Spellsword Sorcerer Kit version 1.0 released

Allbrother

Hey All,


Version 1.0 of the Spellsword Sorcerer is now released!

It should be fully compatible with all EE games, though it hasn't been tested with IWDEE.

With that said, here's the spellsword:

Spellsword: This sorcerer uses his innate arcane power to augment his martial abilities.

Advantages:
- At level 1 can call into existence an arcane sword.

Arcane Sword:

Level 1:
Calls into existence a +1 magical longsword, which the Spellsword wields as if specialized with it.

Damage: 1d8+1 (slashing)
Speed Factor: 1
Type: One-Handed

Level 5:
Calls into existence a +2 magical longsword, which the Spellsword wields as if having mastery with it.

Damage: 1d8+2 (slashing)
Speed Factor: 1
Type: One-Handed

Level 10:
Calls into existence a +3 magical longsword, which the Spellsword wields as if having high mastery with it.

Damage: 1d8+3 (slashing)
Speed Factor: 1
Type: One-Handed

Level 15:
Calls into existence a +4 magical longsword, which the Spellsword wields as if having grand mastery with it.

Damage: 1d8+4 (slashing)
Speed Factor: 1
Type: One-Handed

Level 20:
Calls into existence a +5 magical longsword, which the Spellsword wields as if having grandmastery with it.

Damage: 1d8+5 (slashing)
Speed Factor: 1
Type: One-Handed

- Gains bonus 0.5 attack per round at levels 7 and 13.
- Gains +1 bonus to strength and dexterity.
- Can specialize in single weapon fighting style.
- Hit Die: 8.

Disadvantages:

- 20% spell casting failure
- Casting speed reduced by factor of 2

Changelog:

0.9: Inital Release
1.0: Full release
-Descriptions updated
-No longer has penalty to charisma
-Sword is now a toggle-able spell instead of being permanently attached
-Added half APR at levels 7 and 13 like warriors have
-Changed some icons
-Changed sword appearance to make it look more magical
-Changed sword animations to swinging hits only.
-HLA table ready. Gets everything except Smite from the fighter table and everything except energy blades and bonus spells from the mage table.

Known issues:

1.Summon and Dispell sword spells stack up to multiple casts per day for some reason. Doesn't have any adverse effects apart from annoying me.

Neverused

Is there a way to classify the spellsword as a Warrior-type class? Specialization and Grandmastery simply don't help in melee if you're stuck at low APR, and the only other way to get APR for this would be dual-wielding + speed weapon + Improved Haste, and that STILL only puts you at 6, at a Wizard's lackluster THAC0, penalized further for dual wield penalties. I guess there's Tenser's Transformation as well, but I'm pretty sure the Fighter/Mage dual or multiclass is straight-up better 100% of the time.

Possibilities that could make a kit like this viable: remove the spell failure, add some of the self-buff spells from the Cleric list as special abilities (Draw upon Holy Might, Holy Power, Champion's Strength, Righteous Magic). OR, alternatively, actually turn this into a Fighter or Ranger kit rather than a Sorcerer kit, and include some of the key melee buffing spells into special abilities. Maybe something like:

Spellsword: This fighter uses innate magical power to enhance his martial abilities at the cost of strength and endurance.

Advantages : (Populate with stuff like Strength, Blur, Draw upon Holy Might, Phantom blade, Enchanted weapon, every few levels.)

Disadvantages: Hitdice is only d8 rather than d10
STR and CON have a -2 penalty
Cannot wear armor heavier than chain mail
Cannot dual-class to Mage or Cleric
May only get Specialization with ranged weapons
May not use shields

Allbrother

Thanks for the feedback.
The specialization attached to the sword comes with the relevant APR. So the spellsword has 3/2 up until level 15, when he hits grandmastery gets to 2 APR. He also has access to haste/improved haste spells and when I get around to the HLAs, he'll get Whirlwind too. So as far as APR is concerned, he should be good.

Between the mastery bonuses, strength bonus and sword enchantments, he also shouldn't have too much trouble hitting stuff.

Also, I forgot to put this in the description, but he's using the priest HP table

I was actually concerned he might be a little OP.

As far as making him a fighter, that would actually be much easier to do. However, I wanted him to be very much a mage and most importantly I want him to get the mage stronghold in BG2

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Allbrother

subtledoctor said:

You can give a non-warrior kit APR bonuses from specialization by editing clswpbon.2da. There is a setting for it in the fl#add_kit_ee function, check out the "how to make kit mods" thread in General Modding.

I don't need to, it's tied to the sword already. Also, I do have the line already but it doesn't normally work as the base class doesn't have it enabled. Could be I have an old version fl#add_kit. Regardless, it isn't needed here.

subtledoctor said:

There is no way to custom-tailor the spells available to a sorcerer, except by wizard school, or else ripping apart the whole system and introducing a dialogue-based system in its place. (One mod actually goes to that extent.)

That's unfortunate. I remember there was a request to externalize this in 2013... it's disappointing beamdog never got around to it.

subtledoctor said:

Making this a ranger or paladin kit with some custom spells like the vanilla Stalker is an interesting idea, but a similar problem arises: it is annoyingly difficult to control their spell list (it's easy to add spells, but harder to remove priest spells) without a big honking sphere system set up. (Two mods actually go to that extent.)

That's more trouble than it's worth. And more importantly, it goes against the concept to stick it in one of those classes.
Besides, I wanted to edit the spellbook in order to remove all non-defensive spells, not add any. If I was willing to go with another class, it would be easiest to just whip up a couple of defensive spells and add them as innate for a fighter.

subtledoctor said:

Frankly this would work best as a multiclass fighter/mage kit. Controlling which spells it can learn would still have to be done on a school-by-school basis, but that's okay. You get warrior APR, you get wizard spells, it's easy as cake to add other spells like select priest self-buffs... and making multiclass kits these days is basically just as simple as single-class kits, thanks to @Aquadrizzt's library of functions for that purpose:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/59743/tool-qdmulti-a-library-for-multiclass-kits/p1

The only thing you lose is sorcerer-style spellcasting. It's amazing how obsessed people are with that. Is memorizing spells really so bad?

There's also the levelling. And this kit would be redundant if it was under fighter/mage. It pretty much is a fighter/mage


edit:

Also, thanks for taking the time out to write this out

Ammar

I do not like the Cha penalty. It is not a meaningful handicap and there does not seem to be a rationale for it. Why should a spell sword be especially uncharismatic?

Also 20% spell failure is just unfun to me. Just too random. How about 1 (or 2) less spells per level per day?

Also not a big fan of the kit weapon. Finding better equipment for your character is part of the fun and it pales in comparison to other weapons in game.

Allbrother

Hey Ammar, thanks for the reply.

Ammar said:

I do not like the Cha penalty. It is not a meaningful handicap and there does not seem to be a rationale for it. Why should a spell sword be especially uncharismatic?

The handicap comes in the form of denying him high level spells - sorc spell levels are tied to charisma, though i'm not 100% if this is implemented, if it isn't I can probably remove this.
As far as 'lore' is concerned, the reasoning is that since he gets up close and personal, he gets a few scars which make him less attractive. It's all fun and games with sharp objects until somebody loses an eye, amirite? Also, I wouldn't say 15 charisma is uncharismatic, considering the baseline is 10. I'd love to be considered a 15 IRL, you know

Ammar said:

Also 20% spell failure is just unfun to me. Just too random. How about 1 (or 2) less spells per level per day?

Have you tried it? When I was testing to see if the spell failure worked, it took me forever to get a spell to fail. Theoretically it should only be 1 in 5 spells, but it seemed much rarer. It's possible I misunderstand how the spell probability works.
I thought of going the spells per day route, but the point of making the kit was to get a melee fighter that's more involved than the typical for the game click and forget. Decreasing the number of active abilities to use feels counterproductive to that.

Ammar said:

Also not a big fan of the kit weapon. Finding better equipment for your character is part of the fun and it pales in comparison to other weapons in game.

That comes down to the individual person, it's hard to account for. Although I will say, there's no weapon in any of the IE games that a sorcerer can use to hit harder than he can with this one.

kjeron

Allbrother said:

The handicap comes in the form of denying him high level spells - sorc spell levels are tied to charisma, though i'm not 100% if this is implemented, if it isn't I can probably remove this.

Charisma has no impact on Sorcerers.

As for the weapon - do not use opcode 111 for this, it is meant for temporary weapons only, any polymorph spell will overwrite the item, and Ctrl-R will delete it. Use opcode 122 instead, Flag the weapons as "Critical Item", and add an Opcode 319 effect to them restricting them exclusively to your kit.

Allbrother

kjeron said:

Allbrother said:

The handicap comes in the form of denying him high level spells - sorc spell levels are tied to charisma, though i'm not 100% if this is implemented, if it isn't I can probably remove this.

Charisma has no impact on Sorcerers.

As for the weapon - do not use opcode 111 for this, it is meant for temporary weapons only, any polymorph spell will overwrite the item, and Ctrl-R will delete it. Use opcode 122 instead, Flag the weapons as "Critical Item", and add an Opcode 319 effect to them restricting them exclusively to your kit.

Thanks, I'll drop the charisma modifier in that case.
It seems like you actually did at least some playtesting. That or you looked through the files. Either way, I appreciate it.

I was a bit worried how it would interact with other spells (black blade for instance). Sounds like it would be much the same as with your polymorph example. I was actually thinking of turning it into a castable spell that works sort of like the druid shapeshift which should also solve this, but your suggestion is good too. I'll give it some more thought

Skatan

I like this idea and have made a similar char myself, but I only used EEkeeper to edit in specialiation of longswords and a few THAC0 boosts here and there. With self-restriction on the spell list it is quite similar to your build. I gave myself the sword of flame RPing that it was a blade that my sorc could create from magic at will. This was because I couldn't get eekeeper to give my character the divine spell "flame blade" properly. So you see, it's very similar to you except my sorc was pyromancer, born from fire.

I know nothing of modding so I will not comment on OPcodes or similar, but personally I would remove the higher hit die and instead keep more of the original spellcasting to make the kit needing all the protective spells it can get. I might also consider restricting usage of all armors as per standard sorcerer and maybe even robes as well to avoid the AC5 robe of the arch magi and Vecna in BG2. This, again, forces this kit to rely on mage spells for AC and protection and using all her spell slots for that. This may not at all be in line with your ideas for the kit though but should make it into something different from the standard F/M.

And just as an FYI @subtledoctor; I wouldn't say I am obsessed with the idea of using sorcerer, but I find the RP value of playing a sorc to be VERY different from RPin a mage. The mages in BG are dedicated to studying, reading books, training in the art of magic etc where-as the sorc gets innate abilities. That's a major difference and the sole reason why I have, with my ridiculously inferior skills, tried to create charnames who are different kind of sorcerer-fighters etc.

Allbrother

Hey @Skatan
Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate a purely player's perspective just as much as an experienced modder's. Also, nice explanation for the sorcerer choice, I completely agree
I'd like to note, the spellsword has exactly the same item restrictions as a regular sorcerer. So no armors.

With that said, v1.0 is now released. I'll update the first post now.
I have some additional ideas for both this kit and a fighter version based on enhancing the weapons they have instead of summoning a magical one. However, that's for another day.
As of right now this is a fully featured kit, which I've playtested up to level 7 in BGEE and a bit in ToB and seems to be working really well.