Wild Mage/Specialist Mages Mod

Moaan

Hi!

I always found Wild Mage interesting, but a bit too... unreliable for a serious play-through. So I came up with a couple of ideas what could be done to remediate that.

First: As the Mage practices Wild Magic, in my opinion, he should become more proficient at shaping raw Magic. Following this, I think he should get certain bonuses to his Wild Surge table throws at certain levels.
My idea was to give him a +1 bonus at the following levels:
6, 11, 15, 18 and at every other levels from thereon. At level 40, this would give the Wild Mage a +15 Bonus to his Wild Surge table throws at level 40 and +20 at level 50.

Second: A change to the Wild Surge table, putting the "more extreme" outcomes of Wild Surges at the start (like sex change, Caster recuperates as if rested, fireball centered on caster, caster/target HP doubled etc.).
Rule of thumb: The less extreme, less changing to gameplay/fight the outcome is, the higher its number is on the Wild Surge table. (My vision of the table attached, feel free to comment/criticize).

Third: New high-level abilities for specialist mages. For Wild Mages, I thought Chaos Shield could become a passive (not as the first HLA chosen, maybe +8th lvl spell as a prerequisite). Of course, the spell itself should not have any effect anymore and be removed from spell books. Improved Chaos shield should be weakened as well, to +10 bonus on the Wild Surge table. Later, Improved Chaos shield could become a passive (with more prerequisites, besides Chaos Shield, so it can not be chosen too early). Instead of removing Chaos Shield and Improved Chaos Shield from the spell book, its effect could be changed to slightly decrease the chance of a Wild Surge for regular spells (say Chaos Shield: -1%, Improved Chaos Shield: -1.6% - The overall chance for a Wild Surge on a regular spell is changed from 1/20 to 1/25 using Chaos Shield and 1/30 using Improved Chaos shield) and also Nahal's Reckless Dweomer (say 90% chance for a Wild Surge using Chaos Shield (down from 100%) and 85% chance for a Wild Surge using Improved Chaos Shield).[1]
For all other specialist Mages, I envisioned a HLA that increases Spell caster level by 3 to 5 (Maybe in several steps) for their respective school, and/or decreases Saving Throws against the Mages School by 1 to 2 (in two steps).


Now, to implement this, there are two possibilites. Someone could do this by him/her/themselves or someone could provide with a couple of links and or guides to teach me a bit of modding for BGEE Both would be much appreciated.
Criticism, commentary and praise are all very welcome.


[1]: Since (Improved) Chaos Shield as a spell is removed, this would give the Wild Mage a +40 bonus on the Wild Surge table at level 40 and a +45 bonus at level 50. Still plenty of chance for the spell to go awry, but hopefully, the effects won't be quite as dramatic.


Regards,


Moaan

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Moaan

First up, thanks for your feedback.
You do (get your level added to the roll)? Hm. How did I not know that? But that's good!

But you're missing that you can't roll below your own level even now. So if you put all the bad outcomes at the beginning, you won't roll these at all anymore, and I'm afraid that might make Wild Mages too strong or at least a *lot* stronger, depending on how the table is rearranged. Although most are bad anyway (except 7, as I count it). Or at least potentially worse than no Wild Surge.
However, I really feel like mages should have some new/more HLAs. I don't think it's fair some other classes (like fighter- oder rogue-classes) get to acquire some several times, while mages only get each once. A small bonus would be nice, I think.

AstroBryGuy

@subtledoctor - the level bonus is when you cast NRD. You get the bonus when you release the surge on purpose.

@moaan - You can reorder the surge table -- BUT -- some of the effects are hardcoded. If you look at WILDMAG.2DA, most of the entries refer to a spell, but some are just asterisks (*****). The former can be changed, the latter can't.

Moaan

Oh, ok, so adding a few levels to the WMs Wild Surge table throw is back on the table.
Can you tell me where WILDMAG.2DA is? I can't find it in any of my game folders I mean, I guess I could just make a new WILDMAG.2DA file and put it in override, but would that even work like it's supposed to and also how would I code it? If it did, I could also rework the entire table and put in entirely new effects and remove some of the duplicates while I'm at it.

Grammarsalad

Moaan said:

Oh, ok, so adding a few levels to the WMs Wild Surge table throw is back on the table.
Can you tell me where WILDMAG.2DA is? I can't find it in any of my game folders I mean, I guess I could just make a new WILDMAG.2DA file and put it in override, but would that even work like it's supposed to and also how would I code it? If it did, I could also rework the entire table and put in entirely new effects and remove some of the duplicates while I'm at it.

Do you have near infinity and/or dltcep? You can extract/alter the necessary files with either (i suggest both) *looking for links*...

http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=23917#entry196679

http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/30593/new-versions-of-nearinfinity-available/p1