Too much money?
chimeric
Member Posts: 1,163
In original AD&D, in the pen-and-paper game, the Friends spell did something completely different from giving you a shop discount. When I play Baldur's Gate, and the other IE games too, I sooner rather than later find myself with a ton of money on my hands. It becomes a question of finding ways to spend big. Changes to prices and rewards, other mods like that are okay with me, but we could also reduce discounts. I'd like to know, would it be a very upsetting loss of your enjoyment if another spell did what Friends does now for Charisma, on a humbler scale - adding 2 points, maybe - and Friends had a different effect? You would lose 4 out of 6 guaranteed discount grades. This could have a rather profound long-term impact on the games' economy and make natural Charisma more important, but would it ruin the enjoyment for you?
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If you find yourself having too much gold in game, try LoB and you will appreciate those surplus ^^.
next, you go to the nashkiel carnival and inside the big tent ( first big one on the left) there is a dude whose name starts with a "V" forget his name, but long story short, as soon as you walk into the tent, bud will come over to your group, yoink 100 gold, and disappear forever
or you can just kill him instead and get some lovely potions off of him ( no REP loss) and one of those potions is the potion of mastery thievery
go back to beregost with that potion, and have your team thief drink it and probably worse case scenario you will have around 60 or 65 % pick pockets
quick save your game ( incase you fail first try) and pick the lovely cloak from algeron ( or whatever his name is) with no muss or fuss
@sarevok57 I'll keep that in mind. A refreshing cheating experience, that.
Not at all! The contemplated Friends replacement aside, the only thing that my mod will do that deserves the name of MODDING, that is to say CHANGING, is that the scrolls my own spells will be found on MIGHT be usable by sorcerers. This is mostly a matter of convenience for players who want access to the spells. Even then, this will only be the case for MY OWN spells and scrolls, I won't change ALL scrolls in the game - precisely so that I don't impose my silly ideas of what "there needs to be", as @subtledoctor puts it, on other people! Those who play sorcerers with my mod can just ignore the spells if they think that scrolls for sorcerers are anathema. I only want to ADD to the games. I don't see how their "good reasons" or your being convinced excuse rudely, and crudely, messing with the AD&D magic system and people's enjoyment of the games as a price for installation. Monster Summoning for every level. Right, and put a Barely Limited Wish in the 8th level while you're at it - there was a gap.
The "different effect" I would like Friends to have is actually its original effect, to the extent it's possible in these CRPGs. I want it to pacify and befriend (charm) batches of monsters, with special rules that would permit special applications. And befriending monsters would be a starting platforms for using other spells I contemplate, like Tongues and ESP, and perhaps a special ability for bards to collect experience by gathering tales off creatures. None of these exist, so nothing would be overwritten - a completely non-destructive addition to the gameplay. But I had to ask whether Friends is a popular spell among players. I like the discount it gives, myself. Apparently no one cares about that, but now I see that there are other problems - a fatso mod that's taken up a whole theater row. On the other hand, making up a new spell is not that easy (only hacks imagine that good ideas are all over the place). What I will probably end up doing is making a small installer for my Friends, apart from the mod I'm working on.
As for not changing Sorcerers around: You're adding new spells, and give Sorcerers the opportunity to learn these new spells in excess of their regular spells known list. That is a change to the Sorcerer class, who are normally restricted by their severely limited spells known list, a defining class feature. It's a clear advantage to Sorcerers, and thus, yes, you are making Sorcerers stronger than normal, even if the known spells are limited to the new spells you add.
1. Not everyone uses SR.
2. It's fairly easy to prevent SR to modify individual spells. The readme even tells you how. @Demivrgvs isn't some kind of tyrant who imposes his views on the end user.
3. Stop being such a douchebag. If you think your mod is so much better than SR, then just release it without caring about compatibility. People will pick what they want, and as I said earlier it's easy to configure SR to make it compatible.
See what it does even in this instance, in the case of Friends. True, the pen-and-paper version of AD&D (I insist that the IE games are computer RPGs, not squad combat) Friends converts creatures to help you. In BG, Friends only adds 6 (formerly 2d4) points of Charisma. This might actually be useful for dialogues in a game like Torment, and so there it would make some creatures help you. In BG (and BG2, IWD and IWD2) we don't have the conditions for this, so Friends only gets us a store discount - a far cry from the original. But a few days ago, after I posted that put-down about Friends, I went and looked at the spell's description in the PHB. Well - and I had totally forgotten about that, I confess - the pen-and-paper spell does begin by raising Charisma by 2d4 points. Then the creatures' reaction is re-rolled for the new Charisma level. So I was too hasty in saying that the computer Friends is completely wrong; it's just that Charisma is not used for hostility adjustments outside of dialogues in these games. So now I think that what I should do with Friends is let it have both powers: still add those points, for the discount and in case someone writes dialogues with Charisma checks; and change monsters' reaction - perhaps even based on current Charisma, if I can figure out how. It's a long shot for me. But having both abilities at once means that players with the original Friends have nothing to fear from my mod.
Back to Spell Revisions. We have, as you see, this very imperfect rendering of Friends in BG - in principle a social, role-playing spell like no other except Charm Person. It is weak, but we could look for ways to improve, if there was demand. But along comes a big mod like Spell Revisions, obsessed with order and symmetry, and offers players a bunch of sensible changes, which they have no reason not to embrace; and it shuffles priorities. It sweeps away the lousy Friends, by fiat, puts a Monster Summoning spell in level 1 for the sake of having a full array, even though this would be way out of the scope of an AD&D mage at start-up; I could quote other instances from the readme where the game is made straightforward. What does this tell people? That role-playing spells are junk and can't "compete" with real, combat stuff. That everything should be linear, consistent, consecutive and logical; therefore, any illogical rules must be eradicated, and when a new spell is introduced, it has to be evaluated against those criteria too. Does it lack a clear description, with all the numbers? Does it use figurative language and apparently go off topic? Does the effect lack predictability and threaten to jeopardize familiar tactics? Bad, bad, bad.
What chance does that leave modders like me? You might say: show your spells, and if they are good enough... Ah, but what is "good"? One can't assume that actually good ideas will be recognized as such a certain range of novelty away. Perhaps slowly, if I persist, and just do the job little by little; then some recognition of difference; that's my hope. But, to be frank, the degree of mental blockage I see on these forums - not in everyone, but in many - is Dianetic, and so I lash out more than I should... I do. Because I'm an artist in my approach, and I don't want to be put in the same category as housekeepers, improvers, or those who paint with a template. With all due respect for their contributions, I (will) want recognition of mine. I might be a big, a small, a fine, a mediocre artist, a clumsy one at this stage, I admit it, but I always try to bring creativity and fresh ideas, even, for now, to these debates. I go quite deep in a different way than an engineer, and when I can't, I at least make things diverting. I draw on my imagination, but if you hand me a broom or a monkey wrench and say: get in line! Then I must, of course, fail, and the same goes for all other people who dare to depart from the modding standard - now a couple of decades old, if you count from the first BG rebalancing mods (pre-Millennium). I'm sorry that I have gone overboard in places. But there has got to begin recognition of merits other than sound construction, universal application and clever logic around here.
Good luck with your business, you're gonna need it. I personally think this joke has lasted long enough. Goodbye.
I note in your recent posts you've referred to keeping the charisma bonus. For what it's worth I think that makes sense. That's partly because charisma is not only used to give a discount in stores, but in a pretty large number of encounter adjustments. Admittedly, none of those are requirements to finish the game (Bioware wisely making sure that low-charisma characters were not automatically prevented from completing it). However, low charisma will significantly affect both the side-quests available and the rewards you get from those. One of the advantages of a solo arcane character is that they can use charisma as a dump stat without losing out on side-quests to the same extent.
@subtledoctor , I don't mind improvement... but the engine being what it is, how much can you do with it? People's efforts run up against this wall, divert and end up clearing the grounds, streamlining, at least; only streamlined D&D is even worse than chaotic D&D, as 3E and other editions have shown. It's far too easy to kill the imagination. I guess I owe a reply to you too. To claim the title of artist for oneself may be both too much and not enough; one has to prove it, but then again, the devil may not as black as he is painted... All it takes is a little imagination, determined work in a chosen direction, some knowledge and a bit of gaiety to keep you going. Plenty of people could do this, already do this - but more on the Fan Creations forum than in the modders section, though I can think of a few exceptions, like Caina's mod. But we have more gruff rangers, hedge-cutting gardeners and mechanics here. The first response an unusual idea gets is not "This is interesting, though it might be dangerous" but "This is dangerous, though it might be interesting" - if you hear that second part at all...
Well, so be it! I can't change people, so I'll just get back to my spells, hopefully wised up enough not to mess with tiny details for order's sake.
If someone accused you or me of having a mental block on that scale, I don't think either of us would think higher of that person, or their opinion. Criticizing people's intelligence seldom wins them over.
If someone isn't paying attention to something you feel is important, bring it to their attention--I've often found that folks will listen, and sometimes even change their minds. But don't call their openmindedness into question. I've never seen that help.
I strived to make all spells more unique and I do tried to add some new "original" spell (e.g. Fog Cloud, Magic Fang, Ball Lightning. etc.) but I often stumbled upon either engine limitations (e.g. charm working as a full domination, not being able to reduce fatigue, harcoded stuff, and so on) or AI restrictions (with or without SCS, the AI has severe limitations in terms of what it can handle when you change things). EE recently added a few more tools at my disposal, I'll try to make good use of them.
If you think SR fails in some way you could provide me FEEDBACK and/or SUGGESTIONS to improve it
or you can just ignore SR and eventually build your own mod.
P.S for the sake of information we also tried to tackle the 'Too much money' issue within IR's Store Revision component, but I don't dare to suggest you looking into another depressing Revision mod.
That sort of thing is dull, inhuman and repressive. And, in our case, the rationalize-everything approach fails to take into account more subtle distinctions and meanings within the AD&D system. You decided that it would make sense to have a Monster Summoning for every level. I think this makes too much sense, the game is not so straightforward. Briefly, the role of the wizard and the character of his spells in pen-and-paper changes several times in his career. At first he is a trickster and a helper. He has very few and very weak offensive spells, not enough to bring down enemies the party is then likely to encounter. A 1st level Burning Hands or Magic Missile won't even kill one orc. But he has spells that distract, lead away and assist - cantrips, Invisible Servant, simple illusions. A few levels later the wizard steps to the fore as the main damage-dealer of the party with Fireball, Lightning Bolt etc., and his obstacle-overcoming spells like Fly or Pass Wall become invaluable.
At this point he learns to summon helpers and minions. But this isn't a defining moment of his development - a point that you could just draw a straight graph from. There is no such defining moment. A little later his role again changes again to that of a strategist and manipulator. Explosions and cheap minions fade into the background, the wizard can better overcome challenges with more intelligent means. He can move the party to other planes of existence, summon demons to obtain services from them, subjugate others with geas, teleport, enchant items. Finally, a few more levels after, the wizard becomes someone who can twist the laws of reality and the game itself: command another to die, easily become a golem, a dragon or, say, a mosquito, he can take out his heart and put a Heart of Stone instead (Spells&Magic), he can defeat mortality itself and become a lich. I've never been too happy with Wish as a spell, but it is there just to represent the fact that the wizard has become, almost, a god.
Now, any idiot understands that this progression can't be represented in a CRPG in all its extent and richness, but we must reflect it in a reduced way, hint at it when we can't do any more, staying true to the spirit of the pen-and-paper game. Instead someone has decided it would be a swell idea to have a level 2 Power Word. Yes, Power Word: Sleep. Why not? Because, I could say, a 4th level mageling isn't someone who can tell reality what to do! He is yet at that point where he is weaker than the adventuring reality; one level after, and he will begin to be its equal; and much later he will prevail over it and transcend it to loftier concerns. So the game's logic is not linear. It's logarithmic, you might say, and often deliciously crooked, in some places it has tears and pools where pure fun splashes, and no logic at all! And there are crooks and blind alleys where the air smells like a museum - time-stamped features that reflect the thinking, book influences and assumptions from 40 years ago. These too should be recognized and receive the same respectful treatment a museum deserves - you don't have to visit there, but don't just smash its displays.
This is why something like a Monster Summoning at every spell level is a poorly thought-out idea, and so are many of these rational updates. One shouldn't, for example, change spell school assignation on that prosaic logic, but instead try to see it from the designers' point of view, get inside their mind. Why is Burning Hands Alteration and not Invocation/Evocation? I don't know. But there must have been a reason. Maybe whoever came up with that spell had in his mind an image where, in some sense, it's really the mage's hands that burn, and fire flows off them. Or maybe it's the air itself that changes into fire. The result may be the same as with a fireball, but the origins, the powers at work are different. Why is Melf's Acid Arrow Conjuration/Summoning? Maybe because it is imagined as a missile which, instead of being made out of nothing (Evocation) actually comes from another place. From a universe of acid arrows. From a god of acid arrows. I don't know, but these possibilities delight me, so you won't see me getting a big piece of chalk and crossing out all this irrational nonsense. I can't suggest anything to you, you see why... You've decided to flatten this fairy landscape, what should I suggest? You've put a lot of effort in your improvements. There are periods in a person's life, though, we work away at one thing then grow out of it, step over it when our understanding expands. Being stuck in a rut is the worst thing there is. If I thought I'd be listened to, I would say, leave these antiquated but still beautiful ideas alone, be accepting of their flaws, just let go and instead make some equally strange, brow-raising and exciting spells of your own. Or adopt less-known ones from obscure AD&D materials, which is, apparently, the most I can do... Why not? I'd look into it. Money doesn't worry me in my own games, though. If I were playing for the first time, I'd want this part of design tightened - not everything loose and irrational is a beautiful fantasy - but I can't trick my older eye now...