Is there any mod that makes learning magic costly?

IntoTheDarkness

AFAIK, in D&D, writing a spell to a spellbook takes a day and 100 golds per level of the spell(9 days and 900 golds for a level 9 spell). Is there any mod that replicate this behavior? Requiring certain materials to cast magic would be unfeasible, but this I could see being implemented via a mod. I would love to lose 900 golds trying to write down level 9 spell and fail. After all there are too much golds to spend in BG1/BG2.

In addition, are there any more of these kinds of mods that replicate PnP rules and overall makes the game more hardcore(not in cheesy way)&RP friendly, such as making INN fee more expansive?

There seems to be a lot of mods but not many that overhauls the game. I love BG so much that I've been replaying the game many times, and I would love to see some fresh changes.

Arnaeus

ATweaks makes certain things closer to P&P

Making the inn fees more expensive actually would run counter to D&D where 1 gold piece is actually a lot of money, over a weeks wages for a commoner iirc.

IntoTheDarkness

Arnaeus said:

ATweaks makes certain things closer to P&P

Making the inn fees more expensive actually would run counter to D&D where 1 gold piece is actually a lot of money, over a weeks wages for a commoner iirc.

I'm more concerned with balanced gameplay then PnP implementation. Mere bandits don't drop 1k+ golds in PnP as in BG2. If one easy encounter nets me golds worth 1000 days rent in INN, that's neither hardcore or RP friendly.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Arnaeus

I find just removing the reputation effect on merchant prices helps with the gold surplus. Makes playing evil more palatable too.

Archaos

And people ask why I love Sorcerers.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Arnaeus

subtledoctor said:

Arnaeus said:

I find just removing the reputation effect on merchant prices helps with the gold surplus. Makes playing evil more palatable too.

That's a great idea. How do you do that?

I use the "Change Effect of Reputation on Store Prices" part of the BG2 tweakpack. It has a few options one of which is to remove reputation effects entirely.

Grum

Makes sense. Besides... Dastardly McEvil just killed all of Nashel, including their entire garrison. Would you dare charge him more for the sword he is actually willing to pay for?

Arnaeus

@grum there's actually an option to give low reputation discounts along that same sort of logic. I prefer to just have it flat though so I can let my reputation be whatever roleplay dictates it to be without having to worry about costs.

Mortianna

Sounds like an interesting idea, although your party would spend most of their time waiting for mages to scribe their spells in ToB.

Hudzy

I'd definitely use the gold option, but probably skip the time duration. Always need more gold sinks.

pixie359

Presumably the time element would make no actual difference to gameplay. Unless you decided to scribe while phaere was waiting for you, or in one of the tiny number of other time sensitive scenarios.

DreadKhan

Well, I can see shopkeepers not being willing to sell gear to a famous wanted mass-murderer, especially if they might get lumped in for helping them out. Accessories to crime.

Anyways, the real issue is why can't Evil just murder the damn shopkeeper and TAKE everything. The Answer being 'but balance!'. Balance kills all the fun.

DJKajuru

Archaos said:

And people ask why I love Sorcerers.

Well, if there were a PnP implementation for sorcerers, besides the charisma requirement, then I would implement that sorcerers can only learn spells from another sorcerer or magical being. You'd have to ask dragons, extraplanars and other magical beings to teach you spells (which could cost from gold pieces to other kinds of favors!).

OlvynChuru

I don't see why learning magic would be costly (in terms of money anyway) unless the mage had to be taught the spell by another mage. It's not like scrolls are sentient beings who need to be paid.

ZanathKariashi

You're thinking of MAKING spell scrolls. Which takes 1 day per spell level, and costs around 50g per spell level + any costly components (any material with a specific base gold price)/side-affects to the caster (such as making a Scroll of Wish will shorten the caster's life by 5%) (the exact costs depend on how common or rare the necessary inks/paper needed for making the scrolls is for that area, with the above merely being a base-line price).

(In 2nd edition all magical item crafting, even scroll scribing, requires a minimum level of 9th. Or higher for construction magical weapons and armor which need access to 6th and/or 8th level spells, depending on the enhancement bonus and magical effects desired, 3+ or above needs access to 8th level spells, where as up to +2 can get by with just 6th)



Scribing a scroll is free (you simply need to acquire a copy of the spell), and just takes a few minutes per spell level (since higher level spells take up more pages).

Now...that said...if they want to figure out a way to properly implement costly components, using a system similar to how ToEE did (i.e. you spent the required gold when memorizing such a spell and were assumed to have purchased the necessary components to cast it), then I'm all for it, since it'll go a long way towards curbing some of the blatant over-use of spells due to the current lack of system inherent limiting factors that should be there.


--------------

They could also implement spell research, costing 500g per spell level (+ any costly components), and taking 1 week per spell level, which would allow you to learn any spell you were high enough to cast (chance to successfully develop the spell is the same as learning it and you don't know if you succeed or fail until the end of the research period). With a personal XP reward of 1500xp per spell level for spells learned via research (and then remove the XP reward for scribing scrolls normally, which shouldn't exist anyway).