is Enchantment/Charm.
[edit] Just added some I missed, not sure if they can be implemented 100% though.
For example:
1.Infravision -> should give some bonus in the dark, like THAC0
2.Detect Evil/Detect Good
2.Know Alignment
Maybe they can give some insight bonus against the target etc.
Anticipation - Immune to backstab
Exalted Eye - Stronger, improved form of Wizard's Eye.
are the spells i see as most usefull in the game....
It would be a dream come true to play an half elf chaotic neutral bard able to cast all mage spells, and the specific Harpers ones, Elves ones and Gypsy/bard ones. :-)
As for kit, an halfling bard would be nice (Olive Ruskettle anyone ?).
Or what about the Fochlucan Lyrist ? It's a D&D3 prestige class, I don't know if it have an equivalent in AD&D2...
Might as well make your own game by this point!
Funny you should say that, I'm toying with the idea of creating maps for modders to use. So I kinda would be making my own game...
@Trouveur I think most of what the Rogue Rebalancing Mod does will be compatible with this one.
As for Halfling Bards, there are two options the specialty priest kit called the Finder (of the god Finder Wyvernspur) or the Whistler kit. I seem to recall that there are two other kits that they can use in conjunction with humans and elves.
Not sure about the Fochlucan Lyrist, especially because there's already enough bard kits from 2ed to use.
Having access to some plants spells would be nice for this one, like entangle, barkskin, spike growth, thorn spray, fire seeds, stalker...