I'm glad to hear that you're having fun with the mod!
I intended the orc cave to be a wake-up call, by I didn't intend it to be super-hard. In the next version, I'm making it so that the enemies in the prologue who previously used Greater Whirlwind Attack now use Whirlwind Attack.
And yes, I intended the Rhinoceros Beetle to be tough. The good news is that in Chapter 6 you can use its shell to make a shield that has a chance of reflecting back missiles and spells.
And I finished Severed Hand. There wasn't any big bosses but man, those pack of undeads that appear out of nowhere, they were the worst. I found a great way to kill them but it was nearly at the end of location, at the beginning I was just full buffed hacking and slashing. That was a nightmare, can't wait for the Dorn's Deep and some of the harder enemies.
@Voytaz The mod gets a little easier in Chapter 4. It is more common in Chapter 4 for battles to consist of a couple of strong enemies rather than a lot of weaker enemies (though there are a few exceptions).
Which battle in the Severed Hand did you find the hardest?
I don't know if exactly the hardest but this one right here was definitely in one of the toughest. A lot of armored skeletons (I think that whats they're called) who were constantly pushing away my dwarven defender and switching target to other companions who are not very tanky. And in addition there are Bladed Skeletons with the thorns, I don't know the proper name for this shield/spell thing. Backstab did almost nothing to them, so my assassin was useless, my cleric's turn undead did nothing, although I had like +6 to spell level thanks to potions. He had some usefull spells, but with the push from armored skeletons, he didn't have time to cast them. Eventually I beat them, but that took me a long time.
I finished The Vale of Shadows and The Temple of the Forgotten God; it was a blast! (Pun intended?).
I think the vale is very well balanced. There weren't any crazy encounters like the orc cave, (or I got better, one of the two). Are the blast skeletons supposed to force you to run through an area transition after you hit one? Because the new blast radius on those things covers like half the area, and it freezes half of my party if I let it hit me. Sometimes I could outrun the blast when my party was under haste, but that is about it.
It might just be me, but Lysan seemed very easy after trekking through the main tomb. She fell before she could even get any protections up, so maybe that's why - but some yetis and a corpse didn't hurt too much. Kresselack's gear seems very overpowered. Along with two rings of the warrior, some magic bracers, a +4 sword, 25 strength (+4 from the sword), and my bard's song, my paladin is rocking a -10 thac0. I'm not complaining of course, he's probably going to be crushed into goo anyways.
The temple was much better than the vanilla experience. It actually posed a challenge - the acolytes weren't pushovers, and the verbeegs hit hard. I only had trouble with the last fight in the temple, where I had to reload a couple of times. I mostly died because of some lazy errors I made, though that new guy's earthquake spell killed half my party if I let him cast it.
I'm off to Dragon's Eye, I look forward to being incinerated, poisoned, and much more!
(The Spectral Guards are still kensai-mages, but now they don't use Mislead nor do they use Stoneskin or Mirror Image as often. However, they do use Shapechange to change into iron golems. Kai is quite good when you attack for 4d10 base damage.)
The fight with Lord Maluradek:
(This fight ended up being really challenging. The Greater Nabassus are the worst because of their AoE death gaze ability (Save vs. Death at -8 or be turned into a Greater Ghast Lord after 2 rounds unless dispelled; Death Ward grants immunity to death gaze). My traitorous dogs got silenced many, many times. I think it's probably the best fight I've created in Trials of the Luremaster so far.)
The dungeon:
(The fight between the beasts in this area tends to be very bloody. Also, it's possible for the Astral Phase Spiders to unlock and open the doors with their psionic abilities, so you won't necessarily be safe waiting around next to the switches.)
(Oh, and if you're wondering about what the otyugh does, it's quite dangerous.)
The final cavern:
(So far, the only thing I've modded in the jackal cavern are the demon summoners. Like most other creatures in this mod that summon other creatures in this mod, these summoners must die as soon as possible because they summon creatures REALLY fast.)
(The summoners at the other circle summon Balor Lords. Every 5 rounds, they summon a Balor Lord, and a maximum of 3 can exist at one time. These Balor Lords are meant to be really powerful, but I haven't modded all their abilities yet.)
(I gave the star portal a red glow while the summoners are still alive. It doesn't mean you can go through the portal; it means that the summoners are using the portal as a demon-summoning circle.)
By this point, my playtesting team is absurdly overpowered by the standards of just about any DnD campaign, including Throne of Bhaal. Even my multi-classed characters are almost at max level in both of their classes (had there been no level cap my berserker would be level 64 by now), and the average stat total in the party is about 130. Yet I've still been able to make the game challenging for the party. The key is that almost every encounter by this point involves enemies that can dispel all your buffs. Unlike in the vanilla game, you can't win battles simply by putting on whatever buffs make you immune to the main abilities of the enemies you're facing, since those buffs are likely to be dispelled. Add this to the fact that most of the enemies are extremely overpowered as well.
Damn this mod is pretty crazy. I like it but I wish it wouldn't add MORE mobs, instead focusing on beefing them up, making every fight feel like you're fighting a mini-boss!
@tiduszxx The mod DOES focus on beefing them up. It is actually quite rare for the mod to increase the number of enemies in a fight significantly (in some cases, a new enemy is added by replacing a less interesting creature that was previously there). What it does do is make certain enemies SUMMON huge mobs of enemies. In such a case, the goal is generally to kill the summoners as quickly as possible before they can summon too many things.
Upon entering the last level of Trials of the Luremaster, this is how you are greeted: (The Greater Jackals are level 30/30 fighter/thieves. That's where we are at this point in the mod. Thankfully you don't have to fight them all right away.)
(A frequent theme in Trials of the Luremaster is enemies with really high damage resistances. These Jackal Shamans can get 85% physical damage resistance with Armor of Faith and Spirit Form. I also gave them -7 casting time, so they cast spells really fast. I have had attempts where one of them started casting a short alteration spell and I thought they were casting Iron Skins but they were actually casting Static Charge. )
(I made it so that the jackalwere gaze sleep effect offers no saving throw. It only lasts 3 rounds, however, and the targets will wake upon taking damage. Elves and half-elves still have resistance to it. I didn't have too much trouble with the jackalweres because four out of six of my party members are elves.)
What about the inner caverns? (The Minotaur Elders are level 30/30 barbarian/druids. The Minotaur Lord is a level 40/30 barbarian/mage. However, they still have terrible saving throws: in this screenshot, I was able to dominate two of the Minotaur Elders with a Mass Domination from the Sceptre of Tyranny, taking them by surprise before they had a chance to use their rage ability.)
(In another one of the sub-caves, you fight some real beholders (this is the first time you fight beholders in Trials of the Luremaster in this mod).) (The Elder Hive Mother had used the ability Infinite Eyes, which grants her the effects of Mirror Image every round (or every half a round if you don't dispel her Improved Haste, which also makes her fire eye beams twice as fast). I removed two of the instant-death rays from the beholders and replaced them with a Bludgeoning Ray, an Acid Ray, a Blindness Ray, and a Feeblemind Ray. Now they actually have ten different eye beams (in the unmodded game they only use eight).)
(Some of the other sub-caves are even worse. But eventually I managed to clear all of them with my playtesting team.)
(By the time I activated the portal, my whole team was at max level. The team has a total of 90,000,000 experience.)
Finally, I finished modding the final Luremaster fight! I intended this to be the most challenging fight in the whole game.
Screenshots:
(Since the final boss of Trials of the Luremaster is a bard, I figured I might as well turn him into a superbard.) (The Luremaster is immune to all damage until you destroy all of his Spectral Heroes. There are a total of sixteen of them. These Spectral Heroes are either major characters or bosses you've encountered in Trials of Luremaster, or major characters in the lore of Trials of the Luremaster.)
(Destroying all the Spectral Heroes is the main part of the fight. They materialize a couple at a time over the course of three minutes of real-time (this is, if anything, a short amount of time to fight them all) Many of these Spectral Heroes are really tough, especially when they're being buffed by the Luremaster.)
(But at last, I was able to beat the Luremaster with my playtesting team!)
Here are my party screenshots at the end of the game:
@OlvynChuru: I'll be the one to ask the annoying question
Is it OK for me to update my install to v3.0, or should I start a new game just to be safe? I'm only at Dragon's Eye right now, so I think it's safe? Unless you altered content that far back -
@OlvynChuru: I think I need a hint on how to deal with the Cold Wights.
My party literally gets killed in ~3 seconds if I try to fight them directly. The only cheesy way I've found is to spam Shield of Lathander on my Cleric, bait all the enemies to attack my Cleric, and bomb everything with fireballs from my sorcerer.
The blast skeletons really make it hard to stand back and burn all of the wights though; and somehow I've got at least 3 groups walking towards me at once, (with no provocation from me!)
Been at it for a couple of hours now, and I can't find a way through this section
@Bubb Currently my computer isn't working, and I'm getting a new computer. Once it arrives and I get my stuff back on it, I'll look into this.
Are the cold wights so nasty because of their level drain? Or is it because of the Undead Lieutenant? I remember that when I cleared this area with my playtesting team, I usually tried to kill the Undead Lieutenant immediately in each of the battles. I dealt with the Blast Skeletons only after killing everyone else, that way my party could move out of the way.
Ah, I didn't see that very powerful aura coming from the Lieutenant... I was wondering why I couldn't turn the wights. I'll try to kill them first then
With all the AI targeting that happens right at the start of one of those fights, the aura mention in the log is, in my opinion, very hard to notice. Maybe you could use a visual effect on the Lieutenant to help players know something abnormal is going on?
As for feedback for the first two levels of Dragons Eye: I liked it a lot. The lizard men were tough but not overpowering. It seems you changed Trolls to not require fire / acid to kill; this makes level two much easier imo, even with the larger hordes. The Talonite fight, which has always been troublesome in the vanilla game, was pretty easy for my party to hack through this time around.
I'll see if I can't get through that section now... Presio's army be damned.
Sorry for a long break, but here I am again. I just beat Lower Dorn's Deep and reached Wyrm's Tooth.
I think it was much harder than Severed Hand, especially since when you attack one group of Myconids, you aggro like half of the cave (literally) and you have to defend yourself against endless wave of monsters with ettins at the end.
Next, the drows which were rather easy thanks to my assassin and dispel magic. Then undeads and Terikan which was really pain in the ass. Thing that saved me and probably a lot of time was a mass sanctuary ring which allowed me to wipe all undeads and summons and left just Terikan (who was attacking me despite my sanctuary). And I think it's not the best idea to give orogs potions increasing max hp as random drop. You can rest and just farm them.
I don't have much time now, so I don't know where I'm gonna beat 5th chapter, but when I will, I'll definitely write something here.
@Voytaz Congratulations for reaching Chapter 5! Has anybody else gotten that far?
Do the orogs that spawn in rest encounters drop the hp-increasing potions? If they do, I'll get rid of that in the next patch.
The funny thing is that in my playtesting playthrough, I found the initial cave and the undead to be not that tough, and the drow to be really hard. I'm glad that you're still seeing some great usage out of a single-classed thief!
Well, I didn't expect it at all, but I got free morning and finished 5th chapter.
The most problematic enemy was probably the big wyrm in a cave I forgot the name of. Fortunately I could backstab it, unlike the wyrm in front of museum (which was really annoying, was the second wyrm intentional or it was a bug? I had some problems with double enemies in the past). After assassin doing half of the job, I attacked him with every fire spell/weapon I got, with only my dwarf being in the melee. It took couple of tries but I managed to kill him.
With my dwarven defender beeing immune to physical damage it wasn't hard to get rid of Joril and his guards. Especially that my sorcerer just got his clone/Timestop/Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting combo.
@Voytaz Good job! And yes, I intended the second White Wyrm outside in Wyrm's Tooth to come to you once the first wyrm had taken a certain amount of damage.
Do you perhaps have an idea/suggestion about how enemies could intelligently switch between melee/ranged weapons?
Unfortunately, you don't write and compile BAF files, so I cannot inspect your scripts right now (you know, BCS file format ain't meant to be human-friendly ...)
Do you perhaps have an idea/suggestion about how enemies could intelligently switch between melee/ranged weapons?
Unfortunately, you don't write and compile BAF files, so I cannot inspect your scripts right now (you know, BCS file format ain't meant to be human-friendly ...)
Yes you can - you can look at the files in the override folder using NearInfinity. NearInfinity automatically decompiles the BCS files.
My suggestion would be to patch all BCS files and replace all instances of Attack(whatever) or AttackReevaluate(whatever,[0-9]+) with AttackReevaluate(whatever,5). I actually already did this in one of my mods, but the code to do this replacement was pretty tricky.
My suggestion would be to patch all BCS files and replace all instances of Attack(whatever) or AttackReevaluate(whatever,[0-9]+) with AttackReevaluate(whatever,5). I actually already did this in one of my mods, but the code to do this replacement was pretty tricky.
I'm not sure I'm understanding the link between your suggestion and a smart way of switching between melee/ranged... Could you clarify it? Thanks...
I'm not sure I'm understanding the link between your suggestion and a smart way of switching between melee/ranged... Could you clarify it? Thanks...
Never mind, I misunderstood you. What exactly do you mean by a smart way of switching between melee and ranged weapons? What would it look like in the game.
I'm not sure I'm understanding the link between your suggestion and a smart way of switching between melee/ranged... Could you clarify it? Thanks...
Never mind, I misunderstood you. What exactly do you mean by a smart way of switching between melee and ranged weapons? What would it look like in the game.
How would you script a creature which has both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon (maybe with different kind of ammunition - for example a sling + some bullets of fire and some bullets of electricity)? In particular: I'd like it to be able to quickly switch to a melee weapon when someone is in melee range (4) and use its ranged weapon otherwise.
For instance, how do your shadowed elves behave (since they're equipped with both a melee weapon and a ranged one)?
The shadowed elf archers use an attack script that goes like this:
Use a ranged weapon to attack the nearest PC (not summoned creatures) that is more than 3 feet away, is not immune to missiles, and has no Stoneskins or Mirror Images.
Use a ranged weapon to attack the nearest PC (not summoned creatures) that is more than 3 feet away, is not immune to missiles, and does not have both Stoneskin and Mirror Image.
Use a melee weapon to attack the nearest PC (not summoned creatures) that is at most 3 feet away, is not immune to melee weapons, and has no Stoneskins or Mirror Images.
Use a melee weapon to attack the nearest PC (not summoned creatures) that is at most 3 feet away, is not immune to melee weapons, and does not have both Stoneskin and Mirror Image.
Use a ranged weapon to attack the nearest enemy that is more than 3 feet away and is not immune to missiles.
Use a melee weapon to attack the nearest enemy.
Here's what the BAF code for the script looks like. I've shortened it so that it doesn't show the additional SecondNearestEnemy, ThirdNearestEnemy, ... blocks.
IF
See(NearestEnemyOfType([PC.0.0.0.ME_PLAYER]))
!Range(LastSeenBy(Myself),3)
CheckStat(LastSeenBy(Myself),0,STONESKINS)
!StateCheck(LastSeenBy(Myself),STATE_MIRRORIMAGE)
CheckStatLT(LastSeenBy(Myself),100,RESISTMISSILE)
WeaponEffectiveVs(LastSeenBy(Myself),MAINHAND)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
EquipRanged()
AttackReevaluate(LastSeenBy(Myself),5)
END
//Repeat for SecondNearest to SixthNearest
IF
See(NearestEnemyOfType([PC.0.0.0.ME_PLAYER]))
!Range(LastSeenBy(Myself),3)
OR(2)
CheckStat(LastSeenBy(Myself),0,STONESKINS)
!StateCheck(LastSeenBy(Myself),STATE_MIRRORIMAGE)
CheckStatLT(LastSeenBy(Myself),100,RESISTMISSILE)
WeaponEffectiveVs(LastSeenBy(Myself),MAINHAND)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
EquipRanged()
AttackReevaluate(LastSeenBy(Myself),5)
END
//Repeat for SecondNearest to SixthNearest
IF
See(NearestEnemyOfType([PC.0.0.0.ME_PLAYER]))
Range(LastSeenBy(Myself),3)
CheckStat(LastSeenBy(Myself),0,STONESKINS)
!StateCheck(LastSeenBy(Myself),STATE_MIRRORIMAGE)
OR(3)
CheckStatLT(LastSeenBy(Myself),100,RESISTSLASHING)
CheckStatLT(LastSeenBy(Myself),100,RESISTPIERCING)
CheckStatLT(LastSeenBy(Myself),100,RESISTCRUSHING)
WeaponEffectiveVs(LastSeenBy(Myself),MAINHAND)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
EquipMostDamagingMelee()
AttackReevaluate(LastSeenBy(Myself),5)
END
//Repeat for SecondNearest to SixthNearest
IF
See(NearestEnemyOfType([PC.0.0.0.ME_PLAYER]))
Range(LastSeenBy(Myself),3)
OR(2)
CheckStat(LastSeenBy(Myself),0,STONESKINS)
!StateCheck(LastSeenBy(Myself),STATE_MIRRORIMAGE)
OR(3)
CheckStatLT(LastSeenBy(Myself),100,RESISTSLASHING)
CheckStatLT(LastSeenBy(Myself),100,RESISTPIERCING)
CheckStatLT(LastSeenBy(Myself),100,RESISTCRUSHING)
WeaponEffectiveVs(LastSeenBy(Myself),MAINHAND)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
EquipMostDamagingMelee()
AttackReevaluate(LastSeenBy(Myself),5)
END
//Repeat for SecondNearest to SixthNearest
IF
See(NearestEnemyOf(Myself))
!Range(LastSeenBy(Myself),3)
WeaponCanDamage(LastSeenBy(Myself),MAINHAND)
WeaponEffectiveVs(LastSeenBy(Myself),MAINHAND)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
EquipRanged()
AttackReevaluate(LastSeenBy(Myself),5)
END
//Repeat for SecondNearest to TenthNearest
IF
See(NearestEnemyOf(Myself))
THEN
RESPONSE #100
EquipMostDamagingMelee()
AttackReevaluate(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),5)
END
As for the idea of switching between ammunition, this is trickier to implement for enemies in general who might use different ammunition, but I made an attack script for Skeleton Warriors in the Watchknight Crypt that does something like this. These Skeleton Warriors alternate between Arrows of Dispelling and Arrows of Piercing. I put much less effort into this script, since it's just for one creature.
IF
See(NearestEnemyOf(Myself))
!StateCheck(LastSeenBy(Myself),STATE_HELPLESS)
!StateCheck(LastSeenBy(Myself),STATE_CONFUSED)
!StateCheck(LastSeenBy(Myself),STATE_SLEEPING)
CheckStat(LastSeenBy(Myself),0,WIZARD_PROTECTION_FROM_MAGIC_WEAPONS)
!Range(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),5)
CheckStat(LastSeenBy(Myself),0,CLERIC_PHYSICAL_MIRROR)
!CheckSpellState(LastSeenBy(Myself),ENTROPY_SHIELD)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
EquipRanged()
SelectWeaponAbility(SLOT_AMMO0,0) //Equip Arrows of Dispelling
AttackReevaluate(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),5)
END
IF
See(NearestEnemyOf(Myself))
!Range(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),5)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
EquipRanged()
SelectWeaponAbility(SLOT_AMMO1,0) //Equip Arrows of Piercing
AttackReevaluate(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),5)
END
IF
See(NearestEnemyOf(Myself))
THEN
RESPONSE #100
EquipMostDamagingMelee()
AttackReevaluate(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),5)
END
In the first script, WeaponEffectiveVs() and WeaponCanDamage() are evaluated before equipping the launcher/ammo to attack LastSeenBy (i.e., before EquipRanged() and SelectWeaponAbility()) => This is probably not ideal....
Could you explain me how AttackReevaluate() behaves with respect to, say, AttackOneRound()? How would you convert Reevaluation Period into round?
Comments
I'm glad to hear that you're having fun with the mod!
I intended the orc cave to be a wake-up call, by I didn't intend it to be super-hard. In the next version, I'm making it so that the enemies in the prologue who previously used Greater Whirlwind Attack now use Whirlwind Attack.
And yes, I intended the Rhinoceros Beetle to be tough. The good news is that in Chapter 6 you can use its shell to make a shield that has a chance of reflecting back missiles and spells.
Which battle in the Severed Hand did you find the hardest?
A lot of armored skeletons (I think that whats they're called) who were constantly pushing away my dwarven defender and switching target to other companions who are not very tanky. And in addition there are Bladed Skeletons with the thorns, I don't know the proper name for this shield/spell thing. Backstab did almost nothing to them, so my assassin was useless, my cleric's turn undead did nothing, although I had like +6 to spell level thanks to potions. He had some usefull spells, but with the push from armored skeletons, he didn't have time to cast them. Eventually I beat them, but that took me a long time.
The spell level bonus does not increase a character's turn undead level; that's separate.
I think the vale is very well balanced. There weren't any crazy encounters like the orc cave, (or I got better, one of the two). Are the blast skeletons supposed to force you to run through an area transition after you hit one? Because the new blast radius on those things covers like half the area, and it freezes half of my party if I let it hit me. Sometimes I could outrun the blast when my party was under haste, but that is about it.
It might just be me, but Lysan seemed very easy after trekking through the main tomb. She fell before she could even get any protections up, so maybe that's why - but some yetis and a corpse didn't hurt too much. Kresselack's gear seems very overpowered. Along with two rings of the warrior, some magic bracers, a +4 sword, 25 strength (+4 from the sword), and my bard's song, my paladin is rocking a -10 thac0. I'm not complaining of course, he's probably going to be crushed into goo anyways.
The temple was much better than the vanilla experience. It actually posed a challenge - the acolytes weren't pushovers, and the verbeegs hit hard. I only had trouble with the last fight in the temple, where I had to reload a couple of times. I mostly died because of some lazy errors I made, though that new guy's earthquake spell killed half my party if I let him cast it.
I'm off to Dragon's Eye, I look forward to being incinerated, poisoned, and much more!
I made Kresselack's loot very good because it's the big reward for completing this long level.
(None shall pass.)
(The Spectral Guards are still kensai-mages, but now they don't use Mislead nor do they use Stoneskin or Mirror Image as often. However, they do use Shapechange to change into iron golems. Kai is quite good when you attack for 4d10 base damage.
The fight with Lord Maluradek:
(This fight ended up being really challenging. The Greater Nabassus are the worst because of their AoE death gaze ability (Save vs. Death at -8 or be turned into a Greater Ghast Lord after 2 rounds unless dispelled; Death Ward grants immunity to death gaze). My traitorous dogs got silenced many, many times. I think it's probably the best fight I've created in Trials of the Luremaster so far.)
The dungeon:
(The fight between the beasts in this area tends to be very bloody. Also, it's possible for the Astral Phase Spiders to unlock and open the doors with their psionic abilities, so you won't necessarily be safe waiting around next to the switches.)
(Oh, and if you're wondering about what the otyugh does, it's quite dangerous.)
The final cavern:
(So far, the only thing I've modded in the jackal cavern are the demon summoners. Like most other creatures in this mod that summon other creatures in this mod, these summoners must die as soon as possible because they summon creatures REALLY fast.)
(The summoners at the other circle summon Balor Lords. Every 5 rounds, they summon a Balor Lord, and a maximum of 3 can exist at one time. These Balor Lords are meant to be really powerful, but I haven't modded all their abilities yet.)
(I gave the star portal a red glow while the summoners are still alive. It doesn't mean you can go through the portal; it means that the summoners are using the portal as a demon-summoning circle.)
By this point, my playtesting team is absurdly overpowered by the standards of just about any DnD campaign, including Throne of Bhaal. Even my multi-classed characters are almost at max level in both of their classes (had there been no level cap my berserker would be level 64 by now), and the average stat total in the party is about 130. Yet I've still been able to make the game challenging for the party. The key is that almost every encounter by this point involves enemies that can dispel all your buffs. Unlike in the vanilla game, you can't win battles simply by putting on whatever buffs make you immune to the main abilities of the enemies you're facing, since those buffs are likely to be dispelled. Add this to the fact that most of the enemies are extremely overpowered as well.
Upon entering the last level of Trials of the Luremaster, this is how you are greeted:
(The Greater Jackals are level 30/30 fighter/thieves. That's where we are at this point in the mod. Thankfully you don't have to fight them all right away.)
(A frequent theme in Trials of the Luremaster is enemies with really high damage resistances. These Jackal Shamans can get 85% physical damage resistance with Armor of Faith and Spirit Form. I also gave them -7 casting time, so they cast spells really fast. I have had attempts where one of them started casting a short alteration spell and I thought they were casting Iron Skins but they were actually casting Static Charge.
(I made it so that the jackalwere gaze sleep effect offers no saving throw. It only lasts 3 rounds, however, and the targets will wake upon taking damage. Elves and half-elves still have resistance to it. I didn't have too much trouble with the jackalweres because four out of six of my party members are elves.)
What about the inner caverns?
(The Minotaur Elders are level 30/30 barbarian/druids. The Minotaur Lord is a level 40/30 barbarian/mage. However, they still have terrible saving throws: in this screenshot, I was able to dominate two of the Minotaur Elders with a Mass Domination from the Sceptre of Tyranny, taking them by surprise before they had a chance to use their rage ability.)
(In another one of the sub-caves, you fight some real beholders (this is the first time you fight beholders in Trials of the Luremaster in this mod).)
(The Elder Hive Mother had used the ability Infinite Eyes, which grants her the effects of Mirror Image every round (or every half a round if you don't dispel her Improved Haste, which also makes her fire eye beams twice as fast). I removed two of the instant-death rays from the beholders and replaced them with a Bludgeoning Ray, an Acid Ray, a Blindness Ray, and a Feeblemind Ray. Now they actually have ten different eye beams (in the unmodded game they only use eight).)
(Some of the other sub-caves are even worse. But eventually I managed to clear all of them with my playtesting team.)
(By the time I activated the portal, my whole team was at max level. The team has a total of 90,000,000 experience.)
Screenshots:
(Since the final boss of Trials of the Luremaster is a bard, I figured I might as well turn him into a superbard.)
(The Luremaster is immune to all damage until you destroy all of his Spectral Heroes. There are a total of sixteen of them. These Spectral Heroes are either major characters or bosses you've encountered in Trials of Luremaster, or major characters in the lore of Trials of the Luremaster.)
(Destroying all the Spectral Heroes is the main part of the fight. They materialize a couple at a time over the course of three minutes of real-time (this is, if anything, a short amount of time to fight them all) Many of these Spectral Heroes are really tough, especially when they're being buffed by the Luremaster.)
(But at last, I was able to beat the Luremaster with my playtesting team!)
Here are my party screenshots at the end of the game:
Version 3.0 is out!
Now the whole game is modified, including Trials of the Luremaster!You can download the new version here.
Is it OK for me to update my install to v3.0, or should I start a new game just to be safe? I'm only at Dragon's Eye right now, so I think it's safe? Unless you altered content that far back -
My party literally gets killed in ~3 seconds if I try to fight them directly. The only cheesy way I've found is to spam Shield of Lathander on my Cleric, bait all the enemies to attack my Cleric, and bomb everything with fireballs from my sorcerer.
The blast skeletons really make it hard to stand back and burn all of the wights though; and somehow I've got at least 3 groups walking towards me at once, (with no provocation from me!)
Been at it for a couple of hours now, and I can't find a way through this section
Are the cold wights so nasty because of their level drain? Or is it because of the Undead Lieutenant? I remember that when I cleared this area with my playtesting team, I usually tried to kill the Undead Lieutenant immediately in each of the battles. I dealt with the Blast Skeletons only after killing everyone else, that way my party could move out of the way.
With all the AI targeting that happens right at the start of one of those fights, the aura mention in the log is, in my opinion, very hard to notice. Maybe you could use a visual effect on the Lieutenant to help players know something abnormal is going on?
As for feedback for the first two levels of Dragons Eye: I liked it a lot. The lizard men were tough but not overpowering. It seems you changed Trolls to not require fire / acid to kill; this makes level two much easier imo, even with the larger hordes. The Talonite fight, which has always been troublesome in the vanilla game, was pretty easy for my party to hack through this time around.
I'll see if I can't get through that section now... Presio's army be damned.
I think it was much harder than Severed Hand, especially since when you attack one group of Myconids, you aggro like half of the cave (literally) and you have to defend yourself against endless wave of monsters with ettins at the end.
Next, the drows which were rather easy thanks to my assassin and dispel magic. Then undeads and Terikan which was really pain in the ass. Thing that saved me and probably a lot of time was a mass sanctuary ring which allowed me to wipe all undeads and summons and left just Terikan (who was attacking me despite my sanctuary). And I think it's not the best idea to give orogs potions increasing max hp as random drop. You can rest and just farm them.
I don't have much time now, so I don't know where I'm gonna beat 5th chapter, but when I will, I'll definitely write something here.
Do the orogs that spawn in rest encounters drop the hp-increasing potions? If they do, I'll get rid of that in the next patch.
The funny thing is that in my playtesting playthrough, I found the initial cave and the undead to be not that tough, and the drow to be really hard. I'm glad that you're still seeing some great usage out of a single-classed thief!
The most problematic enemy was probably the big wyrm in a cave I forgot the name of. Fortunately I could backstab it, unlike the wyrm in front of museum (which was really annoying, was the second wyrm intentional or it was a bug? I had some problems with double enemies in the past). After assassin doing half of the job, I attacked him with every fire spell/weapon I got, with only my dwarf being in the melee. It took couple of tries but I managed to kill him.
With my dwarven defender beeing immune to physical damage it wasn't hard to get rid of Joril and his guards. Especially that my sorcerer just got his clone/Timestop/Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting combo.
Now onward to the sixth chapter.
Unfortunately, you don't write and compile BAF files, so I cannot inspect your scripts right now (you know, BCS file format ain't meant to be human-friendly
Yes you can - you can look at the files in the override folder using NearInfinity. NearInfinity automatically decompiles the BCS files.
My suggestion would be to patch all BCS files and replace all instances of Attack(whatever) or AttackReevaluate(whatever,[0-9]+) with AttackReevaluate(whatever,5). I actually already did this in one of my mods, but the code to do this replacement was pretty tricky.
Sorry, but I am not in front of my computer right now, that's why I told you about using BAF files...
I'm not sure I'm understanding the link between your suggestion and a smart way of switching between melee/ranged... Could you clarify it? Thanks...
Never mind, I misunderstood you. What exactly do you mean by a smart way of switching between melee and ranged weapons? What would it look like in the game.
How would you script a creature which has both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon (maybe with different kind of ammunition - for example a sling + some bullets of fire and some bullets of electricity)? In particular: I'd like it to be able to quickly switch to a melee weapon when someone is in melee range (4) and use its ranged weapon otherwise.
For instance, how do your shadowed elves behave (since they're equipped with both a melee weapon and a ranged one)?
The shadowed elf archers use an attack script that goes like this:
Here's what the BAF code for the script looks like. I've shortened it so that it doesn't show the additional SecondNearestEnemy, ThirdNearestEnemy, ... blocks.
As for the idea of switching between ammunition, this is trickier to implement for enemies in general who might use different ammunition, but I made an attack script for Skeleton Warriors in the Watchknight Crypt that does something like this. These Skeleton Warriors alternate between Arrows of Dispelling and Arrows of Piercing. I put much less effort into this script, since it's just for one creature.
Could you explain me how AttackReevaluate() behaves with respect to, say, AttackOneRound()? How would you convert Reevaluation Period into round?