Spells per level limit: Worth keeping it in the game?
Alonso
Member Posts: 806
EDIT: Changed the title to make it a bit more descriptive.
After a lot of hours playing, I just realized that the reason why it was so difficult to find new spells for Haer' Dalis, Aerie and Jan is... That they've already reached their maximum number of spells (11) in most levels! This was so frustrating, I've spent hours carefully checking all the spell stores looking for the green highlight that indicates that a spell is available for them to learn.
Had I been aware that they had reached their limits, I might have removed the less useful spell in each level to make sure that the game highlights all the spells they don't have. However, I'm starting to wonder if even that is a good idea. I mean, at this stage (I'm currently beginning ToB) they have already filled up half of their spell levels. This means that, in order to keep the green highligt useful, each time I go to a store I need to fully review each of their spell levels, check if it has already reached the 11 spells limit, and if it has, decide which one of their current spells is the less useful one and remove it just to reactivate the green highlighter. That's so much micro, and not a lot of fun!
I think that a mod would be very helpful here. Something like an improved highlighter, which, apart from the current green and red highlights, uses a third one, say, amber. The amber highlight means that your wizard doesn't know that spell but they have already reached their spell limit for that level, so you'll have to get rid of an old spell if you want to learn this new one. On top of that, it might also give you a warning each time learning a new spell means you have reached the limit. And also let you know in the spell book the levels that have reached the limits already (by greying those out, for instance). Such a mod would save hours of micro. Unfortunately, AFAIK nothing like that has been done. I'd love to do it myself, but I'm just starting to learn the ropes of modding, so such a mod is most likely way above my current modding level.
Until such a mod is created, I'm thinking that the best I can do is just using The Tweaks Anthology to remove the limit of spells per level altogether in order to save myself hours of boring micro.
After a lot of hours playing, I just realized that the reason why it was so difficult to find new spells for Haer' Dalis, Aerie and Jan is... That they've already reached their maximum number of spells (11) in most levels! This was so frustrating, I've spent hours carefully checking all the spell stores looking for the green highlight that indicates that a spell is available for them to learn.
Had I been aware that they had reached their limits, I might have removed the less useful spell in each level to make sure that the game highlights all the spells they don't have. However, I'm starting to wonder if even that is a good idea. I mean, at this stage (I'm currently beginning ToB) they have already filled up half of their spell levels. This means that, in order to keep the green highligt useful, each time I go to a store I need to fully review each of their spell levels, check if it has already reached the 11 spells limit, and if it has, decide which one of their current spells is the less useful one and remove it just to reactivate the green highlighter. That's so much micro, and not a lot of fun!
I think that a mod would be very helpful here. Something like an improved highlighter, which, apart from the current green and red highlights, uses a third one, say, amber. The amber highlight means that your wizard doesn't know that spell but they have already reached their spell limit for that level, so you'll have to get rid of an old spell if you want to learn this new one. On top of that, it might also give you a warning each time learning a new spell means you have reached the limit. And also let you know in the spell book the levels that have reached the limits already (by greying those out, for instance). Such a mod would save hours of micro. Unfortunately, AFAIK nothing like that has been done. I'd love to do it myself, but I'm just starting to learn the ropes of modding, so such a mod is most likely way above my current modding level.
Until such a mod is created, I'm thinking that the best I can do is just using The Tweaks Anthology to remove the limit of spells per level altogether in order to save myself hours of boring micro.
Post edited by Alonso on
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Haer'Dalis starts at 15 Int, for a 51%* chance to learn, 11 maximum spells per level, and a maximum spell level of 7. At 19 Int (one potion of genius), that goes up to 81%, all the spells, and all levels. At 24 Int (three potions of mind focusing), it's a 100% chance to learn.
Aerie starts at 16 Int, for a 71% chance to learn, 11 maximum spells per level, and a maximum spell level of 8. At 20 Int (one potion of genius), that goes up to 97%, all the spells, and all levels. At 23 Int (one potion of genius and one of mind focusing), it's a 100% chance to learn.
So, then - do both your shopping and your scribing under the influence of potions.
* The numbers I'm reporting here reflect my current understanding, which includes bugs not reflected in the in-game information. As far as I can tell, there are two issues. First, all characters have a 1% higher chance of scribing than listed. 23 Int and a listed 99% chance is enough for certain success with an unkitted mage. Second, the 15% penalty for specialist mages scribing outside their specialization also applies incorrectly to wild mages, kitted bards, and mages dual-classed from kits. Haer'Dalis, as a Blade, is affected by this one.
Aerie will eventually reach 6 million experience and the ability to cast 9th level wizard spells. As learning 9th level spells requires 18 Int, she won't be able to learn any non-HLA spells there without help. Your options there, without potions? There's a +1 Int Ioun Stone, and the Machine of Lum the Mad in Watcher's Keep can boost her Int by 1 permanently. Combine those, and 9th level spells are within reach.
Still, my purpose with this thread was no so much to find a solution to a problem as to spark some discussion about this aspect of the game. What do you think about using potions to learn spells of higher level and more spells per level? Is it "fine" or is it too "cheesy"? Do you agree that it is an exploit? Is it the way the game is meant to be played? What do you think about the limit of spells per level? Is it a challenge or is it a chore? That kind of stuff.
In BG2, they can also stack your INT beyond 25 (though the Record screen will display 25 at most) and help you survive hits from mind flayer attacks. That's not intended behavior, but since that's the only other use for the potions, using them for scroll scribing is not an exploit.
If it was an exploit, then Potions of Genius would have no function in the game whatsoever.
I guess you could say that it's not intended behavior to use Potions of Mind Focusing for that purpose, since those potions also increase DEX, but I don't think the developers gave those potions an INT boost just for flavor. Both types of potions are specifically designed to help with scroll scribing.
Else, an otherwise QoL feature (green scroll highlight) that was added for that purpose is rendered useless most of the time, since almost all affected characters have INT less than 19 and is relatively easy to reach the spell book limits
EDIT: wording
The flaw of this logic, of course, is that learning chances and limit of spells per level go hand in hand, you cannot raise one without raising the other. But then again, if breaking the limit of spells per level is intended behaviour, why put a limit there in the first place? During the first half of the game the limit is irrelevant because you haven't found enough scrolls to fill your spell levels anyway. And during the second half it's still irrelevant because you have plenty of money for potions...
@leeux: Yeah, that's just what I mean. And I agree that it would be a very nice feature for the vanilla game. I just think that the chances of ever seeing that feature in a mod are better than the chances of seeing it in the vanilla game (although very low in both cases, tbh).
As for developer intent... well, that behavior is implemented, and there's no particular indication it would be unintentional, since the limit makes no sense either way. The existing behavior is just as nonsensical as the alternative.
For what it's worth, using INT-boosting potions to fill up a spellbook beyond the non-boosted limit is standard practice in the community. And, for what it's worth, using the "exploit" doesn't really make the game any easier; it just saves you trouble on micromanagement to use the INT potions for that purpose.
I think this whole issue is kind of a wash. The game makes no indication that's supposed to be illegal, it's never been treated as illegal by the community, it's just as logical as the alternative, and it doesn't even decrease the difficulty of the game.
In my tabletop games wizard players always tried to avoid incinerating, using acid or disintegrating enemy mages whenever their spell books were getting full. It would have been interesting to see this rule implemented in the game.
Sweet! Thanks! I'm gonna keep it in mind for my new modded installation I'm building up, and check if it indeed it still works
Thank you Tresset! Yeah, I imagined it was because of the link in the quote
1. allow to cast high level spells (this is not working in the game)
2. allow to learn more spells
3. decrease the chance of failing to learn them.
does not matter the player's attitude towards the potions of genius and the points 2 and 3, the potions are a very useful way to know what spells your casters have still to learn.
1. save
2. go to a spell shop
3. have your casters stack how many potions they can until they reach the int value that allow them to learn all the spells.
4. check which spells are green for every caster and keep note of it
5. reload and buy the spells.
then the casters can drink potions or erase spells to make possible to learn other ones as the player likes more, the scope of the potion use before the reload is only to have all the still not known spells green.
a mod that would make them yellow or mark them as not learned in some other way would be great, but i am not able to write it and as it does not exist my method is the easiest way to know which scrolls the casters have still to learn ignoring the fact that they have reached their int limit for a given level.