How hard is the mod sword coast stratagems?

Comments

• DinoDin Member Posts: 1,685

  February 26

  The mod is extremely customizable, but that customizing takes place on install. You can choose to add components like smarter enemies, more abilities given to enemies and even larger enemies to face. As well as all kinds of changes to your own spells and gear options. You can always run the install again to include or exclude elements, but you can't really do that in game. That being said, the difficulty slider in game does indeed alter the game, post mod, in more ways than it did in the base game.
  
  The mod doesn't allow enemies to cheat really, but like I said, it can give them more abilities. Mainly in the form of having a number of protection spells ready at the start of combat. This already happens a little in the un-modded game, but enemies will cast even more in SCS.
  
  My experience with the mod is that it definitely pushes the player into pre-buffing much more themselves before a fight. And relying more heavily on summoned monsters. And obviously it pushes you into having more mage-breaking spells. Adopting many of the mod's changes adds a great deal of instant deal abilities to various enemies, especially as you progress towards ToB.

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• Sloty1984 Member Posts: 182

  February 26

  okay thanks.
  If I change something of the mod components do I need to start a new game or does it work with my savegames?

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• jmerry Member Posts: 4,205

  February 26

  Regarding difficulty level with SCS, that's customizable by the difficulty slider and an additional "fine-tune difficulty" button (which then uses a dialogue interface to set your preferences individually for various aspects of the game). This customization affects things like which spells enemies are willing to use; the SCS AI at high difficulties genuinely plays "smarter" with the abilities it has than the same AI at low difficulties.
  
  Base game difficulty does not work like this. It's all global modifiers. Which are still in place with SCS, so be careful with the lowest difficulty ("Easy"/"Basic", which grants +6 luck to the party) or when playing without the setting that disables damage multipliers from difficulty.
  
  In almost all cases, installing or uninstalling mods in the middle of a run (which includes uninstalling and reinstalling parts of a mod to make different choices) is a bad idea. Some of the game's files are incorporated into the save as you play and then drawn from there instead of grabbing clean copies, so playing from a save after a midstream mod change leads to a patchwork of changed and unchanged stuff. Things break, in ways that are hard to predict. Just don't do it.

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• atcDave Member Posts: 2,876

  February 26

  I think SCS is an excellent mod for adding a little difficulty to the game without cheating. Like you, I was frustrated with another mod that to me, was cheating. It gave opponents a range of *new* powers and abilities. That to me, weren't even AD&D anymore (to some of us, that matters!). And it spammed all pre-buffs. It left me hesitant for a long time to try SCS. But I finally gave it a try and I was mostly pleased. I think I was happiest with "Improved" difficulty. It plays smarter without enemies having a ton of short-term buffs up, or new powers. I may step up another level yet.
  But as others mentioned, there are layers to its enhancements. My own preference is smarter (using items and potions well), but not cheating (pre-buffing things in a way that breaks immersion. Again, to me that means short term buffs up as soon as you see them. Or adding new abilities). To some extent you can set the mod to enhance itself in some ways but not others. It offers a lot of customization.

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• deadinside Member Posts: 47

  February 27

  Tactics "cheats" more than SCS . SCS has very customizable difficulty settings, so you can tailor it to your own preference and make it as difficult as you want. If you only install the AI enhancement and smarter mages/priests it will be just a straight up AI improvement of the game. No buffing (as in extra levels or increased stats) of enemies or enemies with extra abilities. Magic users do start fights with several contingencies and triggers (to simulate pre-buffing) but that can be turned down with an independent difficulty slider (you can't turn it off but BASIC or even IMPROVED is more than manageable). If you install the modules labeled "Improved" and/or "Smarter" monsters those will give enemy creatures more abilities. I usually set those to IMPROVED difficulty because higher and they start getting way too many frustrating abilities.
  
  Where the mod does kind of "cheat" is with the improved encounters (those are in a separate section of the mod package). Most have extra enemy spawns, increased levels, extra abilities. They can be fun, but depending on the difficulty settings they can become frustrating. I usually don't install those as they change up the encounters too much and some of the improved enemies tend to be cheesy.
  
  The rest of the mod is changes to the spell system and some convenience/rules changes. Personally I never liked the spell changes (the changes in Tactics Remix are a bit more sensible). Keep in mind that unlike Tactics Remix, some spell changes are obligatory when you install anything in the AI and Improved sections of the mod (they get installed automatically).
  
  

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• morpheus562 Member Posts: 703

  February 28

  Tactics "cheats" is more of a holdover from og Tactics which I'm guessing few players have touched. I would say Tactics cheating more than SCS isn't quite true as we both bend/break rules. Tactics just has much better scripted enemies that play fair and act as the player would. I will say that Tactics spellcasters have deeper spellbooks than their SCS counterparts, but to me that is more of the rule of fun. I much prefer an active enemy caster than one with an empty spellbook waiting around to die. This is where I am self declaring where Tactics takes the most liberties: caster spellbook depth. I give the player the option if they want their casters to have deep or very deep levels of spellcasting.
  
  Now, both SCS and TR will use ReallyForceSpell() and ForceSpell() depending on the caster, their race or specialty, etc. This allows instant and/or uninterruptible casting. We are about equal in fairness here. TR allows the player to choose to boost enemy HP on install while SCS will do these via the scripts dependent on difficulty settings. Again, I would say we are about equal in fairness here.
  
  One thing that SCS does cheat on is it will have its enemy mages apply opcode 193 (Invisibility Detection) before casting an AoE spell. This allows the mage, for one round, to cast that AoE spell at an otherwise untargetable, invisible creature (something the player is not able to do). This is SCS' way to cast an AoE spell simulated next to a character, as the player would do, but now it is cast directly at that untargetable creature and the spell will follow them if they run away. Additionally, if that mage has improved alacrity, they can get a few more spells off at creatures who would otherwise be untargetable. Tactics, on the other hand, will cast the spell next to an enemy as the player would do.

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