Derail away, it keeps the thread up top so people can see it, and it's within the broader discussion of mods.
At some point I'm probably going to need to consolidate the reviews again though, they're all over the place as always.
Random question: Why do mod creators like to make Kivan wax verbose in banters? Mr "We Must Not Waste Time On Idle Banter" seems a favourite to talk lengthily on about his feelz, rather than being a stoic badass with regrettable proficiency choices. So far the best in this run has been Tenya, whose conversation with the man was entirely in the form of ellipses.
Grammarsalad - But, this could go further, and actually be required by the Character, as well (i.e. without the recipe, the character cannot create the potion.)
Eh, you could, but we're not talking a magical scroll that disintegrates on use, so I don't see a great justification (or benefit, to be honest) for making things too awkward. Having recipes as loot/reward can gate access until appropriate times in the game where the player can conceivably be expected to have access to them.
- Another optional component involves material requirements. Wands might require expensive jewelry while scrolls require special parchment and potions 'creature parts'. Something like that to limit how many items can be created. All of this will be optional, though.
Doesn't work so neatly for BG2 from memory, but if "scrolls" required repurposing the various "notes" dropped through the game that would be neat. All those bounty notices would finally have a use, and would limit the player loosely to plot progression (except those riddle random drops which would suddenly be useful).
Simple inventory check -> Holding non-essential note from list of the non-essential notes -> Replace with parchment -> Use parchment to make scrolls.
Trinit - in case you'll be doing bg2 (evil, i guess) run, i released a new update to dorn expansion romance mod. if you're interested, i'd be glad to hear your critique of it.
Sure, I'll probably be ditching Sirene after SoD (if not before) so I should have ample opportunity to include Dorn if I don't forget.
subtledoctor - I'm so tired or paladins with 2-hand swords. Why must every paladin in existence be built out for the Holy Avenger?? There's like a thousand paladins, and only one sword. I would be so much happier with Sirene in my run if I could give her a long sword and a shield without gimping her and wasting her proficiency slots.
Honestly would have bumped her up a peg in my books if she'd been sword and board, or, les gasp, flails or something. Why does every paladin need to stab people?
- I think Aquadrizzt has it there to make the armored casting components work.
Forgive me if I'm being thick, but wouldn't this be something to install if someone were to actually install anything involving armoured magi, rather than a default, always on, installation?
- I swear I nerfed that thing!... I find the existing "one cantrip per school" system to be pretty weak sauce. I think we need to somehow integrate the best characteristics of the 'innate cantrips' and the 'level 1 spell cantrips.'
If you did, I don't want to know what it was like before, it's so far carried me through to Cloakwood as nearly my only spell.
Also: Cantrip spell scrolls, as above. Use the scroll, learn the cantrip, as an innate.
Looking into 5e for cantrips (I assume you're familiar already with 3e, and 5e is notionally balanced around always useable on demand casting):
Abjur Resistance: +1d4 to next saving throw within 1 turn.
Conj Poison Spray: Save vs Breath or 1D12 damage (5th level (2d12), 11th level (3d12), and 17th level (4d12)) 10' range. Produce Flame: Ranged attack roll, 30', 1d8 fire damage (5th level (2d8), 11th level (3d8), and 17th level (4d8)) Acid Splash: Save or 1d6 (5th level 2d6, 11th level 3d6, 17th level 4d6), 5' radius, 30' range.
Div True Strike: Gain advantage on the next attack you make within 1 round. Guidance: Target gets +1D4 to next ability check (generally skill use) within 1 round. (these two could be compounded into a single Luck spell type bonus that lasts a round)
Ench Vicious Mockery: Enemy must save or takes 1D4 damage (5th level (2d4), 11th level (3d4), and 17th level (4d4)) and disadvantage on its next attack. 60'.
Evoc Sacred Flame: Save or 1D8. Damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 5th level (2d8), 11th level (3d8), and 17th level (4d8). 60' range. Fire Bolt: 1D10 (2d10 at 5th etc), 120'. Ranged attack. Shocking Grasp: Melee attack, 1d8 etc damage on hit, can't make reactions until next round (possibly emulated by giving -1 APR for the round) Eldritch Blast: 1D10 damage, extra ray projectile at 5th etc, ranged attack. (This could be handled by creating 1-4 ammo which sets APR to 4)
Illus Minor Illusion: Create a 1 turn illusion, physical interaction reveals it to be an illusion (summon a 1 HP blurred "image"?)
Necro Spare the Dying: Heals a target at 0 HP, stabilising them (since 0 = dead, perhaps a 1 HP heal for a victim under 5 HP or something?) Chill Touch: Ghostly hand grabs target. 1D8 damage (2d8 at 5th etc), target cannot heal for 1 round, undead targets get disadvantage on attacks. 120' range.
Trans Shillelagh: Held club or staff becomes +1 equivalent and deals 1D8 damage on hit instead of the usual, and replaces strength bonuses to melee hit/damage with spellcasting stat bonuses for 1 minute.
Disadvantage and Advantage involve rolling a second d20 and taking the lower/higher result respectively, and could be replaced with a 1 round luck bonus or penalty to cludge into BG.
While not a perfect fit, the majority are short term save or damage spells, with a mix of weapon creating ranged attacks, a minor Enchant Weapon type deal, with Illusion, Divination and Abjuration being utility spells.
-I feel like scribing scrolls should maybe limited to like 1x/day.
Considering it takes up spell slots, isn't it already restricted to once or twice a day?
Eh, you could, but we're not talking a magical scroll that disintegrates on use, so I don't see a great justification (or benefit, to be honest) for making things too awkward. Having recipes as loot/reward can gate access until appropriate times in the game where the player can conceivably be expected to have access to them.
That's a good point. Still, I could make the recipe a requirement for creation (for the second reason in this suggestion).
Doesn't work so neatly for BG2 from memory, but if "scrolls" required repurposing the various "notes" dropped through the game that would be neat. All those bounty notices would finally have a use, and would limit the player loosely to plot progression (except those riddle random drops which would suddenly be useful).
Simple inventory check -> Holding non-essential note from list of the non-essential notes -> Replace with parchment -> Use parchment to make scrolls.
That is an awesome idea!
I might make parts of this dependent on that 'animal parts' mod that is kicking around somewhere. Also, I could add my own items if there is a shortage (or require multiple if there is a surplus). It'd definitely be something that would need tweaking after playtesting.
Plot and Immersion: B Starts with a cutscene, gives you an option to insult half-orc intelligence, or not to care in the slightest, which is nice. Apparently arrived in the area to do something, but despite telling me off in a Force Talk banter over not doing it yet, I still have no idea. Outside of her friendship track, she has the odd interjection (such as encountering Dorn, though I didn't get to see anything else between them since Sirene quickly shanked him not five minutes later, bloody paladins), chiming in at the occasional plot milestone. Generally a bit quiet without vanilla NPCs around, though she had quite a few dialogues where they showed up in my party.
Content and Consistency: A- Some *looking down and blushing* in the general friendship talks which as usual I could do without, but generally she fit her fairly middling mental stats quite well. I'm not sure if there were lore checks in the conversations, but I always appreciate the opportunity to play a know it all with 18 Intelligence, so the option to actually know things rather than be dumb (Hexxaaaaat! *Fist shake.*) is nice either way, and there were plenty of chats (sometimes twice in a row because of my pausing habit), and plenty of places to be nice, jerky, or generally a snarky brat (which, being Chaotic Neutral, is pretty much my goto choice for any conversation). Her quest is post Nashkel mines, and pretty brutal for that, with multiple ogre mages, a regular mage, and a bunch of bruisers which, if we're being honest, is a very bad matchup for a Wizard Slayer at the best of times, let alone a level 4 Wizard Slayer fresh out of Nashkel, and the reward is: Bugger all. Woo.
Power Creep: A- Ishlika is a Wizard Slayer, not traditionally the best class for a CHARNAME, but certainly not bad to have around on an expendable NPC. Her physical stats are great, 17 across the board, which is good since as a Wizard Slayer she's not improving them, but Ishlika appears to always start at level 1, and starts with a returning magic throwing spear +1, which can be used by anyone except Clerics, makes her immediately capable of taking out those pesky flesh golems if you like to live dangerously (the range is pretty poor), and has a save or poison for 2 rounds attached, all available from level 1. A little imbalancing, but better if you, like me, like to wander a bit before picking up any NPC buddies.
Bugs: A Asking her about her opinion on your comrades when you have only modded buddies in tow glitches out, but not game crashingly so.
Overall: A- Not melodramatic, not terribly imbalancing, no overpowered kit (quite the opposite, in fact), no interfering with CHARNAME's agency, an underused weapon type (though a fairly awful one), and a generally tolerable personality with decent respect for the game's Lore. Her plot feels a tiny bit sparse compared to the others and her interjections a little less frequent, but compared to general BG1 NPCs she's War and Peace.
Tenya: The little cleric that could.
Plot and Immersion: A I've always had a soft spot for Tenya, pre mod, and turning her into an NPC is an interesting move. Tenya comes with a lot of plot built in, her mother tortured, her loot nabbed, and a party of adventurers messing with her land home. All in all, there's plenty of chatter, NPC interactions, and no *sweaty hugs* (to my endless gratitude, even if I don't rate things on my growing horror). Tenya's dialogue is written well, and her character is interesting, if a tiny bit overdone to make her "precocious and spunky" at times. Tenya's biggest issue for me is that she randomly has a bunch of illegal mephit spells for no discernible reason.
Content and Consistency: B I'm not a fan of plots where the party is insta-held/stunned/otherwise beaten, particularly where the goal is for an NPC to show off how great they are by saving the day, and that's exactly how Tenya's single quest goes, and while a mildly tricky fight thanks to three elementals and an SoD capped Cleric/Mage with cloudkill, it's short enough to feel like a bit of a Monty Haul with all the loot it gives (see below).
Power Creep: F If I were representing a child character in BG it would have been by *dropping* her physical stats to 7/11/6, since tweens aren't exactly noteable for their strength or durability compared to an average human adult, letting her have the mental stats she was originally given, and then given her increases to stats in SoD, SoA and ToB to end up at 9/15/10/16/16/15 or something to show her slowly turning into an adult ("adult" Tenya being something like 10/16/12/17/17/16 the year after ToB and ready to begin the long, long process of dual classing into "Mage"). Logic being that you're not recruiting a child to have a powerful super genius cleric, you're recruiting a child to protect it from a terrible fate (of being orphaned again when you cruise through Baldur's Gate a little later), and children are generally not the best at anything in particular.
But here, it's almost like there was some concern that Tenya would be too weak for people to be interested in her, so to avoid that they made her the best cleric in the game by a wide margin. The twelve year old you're notionally supposed to be protecting is probably party tank, since the only character that can match her base, unbuffed AC is Coran with the Tome of Dexterity, and as far as clerics go, the only way one could feasibly out-spell her is by hogging all the wisdom tomes. To review:
1: Tenya's stats are tweaked from a waiflike 9/11/10/14/14/13 to a chunky 9/16/14/12/16/13. I'm not sure why they changed her con, since 14 and 10 are identical, but there you go. And she's chaotic neutral for some reason, despite all the evil. Not complaining too hard, since neutral evil people are easier to keep around than evil evil people, and she gets way better spells. 2: Bizarrely, the 12 year old gains enough Exp to match the potentially experienced adventurer CHARNAME as soon as she joins the party. 3: And has a +2 Ring of Protection which doesn't actually count as a +2 Ring of Protection, and thus stacks. 4: And has a quest to pick up an elemental summon per day, via her bowl. The Lesser elementals are immune to +1 weapons and therefore pretty much untouchable for most of the game. 5: And a +2 Staff Halberd, clerics only, giving +1 AC/Saves and 50% cold resistance, plus an extra 1D4 cold damage. 6: And a bunch of mephit spells, as mentioned above. 7: And +1 spell per level.
Gear she gets or acquires from her quest: +2 Staff Halberd - clerics only, giving +1 AC/+1 Saves/+50% Cold Resistance, and dealing 1D10+2 +1D4 cold damage, staff proficiency. Circlet of the Archmagi - Mage only, +1 AC/+1 Saves/+1 Intelligence Bracers of 3 AC - Lolwut. Well I know what my CHARNAME is wearing until they can afford a robe of the archmagi. Bowl of summon water elemental 1/day. - Also lolwut.
Melodrama: B+ Her parents are dead or gone, her mother was almost comically abusive, and the kid is extremely damaged. She's still less whiny than Sirene.
Bugs: A Her illegal mephit spells are in the spell menu rather than the innate menu, a minor cosmetic issue at worst.
Overall: A Honestly Tenya is probably the NPC of the four I'm most likely to keep around. Her interactions are generally entertaining and frequently funny, her personality is endearing for someone who threatens to cause actual bodily harm to you on several occasions, and she offers a novel parental role to the player I've not seen in any other NPCs, mod or otherwise. You might want to Keeper out the cheat ring (and maybe the Mephit spells) though, depending on how high your tolerance for super powered tweens is.
Since my BG NPCs install seems either non-functional or I've simply not had enough vanilla NPCs to make it work, I'll probably be starting a third and final time, removing some of the mods before sweeping through with some NPC cheerleaders to get to SoD, and then onto SoA, which grates on my sanity somewhat less. If there are any other BG compatible mods or modules you'd like to see before I refuse to touch BG1 for the next five years or so, now's the time to ask.
But this game being what it is, you would end up just getting all the cantrips. That's why I like tying them to spell slots: even if you *know* all the cantrips, you can only prepare a few in any given day.
That could still be done, theoretically, with innate abilities, if you get clever with stats and opcode 326... I assume that is what Grammarsalad is planning to do in his upcoming cantrips mod.
Just spitballing here, but there's the UI mod you mentioned that locks specialists into selecting their school spells each level, couldn't a variation of this lock two level 1 spell slots to being Cantrips, and then grant two bonus level 1 slots to every mage?
Just spitballing here, but there's the UI mod you mentioned that locks specialists into selecting their school spells each level, couldn't a variation of this lock two level 1 spell slots to being Cantrips, and then grant two bonus level 1 slots to every mage?
I almost freaked out there for a second, because I recently found we can create (only partially functional) new schools of magic, so we could possibly create a "cantrips" school, and then restrict a few spell slots to that school.
BUT it wouldn't work, due to the crappy implementation of opcode 261. There's no way to make casting a cantrip only restore that cantrip. Instead, insanely, Wondrous Recall restores spells in alphabetical order. So if you cast Magic Missile, then cast a cantrip version of True Strike, you would get your Magic Missile back.
Because M comes before T. Seriously. FML modding this engine...
Name all the cantrips like this: "AAA - Magic Mini Missile"
BUT it wouldn't work, due to the crappy implementation of opcode 261. There's no way to make casting a cantrip only restore that cantrip. Instead, insanely, Wondrous Recall restores spells in alphabetical order. So if you cast Magic Missile, then cast a cantrip version of True Strike, you would get your Magic Missile back.
Treat it like polymorph?
"Prepare Cantrip" -> Cantrip lasts 24 hours (or until you rest because that's how BG rolls) -> While duration lasts, you have [Eldritch Blast] innate ability, and regain the use of that innate ability once per [round/turn].
the issue you had because you had an all mod party is why i tent to only us 2 npc mods a play though. and if i us more they need to have cross mod and i tend to have atlest one vanilla npc so i don't have bugs. andd that person tends to be yoshimo or imoen.
the issue you had because you had an all mod party is why i tent to only us 2 npc mods a play though. and if i us more they need to have cross mod and i tend to have atlest one vanilla npc so i don't have bugs. andd that person tends to be yoshimo or imoen.
Yeah, I ran with one rotating vanilla NPC for testing interactions with the mod characters (and then two after catboy's unfortunate demise). Fine for testing the mod NPCs, not so fine for testing the mod that makes vanilla NPCs more interactive.
Because of Enhanced Specialists, I actually saved Dynaheir for the first time in a hundred games or so, .
Would she be more worth saving if she could memorize a bunch of utility spells, and convert them all at a moment's notice to Magic Missiles and Fireballs? Or if Edwin could convert all his memorized spells into summons? Or if Quayle could memorize Acid Arrows etc. but still use those slots to cast Mirror Image or Invisibility?
Honestly? I'd probably still let her be gnoll chow, but yeah, that would be very cool to see for mages and clerics. Might want to have it restricted to 1 spell slot per level per day though, sort of stepping on the sorcerer's toes otherwise.
Invalid 91365! Imoen declared as I foisted a diamond from a tree fresh from Candlekeep.
And she meant it too, moving into a long, involved conversation about the colour of my eyes, how they were the colour of the sea before I kissed a man, and how *Coran's hip accidentally touched mine* from all the way over in Cloakwood as I recited a lengthy tale to her about a minotaur or something. *Blush and move away.* she said, and we parted.
At this point I quit, uninstalled, and went to find Vynd instead.
that only happens if you don't use mod merge. i've never had issues using npc project.
I use the Beamdog version, so modmerge does approximately nothing for me. Either it's refusing to cooperate because I use the 806 directory to install (on grounds of having to take the mod characters through SoD regardless), or there's some incompatibility with the mods I have installed at present.
You know, random thought. If you can have specialists able to convert spells on the fly, doesn't this mean that you can also have sorcerers as a kit, ready to multiclass freely (penalty -100% chance to scribe scrolls)? And thus any of the Tome and Blood sorcerer kits could be just variations on that kit?
Vynd
Plot and Immersion: A+ While he has no particular "plot" to speak of, Vynd has plenty to say, pipes up plenty of times to plenty of quests (and quite a few of his lines made me chuckle, so it's worth picking him up early to hear them all) and with each of the vanilla NPCs. Bonus points that he actually has a "belt" dialogue. There are a few points where Vynd comes across as somewhat modern, and one noteworthy conversation where he says he's calling dibs on any elven chain you find, despite not being able to actually wear elven chain as a pure thief, but generally it wasn't too glaring and he more than makes up for it by not having any *sweaty hugs* to speak of.
Content and consistency: C Vynd has no content, no unique items, no SoD content, or anything except the man himself. As I mention above, he's got a very rare few consistency niggles, but generally nothing major. Again, bonus points for not declaring he can take out the whole party by himself or anything ridiculous as a single class thief, though he does mention some things like taking out an Umber Hulk which, yeah, probably not something that actually happened considering I met you at level 1, dude.
Power Creep: A+ He's an Assassin. A single class assassin. Focused on long swords and darts.
Personally I consider the assassin to be by far the worst thief bar Pure. Outside of abusing poison weapon with Arrows of Detonation etc which I am loathe to do (and Dorn does better), they're generally mediocre thieves which give up 40% of their skill points for a 40% boost to their backstab bonus, or at least the cap thereof, which only becomes relevant long after Vynd has been and gone and I'm finally into SoA.
Melodrama: A+ Being a drow, Vynd has a horrible and tormented personal history by default. Being a bro, he doesn't incessantly whinge about it. He's also far from stupid evil in alignment, which is delightful. Vynd does provoke at least one or two party members into violence, which is a tad unprofessional, but eh, they're pretty low drama regardless.
Overall: A+ Well worth checking out purely for the Clever Evil perspective on BG1 he offers, if not for his actual class, which is mediocre.
Did someone say MULTICLASS bards? Bardsbardsbardsbardsbardsbardsbards. Ahem, excuse me.
I was actually contemplating a kit mod on my six hour commute today that could be shared on both Mages and Bards. Summonable fist weapons and specialised spells (like Arcane Strike I-IX, where V, for example, would be 5 rounds duration, +5 to hit, and +1 damage for the five elements), with +1 THAC0 and AC every 3 levels in exchange for -1 Caster Level every three levels.
Where the Mage version would get higher level spells to fuel their arcane strikes, it would only hit 20 CL at level 30, and never if it was a multiclass, while the Bard would get way better THAC0 and AC and hit max CL way earlier for a more martial version.
Too bad I have the coding skills of a partially decomposed gerbil, of course.
Arcane Attire of the Weasel God: +1 AC, +10 Missile Resistance, +10 Fire Resistance.
Not only is it useable by anyone, including Kensai and Monks, it's also got: activated ability: The Weasel Megahaste spell (+1.5 APR, +2 AC, +12 move speed). 2 charges, but to recharge it cost around 300 GP, so... yeah, two casts of a level 6 spell for 300 GP and best/only in slot for monks and kensai.
Paws of the Weasel's Friend: Supposedly gives haste without the APR, so boots of speed, but only for Druids and Rangers. So far as I could tell, despite being worn by my Cleric/Ranger it did approximately nothing whatsoever.
Power of the Weasel God is a lot less reasonable when it's not restricted to Druids, or now I know that it is not Haste, and stacks with haste for an easy 5 APR for most characters, 4.5 APR for the rest, which a tad unreasonable.
WOW it has been a long time, but I’m happy to see this back (*shamelessly bumps*). Okay but seriously, @Pantalion your mod reviews are some of the best, most concise ones yet (and funny too!). I don’t think I ever said how much I appreciated that back when I posted my request (which was inconsiderate of me).
Just played the White Queen a second time, this one with an evil party, and thought I'd share.
Overall it's good, here are my takeaways:
The good:
Attention to visual details is particularly impressive, sometimes surpassing the original content in my opinion.
(**Minor spoiler**) If you take Viconia, she gets kidnapped. Losing my cleric before an imminent fight with a Necromancer got me genuinely mad. This got me more involved in the mission than the White Queen could ever hope to.
The challenge felt right. I went with a high level party (15s), so it was mostly easy, as it should be by then.
The bad:
Some of the writing stands off too much from the original content. Viconia's reaction to being abducted, for instance, was to bitch about me letting it happen. It humiliating enough that she was taken, to concede that she depends on the PC for protection was a bit off for me, she's too proud for that (and frankly, she should be more than capable of holding her own). I'd think she'd be pissed off and maybe do some terrible things to the Warden or the Queen. The evil options in general feel very limited, this is much less prevalent for a good party.
Unbalanced items. Some items just do too much. After beating the Queen, I glanced at the items she dropped and immediately threw them in the sell pile. There's also a hood that protects from 3 status effects, sets AC to 8 and gives +2 THAC0 on top and a couple items with APR bonuses.
Off-lore items. Imagine your party with a paladin holding 'Carsomyr, The Holy Avenger', a cleric with the 'Flail of Ages', a fighter dual wielding the 'Axe of Unyielding' and 'Crom Faeyr' and a mage with a 'Staff of the Magi'. Your thief then drops their 'Celestial Fury' in favor of 'Dagger: Rape of Magic'. I could see a chuckling 15 year old somewhere in the world when I read that. There's also the 'Stylish Amulet of Protection', which is an Amulet of Protection, but more stylish. The rest of the item lore is decent at least, and some are actually good like the Golem's Heart shield.
Some of the writing stands off too much from the original content. Viconia's reaction to being abducted, for instance, was to bitch about me letting it happen.
I'll have to disagree, blaming *you* for her failure is exactly what Viconia would do.
I think the problem is that we all have our own head-canon version of these NPCs and those differ for each of us. No mod that adds to those NPCs will ever manage to match every player's expectations.
The evil options in general feel very limited, this is much less prevalent for a good party.
Well, there are evil options at least. Honestly, a lot of the vanilla BG2 quests have far less and much worse 'evil options'.
Unbalanced items. Some items just do too much. After beating the Queen, I glanced at the items she dropped and immediately threw them in the sell pile. There's also a hood that protects from 3 status effects, sets AC to 8 and gives +2 THAC0 on top and a couple items with APR bonuses.
Off-lore items. Imagine your party with a paladin holding 'Carsomyr, The Holy Avenger', a cleric with the 'Flail of Ages', a fighter dual wielding the 'Axe of Unyielding' and 'Crom Faeyr' and a mage with a 'Staff of the Magi'. Your thief then drops their 'Celestial Fury' in favor of 'Dagger: Rape of Magic'. I could see a chuckling 15 year old somewhere in the world when I read that. There's also the 'Stylish Amulet of Protection', which is an Amulet of Protection, but more stylish. The rest of the item lore is decent at least, and some are actually good like the Golem's Heart shield.
I have to agree with you on the items. (Though, on the other hand, getting those gloves is one of the main motivators to do TWQ early in my play-throughs. Having some 'overpowered items' is okay I think..)
At least in some earlier version the scimitars were also not actually flagged as magical items (so they couldn't hit anything that needs +1 enhancement or more to be damaged) but I *think* that got fixed, making them way too strong.
Dagger: Rape of Magic
I am more bothered by the name, which I always found pretty distasteful, than the actual item.
The mod author though is not a native speaker so I'm not holding that against him.
My personal issue with the mod is how it basically forces all of it's exposition dialogue onto you, without giving your character a say in it.
There are a few dialogue options like 'I don't care' and 'I don't want to know' but using those does nothing, the NPCs will just ignore you and go on with their tales.
This isn't so obvious on your first play-through, especially when you play as a bard (for which this mod was very obviously written) but if you've played it a few times and play a character that wouldn't really care too much about the sad and oh-so-ambiguous back story it can get a bit grating.
(In my personal installation I actually add a few more dialogue options so I can give those NPCs a piece of my mind.)
All in all though TWQ is a very, very well done mod and I'd strongly recommend it to anyone.
As the mod author I thought I would reply to some of those comments:
The White Queen is not my favorite mod in the CoI series and from a perspective of time I think I would implement some stuff differently. It started as a "learning device" because I was trying to check how trigger regions work, traps, kidnappings etc. As I had most of the things ready, I kinda put everything together and thought "it's not so bad". But there are things I actually dislike in there, even though I am the one who gave life to this quest.
...one of those things are the items. The main problem? There are WAY to many of them. Instead of focusing on some nice ideas, I gave like tons of items and like 75% of them are just something that should probably end up in some merchant's bag.
As for the "rape of magic" - the idea behind the name is from causing harm to both the one that uses it and the enemy. It's an evil item, weapons that shouldn't be a weapon of choice. However, I understand that the description does not reflect that well... maybe because there were to many items to describe and it became just... tiresome. I actually considered changing the name, but...
...but there is another thing that stops me from that (and from updating the dialogue lines). The mod is now translated into 7 different languages and EVERY change would mean conctacting 7 different representantives of those translations and testing of 7 versions and STILL the mod would be something that's not like "wow". That's mostly why I am only doing some bugfixing when I have no other choice. This mod is... well... old. And I made it when I was less experienced. Compare it to Southern Edge and Ooze's Lounge and you will know what I mean.
Anyway, thanks for playing. I am not saying I will ignore those comments, I am seriously considering some changes, but I can't promise them as I have no idea how much work and time some stuff require and I am unsure if that's worth it. But let me think about it for another while.
I hope there are some other mods I made that let you have some joy from playing and that you will enjoy my new work when it's released.
Comments
At some point I'm probably going to need to consolidate the reviews again though, they're all over the place as always.
Random question: Why do mod creators like to make Kivan wax verbose in banters? Mr "We Must Not Waste Time On Idle Banter" seems a favourite to talk lengthily on about his feelz, rather than being a stoic badass with regrettable proficiency choices. So far the best in this run has been Tenya, whose conversation with the man was entirely in the form of ellipses.
Grammarsalad
- But, this could go further, and actually be required by the Character, as well (i.e. without the recipe, the character cannot create the potion.)
Eh, you could, but we're not talking a magical scroll that disintegrates on use, so I don't see a great justification (or benefit, to be honest) for making things too awkward. Having recipes as loot/reward can gate access until appropriate times in the game where the player can conceivably be expected to have access to them.
- Another optional component involves material requirements. Wands might require expensive jewelry while scrolls require special parchment and potions 'creature parts'. Something like that to limit how many items can be created. All of this will be optional, though.
Doesn't work so neatly for BG2 from memory, but if "scrolls" required repurposing the various "notes" dropped through the game that would be neat. All those bounty notices would finally have a use, and would limit the player loosely to plot progression (except those riddle random drops which would suddenly be useful).
Simple inventory check -> Holding non-essential note from list of the non-essential notes -> Replace with parchment -> Use parchment to make scrolls.
Trinit
- in case you'll be doing bg2 (evil, i guess) run, i released a new update to dorn expansion romance mod. if you're interested, i'd be glad to hear your critique of it.
Sure, I'll probably be ditching Sirene after SoD (if not before) so I should have ample opportunity to include Dorn if I don't forget.
subtledoctor
- I'm so tired or paladins with 2-hand swords. Why must every paladin in existence be built out for the Holy Avenger?? There's like a thousand paladins, and only one sword. I would be so much happier with Sirene in my run if I could give her a long sword and a shield without gimping her and wasting her proficiency slots.
Honestly would have bumped her up a peg in my books if she'd been sword and board, or, les gasp, flails or something. Why does every paladin need to stab people?
- I think Aquadrizzt has it there to make the armored casting components work.
Forgive me if I'm being thick, but wouldn't this be something to install if someone were to actually install anything involving armoured magi, rather than a default, always on, installation?
- I swear I nerfed that thing!... I find the existing "one cantrip per school" system to be pretty weak sauce. I think we need to somehow integrate the best characteristics of the 'innate cantrips' and the 'level 1 spell cantrips.'
If you did, I don't want to know what it was like before, it's so far carried me through to Cloakwood as nearly my only spell.
Also: Cantrip spell scrolls, as above. Use the scroll, learn the cantrip, as an innate.
Looking into 5e for cantrips (I assume you're familiar already with 3e, and 5e is notionally balanced around always useable on demand casting):
Abjur
Resistance: +1d4 to next saving throw within 1 turn.
Conj
Poison Spray: Save vs Breath or 1D12 damage (5th level (2d12), 11th level (3d12), and 17th level (4d12)) 10' range.
Produce Flame: Ranged attack roll, 30', 1d8 fire damage (5th level (2d8), 11th level (3d8), and 17th level (4d8))
Acid Splash: Save or 1d6 (5th level 2d6, 11th level 3d6, 17th level 4d6), 5' radius, 30' range.
Div
True Strike: Gain advantage on the next attack you make within 1 round.
Guidance: Target gets +1D4 to next ability check (generally skill use) within 1 round. (these two could be compounded into a single Luck spell type bonus that lasts a round)
Ench
Vicious Mockery: Enemy must save or takes 1D4 damage (5th level (2d4), 11th level (3d4), and 17th level (4d4)) and disadvantage on its next attack. 60'.
Evoc
Sacred Flame: Save or 1D8. Damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 5th level (2d8), 11th level (3d8), and 17th level (4d8). 60' range.
Fire Bolt: 1D10 (2d10 at 5th etc), 120'. Ranged attack.
Shocking Grasp: Melee attack, 1d8 etc damage on hit, can't make reactions until next round (possibly emulated by giving -1 APR for the round)
Eldritch Blast: 1D10 damage, extra ray projectile at 5th etc, ranged attack. (This could be handled by creating 1-4 ammo which sets APR to 4)
Illus
Minor Illusion: Create a 1 turn illusion, physical interaction reveals it to be an illusion (summon a 1 HP blurred "image"?)
Necro
Spare the Dying: Heals a target at 0 HP, stabilising them (since 0 = dead, perhaps a 1 HP heal for a victim under 5 HP or something?)
Chill Touch: Ghostly hand grabs target. 1D8 damage (2d8 at 5th etc), target cannot heal for 1 round, undead targets get disadvantage on attacks. 120' range.
Trans
Shillelagh: Held club or staff becomes +1 equivalent and deals 1D8 damage on hit instead of the usual, and replaces strength bonuses to melee hit/damage with spellcasting stat bonuses for 1 minute.
Disadvantage and Advantage involve rolling a second d20 and taking the lower/higher result respectively, and could be replaced with a 1 round luck bonus or penalty to cludge into BG.
While not a perfect fit, the majority are short term save or damage spells, with a mix of weapon creating ranged attacks, a minor Enchant Weapon type deal, with Illusion, Divination and Abjuration being utility spells.
-I feel like scribing scrolls should maybe limited to like 1x/day.
Considering it takes up spell slots, isn't it already restricted to once or twice a day?
That's a good point. Still, I could make the recipe a requirement for creation (for the second reason in this suggestion).
Simple inventory check -> Holding non-essential note from list of the non-essential notes -> Replace with parchment -> Use parchment to make scrolls.
That is an awesome idea!
I might make parts of this dependent on that 'animal parts' mod that is kicking around somewhere. Also, I could add my own items if there is a shortage (or require multiple if there is a surplus). It'd definitely be something that would need tweaking after playtesting.
Plot and Immersion: B
Starts with a cutscene, gives you an option to insult half-orc intelligence, or not to care in the slightest, which is nice. Apparently arrived in the area to do something, but despite telling me off in a Force Talk banter over not doing it yet, I still have no idea. Outside of her friendship track, she has the odd interjection (such as encountering Dorn, though I didn't get to see anything else between them since Sirene quickly shanked him not five minutes later, bloody paladins), chiming in at the occasional plot milestone. Generally a bit quiet without vanilla NPCs around, though she had quite a few dialogues where they showed up in my party.
Content and Consistency: A-
Some *looking down and blushing* in the general friendship talks which as usual I could do without, but generally she fit her fairly middling mental stats quite well. I'm not sure if there were lore checks in the conversations, but I always appreciate the opportunity to play a know it all with 18 Intelligence, so the option to actually know things rather than be dumb (Hexxaaaaat! *Fist shake.*) is nice either way, and there were plenty of chats (sometimes twice in a row because of my pausing habit), and plenty of places to be nice, jerky, or generally a snarky brat (which, being Chaotic Neutral, is pretty much my goto choice for any conversation).
Her quest is post Nashkel mines, and pretty brutal for that, with multiple ogre mages, a regular mage, and a bunch of bruisers which, if we're being honest, is a very bad matchup for a Wizard Slayer at the best of times, let alone a level 4 Wizard Slayer fresh out of Nashkel, and the reward is: Bugger all. Woo.
Power Creep: A-
Ishlika is a Wizard Slayer, not traditionally the best class for a CHARNAME, but certainly not bad to have around on an expendable NPC. Her physical stats are great, 17 across the board, which is good since as a Wizard Slayer she's not improving them, but Ishlika appears to always start at level 1, and starts with a returning magic throwing spear +1, which can be used by anyone except Clerics, makes her immediately capable of taking out those pesky flesh golems if you like to live dangerously (the range is pretty poor), and has a save or poison for 2 rounds attached, all available from level 1. A little imbalancing, but better if you, like me, like to wander a bit before picking up any NPC buddies.
Bugs: A
Asking her about her opinion on your comrades when you have only modded buddies in tow glitches out, but not game crashingly so.
Overall: A-
Not melodramatic, not terribly imbalancing, no overpowered kit (quite the opposite, in fact), no interfering with CHARNAME's agency, an underused weapon type (though a fairly awful one), and a generally tolerable personality with decent respect for the game's Lore. Her plot feels a tiny bit sparse compared to the others and her interjections a little less frequent, but compared to general BG1 NPCs she's War and Peace.
Tenya: The little cleric that could.
Plot and Immersion: A
I've always had a soft spot for Tenya, pre mod, and turning her into an NPC is an interesting move. Tenya comes with a lot of plot built in, her mother tortured, her loot nabbed, and a party of adventurers messing with her land home. All in all, there's plenty of chatter, NPC interactions, and no *sweaty hugs* (to my endless gratitude, even if I don't rate things on my growing horror). Tenya's dialogue is written well, and her character is interesting, if a tiny bit overdone to make her "precocious and spunky" at times. Tenya's biggest issue for me is that she randomly has a bunch of illegal mephit spells for no discernible reason.
Content and Consistency: B
I'm not a fan of plots where the party is insta-held/stunned/otherwise beaten, particularly where the goal is for an NPC to show off how great they are by saving the day, and that's exactly how Tenya's single quest goes, and while a mildly tricky fight thanks to three elementals and an SoD capped Cleric/Mage with cloudkill, it's short enough to feel like a bit of a Monty Haul with all the loot it gives (see below).
Power Creep: F
If I were representing a child character in BG it would have been by *dropping* her physical stats to 7/11/6, since tweens aren't exactly noteable for their strength or durability compared to an average human adult, letting her have the mental stats she was originally given, and then given her increases to stats in SoD, SoA and ToB to end up at 9/15/10/16/16/15 or something to show her slowly turning into an adult ("adult" Tenya being something like 10/16/12/17/17/16 the year after ToB and ready to begin the long, long process of dual classing into "Mage"). Logic being that you're not recruiting a child to have a powerful super genius cleric, you're recruiting a child to protect it from a terrible fate (of being orphaned again when you cruise through Baldur's Gate a little later), and children are generally not the best at anything in particular.
But here, it's almost like there was some concern that Tenya would be too weak for people to be interested in her, so to avoid that they made her the best cleric in the game by a wide margin. The twelve year old you're notionally supposed to be protecting is probably party tank, since the only character that can match her base, unbuffed AC is Coran with the Tome of Dexterity, and as far as clerics go, the only way one could feasibly out-spell her is by hogging all the wisdom tomes. To review:
1: Tenya's stats are tweaked from a waiflike 9/11/10/14/14/13 to a chunky 9/16/14/12/16/13. I'm not sure why they changed her con, since 14 and 10 are identical, but there you go. And she's chaotic neutral for some reason, despite all the evil. Not complaining too hard, since neutral evil people are easier to keep around than evil evil people, and she gets way better spells.
2: Bizarrely, the 12 year old gains enough Exp to match the potentially experienced adventurer CHARNAME as soon as she joins the party.
3: And has a +2 Ring of Protection which doesn't actually count as a +2 Ring of Protection, and thus stacks.
4: And has a quest to pick up an elemental summon per day, via her bowl. The Lesser elementals are immune to +1 weapons and therefore pretty much untouchable for most of the game.
5: And a +2 Staff Halberd, clerics only, giving +1 AC/Saves and 50% cold resistance, plus an extra 1D4 cold damage.
6: And a bunch of mephit spells, as mentioned above.
7: And +1 spell per level.
Gear she gets or acquires from her quest:
+2 Staff Halberd - clerics only, giving +1 AC/+1 Saves/+50% Cold Resistance, and dealing 1D10+2 +1D4 cold damage, staff proficiency.
Circlet of the Archmagi - Mage only, +1 AC/+1 Saves/+1 Intelligence
Bracers of 3 AC - Lolwut. Well I know what my CHARNAME is wearing until they can afford a robe of the archmagi.
Bowl of summon water elemental 1/day. - Also lolwut.
Melodrama: B+
Her parents are dead or gone, her mother was almost comically abusive, and the kid is extremely damaged. She's still less whiny than Sirene.
Bugs: A
Her illegal mephit spells are in the spell menu rather than the innate menu, a minor cosmetic issue at worst.
Overall: A
Honestly Tenya is probably the NPC of the four I'm most likely to keep around. Her interactions are generally entertaining and frequently funny, her personality is endearing for someone who threatens to cause actual bodily harm to you on several occasions, and she offers a novel parental role to the player I've not seen in any other NPCs, mod or otherwise. You might want to Keeper out the cheat ring (and maybe the Mephit spells) though, depending on how high your tolerance for super powered tweens is.
Since my BG NPCs install seems either non-functional or I've simply not had enough vanilla NPCs to make it work, I'll probably be starting a third and final time, removing some of the mods before sweeping through with some NPC cheerleaders to get to SoD, and then onto SoA, which grates on my sanity somewhat less. If there are any other BG compatible mods or modules you'd like to see before I refuse to touch BG1 for the next five years or so, now's the time to ask.
Just spitballing here, but there's the UI mod you mentioned that locks specialists into selecting their school spells each level, couldn't a variation of this lock two level 1 spell slots to being Cantrips, and then grant two bonus level 1 slots to every mage?
"Prepare Cantrip" -> Cantrip lasts 24 hours (or until you rest because that's how BG rolls) -> While duration lasts, you have [Eldritch Blast] innate ability, and regain the use of that innate ability once per [round/turn].
Invalid 91365! Imoen declared as I foisted a diamond from a tree fresh from Candlekeep.
And she meant it too, moving into a long, involved conversation about the colour of my eyes, how they were the colour of the sea before I kissed a man, and how *Coran's hip accidentally touched mine* from all the way over in Cloakwood as I recited a lengthy tale to her about a minotaur or something.
*Blush and move away.* she said, and we parted.
At this point I quit, uninstalled, and went to find Vynd instead.
Vynd
While he has no particular "plot" to speak of, Vynd has plenty to say, pipes up plenty of times to plenty of quests (and quite a few of his lines made me chuckle, so it's worth picking him up early to hear them all) and with each of the vanilla NPCs. Bonus points that he actually has a "belt" dialogue.
There are a few points where Vynd comes across as somewhat modern, and one noteworthy conversation where he says he's calling dibs on any elven chain you find, despite not being able to actually wear elven chain as a pure thief, but generally it wasn't too glaring and he more than makes up for it by not having any *sweaty hugs* to speak of.
Content and consistency: C
Vynd has no content, no unique items, no SoD content, or anything except the man himself. As I mention above, he's got a very rare few consistency niggles, but generally nothing major. Again, bonus points for not declaring he can take out the whole party by himself or anything ridiculous as a single class thief, though he does mention some things like taking out an Umber Hulk which, yeah, probably not something that actually happened considering I met you at level 1, dude.
Power Creep: A+
He's an Assassin. A single class assassin. Focused on long swords and darts.
Personally I consider the assassin to be by far the worst thief bar Pure. Outside of abusing poison weapon with Arrows of Detonation etc which I am loathe to do (and Dorn does better), they're generally mediocre thieves which give up 40% of their skill points for a 40% boost to their backstab bonus, or at least the cap thereof, which only becomes relevant long after Vynd has been and gone and I'm finally into SoA.
Melodrama: A+
Being a drow, Vynd has a horrible and tormented personal history by default. Being a bro, he doesn't incessantly whinge about it. He's also far from stupid evil in alignment, which is delightful. Vynd does provoke at least one or two party members into violence, which is a tad unprofessional, but eh, they're pretty low drama regardless.
Overall: A+
Well worth checking out purely for the Clever Evil perspective on BG1 he offers, if not for his actual class, which is mediocre.
Where the Mage version would get higher level spells to fuel their arcane strikes, it would only hit 20 CL at level 30, and never if it was a multiclass, while the Bard would get way better THAC0 and AC and hit max CL way earlier for a more martial version.
Too bad I have the coding skills of a partially decomposed gerbil, of course.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jYj7T9eEQ4U
Arcane Attire of the Weasel God: +1 AC, +10 Missile Resistance, +10 Fire Resistance.
Not only is it useable by anyone, including Kensai and Monks, it's also got: activated ability: The Weasel Megahaste spell (+1.5 APR, +2 AC, +12 move speed). 2 charges, but to recharge it cost around 300 GP, so... yeah, two casts of a level 6 spell for 300 GP and best/only in slot for monks and kensai.
Paws of the Weasel's Friend: Supposedly gives haste without the APR, so boots of speed, but only for Druids and Rangers.
So far as I could tell, despite being worn by my Cleric/Ranger it did approximately nothing whatsoever.
Power of the Weasel God is a lot less reasonable when it's not restricted to Druids, or now I know that it is not Haste, and stacks with haste for an easy 5 APR for most characters, 4.5 APR for the rest, which a tad unreasonable.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/75332/useful-knowledge-about-the-games-that-other-way-could-be-lost-please-help-by-reporting-links
Overall it's good, here are my takeaways:
The good:
The bad:
I think the problem is that we all have our own head-canon version of these NPCs and those differ for each of us. No mod that adds to those NPCs will ever manage to match every player's expectations.
Well, there are evil options at least. Honestly, a lot of the vanilla BG2 quests have far less and much worse 'evil options'.
I have to agree with you on the items. (Though, on the other hand, getting those gloves is one of the main motivators to do TWQ early in my play-throughs. Having some 'overpowered items' is okay I think..)
At least in some earlier version the scimitars were also not actually flagged as magical items (so they couldn't hit anything that needs +1 enhancement or more to be damaged) but I *think* that got fixed, making them way too strong.
I am more bothered by the name, which I always found pretty distasteful, than the actual item.
The mod author though is not a native speaker so I'm not holding that against him.
My personal issue with the mod is how it basically forces all of it's exposition dialogue onto you, without giving your character a say in it.
There are a few dialogue options like 'I don't care' and 'I don't want to know' but using those does nothing, the NPCs will just ignore you and go on with their tales.
This isn't so obvious on your first play-through, especially when you play as a bard (for which this mod was very obviously written) but if you've played it a few times and play a character that wouldn't really care too much about the sad and oh-so-ambiguous back story it can get a bit grating.
(In my personal installation I actually add a few more dialogue options so I can give those NPCs a piece of my mind.)
All in all though TWQ is a very, very well done mod and I'd strongly recommend it to anyone.
As the mod author I thought I would reply to some of those comments:
The White Queen is not my favorite mod in the CoI series and from a perspective of time I think I would implement some stuff differently. It started as a "learning device" because I was trying to check how trigger regions work, traps, kidnappings etc. As I had most of the things ready, I kinda put everything together and thought "it's not so bad". But there are things I actually dislike in there, even though I am the one who gave life to this quest.
...one of those things are the items. The main problem? There are WAY to many of them. Instead of focusing on some nice ideas, I gave like tons of items and like 75% of them are just something that should probably end up in some merchant's bag.
As for the "rape of magic" - the idea behind the name is from causing harm to both the one that uses it and the enemy. It's an evil item, weapons that shouldn't be a weapon of choice. However, I understand that the description does not reflect that well... maybe because there were to many items to describe and it became just... tiresome. I actually considered changing the name, but...
...but there is another thing that stops me from that (and from updating the dialogue lines). The mod is now translated into 7 different languages and EVERY change would mean conctacting 7 different representantives of those translations and testing of 7 versions and STILL the mod would be something that's not like "wow". That's mostly why I am only doing some bugfixing when I have no other choice. This mod is... well... old. And I made it when I was less experienced. Compare it to Southern Edge and Ooze's Lounge and you will know what I mean.
Anyway, thanks for playing. I am not saying I will ignore those comments, I am seriously considering some changes, but I can't promise them as I have no idea how much work and time some stuff require and I am unsure if that's worth it. But let me think about it for another while.
I hope there are some other mods I made that let you have some joy from playing and that you will enjoy my new work when it's released.
Cheers!