[Question/Help] Changing the Sorcerer's spell selection table...

Akuro

Hi folks,

1) is it possible to delete, change or add the spells in the sorcerer's spell selection screen which comes up when he gains a new level or is this hardcoded?

2) Is it also possible to change the number of number of the Sorcerer's*known/selectable* spells (not the number of *castable* spells, which can be changed via the 2da-file)?

Please, does anyone know if this could be done? @CamDawg ? @DavidW ? @Avenger ? @AndreaColombo ? Anyone?
I'd love to change the Sorcerer class into something more evil, warlock-like. A class that gains it's own spells, curses, transformations etc.
At the moment the sorcerer is way too similar to a mage imo, so I'd like to change that.

Akuro

Tresset

I really like the idea of a sorcerer that can unlearn and replace spells at level up. I really hope you succeed at making this mod. I will make sure to get it once you finish. I would love to help but I am not very good at modding.

Keep me posted on the progress of this project.

Edit: I see you asked for help with this before. I may have to pester some people to get you that help.

Tresset

@Kwiat_W You made a spellcaster type class right? Maybe you could help @Akuro with this.

Akuro

Thanks for the help @Tresset, I really appreciate it!
I know how to mod the "general stuff" (spells, items etc.) but didn't manage to solve this "spell selection" thing so far.

With a little help the sorcerer would be more than "just a better mage who doesn't need to memorize his spells", and I have many ideas in order to achieve this

Kwiat_W

I haven't heard anything about any of those things being externalized in BGEE so it's not possible without exe patching.

Tresset

This stuff has not been externalized yet unfortunately. There is a request for it in place but it really is not our top priority. I have no idea when or if it will be externalized but I can tell you that we are busy working on other stuff right now. Maybe once those projects are done the devs will be able to externalize more stuff, but I really don't know. Until then it will be really hard to mod this so it may be best to put the project on hold for now

Akuro

I see... Well, at least there is hope that the devs might externalize this stuff into 2da-files ( or whatever) at some point in the future...

Mordeus

One method I've been thinking about is to use the HLA menu, which gives modders 24 spell slots of which you could assign anything to them. You can make it that the HLA menu starts off at level 1, however you must have a selectable spell/skill everytime you level up or the HLA menu closes off for that character permanently.

24 spell slots isn't very big but I think you could do something tricky like changing the character's kit every 10 levels. So when it reaches level 10, the AddKit script would run, and the HLA menu would change to that of the new kit. So you could have 4 kits that are identical in everything but the HLA menu, giving your character over 80 available spells. You might run into problems where the spells could only successfully be added to the innate menu instead of the spellbook. I haven't tested this because I'm into 2ed p&p rules but for 'unofficial' kits this might work.

Funnily enough there might be another sneaky way. If you apply all the usability codes for the 8 specialist wizards you can block out all the spells in the Sorcerer spell menu. So the player is then forced to select the "Pick For Me" option, from there the game goes to a 2da file that has a list of spells to be added. But since you have blocked out all the schools, the game shuts down because it needs to pick enough spells to fit each new memorisation. However if you add spells to that 2da file that aren't assigned to a specific school, then it will add this to the sorcerer's list of spells. So you need at least 5 spells per spell level or it will shut down.

The great thing about the Pick For Me option is that it will add whatever .spl file on the list directly to the spellbook. So you could make a Divine Sorcerer quite easily by just assigning divine .spl files. You can't do anything tricky like applying a spell within a spell because it will add whatever you put down to the spellbook, so if you applied a passive .spl it would appear locked in the spellbook.

But remember that there are some tricks to .spl files that could just open up some options. Firstly you could have one of the spells upgrade automatically upon leveling, so you could have a Haste spell upon caster level 10 become Improved Haste. And secondly you could add subspells to each spell, so if you were to have a Wu Jen kit where each of the 5 spells represents a different element (Fire, Water, Metal, Wood, Earth)... upon casting the fire spell you'd be presented with a selection of fire spells from that level to use. Now that I'm typing this out... I might just actually use this way of dealing with spells for the Wu Jen kit I'm working on :P

The downside is that if I and you were to make separate kits using this method, only one of our mods could be installed at the same time because of that single 2da file.

Note that I'm going off memory here, and there might be a glitch I've seen forgotten about but I think this is indeed possible. But these are the only ways I can think of right now in working around Sorcerer limitations.

Kwiat_W

Mordeus said:

One method I've been thinking about is to use the HLA menu, which gives modders 24 spell slots of which you could assign anything to them. You can make it that the HLA menu starts off at level 1, however you must have a selectable spell/skill everytime you level up or the HLA menu closes off for that character permanently.

24 spell slots isn't very big but I think you could do something tricky like changing the character's kit every 10 levels. So when it reaches level 10, the AddKit script would run, and the HLA menu would change to that of the new kit. So you could have 4 kits that are identical in everything but the HLA menu, giving your character over 80 available spells. You might run into problems where the spells could only successfully be added to the innate menu instead of the spellbook. I haven't tested this because I'm into 2ed p&p rules but for 'unofficial' kits this might work.

I can confirm that this works as you have described, at least it did with bg2. I have done it a few years ago for my Psionics Unleashed mod, the only reason why it's not in the released version of the mod is cause the 24 selectable abilities per level was to limiting for my needs, even with changing kit every level (which works fine too). Adding spells to spellbook this way obviously works too, this is how mages get spells like Comet and Dragon's Breath.

Mordeus said:

If you apply all the usability codes for the 8 specialist wizards you can block out all the spells in the Sorcerer spell menu. So the player is then forced to select the "Pick For Me" option, from there the game goes to a 2da file that has a list of spells to be added. But since you have blocked out all the schools, the game shuts down because it needs to pick enough spells to fit each new memorisation. However if you add spells to that 2da file that aren't assigned to a specific school, then it will add this to the sorcerer's list of spells. So you need at least 5 spells per spell level or it will shut down.

You have missed one thing here. Sorcerers have to choose new spells every time they level up, if you block all spells you will never be able to finish the level up process. This is why my psion class is based on mage and not sorcerer.

Akuro

Using the HLA tables is a great idea indeed! As soon as I have time I'll give it a try!
Imo 24 different *known* spells would be enough for a sorcerer, but yeah - there should be more options to choose from as a whole...

Mordeus

Kwiat_W is right, the second method won't work however you should go for this rather simple method that is much better.

First either disable the spell menu using a 2da file for the mage, that will effect all the mage kits or give your kit a class number that isn't a mage but put in their clabxxxx.2da file an applied .spl file that changes the ids to a mage upon gameplay. So what will happen is you'll bypass the spell menu that pops because the game thinks you are a fighter, but upon gameplay it will switch you back to a mage. Or you could run through a script that does the AddKit command changing you from a non-mage to a mage.

So that bypasses the spell menu. Now disable the arcane spellbook, that will turn your regular mage into one that can't memorize spells. From here it is a simple matter of using the HLA menu to emulate the spell menu or the clabxxxx.2da file to gain your spells automatically upon leveling up. The HLA menu will give complete control to the player of the number of memorized spells however the clabxxxx.2da method will let you emulate the spell progression of a sorcerer.

When you create the .spl file just treat it like any innate skill except change the location from "4-innate" to "2-spell". That will put the spells directly into your mage's quick spell slots instead of the innate skill menu.

What I'm going to do for my Wu Jen kit is give the player 5 spells of each element. And each of the 5 spells houses subspells using the 214 opcode. So even though the HLA has a limit of 24 spells, you can house as many spells as you like within them. Then you could make it that the housing spell upgrades upon the caster's level, so a level 1 pseudo-sorcerer would have only level 1 spells available in their housed spells, a level 3 pseudo-sorcerer would have up to level 2, etc... This means you can do some interesting kits for example:

A sorcerer that relies on schools not spell levels. So you'd have 8 spells, one for each school and within these school spells houses all the spells within the game. So the evocation spell would have all the evocation spells. However each spell has 6 charges, so the sorcerer can only select 6 evocation spells, 6 alteration spells, etc...

Or an elementalist that has 4 element spells that house multiple sub-spells relating to their element. So when they expend their fire energy, they have to move onto the other 3 elemental energies.

You could even do something fairly complex by having a series of knowledge spell/skill that temporarily give you spells in your quick spell menu. But if you select an opposing knowledge spell it removes the previous ones from the menu. I'm making a Sha'ir kit that upon summoning an elemental genie, the mage gets access to certain spells but upon the death or summoning of another rival, those spells go in place of new ones.

The downside is that the player won't get view the spell description because they don't appear in the spellbook but one day they'll make it that right clicking a spell brings up the spell description.