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P&P Grand Mastery: Possible?

AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,524
edited March 2019 in General Modding
I would like to make a small P&P proficiency mod but I'm not sure whether P&P Grand Mastery is technically feasible. According to the AD&D Player's Option (Combat & Tactics) manual, Grand Mastery grants +1 attack compared to Specialization (which we know is possible from the un-nerfed Grand Mastery component in Tweaks Anthology) and increases the die size of the weapon by one (e.g. a long sword in the hands of a grand master would roll 1d10 for damage instead of 1d8.)

Is the die size increase something the engine supports (and if EE supports it, does vanilla)?

The flat +2 damage bonus currently granted sort of mimics the effect, but it's technically more powerful (as it also increases minimum damage) and frankly less flavorful.

High Mastery would also need changing to grant -2 Speed Factor and +1 Critical Range instead of what it is currently doing, but that's the same thing a pip in Two Handed Weapon style does so I know it can be done (what I don't know is whether High Master and Two Handed Weapon style would stack, which they should, but I assume yes.)

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  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    AndreaColombo
  • AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,524
    Oh :( I thought stuff already in place like altering the crit range would be simple.

    Pity. Would have loved to have P&P High and Grand Mastery.
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    AndreaColombo
  • AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,524
    Looks like a request for ... @Bubb ! I'll go light the Bubb signal in the EEex thread.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited March 2019
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
    AndreaColombo
  • AndreaColomboAndreaColombo Member Posts: 5,524
    edited March 2019
    Personally, I don't think it has much legitimacy when presented as a "true to PnP" idea. Especially because so much of the IE games are nowhere near true to PnP, they are chock full of hackneyed and homebrewed rule interpretations needed to shoehorn D&D into a tactical combat game...

    I disagree. Weapon mastery is indeed optional, but so is the entire weapon proficiency system in AD&D. As BioWare chose to implement it, a mod that aligns it to its P&P guidelines is about as legitimate as any other P&P mod, IMO.
    But, as long as you are embracing optional PnP rules, you could embrace or remove other rules.

    Technically it is BioWare who embraced the optional system; I merely disagree with their choice to deviate from P&P for High Mastery and Grand Mastery (lesser proficiency levels pretty much abide by the P&P rules) :)

    It is true, as you say, that the BG saga deviates from P&P often. Sometimes, that is necessary to make AD&D work in a RTwP cRPG. Others, it simply makes the game more fun to play (for example, Spell Immunity in P&P is borderline useless and would make BG's combat a lot less interesting and fun.) However there are times when deviation from P&P seems just plain gratuitous (e.g. racial bonuses to thieving skills, Short Sword of Backstabbing or, case in point, the effects of weapon high/grand mastery.)

    1) set all kits/classes to be unable to add points in weapon styles;
    2) remove all entries in STYLBONU.2da, and instead set a +5% crit chance for having 1 star in each style;
    3) add a while-equipped .EFF to every weapon that gives you 1 star in all 4 styles;
    4) add a 318 effect immunizing the wielder from that equipping effect if they have less than high mastery in that weapon.

    But, it means removing weapon styles from gameplay, so it's probably not palatable to many.

    Thank you for the pointers—that's actually a very creative solution!

    I would prefer not to abandon weapon styles, however, as they too are part of the same optional rule (plus, having P&P High Mastery without P&P Grand Mastery would feel ... incomplete.) Hopefully EEex can modify WSPECIAL.2da to allow for crit chance and die size modifications; that'd simplify things quite a bit.
  • c4_angelc4_angel Member Posts: 35
    I would be surprised if changing the die size is possible, for any reasonable definition of "possible."

    Changing crit range for high mastery is possible, but probably unreasonably complicated - see the Scales of Balance Revised Weapon Styles for the kind of weidu code that will make you nauseous to read. :wink:

    That crit range revision would also have to use the opcode, which means it would no stack with any other crit chance modifications, except the hard-coded one in STYLBONU.2da

    It's stackable in current version of EE games, IIRC...
  • kjeronkjeron Member Posts: 2,367
    c4_angel wrote: »
    It's stackable in current version of EE games, IIRC...
    Yes, as of v2.5, op301 stacks with itself.
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