Request - Spell Casting and Prestige Classes

FireWraith

When HOTU came out, one of the prestige classes added was Pale Master, and along with it, the ability to have prestige classes that added casting ability. Unfortunately, this fell short of its 3rd Edition counterpart in a couple of ways. Many online servers have gone to some lengths to try and bridge this gap, both for Pale Master and for custom hak classes, but it's a lot of work and causes issues for some.

The way it is now:
Right now, any caster prestige class (that is, those designated in the 2da to add caster levels) will increase the spell slots available to a caster of either arcane or divine type (as specified), as if they'd gained the appropriate number of levels. Clerics automatically gain access to the higher level spells in their spells and can use them normally, and wizards can do so if they acquire and scribe higher level scrolls. It does not, however, increase known spells for sorcerers or bards. It also does not increase caster level in scripts for things like duration, damage dice, etc.

The way it is in the pen and paper 3rd Edition game:
In the pen and paper game, your caster level is the same as if you had that many levels of the class - so someone with 10 sorcerer levels and 10 prestige caster levels should have the same spells known as a level 20 sorcerer. Likewise, they would cast spells with duration, damage dice, and roll dispel checks etc as if they were a level 20 caster.

Current workarounds:
Presently, the matter with duration/dice etc can be fixed (and is, on servers that do so) in scripts, rewriting caster level functions to take these things into account.

Sorcerer and Bard spells are harder though, and currently require NWNX functions combined with in-game scripts to create a system that lets players select additional spells known, and then forcibly adds them to the character after they log in. On servers that run on Windows though, currently this will crash the server if such a character logs out with a higher level known spell than they should have in their spellbook - so while an 18 sorc /10 prestige character is safe, an 8 sorc / 10 prestige one that has a level 9 known spell on logout will crash the server.

Raetzain

Seconded.

Functionality similar to NWN2, where spell lists can be defined in a 2da would make the spell list problem go away. Added customization for the GetSpellLevel function would also be best.

DM_Djinn

Assassin, Blackguard, and several other PRCs should technically have their own spell lists anyway. We did a lot of our own work to solve Effective Caster Level calculations (basically re-wrote every spell script)

FireWraith

@DM_Djinn They should, yes, though that's somewhat of a separate issue that would require more work (or at least different stuff). And you're right, rewriting the Effective Caster Level script is required (since the core function is black-boxed normally), though Beamdog could simply open that function to modification.

What really doesn't work without some serious NWNX magic though, at least in NWN1, is adding those prestige caster levels for sorcerer and bard. It works just fine in NWN2, and the whole bit about added spellcasting levels for Pale Master was added with HoTU, it just needs to be fully implemented (rather than the partial way it was done before).

Cerabelus

When i was looking to get new classes for NWN 2 i found out about the Mystic Theurge class and how it was never finished properly and they never added it to the game, Cleric\Mages where my most played class on BG 1 & 2, i loved having heaps of spells to choose from and much later in BG 2 TOB having a Contingency spell readied with a Lvl 6 Heal spell or Spell Sequencer with 3 x Holy Smite, Awesome.

Obviously NWN doesn't have Contingency or Sequencer spells but having both Cleric & Mage spells and a Mystic Theurge class that is done right i'd love to play as.

Terrorble

FireWraith said:

The way it is in the pen and paper 3rd Edition game:
In the pen and paper game, your caster level is the same as if you had that many levels of the class - so someone with 10 sorcerer levels and 10 prestige caster levels should have the same spells known as a level 20 sorcerer. Likewise, they would cast spells with duration, damage dice, and roll dispel checks etc as if they were a level 20 caster.

Current workarounds:
Presently, the matter with duration/dice etc can be fixed (and is, on servers that do so) in scripts, rewriting caster level functions to take these things into account.

I could get spells to account for prestige levels for things like duration and damage dice but could never accomplish having them do the same for dispel checks. This was hugely frustrating to me that a 10wiz/30PM could have its buffs stripped as if it was only a level 10 caster.

Not to forget, it was an enormous amount of work to edit all the spells just so they could account for duration and damage dice. The ability to easily account for caster levels from prestige classes definitely needs attention.

Takhisis

There are non-NWNX ways to allow players to have additional "Spells Known" - they just aren't particularly pretty ones; and they involve giving all Sorcerers the Spells Known early (at 10th, i.e: the level where everyone either would-or-wouldn't go PM) under the assumption they won't have the spell slots for it to matter until the appointed level anyway. A clean fix for this is long overdue, I agree; of course

I'm not sure it's possible - considering it would require the game to interface with another class' spellbook, essentially, through its own intuition and automatic processing instead of by the method which NWNX allows in the form of "pointing" to which class to advance. Read: Lots of checks need to go in to avoid hiccups if some lout decides to take more than one arcane class (god forbid they take more than one sorc-style casting one, so they need to have both classes advanced, for that matter...)

ildaron

@Takhisis It is possible, it would require some under the hood tweaking for this to be done. On the Trello board there are two requests for this (fix prestige class spellcasting & one for allowing creating new spell casting classes with their own book).

If you want this feature (I do), please vote for it to let Beamdog know.

Link: https://trello.com/b/Lb79bbgy/neverwinter-nights-input

SorcererV1ct0r

Terrorble said:

FireWraith said:

The way it is in the pen and paper 3rd Edition game:
In the pen and paper game, your caster level is the same as if you had that many levels of the class - so someone with 10 sorcerer levels and 10 prestige caster levels should have the same spells known as a level 20 sorcerer. Likewise, they would cast spells with duration, damage dice, and roll dispel checks etc as if they were a level 20 caster.

Current workarounds:
Presently, the matter with duration/dice etc can be fixed (and is, on servers that do so) in scripts, rewriting caster level functions to take these things into account.

I could get spells to account for prestige levels for things like duration and damage dice but could never accomplish having them do the same for dispel checks. This was hugely frustrating to me that a 10wiz/30PM could have its buffs stripped as if it was only a level 10 caster.

Not to forget, it was an enormous amount of work to edit all the spells just so they could account for duration and damage dice. The ability to easily account for caster levels from prestige classes definitely needs attention.

If i remember correctly, in PRC some classes increase your caster level.

"He does, however, add his level to his base caster class when determining spell power (damage, duration...). " http://www.athasreborn.com/prc/manual/english/content/prestige_classes/100.html

Som PRC classes like warlock require a very hard work to place "spells" in quick slot.

FireWraith

It's possible to script much of it, but it requires you to entire re-implement the GetCasterLevel function from scratch (which is what the PRC did). You likewise have to re-implement Dispel from scratch in order to get that to take the changes into account.

I've tried the bit with giving sorcerers/bards the known spells early, via 2da changes, but it's never seemed to work, even with changing the appropriate 2das.

Malcorath

FireWraith said:

It's possible to script much of it, but it requires you to entire re-implement the GetCasterLevel function from scratch (which is what the PRC did). You likewise have to re-implement Dispel from scratch in order to get that to take the changes into account.

I've tried the bit with giving sorcerers/bards the known spells early, via 2da changes, but it's never seemed to work, even with changing the appropriate 2das.

re implementing dispell tho seems o be a hassle as the
EffectDispelMagicAll
EffectDispelMagicBest are the ones you also need to change especially if you are trying to do a mystic theurge workaround with gestalting.

Stratovarius

We've (PRC Founder here) solved all of these problems, some much more elegantly than others. Prestige classes (and many other things) counting for caster level isn't that difficult, if you're willing to take the time to completely rewrite every function that depends on it. And then recompile every spell, etc.

As for spellbooks… yeah, we solved that one too, but the method we had to use isn't always the most elegant, and it results in spells ending up on the class radial, instead of in the spellbooks, for the affected classes (sorcerer, bard, any of our newspellbook base classes like warmage, beguiler, dread necro, hexblade, etc.)

The total PRC package, by this point, is rather enormous and perhaps far larger in scope than what you're looking for, but if you stay to just the original NWN content, it will solve the problems, with the caveats above.