[Mod] New Refinements (v4?) beta release

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Cahir

@subtledoctor I'm super excited, just very busy with RL stuff to express my eternal gratitude. I think now it's only Virtue left and all the mods I need will be converted to EE

AKrugBier

Super excited here, Refinements was a mod which I always used in my old BGT playthroughs.

And I love the fact that you made a component for each class refinement, because this makes installing Rogue Rebalancing far easier (always used to install RR over Refinements because I wanted the bard / thief changes of RR).

Aedan

Thank you very much. There are still many mods that need EE compability and Refinements was one of them. Keep up the good work!

ineth

I'm currently busy playing the second expansion of Pillars of Eternity, but once I inevitably return to the Infinity Engine games in the coming months I'll be very happy to find a properly ported EE Refinements waiting for me...

(There was already this, but yours seems like a more thorough approach at updating and modernizing it.)

BillyYank

Actually, I'm not familiar with the original Refinements mod. Perhaps a more comprehensive description would stir up some interest.

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ineth

subtledoctor said:

Interesting. I was not aware of that. Does it work?

Yeah, it seemed to work when I tried it last summer.
But I didn't dare to use it with kit mods or Rogue Rebalancing or other things which might mess with it.

subtledoctor said:

Refinements adds some seriously cool new abilities, and makes every class's and kit's HLA table 1) unique, and 2) reflect the theme and characteristics of that class or kit.

Yes, in particular, each specialist mage school and each Priest denomination gets at least one unique HLA that fits their theme.

And each multi-class gets at least one unique HLA as well, instead of only getting a mix of their base classes' HLAs.

And Monks gets a completely new and thematically fitting set of HLAs - in the unmodded game they simply got the same ones as Fighters, which was pretty lame (and rumor has it, a result of time pressure during ToB's development).

subtledoctor said:

Warning: this gets rid of UAI.

I thought it removes it from Thieves and gives it to Bards instead?
Which makes sense to me, because Bards are supposed to be the "jack of all trades" class.

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TheMetaphysician

This looks awesome. Thanks for all the work you are doing on this mod and the others you have been working on. It is much appreciated.

I was reading over in the Refinements forums, and ran across an issue that the old mod had, which I wondered if this one would have too. Apparently if you used Level 1 NPCs or a Keeper program to create an illegal multiclass (like, say, making Minsc a Barbarian/Cleric), the game crashed when you leveled the character up and needed to select an HLA. The reason was the existence of distinctive HLAs for specific multiclasses and for specific kits, or something, so that there needed to exist a table for each multiclass and each kit (which didn't exist for the illegal combos)?

I was wondering if that issue will remain even in your version of the mod. Also, would this cause problems for mod-generated kits, or multiclasses (perhaps illegal ones) using mod-generated kits?

If it does, could the issue be solved simply by declining to install the multiclass HLAs (since you've given us the option to go through and install the HLAs class-by-class -- which is awesome by the way)? Or by declining to install the distinctive kit-specific HLAs, sticking only with generic class HLAs? Or is it not that easy?

The reason I ask is that I'm excited to try some illegal kitted multiclasses on my next run.

TheMetaphysician

One more question: would this mess with SCS's assignments of HLAs to enemies?

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ineth

Really?

I thought I had used Refinements with kitted multiclasses (from Level 1 NPCs) before, and didn't get any crashes; I think it just gave me the HLAs for the multiclass (and ignored the kit).

But maybe I remember wrong...

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Pteran

Thanks for all your hard work man! I'm excited to put this to use once I make it back to another BG saga run through.

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Arthas

given the chance to multiclass every kit, do you think it would be more powerful a barbarian multiclassed with a mage, or a classical dual class berserker mage? :P

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Aedan

Thank you very much for this update!

Arthas

Thanks for this mod. Is there a list of all possible effects for both evil and good divine intervention?

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Arthas

thanks for at least trying. If I install this mod with rogue rebalancing, do you know which one applies for Thieves? Do I get a mix of the two? Or just the one that I installed last?

Do you know how it works in BWS?

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trinit

@subtledoctor thank you so much for your efforts in keeping the mods up to date, i really appreciate it (i lurk here regularly). hopefully i will have time soon for another playthrough!

btw, does anyone know what is general consensus on new HLAs? does it make certain/all classes overpowered? i realize added versatility already increases power but i was mostly hoping for thematically appropriate HLAs rather than adding more cheese...

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psycros

subtledoctor said:

My sense is that, in general, Refinements reduces cheese rather than increasing it.

I like cheese. Preferably melted on a chimichanga. You know what I love just as much - possibly even more? Updated mods, particularly when those updates aid compatibility with other mods.

kelthalas

hey i'm posting here since there are no issue tracker on your fork

My mod list contains spell revisions and refinement (installed in that order using BWS) and I noticed that refinements overwrites the spell "Spell Shield" (spwi519.spl) with a bugged version. That spell is supposed to block a single Magic Attack (i.e. Secret Word), but after installing refinements spell shield is no longer removed after absorbing it. This makes the caster immune to magic attacks for the full duration.

I'm not sure why refinement would touch a non HLA spell

this is the weidu log I had when I originally stumbled upon the bug http://pastebin.com/jwu2hJ04 but I was able reproduce it on a clean install with just spell revisions and then spell revisions+refinements


thanks for your help

EDIT: I investigated a bit more :
after installing my mods and replacing spwi519.spl in my override folder with spell revisions's one , Spell Shield correctly absorbed a single magic attack (i used a simulacrum casting secret word on my mage with spell shield + spell deflection).

However, the mage NPC that led me find to find this bug (the drow mage mage that you can duel in the tavern in Ust Nasha), still uses a bugged version (SCS required for him to cast that spell).
Not sure if it's relevant but he uses spell shield in a spell trigger alongside a spell deflection.

I noticed that in SCS' doc there is mention of a fix for a bugged spell shield, so maybe there is some bad interaction between all these mods?