Some new kit descriptions for sorcerers and specialists, based around the balancing I laid out several posts ago.
MAGE
Features - Hit Die: d4 - May cast arcane spells. - Has increased Lore per level. - May summon a Familiar (as per Find Familiar).
SORCERER ("ELDRITCH")
Features - Hit Die: d4 - May cast arcane spells. - Gains a set of Bloodline spells as bonus spells. - May summon a Familiar (as per Find Familiar). - Has a permanent -1 casting speed penalty.
Advantages - Hit Die: d4 - Gains a +1 bonus to Armor Class. This bonus improves by +1 every 5 levels (max +5 at 20th). - May cast one more spell per level per day.
Disadvantages - May not cast spells from the schools of Alteration or Necromancy.
WILD MAGE
Advantages - Hit Die: d4 - Gains access to an exclusive set of Wild Magic spells. - May cast one more spell per level per day. - Upon casting a spell, there is a 5% chance for a Wild Surge to occur. - Casting levels varies whenever they cast a spell (range -5 to +5).
Disadvantages - Every round, there is a 25% chance they cast spells with no speed penalty, a 50% chance of a -1 casting speed penalty and a 25% chance of a -2 casting speed penalty.
DRAGON DISCIPLE
Advantages - Hit Die: d6 - May cast arcane spells. - Gains a set of Bloodline spells as bonus spells. - Gains a +1 bonus to Armor Class. -- (5th) This bonus improves to +2. -- (15th) This bonus improves to +3. - Has Claws: Unarmed attacks deal 2d4 slashing damage. -- (5th) Claws are considered +1 magic weapons. -- (10th) Claws deal 2d6 slashing damage. -- (15th) Claws deal 2d6 slashing + d6 fire damage. - (3rd) Gains a +10% bonus to Fire Resistance. -- (9th) This bonus improves to +25%. -- (15th) This bonus improves to +50%. - (3rd) Gains a Breath Weapon usable once per day. This ability improves every 3 levels.
Disadvantages - Has a permanent -2 casting speed penalty. - May cast one fewer spell per level per day. - May not summon a Familiar.
Advantages - Hit Die: d4 - May cast arcane spells. - Gains a set of Bloodline spells as bonus spells. - Gains a permanent Protection from Evil. - (3rd) Gains a +5% bonus to Acid Resistance and Cold Resistance. -- (5th) This bonus improves to +10%. -- (15th) This bonus improves to +15%. - (10th) Gains immunity to Poison and Disease.
Disadvantages - Has a permanent -1 casting speed penalty. - May cast one fewer spell per level per day. - May not summon a Familiar.
Regarding specialist mages, it is, in fact, quite easy to block 2 schools of magic for a specialist. The attached screenshot is of an Invoker picking spells at first level. The prohibited schools are Conjuration (Armor, Grease) and Enchantment (Charm Person, Friends, Sleep) (and the obligatory Nahal's Reckless Dweomer). Making sure that specialists can't use the scrolls from prohibited schools is a little more difficult but still doable. The one issue that could potentially arise from this is that this change does completely screw up any kit that uses the specialist mage identifiers to block schools (i.e. Song and Silence jester).
Also, originally I was planning on sticking with the PnP specialist blocked schools, but to be honest most of them make almost no sense. Here are the ones I will probably be using instead. Notice that, excluding Divination, the schools prohibited schools form a cycle and all opposed schools are mutual. I might remove Divination entirely from the cycle and just have Conjuration and Illusion be opposed.
- Abjuration: Alteration and Invocation - Alteration: Abjuration and Enchantment - Conjuration: Divination and Invocation - Divination: Conjuration - Enchantment: Alteration and Necromancy - Illusion: Divination and Necromancy - Invocation: Abjuration and Conjuration - Necromancy: Enchantment and Illusion
You could change known spells for sorcerers I think. It would involve scripting though. Change all known spells in the 2da to zero, and create a special ability, 'spells known' which summons an invisible creature that checks you for spells known, gives you your spells, and then destroys itself (similar to scribe scroll in atweaks). Just saying'
Edit: thinking about it, you could easily give sorcerers unique spell lists this way...
You could change known spells for sorcerers I think. It would involve scripting though. Change all known spells in the 2da to zero, and create a special ability, 'spells known' which summons an invisible creature that checks you for spells known, gives you your spells, and then destroys itself (similar to scribe scroll in atweaks). Just saying'
Edit: thinking about it, you could easily give sorcerers unique spell lists this way...
@Grammarsalad whilst i like the idea just out of curiosity, why would you give sorcs different spell lists?
I had considered mechanics like that for the classes with spell lists, but for sorcerers I think its fine as is currently implemented. For things like Duskblade, Magus or Warlock though, this kind of implementation is definitely a possiblity.
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now @Grammarsalad 's post makes more sense..... i hadn't thought about that.
I had considered mechanics like that for the classes with spell lists, but for sorcerers I think its fine as is currently implemented. For things like Duskblade, Magus or Warlock though, this kind of implementation is definitely a possiblity.
I had considered mechanics like that for the classes with spell lists, but for sorcerers I think its fine as is currently implemented. For things like Duskblade, Magus or Warlock though, this kind of implementation is definitely a possiblity.
But I don't think it'll work at all unless you do it for all sorcerers and I don't think there is a way to prevent created mages--and I have found bards created in BGEEII--from selecting spells at creation.. You can't just block spells known for some kits.
I meant to ask about the Duskblade, Magus and/or Warlock. The Magus is from...Arcana Evolved(?) Would these be sorcerer kits?
Not sure where Magus originated, I got the idea of it from Pathfinder.
You are right that you can't prevent mages/bards from choosing spells at creation, but I am pretty certain that you can always have a "remove selected spells" effect that takes effect once their character loads. I just tested such an idea and it seemed to work without issue. The other method that I have tested and, as far as I can recall, works fine is if you have a kit specialist tagged as every specialist. Maybe you could even use a certain tag (Diviner tag?) that any custom kit could use that is blocked from all default spells. None of these solutions are really ideal unfortunately. Having said all of this, if it comes to hacky tagging and kit switching or just adopting a new method for sorcerers to acquire spells, I'll probably do the latter.
The new kits would most likely be sorcerer kits but that is subject to change.
Not sure where Magus originated, I got the idea of it from Pathfinder.
You are right that you can't prevent mages/bards from choosing spells at creation, but I am pretty certain that you can always have a "remove selected spells" effect that takes effect once their character loads. I just tested such an idea and it seemed to work without issue. The other method that I have tested and, as far as I can recall, works fine is if you have a kit specialist tagged as every specialist. Maybe you could even use a certain tag (Diviner tag?) that any custom kit could use that is blocked from all default spells. None of these solutions are really ideal unfortunately. Having said all of this, if it comes to hacky tagging and kit switching or just adopting a new method for sorcerers to acquire spells, I'll probably do the latter.
The new kits would most likely be sorcerer kits but that is subject to change.
I was going to suggest that the warlock might be more feasible--if conceptually odd--as a bard kit, but I just looked at how you did the sorcerer (i.e. removing selectability of base class and recreating as a kit). I know Demi really doesn't like that method, though I don't know why. Anyway, you can make the base sorcerer have whatever usability you please, so usability is not an issue. Moving on.
The magus seems like it would have a lot of crossover with the duskblade. Are both necessary?
Looking at pathfinder: The alchemist (and/or investigator) would make an interesting kit. Too bad we can't create selectable mage kits--bard perhaps? I like the brawler as a fighter kit (straying a little, sorry).
A shadow mage would be a cool class (or a shadow sorcerer I guess).
The trueclass sorcerer being removed was my attempt at fixing the issue that trueclass Sorcerer and trueclass Mage share a CLAB file (CLABMA01) and that, to the best of my knowledge, there is no way to change that (except maybe a .exe patch).
There are ways to change usability flags for kits, so I'm not too worried about equipment for the warlock working. The magus and the duskblade share a lot of similarities but are quite different in flavor and it really depends on whether there is enough content to make them both unique. Otherwise I'll probably just choose magus. Alchemist looks promising and I've been trying to figure out ways to implement it.
On the subject of selectable mage kits, one of my plans for this kit is to package all 8 of the specialist mages into a "Specialist Mage" kit at character creation that would have an ability allowing you to declare a specialization at the start of the game. Haven't implemented it yet.
Shadowmancer is something I definitely want to do (especially given that it makes more sense in Faerun due to the Shadow Weave and all that). ToM had some other good stuff in it, although implementing binders and truenamers within the confines of a 2e engine might prove challenging.
The mod itself is about to have a major update released as soon as I finish implementing the rebalanced bloodline sorcerers. In addition to a balance update for the sorcerers, it also adds trueclass, wild and specialist mages to the mix.
I didn't know that about the mage and sorcerer clab.
I like the specialist mage class. Very clever way to make some space! Are you going to convert the illusionist so the gnome can specialize in something else?
I forgot about ToM. I'll have to dig that up again.
I take it you are converting find familiar to an innate. I think kr was going to also convert the sequencer and contingency spells to innates (at appropriate levels). Makes sense to me and it gives a few more things to trade for kit abilities.
I see an alchemist as creating a number of alchemist only items that duplicate a number of low level spells but are better. Eg acid and firebombs (similar to melfs mm), flask of burning grease (like a grease spell but also causes damage), burning dust (glitter dust that does damage) and can set a number of specialized traps. I've tested it and you can give the trap skill to non thieves (tested fighters and rangers so far but I bet it works for everybody). Trade for a much reduced casting ability.
Which gives me the idea: runecrafter. Can set rune traps, and can even place runes on people and objects to buff them. Cannot use runes in sight of hostiles, but can activate some runes that he has placed earlier during combat (creates an innate--eg 'places a trueshot rune on his crossbow'=gives himself a special that, when activated, gives a bonus to ranged attacks). Probably could be a little tougher than a typical mage and even allow dwarves access. Partially inspired by the prestige class of the same name and partially inspired by the Diabolist (pfrpg).
The specialist mage class is something I was thinking about but have yet to implement. I also haven't really mentally addressed the two major issues, namely: gnomes and limiting spell availability at creation. (Although gnomes could just not get the other options [I think you can restrict spell effects by who is casting them right...]).
Yeah alchemist lends itself to the "make stuff and then use it" type of spell casting, which I'm sure would be an interesting change of pace. And yes anyone can learn the set traps skill; I personally learned this when making my custom NPC kit for Aerie (sneaky sneaky chiktikka fastpaws).
Your idea for Runecrafter sounds so awesome and I'm definitely going to see what kind of mileage I can get out it.
In other news, Sorcerous Bloodlines is now a full fledged Tome and Blood. Get the latest version (v0.2) in the top post of this thread.
It's kinda hacky, but you could make the old illusionist kit gnome only and allow him to select the other kits via talk to invisible summoned creature innate.
As for limiting this particular class from selecting, say, a few necromancy spells and then selecting an abjuration specialization, you could follow sr and create a new school called "universal" that bars no class and put some generic spells into that category (personally, I wouldn't mind if you got rid of diviners and put their spells in this category, but maybe that's not necessary--I seem to recall a rule that all 1 to 3rd level divination spells were always available to all). Then, you flag all other spells as unusable by this (temporary) class. When the specialization is selected, they can get a couple of spells of their school for their trouble.
Yeah that sounds like what I was thinking. I was examining the whole 2e Diviner situation. Divination is divided into Lesser Divination ("all wizards need access to these essential spells") and Greater Divination [4+]. I was originally going to do something like that, but then realized that there are literally 5 Divination spells in game, with only 2 of them being worthwhile (Identify and True Sight [the other three are the eternally useful Infravision, Know Alignment (!) and Oracle]). So I'm definitely thinking about scrapping Diviner and using that class tag as a "no arcane spells" tag to use for classes with assigned spell lists. This would also resolve my problem regarding the fact that Conjurers and Illusionists (the classes with Divination as an opposed school) only really lose 1 actually useful school.
The "Specialist Mage" kit would only be available to Humans, Elves and Half-Elves (with a different Specialization ability granted to each of them to account for the different racial availabilities of certain specializations). I'm going to ignore the presence of the completely useless ability score requirements for specialists for the purposes of this. Gnomes would just get the Illusionist as an option in the menu. Specialist Mage uses the newly repurposed Diviner tag to not be able to select spells during creation (save for generalist spells). Upon specializing, they are switched to the actual specialist kit and are granted a couple spells of their specialization (maybe all 1st level spells of that school and a well-chosen 2nd level spell, to represent a lifetime of research into that school of magic). So after doing all this, a specialist would have a couple generalist spells and a couple spells of their specialization, which fits thematically IMO.
Doing all this would mean that Mages would have 3 classes by default in the character creation screen (Mage, Specialist, Wild Mage), opening up the possibilities of mage kits. In addition, the new "Block all spells from selection/learning" tag would allow casters with the spellbook interface of a Mage but without the availability of mage spells. This would enable ideas such as Alchemist.
the abilities of the individual sorcerer subclasses aren't popping for me for some reason. is there something i have to do to make them show up. the unique spells each has are showing up.
I was just looking at kr for more ideas and demi said something that blew MY mind. Apparently with tobex (hopefully in bgee as well) you can make specialists' spells more powerful when cast by specialists!
@Aquadrizzt Is this what you ment about restricting effects based on who is casting? ... Thinking about it, some effects do even reference kits...
the abilities of the individual sorcerer subclasses aren't popping for me for some reason. is there something i have to do to make them show up. the unique spells each has are showing up.
The only abilities that sorcerers get (other than some small, innate buffs) are the Eldritch Sorcerer's Find Familiar and the Dragon Disciple's Breath Weapon. There used to be more of these but I removed them as people ( @subtledoctor ) pointed out that sorcerer innates are just a sorcerer spell with a different button.
Why not move nine versions of it into the spell slots, and allow the player to decide how much of his magic energy to devote to, and how much damage will be done by, a particular breath attack? Take it further: why not 5 versions of Magic Missile, depending on how many missiles you want to shoot?
Why not higher- and lower-power versions of any given spell? It's not just about damage; you can edit duration, buff bonuses, save penalties, anything. If sorcerers don't use the Vancian magic system, why must they cast Vancian spells carefully constructed and balanced at a particular power level by Vancian wizards like Otiluke, Tenser, et al.?
You could really unshackle sorcerers' abilities this way. And if you control what spells they can have in their 'spellbooks' you can really differentiate between different sorcerer kits. Make them different kinds of characters who can really innately shape magic energy - rather than what the sorcerer is now, just a semi-non-Vancian mage.
What you are suggesting is, actually, quite similar to how 5e Sorcerers are handled. Instead of having both spells known per level and spell casts per level, 5e sorcerers get a much reduced list of spells known that they can cast at any level. For example, Magic Missile cast as a 1st level spell deals only d4+1 damage, but if you cast it at a higher level, you get more bolts.
The one potential issue with having all spells behave like this is that the spell casting interface in the bar is not really conducive to it. You would have to scroll through tab upon tab of the same spell icons without really knowing what level they are on. Then again, maybe you could just have 15 spells in their lowest available form and have each spell open a menu (a la Nahal's Reckless Dweomer) when you cast it, letting you select the level, which drains the appropriate level when cast. Unfortunately, this idea doesn't let you limit casts by the actual level of the spell so there is that. It's definitely an idea that is worth considering but I'm not sure if its feasible within the engine.
Those both have a lot of potential and I'll definitely try those.
The current issue I'm dealing with right now is that it appears that mage kit selection is hardcoded. I've copied new kit tables (K_M_H, etc.) to override but it doesn't seem to actually change the presence of specialist mage kits. Thus I can't actually remove them from selection. I know that people have made mod mage kits but I can't seem to find any available for download so I can see how they handled this.
( @Mordeus , I know you were working on some mage kits for FoF; how did you handle this?)
Those both have a lot of potential and I'll definitely try those.
The current issue I'm dealing with right now is that it appears that mage kit selection is hardcoded. I've copied new kit tables (K_M_H, etc.) to override but it doesn't seem to actually change the presence of specialist mage kits. Thus I can't actually remove them from selection. I know that people have made mod mage kits but I can't seem to find any available for download so I can see how they handled this.
( @Mordeus , I know you were working on some mage kits for FoF; how did you handle this?)
I know there is another 2da that functions 'like' k_x_x.2da's for mages. I think it's "mgsrcreq.2da". Still doesn't help with gnomes ( I.e allow to select non illusionists) but I think it otherwise works like a k_x_x
I know there is another 2da that functions 'like' k_x_x.2da's for mages. I think it's "mgsrcreq.2da". Still doesn't help with gnomes ( I.e allow to select non illusionists) but I think it otherwise works like a k_x_x
What that 2da does is let you specify certain specialists available to certain races. If you just remove all of them, you get a bunch of greyed out specialists. This is different from the K_X_X.2da because the K_X_X is an explicit list of what kits are shown (even if they can't be selected).
I know there is another 2da that functions 'like' k_x_x.2da's for mages. I think it's "mgsrcreq.2da". Still doesn't help with gnomes ( I.e allow to select non illusionists) but I think it otherwise works like a k_x_x
What that 2da does is let you specify certain specialists available to certain races. If you just remove all of them, you get a bunch of greyed out specialists. This is different from the K_X_X.2da because the K_X_X is an explicit list of what kits are shown (even if they can't be selected).
I see. I think it's the best you're going to get though.
Here is a full list of what I did. 1) Copied a new K_M_H. (This appears to have done nothing). 2) Changed all values for [Specialist] x [Human] in CLSRCREQ.2da to 0. 3) Changed all values for [Specialist] x [Human] in MGSRCREQ.2da to 0.
The final result is that, as a Human, you can only select Mage or Wild Mage, but the rest of the specialist kits are still present (albeit greyed out).
I also tried changing the K_M_H in KITTABLE.2da to K_Ma_H but that appears to have no effect either.
It's weirder with the gnome. If you mark any specialist other than the illusionist as '1', his options are not greyed out, but you still can't select them...
The gnome one is so obviously hardcoded. I changed the various files to allow gnome enchanters and then when I pick enchanter both Enchanter and Illusionist were highlighted. Continuing at that point made the gnome an Illusionist.
Also confirmation that this is hardcoded and thus will be a hassle to fix: I decided to use COPY_EXISTING on the K_M_H file to see its contents and edit it directly. Apparently that file doesn't even exist (Resource K_M_H.2da not found in key file). So that kind of blocks future development of mage kits until it is fixed.
It's entirely possible there's some hardcoded crap with mages. I don't have a good handle on why some things get greyed out and others don't. E.g. I made elf-only and halfling-only ranger kits, and when I created a human ranger, those other kits just don't appear. But when I create a human fighter, the Dwarven Defender is there but greyed out. Same idea: race-restricted kits. But some disappear while some take up space.
I'm pretty sure I can answer that myself. There are two ways to determine what kits are available to certain races: K_X_Y.2da files and CLSRCREQ.2da files. K_X_Y files are a list of the kits available to (i.e. K_F_H.2da is a list of the Fighter kits available to Humans.) The reason that Dwarven Defender is listed on that menu, despited being greyed out, is because it is listed on the K_F_H table. The actual greying out of the Dwarven Defender is a result of [Dwarven Defender] x [Human] being 0 in CLSRCREQ.2da.
This is part of the reason that Patch 1.2 broke all existing kit mods. The ADD_KIT weidu command still added the kits to the appropriate tables, but it didn't edit CLSRCREQ to allow for a given race to use a given kit.
Comments
MAGE
Features
- Hit Die: d4
- May cast arcane spells.
- Has increased Lore per level.
- May summon a Familiar (as per Find Familiar).
SORCERER ("ELDRITCH")
Features
- Hit Die: d4
- May cast arcane spells.
- Gains a set of Bloodline spells as bonus spells.
- May summon a Familiar (as per Find Familiar).
- Has a permanent -1 casting speed penalty.
Bloodline Spells
- 1st: Identify
- 2nd: Invisibility
- 3rd: Dispel Magic
- 4th: Minor Sequencer
- 5th: Minor Spell Turning
- 6th: True Sight
- 7th: Wondrous Recall
- 8th: Symbol, Stun
- 9th: Wish
ABJURER
Advantages
- Hit Die: d4
- Gains a +1 bonus to Armor Class. This bonus improves by +1 every 5 levels (max +5 at 20th).
- May cast one more spell per level per day.
Disadvantages
- May not cast spells from the schools of Alteration or Necromancy.
WILD MAGE
Advantages
- Hit Die: d4
- Gains access to an exclusive set of Wild Magic spells.
- May cast one more spell per level per day.
- Upon casting a spell, there is a 5% chance for a Wild Surge to occur.
- Casting levels varies whenever they cast a spell (range -5 to +5).
Disadvantages
- Every round, there is a 25% chance they cast spells with no speed penalty, a 50% chance of a -1 casting speed penalty and a 25% chance of a -2 casting speed penalty.
DRAGON DISCIPLE
Advantages
- Hit Die: d6
- May cast arcane spells.
- Gains a set of Bloodline spells as bonus spells.
- Gains a +1 bonus to Armor Class.
-- (5th) This bonus improves to +2.
-- (15th) This bonus improves to +3.
- Has Claws: Unarmed attacks deal 2d4 slashing damage.
-- (5th) Claws are considered +1 magic weapons.
-- (10th) Claws deal 2d6 slashing damage.
-- (15th) Claws deal 2d6 slashing + d6 fire damage.
- (3rd) Gains a +10% bonus to Fire Resistance.
-- (9th) This bonus improves to +25%.
-- (15th) This bonus improves to +50%.
- (3rd) Gains a Breath Weapon usable once per day. This ability improves every 3 levels.
Disadvantages
- Has a permanent -2 casting speed penalty.
- May cast one fewer spell per level per day.
- May not summon a Familiar.
Bloodline Spells
- 1st: Armor
- 2nd: Resist Fear
- 3rd: Haste
- 4th: Emotion
- 5th: Spell Shield
- 6th: Wyvern Call
- 7th: Delayed Blast Fireball
- 8th: Protection from Energy
- 9th: Wish
CELESTIAL SORCERER
Advantages
- Hit Die: d4
- May cast arcane spells.
- Gains a set of Bloodline spells as bonus spells.
- Gains a permanent Protection from Evil.
- (3rd) Gains a +5% bonus to Acid Resistance and Cold Resistance.
-- (5th) This bonus improves to +10%.
-- (15th) This bonus improves to +15%.
- (10th) Gains immunity to Poison and Disease.
Disadvantages
- Has a permanent -1 casting speed penalty.
- May cast one fewer spell per level per day.
- May not summon a Familiar.
Bloodline Spells
- 1st: Bless
- 2nd: Resist Elements
- 3rd: Dispel Magic
- 4th: Protection from Evil, 10' Radius
- 5th: Flamestrike
- 6th: Pierce Magic
- 7th: Sunray
- 8th: Symbol, Stun
- 9th: Shield of Archons
Also, originally I was planning on sticking with the PnP specialist blocked schools, but to be honest most of them make almost no sense. Here are the ones I will probably be using instead. Notice that, excluding Divination, the schools prohibited schools form a cycle and all opposed schools are mutual. I might remove Divination entirely from the cycle and just have Conjuration and Illusion be opposed.
- Abjuration: Alteration and Invocation
- Alteration: Abjuration and Enchantment
- Conjuration: Divination and Invocation
- Divination: Conjuration
- Enchantment: Alteration and Necromancy
- Illusion: Divination and Necromancy
- Invocation: Abjuration and Conjuration
- Necromancy: Enchantment and Illusion
Edit: thinking about it, you could easily give sorcerers unique spell lists this way...
now @Grammarsalad 's post makes more sense..... i hadn't thought about that.
I meant to ask about the Duskblade, Magus and/or Warlock. The Magus is from...Arcana Evolved(?) Would these be sorcerer kits?
You are right that you can't prevent mages/bards from choosing spells at creation, but I am pretty certain that you can always have a "remove selected spells" effect that takes effect once their character loads. I just tested such an idea and it seemed to work without issue. The other method that I have tested and, as far as I can recall, works fine is if you have a kit specialist tagged as every specialist. Maybe you could even use a certain tag (Diviner tag?) that any custom kit could use that is blocked from all default spells. None of these solutions are really ideal unfortunately. Having said all of this, if it comes to hacky tagging and kit switching or just adopting a new method for sorcerers to acquire spells, I'll probably do the latter.
The new kits would most likely be sorcerer kits but that is subject to change.
The magus seems like it would have a lot of crossover with the duskblade. Are both necessary?
Looking at pathfinder: The alchemist (and/or investigator) would make an interesting kit. Too bad we can't create selectable mage kits--bard perhaps? I like the brawler as a fighter kit (straying a little, sorry).
A shadow mage would be a cool class (or a shadow sorcerer I guess).
There are ways to change usability flags for kits, so I'm not too worried about equipment for the warlock working. The magus and the duskblade share a lot of similarities but are quite different in flavor and it really depends on whether there is enough content to make them both unique. Otherwise I'll probably just choose magus. Alchemist looks promising and I've been trying to figure out ways to implement it.
On the subject of selectable mage kits, one of my plans for this kit is to package all 8 of the specialist mages into a "Specialist Mage" kit at character creation that would have an ability allowing you to declare a specialization at the start of the game. Haven't implemented it yet.
Shadowmancer is something I definitely want to do (especially given that it makes more sense in Faerun due to the Shadow Weave and all that). ToM had some other good stuff in it, although implementing binders and truenamers within the confines of a 2e engine might prove challenging.
The mod itself is about to have a major update released as soon as I finish implementing the rebalanced bloodline sorcerers. In addition to a balance update for the sorcerers, it also adds trueclass, wild and specialist mages to the mix.
I like the specialist mage class. Very clever way to make some space! Are you going to convert the illusionist so the gnome can specialize in something else?
I forgot about ToM. I'll have to dig that up again.
I take it you are converting find familiar to an innate. I think kr was going to also convert the sequencer and contingency spells to innates (at appropriate levels). Makes sense to me and it gives a few more things to trade for kit abilities.
I see an alchemist as creating a number of alchemist only items that duplicate a number of low level spells but are better. Eg acid and firebombs (similar to melfs mm), flask of burning grease (like a grease spell but also causes damage), burning dust (glitter dust that does damage) and can set a number of specialized traps. I've tested it and you can give the trap skill to non thieves (tested fighters and rangers so far but I bet it works for everybody). Trade for a much reduced casting ability.
Which gives me the idea: runecrafter. Can set rune traps, and can even place runes on people and objects to buff them. Cannot use runes in sight of hostiles, but can activate some runes that he has placed earlier during combat (creates an innate--eg 'places a trueshot rune on his crossbow'=gives himself a special that, when activated, gives a bonus to ranged attacks). Probably could be a little tougher than a typical mage and even allow dwarves access. Partially inspired by the prestige class of the same name and partially inspired by the Diabolist (pfrpg).
Yeah alchemist lends itself to the "make stuff and then use it" type of spell casting, which I'm sure would be an interesting change of pace. And yes anyone can learn the set traps skill; I personally learned this when making my custom NPC kit for Aerie (sneaky sneaky chiktikka fastpaws).
Your idea for Runecrafter sounds so awesome and I'm definitely going to see what kind of mileage I can get out it.
In other news, Sorcerous Bloodlines is now a full fledged Tome and Blood. Get the latest version (v0.2) in the top post of this thread.
As for limiting this particular class from selecting, say, a few necromancy spells and then selecting an abjuration specialization, you could follow sr and create a new school called "universal" that bars no class and put some generic spells into that category (personally, I wouldn't mind if you got rid of diviners and put their spells in this category, but maybe that's not necessary--I seem to recall a rule that all 1 to 3rd level divination spells were always available to all). Then, you flag all other spells as unusable by this (temporary) class. When the specialization is selected, they can get a couple of spells of their school for their trouble.
The "Specialist Mage" kit would only be available to Humans, Elves and Half-Elves (with a different Specialization ability granted to each of them to account for the different racial availabilities of certain specializations). I'm going to ignore the presence of the completely useless ability score requirements for specialists for the purposes of this. Gnomes would just get the Illusionist as an option in the menu. Specialist Mage uses the newly repurposed Diviner tag to not be able to select spells during creation (save for generalist spells). Upon specializing, they are switched to the actual specialist kit and are granted a couple spells of their specialization (maybe all 1st level spells of that school and a well-chosen 2nd level spell, to represent a lifetime of research into that school of magic). So after doing all this, a specialist would have a couple generalist spells and a couple spells of their specialization, which fits thematically IMO.
Doing all this would mean that Mages would have 3 classes by default in the character creation screen (Mage, Specialist, Wild Mage), opening up the possibilities of mage kits. In addition, the new "Block all spells from selection/learning" tag would allow casters with the spellbook interface of a Mage but without the availability of mage spells. This would enable ideas such as Alchemist.
@Aquadrizzt
Is this what you ment about restricting effects based on who is casting? ... Thinking about it, some effects do even reference kits...
The current issue I'm dealing with right now is that it appears that mage kit selection is hardcoded. I've copied new kit tables (K_M_H, etc.) to override but it doesn't seem to actually change the presence of specialist mage kits. Thus I can't actually remove them from selection. I know that people have made mod mage kits but I can't seem to find any available for download so I can see how they handled this.
( @Mordeus , I know you were working on some mage kits for FoF; how did you handle this?)
1) Copied a new K_M_H. (This appears to have done nothing).
2) Changed all values for [Specialist] x [Human] in CLSRCREQ.2da to 0.
3) Changed all values for [Specialist] x [Human] in MGSRCREQ.2da to 0.
The final result is that, as a Human, you can only select Mage or Wild Mage, but the rest of the specialist kits are still present (albeit greyed out).
I also tried changing the K_M_H in KITTABLE.2da to K_Ma_H but that appears to have no effect either.
Also confirmation that this is hardcoded and thus will be a hassle to fix: I decided to use COPY_EXISTING on the K_M_H file to see its contents and edit it directly. Apparently that file doesn't even exist (Resource K_M_H.2da not found in key file). So that kind of blocks future development of mage kits until it is fixed.
This is part of the reason that Patch 1.2 broke all existing kit mods. The ADD_KIT weidu command still added the kits to the appropriate tables, but it didn't edit CLSRCREQ to allow for a given race to use a given kit.