Heart of Fury Spellcasting Ring

TvrtkoSvrdlar

I messed around with the editor a bit, and whipped up a custom ring for HoF mode.

It will boost your characters' spell damage by a certain amount (multiple options are included).

I did this mainly because I wanted my offensive spellcasters to scale in tandem with my melee warriors. HoF mode introduces mobs which have tons of HP, and 10d6 fireballs are a waste of both time and effort. And while it's possible to pigeonhole one's casters into a (de)buffing role, I personally feel that this should be a choice, rather than a predetermined, mandatory role.

And now it is.

The ring will (depending on which option you install) boost your spell damage by a healthy amount.

It's meant for HoF mode only, as it would completely break the game if used in normal difficulties.

Anyway. slotting damage spells and nuking HoF mobs now becomes a viable strategy, whereas before any slot dedicated to things like skull traps and fireballs and magic missiles was a waste, simply because their damage couldn't justify the amount of DPS loss the party's frontliners suffered from not stacking buffing spells in aforementioned slots. And while it's still important to buff/debuff, I'm certain a bunch of people out there want a dedicated nuking character whose only job is to blow things up.

Hence, this tiny little 'mod'.

Enjoy!



P.S. A huge thanks to @kjeron‌ and @subtledoctor for their insightful tips!

bob_veng

that's nice, there's already that circlet that increases fire damage by 20% so it doesn't stick out a lot.

TvrtkoSvrdlar

I haven't come across that in my game yet.

Is it a random drop? What's its name?

bob_veng

in the remorhaz cave. one of them has it...can't remember the name of the item
works fantastic with dd breath weapon

it's an old item, non-random

edit: Kossuth's Blood

JonelethIrenicus

Nice will try this in my other game. Btw what's the difference between HoF and playing normal game on Insane?

lunar

JonelethIrenicus said:

Nice will try this in my other game. Btw what's the difference between HoF and playing normal game on Insane?

In HoF all enemies have a massive boost to hp like x3+80 hit points so a 8 hp goblin will have (8x3)+80=104 hp. Also more enemies are added to some encounters and boss battles. Also you are always on insane difficulty while in HoF mode so a single cone of cold or horrid wilting from an enemy mage can end multiple party members instantly.

Due to massive hp boost to enemies, blast spells have limited use:10-60 points from a fireball, or even less after a saving throw, will just tickle hordes of enemies with hundreds of hit points. Mages are better at summoning fodder (as summoned monsters get the hp boost as well) and buff/debuff and area/crowd control roles more often in HoF rather than playing blaster mages. This mod tries to rectify that by boosting spell damage.

Then again I want to play a sorcerer with greater malison+wail of the banshee on HoF mode to insta kill crowds of enemies. Do enemies get good bonuses to saving throws as well, if so that may not work as well as I think.

TvrtkoSvrdlar

@JonelethIrenicus‌
Mob HP. Mostly. Some other stuff as well.


Also, @Lord_Tansheron‌, you might want to have a look at this - I know you're tired of running melee trains all day erry day!

Wowo

What exactly is the effect of the ring?

I think I'd be more interested in a mod that removed level caps on scaling spells.

Maybe someone could code some metamagics from 3e ...

lunar

I think it boosts spell damage done by the wearer by % amount chosen upon installation. There is Kontik's ring in the game that boosts cold damage done by spells %15. It is a nice ring but since this is IWD, doing cold damage is not always a winning strategy. I think this ring increases all damage types (fire, cold, lightning, acid, pure magic etc) done by spells by a sizeable amount. If it is, say, %100 increase in fire damage, your fireballs will be doing twice as much damage as normal, making them occasionaly worthy to cast in HoF.

A mod that removes caps from all spells could do the same effect, there was such a mod for bg2 called spell50, it scaled all spells up to lvl 50 so if you, by some reason or another, had a lvl 50 bard (with xp cap remover as well) he could throw 50d6 fireballs. Ofcourse this destroyed any resemblance of balance in a non-HoF game but it was available for fun.

Lord_Tansheron

TvrtkoSvrdlar said:

Also, @Lord_Tansheron‌, you might want to have a look at this - I know you're tired of running melee trains all day erry day!

While I definitely agree that spell damage is poor damage output in most scenarios, and have been campaigning for melee power for literal years (in BG2), I do not actually personally dislike that :P I'm perfectly fine just running with buffs/debuffs/CC and leaving the damage to others. But I appreciate your work nonetheless, and of course there's plenty of people out there who DO love their spell-slinging action.

Queegon

A single ill-timed fireball wipes all but the most sturdy fighters (and the dragon disciple caster) with 30%+ fire resistance. I like it.

Is it just me, or is the ring missing its in-game picture?

TvrtkoSvrdlar

@Wowo
Read the readme.

In short, it makes your damaging spells do more damage.

So, double/triple/quadruple/pentuple fireballs, magic missiles, skull traps, etc.

The amount of damage you want is up to you (there are 4 rings to choose from).


@lunar
Uncapping spells wouldn't help that much.

You're still gonna struggle for the first 20 levels, which is 2/3 of the game.

And don't forget that mobs often save, which renders spells only half as useful.

Meanwhile, with the ring, your spells not only gain hit dice, but also do +N% damage.

I'm playing with it through Heart of Winter right now, and I'm having a blast! Literally!


@Lord_Tansheron
Ah, sorry, my bad! :P


@Queegon
Are you sure you installed it correctly?

You need to drop *both* files into your override folder.

If you can spawn the ring, but don't have its icon, then you didn't copy over the .bam file.

Queegon

I certainly did...dunno what's wrong.

TvrtkoSvrdlar

I removed it from my override, and ran the game, dropped the ring.

Then I installed it again, booted up the game, consoled in a new ring.

It works fine, and the icon is there.

I honestly wish I could help you, but I have no idea why the icon isn't showing up for you


Is anyone else having problems? Let me know if you don't see the ring's icon.

Queegon

No worries, at least it works.

TvrtkoSvrdlar

Can you tell me which version of the ring you're using?

Queegon

It's number 3 (300%) I copied.

TvrtkoSvrdlar

@Queegon
I've modified it to show one of the icons from the game.

I've also renamed it to +NEWRING.itm, so just drop it into the override.