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[v1.66] Vienxay, a Elven Shadowmage NPC for BG:EE + SoD and EET

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  • zelurkerzelurker Member Posts: 168
    she misses a lot, but here you hit the stupid idea of ad&d2 to rely on strength to determine the chance to hit, for a sneak attack it should be dexterity of course, it ruins the whole system...
  • teodar1teodar1 Member Posts: 13
    Hi, I've been doing an eet run and just reached SoA. Are Emily and Vienxay available in bg2 or not as of now? :)
  • SkitiaSkitia Member Posts: 1,083
    edited April 2020
    Not yet. It's still in production, though the good news is they'll be released at the same time when they're done. You can view progress here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/78071/work-in-progress-19-skitias-npcs-for-baldurs-gate-2#latest
  • Glam_VrockGlam_Vrock Member Posts: 277
    Noticed a minor bug when talking to the Flaming Fist just south of Beregost, and Vienxay interjects to complain about "another false accusation." If you choose the "If you want a fight, we'll give you a fight" option, the Fist remains neutral while Vienxay turns hostile.
  • SkitiaSkitia Member Posts: 1,083
    Whoops, probably an IC_T issue, I'll fix it. Thanks Glam!
  • SkitiaSkitia Member Posts: 1,083
    edited May 2020
    Vienxay is now at 1.55:

    -Fixed dialogue errors that caused Vienxay to turn hostile (Thanks Glam!)
    -Fixed Vienxay interjecting in SoD when she shouldn't (Thanks AionZ!)
    -Revised Vienxay's SoD quest to be more in line with her class/character/future BG2 content.
    -Fixed Shadowbolt's spell descriptor, the spell has no save, previous description incorrectly said it did.
    -Removed Gender Restrictions and Race Restrictions for Romance Checks (And did some tiny revision of dialogues around it.)
    -Adjusted how the music fires so it can be interrupted if another NPC of mine has their music fires.
  •  TheArtisan TheArtisan Member Posts: 3,277
    Tried to install and it failed - you're missing the X3VBOOK.itm you added.
  • SkitiaSkitia Member Posts: 1,083
    @AionZ oops, forgot to update that one folder on GitHub. Should be there now.
  • SkitiaSkitia Member Posts: 1,083
    Vienxay is now at 1.56:
    -Adds Crossmod to Sirene and Aura.
    -Fixes some spelling/grammar issues found in her final quest confrontation.
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Member Posts: 176
    edited July 2020
    Vienxay in my game is fine when she joins my party, however I am using the ToB NPC option in the Tweaks Anthology and once I level her up so she is 1/1 thief/mage in her class levels she changes to have 0/1 HP. I'm guessing that there's an interaction that isn't working well between these mods.

    Completely separate from this, the opening post in this thread says Vienxay is a Shadowdancer/Mage, but her current version is a Shadowmage kit. The link to More Info is also broken.

    Another thing related to the Vienxay only having 1 HP upon joining. Jaheira only had 4 hp when she joined the party (although Khalid had 17 I think.) With 17 constitution, I think what is happening is that some of the NPCs are not getting their level 1 HP and are instead only getting their bonus HP based on their constitution. I'm wondering if this is an interaction between

    Scales of Balance - Hit Dice Overhaul - Revised HP progression Closer to Average

    and

    Tweaks Anthology - ToB Style NPCs

    Strangely enough Helga, Montaron, and Xzar all had normal HP totals (Xzar actually had 7 HP which is higher than I remember)


    Post edited by Caedwyr on
  • SkitiaSkitia Member Posts: 1,083
    Thanks, I fixed the link (Or more that I fixed the site server so the link would work.)

    Shadowdancer/Mage is technically not wrong, though Shadowmage is right, so I updated the text too. I made the Shadowmage kit mostly because a Shadowdancer Mage as is got no thieving progression penalties + no reduced backstabbing + one extra spellslot per level. Shadowmage fixes the unintended bonuses but since it breaks Shadowdancer HiPs, I gave it a slightly reconfigured level 5 ability.

    As for the hit points issue, it's probably one of those a combination of those mods, since they all revise hitpoints. I wonder if it is because it works off a roll and a 1 was rolled (Or a 4) and thus so few hit points. Also Khalid getting 17 (At level 1) is quite a bit. It's hard to say which without doing the uninstall/check again elimination process.

  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Member Posts: 176
    Yeah, I'm doing some digging into the issue over at https://gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/31370-back-for-another-playthrough/page/11 and it looks like it might be a weird interaction with SCS's Improved NPC customization component and maybe some other mods. It is something that is happening once the game has started because Vienxay's .cre file has the right/expected amount of HP both in the mod folder as well as the override folder.

  • Fina92Fina92 Member Posts: 284
    Skitia wrote: »
    Vienxay is now at 1.56:
    -Adds Crossmod to Sirene and Aura.
    -Fixes some spelling/grammar issues found in her final quest confrontation.

    I love when modders put in the extra time and effort to do crossmod stuff. Thanks @Skitia! Keep up the good work.
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Member Posts: 176
    Having a good amount of crossmod is always appreciated as it makes the NPC more of a default NPC that you always install rather than a NPC you only install if you are specifically planning on having as part of the group.
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,093
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    Having a good amount of crossmod is always appreciated as it makes the NPC more of a default NPC that you always install rather than a NPC you only install if you are specifically planning on having as part of the group.

    This. I really appreciate the effort to make cross-mod banters. It makes the party feel more like a team and less like a group of mercenaries that don't like each other.
  • megamike15megamike15 Member Posts: 2,666
    edited July 2020
    nice to see her getting an original portrait. if i'm honest i found the fact she and emily originaly used a stock nwn portrait really distracting.
  • SkitiaSkitia Member Posts: 1,083
    edited August 2020
    Speaking of stock things, I'm also removing Vienxay's stock soundset, which was from NWN: Shadows of Undrendtide's Elven Mystran Mage. While most probably wouldn't recognize the lines, I always found it a touch too whiny.

    Thus Vienxay will have custom everything for the next update.
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Member Posts: 176
    ​More kit comments, this time Vienxay's Shadowmage mage/thief multiclass kit.
    • For a multiclass kit, I'd recommend being specific about which class matters for abilities gained at certain levels, or just being very specific and writing Mage 5/Thief6. This makes the kit description very clear. This applies to Shadow Jump for this kit. It appears that the abilities are given based on the thief class levels.
    • The +15% bonus to move silently and hide in shadows gets applied after the points are distributed. Is the bonus intended to be x1.15 of each of these scores, or is it meant to be +15 points in each of the scores? If the later, I believe it is possible to add the points in a way that they will show up in the level up screen rather than always being added later. There is a chance that I'm seeing this effect because of another mod that gives non-human races bonuses to various thieving skills based on race.
    • Tagged subtledoctor about this over here, but including this so you can see it too. There's some weird overlap with Refinements that should be corrected. There isn't anything broken from the player experience, but there are some HLAs shown that shouldn't be (Death Field and Mirrored Clones are supposed to be mutually exclusive for mage/illusionists) and the selection isn't as clean as it could be. Suggested HLAs for an install with Refinements below:
      1. Shadow Twin (Shadowmage HLA)
      2. Shadow Maze (Shadowmage HLA)
      3. Shadow Form (Shadowmage HLA)
      4. Evasion
      5. Greater Evasion
      6. Assassination
      7. Avoid Death
      8. Cripple
      9. Improved Slippery Mind (Refinements Mage/Thief HLA Slippery Mind, renamed for the Shadowmage kit)
      10. Alchemy
      11. Scribe Scrolls
      12. Extra Level 6 Spell
      13. Extra Level 7 Spell
      14. Extra Level 8 Spell
      15. Energy Blades
      16. Dragon Breath
      17. Summon Planetar (mutually exclusive for Summon Dark Planetar, Good/Neutral only)
      18. Summon Dark Planetar (mutually exclusive for Summon Planetar, Evil/Neutral only)
      Currently, Refinements would have to handle the merging since it is normally recommended to be installed later in the install order.

  • SkitiaSkitia Member Posts: 1,083
    edited August 2020
    1: Everything is intended to go off of the Thief levels. Easy enough to add Thief I suppose.

    2: This works the same way as Shadowdancer. In fact it is the same internal ability applied at the same level (1), which gives you the save bonus and bonus to stealth. The +15 is already added in the level up screen. Any discrepancies are the fault of Vienxay's gloves, which add an additional 20 to the stealth attributes. Items can't be read into it, so the glove's numbers just need to be kept in mind.

    3: The custom HLA is a blend of Mage/Shadowdancer's HLA's. Since their is no Improved Slippery on the base Shadowdancer, I don't have it on this one. I'm guessing Refinements has a custom spell for this? I don't use that mod, so I'd have to set up some special coding for users of it. This is non-issue for most BG1 players unless there's a mod giving them HLA's in BG1, so I'll look at this when I get into the cross-mod section of my work.
    On Deathfield/Mirror Clones, I'm guessing Refinements edits what these spells normally are. if that's the case, then I would have to make a crossmod version of the custom HLA file.

    These are educated guesses for #3, I haven't played the mod! But this would be an issue I imagine with any custom kit with a custom HLA (Which Recorder and Vienxay have) so I am not sure if doing a work around on my side is the optimal choice.
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Member Posts: 176
    On #3, I wrote a bunch more directed at subtledoctor who is the current maintainer of Refinements. There was a change made in how Refinements applies HLAs which is less destructive in some scenarios, but tends to cause problems if a kit has a bunch of custom HLAs.

    The suggestion was that if he was merging the custom HLAs you've created for the Shadowmage with the Refinements HLAs then the following HLA would be in character for a replacement for Comet/Improved Alacrity, since Refinements restricts both those HLAs for only specific kit/trueclasses.
    Slippery MindThe mind has many possible forms of defense against outer attacks: a mage can shield his mind by powerful arcane incantations, thieves can conceal their thoughts as to make it difficult for others to control them. A Mage-Thief has both of these capabilities, and this special combination of skills renders him capable of becoming completely immune to all mind affecting spells and effects like Charm or Confusion. Note that spells and supernatural abilities directly affecting the nervous system can still harm the character.

    My thought was that since the Shadowmage already had an ability called Slippery Mind, a thematic approach would be to clone the Refinements Slippery Mind (above), rename it to Improved Slippery Mind and assign it to the Shadowmage kit since Refinements is doing all sorts of mucking around with HLAs anyways and this is at least a slightly more curated approach to applying the Refinements HLAs to this kit.

    My general comments on how Refinements currently handles HLAs.
    General comments on custom kits and Refinements method of assigning HLAs. Tagged subtledoctor

    Right now with the default installation method (no .ini edits), installing Refinements on top of any mod which adds a custom kit stands a very high chance of breaking the HLAs in some way, especially if the kit has its own HLAs. This is because Refinements appears to check what base class the character belongs to and then adds all the Refinements HLAs for that base class to the kit. In the case of multiclasses it adds all the HLAs for each base class to the multiclass character. I would argue that this is not the intended/optimal behaviour.

    My suggestion is that the generic approach when dealing with custom kits is that Refinements update any base game HLAs with the Refinements version, but doesn't necessarily add the whole set of the Refinements version of HLAs for that class. This is from what I recall, closer to original behaviour. You can also of course go on a kit by kit basis and develop custom HLA lists for when Refinements detects the kit as being installed, but it means that Refinements plays nicer with any custom kit.
  • SkitiaSkitia Member Posts: 1,083
    edited August 2020
    I have two new Vienxay portraits, one closer to the old one, and one very different. Both will be choosable (Along with the old NWN one), but I can only have one be displayed on the info page, so let me know your thoughts!

    0dwoq9bulrbw.jpg
    hl22zo1wgfu5.jpg


    Once that's decided I'll have it updated either end of today or tomorrow.
    Post edited by Skitia on
  • megamike15megamike15 Member Posts: 2,666
    i like the 2nd one a little more.
  • CahirCahir Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 2,819
    Me too, but both are beautiful.
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,093
    edited August 2020
    I like both, but the first is a bit "too good", in the sense that it doesn't fit with the art style of BG/BG2. It feels more like a retouched photograph than a painted portrait. Thus, the second one is much closer in character to the other portraits.
  • Son_of_ImoenSon_of_Imoen Member Posts: 1,806
    The second is more in line to how I imagine Vienxay to be from playing the mod.
  • megamike15megamike15 Member Posts: 2,666
    i also jsut like that purple aura around her. it's more mage like.

    the first portrait just seem more noble woman then mage.
  • SkitiaSkitia Member Posts: 1,083
    edited August 2020
    Vienxay is now at 1.57
    -New Portraits (See Above). You may select either of them or opt for the old NWN look.
    -New Soundset. You can hear my voice sample here.
    -Vienxay no longer can shift to TN in BG:EE in this update (Not that she could for a while, oops.). She won't leave the party anyway, making it unnecessary. This can occur in SoA in BG2 in the future though, pending on player decisions in her story.
    -Emphasized that class abilities go by THIEF class.
    -Removed some erroneous Sharran references from SoD.
    -Made all BG:EE Banters EET compatible.

    Easily the biggest update of the five. I'm probably most worried about how the soundset will be taken, let me know your thoughts!

    If Vienxay already exists in a current playthrough, her voiced strings will update but not the subtitled lines. To get it to update, you'll have to initiate dialogue with her and mention there's something wrong with her voice.
    Post edited by Skitia on
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Member Posts: 176
    I checked out the voice sample. If the rest of the voiced dialogues/soundset are of the same qualities, they will fit into the base game fairly seamlessly. Well done!
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Member Posts: 176
    FYI, it isn't common, but if you have a lot of mage kit mods installed you could run into an issue where a mod kit gets installed in one of the hard-coded kit slots for the abjurer, conjurer, or diviner - breaking the mod kit. There is a .tpa and short macro you can include to detect if the next slot is going to be one of these kits and install a dummy kit there so they don't break anything.

    https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/28835-toss-your-semi-useful-weidu-macros-here/?do=findComment&comment=286826

    Posted here since Vienxay has a custom mage kit as I recall.
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