Wow, sorcerers would really need something else to make them a useful class in the future with this mod. A reimagining of the class as a whole is in order, don't you think?
I have an idea - What I'm thinking is have a feat/skill tree for building your sorcerer the same way you would the fighter with the fighter feats and rogues with the thief/bard feats. So you could have melee or ranged combat enhancing feats, e.g. adding elemental or magic damage to your attacks, or feats that let you shapeshift into more and different shapes, feats that give you better and more defenses, enhance your offensive powers, extra spells as abilities etc.
I could do a more elaborate write-up of what I'm thinking, if you're interested.
The problem with caster feats (as opposed to Fighter/Thief feats) is that the arcane magic system is not particularly moddable by itself. You can't really do things like applying metamagic or changing the damage type of a spell from acid to fire (for example), because spell files don't really support, nor does the system as a whole. You can't even do things like limit spell availability in a reasonable way (read: a way that doesn't have potential to break character generation) like you could with divine casters. We've (me, subtledoctor, grammarsalad) talked about mage feats, but other than some basic things like +1 casting speed, +1 spell known, etc. there isn't really much to be done.
@subtledoctor, sounds fine to me. I was just looking for a rationale. However, regarding "making each class/kit interesting", kitted mages seem to be treading on sorcerer territory with their new spontaneous casting capabilities. It seems like mages got a boost and sorcerer's got a nerf (which is fine by me). Is my understanding correct?
Well if we want to have any productive discussion we, or more precisely you, need to set basic standard upon which we will compare the classes.
If you look at vanilla, then yes, sorcerer is much more powerful than wizard (not counting in something like berserker/wizard). Sorcerer has much more spell slots. It gets to pick fewer spells known, but that does not matter, since most of the spells suck anyway. The only real drawback is than delayed spell level progression.
But i did not play vanilla in the last ten years. And i believe i never will and would bet on majority of the mod users are on the same page. So i suggest any balance considerations should assume the player is using other components from this mod rather than not.
After Tome and Blood,there are two major mods, that could be considered - Spell revisions and ScS.
Spell revisions makes much more spells useful, thus effectively nerfing sorcerers, as you actually pay the price for knowing less spells now.
ScS vastly improves enemy ai, particularly spellcasters. The sorcerer now needs more ways to strip enemy defenses as fast as possible, while being able to defend himself from enemy disruption. This yet again taxes his spells known, while emphasizing the power of sequencer and contingencies.
There are many other factors of course. Party composition, many other mods and most importantly playstyle. Wizard is better if the player knows the game upside down and powerplays every encounter. Spell slot total is not that important if you rest after every battle - but you will consider every magic missile, if you only rest in taverns. Fireball is much less appealing in no-reload run etc. etc.
So as I stated in previous post, i believe that wizards are actually stronger now than sorcerer. But that is subjective on my heavily modified game state.
So the best solution is to put actual difference between wizard and sorcerer. For me the sorc appeal always came from spontaneous casting, as I always hated preparing spells to the bone. But with spontaneous casting on specialists, limited as it may be, that appeal is gone. We need to invent few truly unique tricks for sorcerers if we wish to make them appealing when compared to T&B wizards and I don't mean "moar spell slotz".
@subtledoctor@Aquadrizzt Can I ask you for the favor? When you will be out of the letters for 'mod version', if it isn't too much of the problem, try to switch to semantic versioning like for eg: 0.8.1.
That doesn't really offend me. Frankly, whether we're talking as characters in-universe or as players of the game, I kind of think that if you're willing to make the effort to deal with memorization, you should be rewarded for that and the effort should result in increased power.
It offends me neither, i deemed it necessary to point it out. Sorcerers were considered broken as hell and superior to wizards for decade, now with this mod it subtly stopped being such. I can imagine that most players get stuck in the old mindset - I mean I was until I saw Dyna's performance next to my sorcerer.
- This slightly nerfs spontaneous specialists by allowing you to spontaneously cast spells one level below the spell slot you are giving up.
Actually that is pretty brutal nerf. You turned very strong ability, usable since level 1, into niche side skill that will be occasionally used by higher level specialist to optimize his or her lower level spell slots.
I would suggest limiting the execution of the ability itself. Give it some drawback that requires commitment. Let's say that exiting spontaneous mode could be shocking for the specialists, expending his aura longer than normally, making him unable to cast spells for lets say 3 rounds. So in practice when you push that button you are effectively going all in with your preferred school for the rest of the battle.
We could also do something like, allow sorcerers to use sequencers and contingencies, but make wizards better at using them. Multiclass sorcerers cannot use sequencers or contingencies (or Identify) regardless whether you install the innate metamagic component.
Making wizards better in metamagic sounds good, but unless it is possible to tweak metamagic for multiclass sorceress i say it is not worth the effort and let's shift focus to give something new and distinctive to them.
Suggestion a) spell burst - something like you proposed:minor alacrity, that would then apply slow-like debuff afterwards (penalty to movement, ac, apr and casting speed for i.e. 5-10 rounds). Might come in stronger version as you level up.
b) Spell slot conversion - turn higher level spell slot into a lower level one or two lower level spell slots into higher one. If deemed too powerful might exhaust your aura. Doable ?
c) re-learning spell - once per x levels can "forget" a low level spell and learn a new one.
d) spell upgrade - This is a wild one. You could pick 1-2 favorite spells per level That is i.e. 6th magic missile, true strike that lasts one extra round, strength that pushes you to 19 instead of 18/50, web with -1 save penalty etc. Would probably require prohibitive amount of work spent on spells thought.
@subtledoctor Can you check spontaneous casted magic missile? I just made a fresh install, tested with an invoker. This time magic missile was bugged and targeting me.
No guarantee that the first effect in the spell is representative of it's overall target. I would ignore certain opcodes that occasionally affect the caster for the targeting check: pause creature 165 display string 139 play sound 174 play visual fx 215/141/140 protection from spell 206/318/324 set global/local variable 265/309
LPF DELETE_EFFECT INT_VAR match_probability2 = 0 END
Why the "match_probability2 = 0"? It will miss effects on spells like Prismatic Spray. This will delete all effects on a spell:
Yeah, I don't know why it's failing Magic Missile specifically on a clean install, but it is susceptible to failing others. You should also read effects exclusively from the headers/abilities, skipping any global/casting effects, which are always self-targeted,
Comments
Well if we want to have any productive discussion we, or more precisely you, need to set basic standard upon which we will compare the classes.
If you look at vanilla, then yes, sorcerer is much more powerful than wizard (not counting in something like berserker/wizard). Sorcerer has much more spell slots. It gets to pick fewer spells known, but that does not matter, since most of the spells suck anyway. The only real drawback is than delayed spell level progression.
But i did not play vanilla in the last ten years. And i believe i never will and would bet on majority of the mod users are on the same page. So i suggest any balance considerations should assume the player is using other components from this mod rather than not.
After Tome and Blood,there are two major mods, that could be considered - Spell revisions and ScS.
Spell revisions makes much more spells useful, thus effectively nerfing sorcerers, as you actually pay the price for knowing less spells now.
ScS vastly improves enemy ai, particularly spellcasters. The sorcerer now needs more ways to strip enemy defenses as fast as possible, while being able to defend himself from enemy disruption. This yet again taxes his spells known, while emphasizing the power of sequencer and contingencies.
There are many other factors of course. Party composition, many other mods and most importantly playstyle. Wizard is better if the player knows the game upside down and powerplays every encounter. Spell slot total is not that important if you rest after every battle - but you will consider every magic missile, if you only rest in taverns. Fireball is much less appealing in no-reload run etc. etc.
So as I stated in previous post, i believe that wizards are actually stronger now than sorcerer. But that is subjective on my heavily modified game state.
So the best solution is to put actual difference between wizard and sorcerer. For me the sorc appeal always came from spontaneous casting, as I always hated preparing spells to the bone. But with spontaneous casting on specialists, limited as it may be, that appeal is gone. We need to invent few truly unique tricks for sorcerers if we wish to make them appealing when compared to T&B wizards and I don't mean "moar spell slotz".
I personally consider this (Tome and Blood) to be among the Top 5 must have mods.
Actually that is pretty brutal nerf. You turned very strong ability, usable since level 1, into niche side skill that will be occasionally used by higher level specialist to optimize his or her lower level spell slots.
I would suggest limiting the execution of the ability itself. Give it some drawback that requires commitment. Let's say that exiting spontaneous mode could be shocking for the specialists, expending his aura longer than normally, making him unable to cast spells for lets say 3 rounds. So in practice when you push that button you are effectively going all in with your preferred school for the rest of the battle. Making wizards better in metamagic sounds good, but unless it is possible to tweak metamagic for multiclass sorceress i say it is not worth the effort and let's shift focus to give something new and distinctive to them.
Suggestion
a) spell burst - something like you proposed:minor alacrity, that would then apply slow-like debuff afterwards (penalty to movement, ac, apr and casting speed for i.e. 5-10 rounds). Might come in stronger version as you level up.
b) Spell slot conversion - turn higher level spell slot into a lower level one or two lower level spell slots into higher one. If deemed too powerful might exhaust your aura. Doable ?
c) re-learning spell - once per x levels can "forget" a low level spell and learn a new one.
d) spell upgrade - This is a wild one. You could pick 1-2 favorite spells per level That is i.e. 6th magic missile, true strike that lasts one extra round, strength that pushes you to 19 instead of 18/50, web with -1 save penalty etc. Would probably require prohibitive amount of work spent on spells thought.
Can you check spontaneous casted magic missile? I just made a fresh install, tested with an invoker. This time magic missile was bugged and targeting me.
pause creature 165
display string 139
play sound 174
play visual fx 215/141/140
protection from spell 206/318/324
set global/local variable 265/309 Why the "match_probability2 = 0"? It will miss effects on spells like Prismatic Spray.
This will delete all effects on a spell:
You should also read effects exclusively from the headers/abilities, skipping any global/casting effects, which are always self-targeted,