I have a strange issue when attacking enemies with my thief in stealth mode and they're casting detect illusions on my char. When my thief turns visible, he's also loosing all of his Equipment, like that effect Beholders cast sometimes. Could this be related to tactics spell sytem, or can you confirm that it's working well from your side? I'm also using some other spell tweaks mods, like Subtle Spells or ZS Tweaks, so there might be incompatibilities on that side.
This is related to the Klatu Tweak to drop equipment on disintegration. Enemies using the thief detect illusion will disintegrate all illusion spells, but the klatu effect to drop equipment targets all creatures in range and doesn't restrict by creature type.
The only thing Tactics does is use the vanilla detect illusion thief spell (it's a spell in game for enemy thieves to use). I recommend not installing the series of klatu tweaks to drop equipment vs. Spells (imprisonment, disintegrate, stone).
As a short follow-up, in regards to the overpopulation of vampires:
I tested with Korgan being berserked at the place before the Firkraag
red dragon and realised that Korgan could just block the doors there. So
the vampires were confused at first and did not attack him, trying to go
to the rest of the party behind him while Korgan just stood there with his
fat dwarf behind - or, rather, just standing still, as they seemed undecided
what to do in case there is no tasty non-berserked target. (They seemed
to almost freeze in place actually; it did not seem to be valid for all
vampires, but for some at the least.)
Korgan meanwhile, as the vampires were pondering what to do next, chopped down
on the old geezers with his trusted axe and hammer (axe from the Dusk-NPC mod,
and the hammer setting strength to 25).
Berserk ran out and then the vampires were more eager to eat that tough,
tasty dwarven meat, but the rest of the party was poking the vampires down
via missile damage as well as disposable summons that just bought some time.
It was not quite as easy as described here, as some movement and chickening-out
may have happened, but in the end Korgan prevailed and all vampires were dead.
(It may be possible to optimise this even more, but I was more focused on
getting through, to get at that fat bloated red dragon below instead.)
Nonetheless I found it somewhat entertaining in that solo-Korgan was more
effective than the rest of the party (which would end up getting dominated or
confused, whereas Korgan just chopped down the undead meat like mince, solo).
Scaling-wise the vampires are difficult early on, but lateron they are very
easy. That's of course not the fault of the mod; I think the whole game series
has an issue in regards to balance, the upscaling power-wise happens too early,
and I think things such as whirlwind, are broken. They just dish out too much
damage. It should perhaps instead be a single whirlwind, and more damage
applied, but only once per day or something like that. Anyway.
I'll give the updated Tactics Remix another run soon, but I will probably be
more conservative in selection, as I want to test two other things (one is a
mages-only party; the other is another attempt via
MainChar-Dusk-Korgan-Drizzt-Viconia-Fall, which seem to
have the most storyline-content in total actually; could
take Aerie but she is so weak in comparison to Viconia
really).
Firkraag was quite difficult actually, as he healed himself up and then
summoned those kobolds. The kobolds were actually really annoying since
there were so many of them and they kept coming and Firkraag's wing
strike always sent the party back to the end of the screen. (Is it a
bug, by the way, when the party ends up in areas where they normally
can not go, because of the stairs going upwards icon? I guess technically
it is not a bug, because the area exists, and the effect of the dragon
wings just hits them to the wall, but it is still strange because the
party can not reach that area behind the icon where it says to go
up, so my party ended up being on the wall, and could not go in the
part where the staircase-up icon showed up, which was a bit odd.)
The brown dragon was probably the strongest; the acid damage was insane,
like 250 damage on Korgan sniping him. One problem was that the dragon
would be right on the edge of the map; if the party could buff up prior
to it, it would have been easier. The other dragons were not so difficult;
The Ritual one was surprisingly easy. Not sure why, the behaviour appears
to have been different. The big boss dragon in Drizzt's mod was also
super-easy, much easier than the brown acid dragon. The three dragons
before the big boss dragon were also much harder than the big boss
dragon; in prior runs the big boss dragon was almots unbeatable. Not
sure what factors all contribute here; I need to check the tweaks mod
more, it seems to do too much. The beholders seemed very confused in
general but I see that the update changed some things.
One thing that was both cool and confusing were the mind flayers. I
love the idea of intellect devourers and mind flayers going invis
before the sneak attack, but one surprising thing is that they barely
tried any stun-action anymore. This was a bit confusing because in
vanilla game, mind flayers would often try to stun and then go in
to eat the brain. Perhaps there could be a mixed behaviour between
old and new behaviour (aka two styles) or two different mind flayer
"classes". One the more direct soldier, and the other the sneaky
one. I loved seeing the intellect devourers by the way; did not
notice them before. That reminds me of the 1990s era, if anyone
played those ancient DnD games where those intellect devourers
also appeared.
Demiliches behaviour was also a bit different. The vanilla ones
seem to want to cast imprisonment. The changed demiliches seem
to go about things differently e. g. teleportation field, this
Larloch group drain or what's the name and so forth.
One thing that confused the hell out of me was Kangaxx. At first
I thought he was invincible; then I realised that at the least
one spell could damage him. I did time stop and that faster
casting thing, and killed him but the demilich variant was almost
even stronger. In vanilla we can kill Kangaxx via e. g. the
sword of light or whatever is the name. I was surprised to see
Kangaxx was totally immune.
One thing I still like a lot are the bandits, and they seem
more varied in composition, like conjurer, or bounty hunter,
which is quite nice. It would also be cool if we could get
a few more races in, such as evil gnome, evil dwarf evil
elf or half-elf. By the way, the bounty hunter places traps,
naturally, but these traps seem to stay forever. Now it may
be realistic that they damage the party lateron, but in a big
city, I would reason that some civilian ends up running into
those traps a few days ago, so I think a decay timer would
be nice, e. g. "after 36 hours" (or something like that) it
is assumed that some civilian went into those spike traps
instead of the party. It's not a big deal either way, but a
bit surprising to see in the big city everyone else managed
to avoid the trap but the party walks right into them.
Comments
The only thing Tactics does is use the vanilla detect illusion thief spell (it's a spell in game for enemy thieves to use). I recommend not installing the series of klatu tweaks to drop equipment vs. Spells (imprisonment, disintegrate, stone).
Will leave that one out then on future setups.
I tested with Korgan being berserked at the place before the Firkraag
red dragon and realised that Korgan could just block the doors there. So
the vampires were confused at first and did not attack him, trying to go
to the rest of the party behind him while Korgan just stood there with his
fat dwarf behind - or, rather, just standing still, as they seemed undecided
what to do in case there is no tasty non-berserked target. (They seemed
to almost freeze in place actually; it did not seem to be valid for all
vampires, but for some at the least.)
Korgan meanwhile, as the vampires were pondering what to do next, chopped down
on the old geezers with his trusted axe and hammer (axe from the Dusk-NPC mod,
and the hammer setting strength to 25).
Berserk ran out and then the vampires were more eager to eat that tough,
tasty dwarven meat, but the rest of the party was poking the vampires down
via missile damage as well as disposable summons that just bought some time.
It was not quite as easy as described here, as some movement and chickening-out
may have happened, but in the end Korgan prevailed and all vampires were dead.
(It may be possible to optimise this even more, but I was more focused on
getting through, to get at that fat bloated red dragon below instead.)
Nonetheless I found it somewhat entertaining in that solo-Korgan was more
effective than the rest of the party (which would end up getting dominated or
confused, whereas Korgan just chopped down the undead meat like mince, solo).
Scaling-wise the vampires are difficult early on, but lateron they are very
easy. That's of course not the fault of the mod; I think the whole game series
has an issue in regards to balance, the upscaling power-wise happens too early,
and I think things such as whirlwind, are broken. They just dish out too much
damage. It should perhaps instead be a single whirlwind, and more damage
applied, but only once per day or something like that. Anyway.
I'll give the updated Tactics Remix another run soon, but I will probably be
more conservative in selection, as I want to test two other things (one is a
mages-only party; the other is another attempt via
MainChar-Dusk-Korgan-Drizzt-Viconia-Fall, which seem to
have the most storyline-content in total actually; could
take Aerie but she is so weak in comparison to Viconia
really).
Firkraag was quite difficult actually, as he healed himself up and then
summoned those kobolds. The kobolds were actually really annoying since
there were so many of them and they kept coming and Firkraag's wing
strike always sent the party back to the end of the screen. (Is it a
bug, by the way, when the party ends up in areas where they normally
can not go, because of the stairs going upwards icon? I guess technically
it is not a bug, because the area exists, and the effect of the dragon
wings just hits them to the wall, but it is still strange because the
party can not reach that area behind the icon where it says to go
up, so my party ended up being on the wall, and could not go in the
part where the staircase-up icon showed up, which was a bit odd.)
The brown dragon was probably the strongest; the acid damage was insane,
like 250 damage on Korgan sniping him. One problem was that the dragon
would be right on the edge of the map; if the party could buff up prior
to it, it would have been easier. The other dragons were not so difficult;
The Ritual one was surprisingly easy. Not sure why, the behaviour appears
to have been different. The big boss dragon in Drizzt's mod was also
super-easy, much easier than the brown acid dragon. The three dragons
before the big boss dragon were also much harder than the big boss
dragon; in prior runs the big boss dragon was almots unbeatable. Not
sure what factors all contribute here; I need to check the tweaks mod
more, it seems to do too much. The beholders seemed very confused in
general but I see that the update changed some things.
One thing that was both cool and confusing were the mind flayers. I
love the idea of intellect devourers and mind flayers going invis
before the sneak attack, but one surprising thing is that they barely
tried any stun-action anymore. This was a bit confusing because in
vanilla game, mind flayers would often try to stun and then go in
to eat the brain. Perhaps there could be a mixed behaviour between
old and new behaviour (aka two styles) or two different mind flayer
"classes". One the more direct soldier, and the other the sneaky
one. I loved seeing the intellect devourers by the way; did not
notice them before. That reminds me of the 1990s era, if anyone
played those ancient DnD games where those intellect devourers
also appeared.
Demiliches behaviour was also a bit different. The vanilla ones
seem to want to cast imprisonment. The changed demiliches seem
to go about things differently e. g. teleportation field, this
Larloch group drain or what's the name and so forth.
One thing that confused the hell out of me was Kangaxx. At first
I thought he was invincible; then I realised that at the least
one spell could damage him. I did time stop and that faster
casting thing, and killed him but the demilich variant was almost
even stronger. In vanilla we can kill Kangaxx via e. g. the
sword of light or whatever is the name. I was surprised to see
Kangaxx was totally immune.
One thing I still like a lot are the bandits, and they seem
more varied in composition, like conjurer, or bounty hunter,
which is quite nice. It would also be cool if we could get
a few more races in, such as evil gnome, evil dwarf evil
elf or half-elf. By the way, the bounty hunter places traps,
naturally, but these traps seem to stay forever. Now it may
be realistic that they damage the party lateron, but in a big
city, I would reason that some civilian ends up running into
those traps a few days ago, so I think a decay timer would
be nice, e. g. "after 36 hours" (or something like that) it
is assumed that some civilian went into those spike traps
instead of the party. It's not a big deal either way, but a
bit surprising to see in the big city everyone else managed
to avoid the trap but the party walks right into them.