Improved Robe of Vecna

NK1990

Just made myself and Improved Robe of Vecna if anyone is interested. Just put it in the override folder.

Removed Improved casting speed 4 and added passive Improved alacrity instead and change the robe model to the archmage. Vendor price and other stats are the same. WOOPS can't attach the file so if someone can help with that first it would be much appreciated.

NK1990

figured it out lol

Gatekeep3r

Why remove the improved casting speed?

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NK1990

Gatekeep3r wrote: »

Why remove the improved casting speed?

Just thought it would be much nicer like this.

kensai

First of all that robe will make alacrity hla useless.
Second fighter\mages with this robe can spam innate abilities and 1 casting tie spells every round (like kai + improved whirlwind + true stike from spell revisions and etc. ) Won't that make game imbalanced?

Angulimala

I remember there were items from an old Expanded Planar Sphere mod that claimed to give passive improved alacrity but they never worked for me. I think it is more powerful than increased spell casting speed, but what's important for the player is increasing the enjoyability of the game. I might give it a try next playthrough.

DreadKhan

Wow, I'll be using this on my next BG2 playthrough for sure. That is a boss idea to try out! I think it's much easier to abuse the faster casting speed of the Robe of Vecna, especially with the Amulet of Power and IA, which all power gamey high level mages are going to set up ASAP, on whomever they think is their best arcane caster. This will be way less broken in some key ways, IE you'll be way more interrupt-able, which is very annoying indeed, especially with most fighter mages I expect, though an archer mage can do reasonably well, but he'll not hit too hard. Technically, an archer mage could spam arrows vs mooks, and spam fairly rapid fire, but ultimately interrupt-able spells, possibly +3 per round if they cast the right spells, but unlike with the original robe, a prepared and capable opponent will likely interrupt some of those spells!

I think that's indeed Irenicus' strategy in cut-scenes, he's got no down time. Gorion too iirc. Likely a few others here and there, but I couldn't name them off hand.

NK1990

kensai wrote: »

First of all that robe will make alacrity hla useless.
Second fighter\mages with this robe can spam innate abilities and 1 casting tie spells every round (like kai + improved whirlwind + true stike from spell revisions and etc. ) Won't that make game imbalanced?

No not really that much. Because there is only one robe in the game and you can't swap it in between characters when doing a battle. It is only wizard and Sorc that will be able to use it. you can say that lesser attack spells can be spammed like magic missile an fireball but the enemies they can slaughter is only weak and pretty much cannon food anyway. Bigger threats like liches and Dragons, Beholders, Ilithids, will still be very hard to contend with on core rules. So I think it's balanced fine without the improved casting speed. It is also nice to have your spellcaster casting spells in combat without having him slacking every 30 seconds.

DreadKhan

NK1990 wrote: »

kensai wrote: »

First of all that robe will make alacrity hla useless.
Second fighter\mages with this robe can spam innate abilities and 1 casting tie spells every round (like kai + improved whirlwind + true stike from spell revisions and etc. ) Won't that make game imbalanced?

No not really that much. Because there is only one robe in the game and you can't swap it in between characters when doing a battle. It is only wizard and Sorc that will be able to use it. you can say that lesser attack spells can be spammed like magic missile an fireball but the enemies they can slaughter is only weak and pretty much cannon food anyway. Bigger threats like liches and Dragons, Beholders, Ilithids, will still be very hard to contend with on core rules. So I think it's balanced fine without the improved casting speed. It is also nice to have your spellcaster casting spells in combat without having him slacking every 30 seconds.

Well, I loved having my wizards use MMM before decent battles, and make use of super-fast casting to throw some meteorites around, getting some extra damage in, which can be quite a big deal on a mage able to fight decently, IE a F/I or dual classed K/M for example, or a Swashbuckler Mage. They can really put the hurt on people that way.

I think you have a good point, the faster casting was a HUGE boon vs very powerful enemies, I'll have to take that into account, that I won't be automatically getting the drop on them every damn turn!

Mathsorcerer

I keep waiting for the day when an upset and *naked* Vecna knocks on some wizard's door demanding his clothes back.

DreadKhan

Mathsorcerer wrote: »

I keep waiting for the day when an upset and *naked* Vecna knocks on some wizard's door demanding his clothes back.

To say nothing of his Hand, Eye, and maybe even Head!

Zaxares

DreadKhan wrote: »

To say nothing of his Hand, Eye, and maybe even Head!

Heh, that reminds me of the Statue of Geryon located in the 5th Layer of Hell (Malbolge, I think?) The Statue is missing its hand and head, and anybody placing their hand in the statue's missing hand instantly has their hand severed, and a short while later a demonic hand grows back in its place. The new hand has vastly superior strength and can make claw attacks, but it has a mind of its own and can occasionally attack party members, or possibly even the PC themselves.

One can also be foolish enough to put their head in the missing statue's spot, but nobody has EVER gotten their head back from Geryon.

DreadKhan

There was an old DM joke back in the day, after the PCs find out about the Hand and Eye, that there was also the Head... except you'd need to sever yours to even try to use it! It was a fake of course!

NK1990

I just noticed the description of the item was missing from .itm file. I actually made a vanilla like description to go with it, and thought the near infinty engine saved it in .itm file. Now I made it again and updated the dialog.tlk again, with the correct identified description, and exported the .tlk file. Now I am wondering if I upload that also will other people be able to use it in there override folder with the .itm file or do I have to make the item description stick to the file some other way ?. I see some people talking about some different programs to do it with but to be frank, what they're saying is completely blank to me and I cannot see any steps in there tutorials to put in the identified item description.

In advance thanks