But spells like Nahal's Nonsensical Nullifier, [...] seem like perfect fits for BG. Makes you wonder why only three Wild Magic spells were included in the first place.
I would suggest leaving this one out though. Game mechanics wise it has hardly any effect (especially since you wouldn't know what alignment is gained), storywise it would require a massive rewrite if you suddenly smack a Lawful Good on Mulahey, Tazok, Davaeorn or likewise. They'd probably fall to their guiltwracked knees immediately, presenting a host of plot complications.
Edit: To avoid making a point with critisism only; the mod does look fantastic and I really look forward to playing...well ALL the clerics. Possibly smack some kits on all the NPC's and make an all-cleric party (which, in theory, should steamroll over every encounter). I do think the 'drawn' look of the spell selecting looks very confusing though. I know it's probably a mod for veterans of the game but even after a dozen BG runs, I have to stare closely at that selection to identify most spells. If possible, please colour them in, even if it looks poor.
Can you guys please give us an ETA perhaps? I was just thinking on finally starting the game, but if you guys will be deploying a working stable beta in a week I'll surely wait that longer.
Thank you so much for making BG so much fun with this mod and everything else you are doing!
Can you guys please give us an ETA perhaps? I was just thinking on finally starting the game, but if you guys will be deploying a working stable beta in a week I'll surely wait that longer.
Thank you so much for making BG so much fun with this mod and everything else you are doing!
It's probably going to be released around March the 30th at the latest. I still have some work to do with the last few icons but we could rush through the kits we have most developed for a beta release sooner.
A problem has arisen with the school category of the spells. Namely that some spells are listed in the wrong school if you try and match up what the spell is supposed to do with what the school is supposed to represent.
For example Shillelagh is labeled as Alteration while Flame Blade and Spiritual Hammer is Invocation/Evocation. Even though Alteration requires the alteration of something pre-existing, while Invocation is about creating something from nothing. It doesn't make sense the cudgel of Shillelagh is magically created, not morphed from something pre-existing.
Then some dual school spells don't really give anymore detail than what they would if only one school is listed. So I'm thinking of moving some of the spells around to schools that properly describe what their function actually is and doing the same for spells that are dualed for no clear reason.
My understanding of the schools' function is below.
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Abjuration represents spells that ward off, banish or protect. While Conjuration/Summoning represents the sending of items or creatures to the caster, not away from them.
Alteration/Transmutation represents the altering or changing of physical matter, items or oneself into something else. While Invocation/Evocation represents the channeling of magical energy into weapons or harmful effects that didn't previously exist.
Enchantment/Charm represents the magical enhancement (not physical enhancement) of items and the influencing of behaviour. While Illusion/Phantasm represents the deception of one's senses without explicitly controlling the target's behaviour and the creation of illusionary forces.
Necromancy represents spells that have dominion over life, vitality and death.
Divination represents detection and knowledge based spells.
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So am I correct in my understanding? I simplified things since sometimes Abjuration and Conjuration, Alteration and Invocation, Enchantment and Illusion, etc... overlap at times. Hence the majority of the confusion with the categorizing.
Secondly should I change the spells with inaccurate schools around at all? Or just leave things be. This will effect the look of the spell icons and the way the spells are classified in the infinity engine. It will certainly make the spells more direct in their functions but it would at the same time go against what they are listed as in the 2ed books.
I've just finished the work on creating the linework for the icons, so the last thing left to do is get them coloured and converted into .bam files. But I can't get to the next step without getting this issue sorted.
@Mordeus - I think they should be left as they are. There have been several forum topics full of bickering whether some spell should be one school or another, but as far as I know those spells have still remained in their original schools even in later editions. It would confuse and potentially (in case of wizard specialization) even break game balance. I understand this would now only affect divine spells, but could potentially bring problems with future mods that might ban or specialize with schools of magic. Not to mention spell immunity to certain schools.
Your descriptions of each school is quite accurate, but there are always exceptions and ways of making magic work differently. I find it perfectly reasonable that Shillelagh is in the alteration school, just as mage armor is a conjuration spell and shield an evocation spell. I really hope they will all remain in their proper schools of magic.
@Mordeus - I think they should be left as they are. There have been several forum topics full of bickering whether some spell should be one school or another, but as far as I know those spells have still remained in their original schools even in later editions. It would confuse and potentially (in case of wizard specialization) even break game balance. I understand this would now only affect divine spells, but could potentially bring problems with future mods that might ban or specialize with schools of magic. Not to mention spell immunity to certain schools.
Your descriptions of each school is quite accurate, but there are always exceptions and ways of making magic work differently. I find it perfectly reasonable that Shillelagh is in the alteration school, just as mage armor is a conjuration spell and shield an evocation spell. I really hope they will all remain in their proper schools of magic.
It's mainly for spells we are adding into the game that only really appear in 2ed. But I'll make sure to leave the original spells alone. Even though I think it makes things a little more confusing having Resist Acid as an abjuration spell and Resist Fire/Cold as an alteration spell. Though I can see the p&p reasoning for them to be in different schools.
But what about the spells that exist in dual schools? Like Aid, Dolorous Decay, Glyph of Warding, Free Action, Sunray, Goodberry, Wondrous Recall, etc... Half of these examples were changed by BG developers to fit into a single school, even though they are treated as dualed in 2ed. The other half were left as dualed even though the infinity engine can only treat spells as if they are from a single school. So something like Dolorous Decay which is Alteration/Necromancy, is actually considered as an Alteration spell by the infinity engine, even though Necromancy is more descriptive of what it does.
Would it be ok if I treated all dualed spells as single school spells by picking which school is most applicable out of the two choices presented?
I'm not sure if it would break the game by moving spells into other schools. I think it would make Spell Immunity more effective for it to guard against spells that conjure or transmute, rather than spells within conjuration or transmutation. It would cut out alot of the loopholes, though I could see why people would find the loopholes useful in getting around Spell Immunity. Nor would it really break the wizard specializations since it makes logical sense for an Abjurer to be forbidden from all spells that alter or transmute physical things than just spells that fall within Alteration. Or having a Diviner forbidden from anything that conjures to them, than just spells within Conjuration. It would only really force the specialized mages to be even more specialized.
But I'll make sure to only touch the dualed spells. Afterall these things could always be altered in future releases.
Just a little update for everyone who is interested in this mod about what is happening with it.
I am currently pulling together all of the kits and working on a selection dialog for when the player enters candlekeep upon starting a new game, it's pretty much done, just trying to make it feel natural which is surprisingly difficult.
There are likely to be 25 cleric kits at release, restricted variously by alignment, race and even gender in some cases. Halfbreed races get the choices of both parents e.g. half elves can choose human and elven deities. Deity choices are fairly relaxed to allow for a wide range of options, but unrealistic choices will obviously not be available e.g. a lawful good male dwarf would never worship Lolth.
I have almost finished adding very rudimentary but functional sphere system support for the other divine classes (paladin, ranger, druid). I call it rudimentary because there is as of yet very little adaption to match the flavour of the kit. This is for people who want to play with the sphere system in place even if the other class kits are not added. Please note that this will NOT work with modded kits (not yet at least). Current sphere access is as shown below:
Paladins: Healing (curative only), Protection, Combat, Divination - Also cavaliers now really can't use missile weapons, including weapons which are both melee and throwing. The blackguard will have the reversed healing sphere and reversed necromancy sphere (rather than normal healing and divination).
Rangers: Plant, Animal, Sun (Light producing only), Weather
Druids: Major - Animal, Charm, Creation, Combat, Elemental (All), Plant, Protection, Summoning, Sun, Weather Minor - Travelers, Healing, Guardian, Chaos, Law None - All, Astral, Divination, Necromantic, Numbers, Thought, Time, War, Wards
Before release I hope to also add support for adding kits to NPC's, much like my original kitpack. Since I have had this working previously I don't see it taking too long.
Mordeus has been busily working away on the spell icons which look genuinely great, and he is almost done with them. He has also been working on the kits he was responsible for and laying down the (very awkward) groundwork for the mage and sorcerer kitpack to come next.
We are both also obviously testing whatever we can as we go along, trying to get as many bugs out of the way now as possible to prevent an unmanageable influx when the beta is released. We are however both conscious that the mod adds a lot of new content, and the chances are there will be bugs which some people find glaringly obvious that we have missed through chance or tiredness.
The mod has been tested (although not rigorously) on both BG2 and BG:EE so compatibility should be pretty good, including BGT, moving forward the support may eb limited to BG:EE for certain things (such as sorcerer and monk kits).
As it stands we are still on track to release the beta before the end of march.
Finally got a copy of the game from the Apple iTunes store. Didn't realize that the spell icons appear over the character's portrait when casting spells. So that introduces a little bit of a problem.
Haven't tested the icons out yet but at the moment I'm using the background of an empty interface socket in place of the round stone tablets that the original spell icons use. So when casting a spell, the spell icon will be presented against a blue-ish stone square. Which probably isn't too much of a problem since it's either a stone square or the usual rounded stone tablet. But on the bright side, the icons are about 20-30% larger than the originals, so it's got that going for it.
I'll post a picture of the icons around tomorrow, just to get the final say on them and then I'll .bam convert them. Best to get them signed off before I go too far, afterall there are around 500 of them. Good thing is once this is all sorted out, the icons for the arcane spells will go much faster.
Funnily enough out of all those spells, only one of them was from the school of illusion. Had to turn it into Alteration since it was dualed. So technically none are from the school of illusion. But aside from that is looks like there is an even spread of spells between the 7 schools (well aside from Divination).
Don't have time to get a preview done for all the spell icons. So I've taken Armor of Faith and rendered it in each of the 8 colours. I've also decided to just reuse the same style of icon in the spellbook just with a little bit of a drop shadow.
The icons shown here aren't screenshots, so the final product won't look so bright because the contrast changes during the .bam conversion. I'm using the same gradient as the grey-blue interface icons just with a different coloured overlay. That seems to give the best results.
So what does everyone think of the colour and style of the icons?
Ok the icons have actually changed a bit. I've added a more complex gradient giving them a cross between the previous style and the old type. I had to tone down some of the colours because they were too jarring to the other interface icons.
I think the interface icons are done but I'm not 100% sure on the spellbook ones. I have to darken the white Divination spells because they get lost against the background. But maybe I should darken the other icon colours too?
They look great. I hope something can be done with they grey coloured ones as they are quite hard to make out. Hopefully these spell icons fit well with Archaic UI too.
I think a drop shadow should be enough to get the icons to stand out from the background. I had it in my old example but forgot to apply it this time round.
There's a problem I just found out now but I'm not sure if there is anything I can do from my end. As you can see in the screenshot of the spellbook, the icon third from the top, third from the left has an aliasing problem. The lines in the center of the circle are supposed to be straight like they appear in the interface screenshot.
The icons also look slight more vibrant and larger in BG2. Have the BG:EE team increased the pixel size of an icon from the old 32x32 standard? If so, then that is the problem and could be easily fixed. Or that the 32x32 standard is still in place but hasn't been given the same scale ratio as in BG2. The colour difference I'm also experiencing could just be a screen resolution problem, though they don't seem as metallic as they do in BG2.
The same problem applies to the original icons, but since I'm creating new ones from scratch I figure maybe there is something I can do that can fix things.
@Mordeus I see the picture of Priest of Hoar and Sharess you have put here.... will this modds have those clerics???????
Didn't have time to add Sharess this time round, I had to reduce the workload just to make this manageable and she was one of the kits that I had to cut. But I've got icons done for her, so I'm planning to add her.
As for Hoar, I'm looking through the abilities and some seem tricky to pull off. The specific deity spells seem near impossible to introduce into the game since their effects are so vague. The kits that don't have at least one easy to implement deity spell were passed up when we were first going through the kits.
So basically Sharess is high priority but Hoar isn't so much.
The book AD&D Forgotten Realms - Powers and Pantheons says:
"1. Doombringers can incite a focused rage once a day in themselves. This rage allowed them a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls against a specific being or group of beings they are seeking to bring satisfactory justice against and a +2 bonus to all saving throws. It takes one full round to incite this rage, which then lasts a turn or ceases earlier if all foes of the identified type are dead or unconscious. While in a focused rage, the recipient cannot flee from a fight against his or her targets. The target of the rage must be specific, such as "Therian Blackbeard," "this man before me identified as the murderer of an innocent child," or "the outlaws here of the Flaming Sword band." This cannot be applied to all creatures of a type, such as "all orcs," or "all thieves," and the group or individual the rage is focused on must be the target of a mission of righteous justice the doombringer is engaged in completing.
2.Doombringers cannot turn undead, but if they make a successful attempt to command undead, they can order unliving creatures to seek out and attack their creators regardless of any commands (magical or otherwise) to the contrary, assuming the monsters did not seek undeath prior to their transformation. If an undead creature is nonintelligent, it ceases to seek vengeance as soon as it is no longer under the control of the doombringer. Intelligent undead do not cease their quest for vengeance until they are permanently destroyed or their creator dies or is destroyed. When the creator is killed, his undead creations immediately collapse into dust, their vengeance spent. 3.If a dying being begs for revenge against his or her killer or killers on his or her deathbed with a doombringer in attendance, the priest can say a special Prayer of Revenance upon the death of the luckless recipient. This increases the chance to 25% that, if the recipient's Constitution is 18 and Wisdom or Intelligence is 17 or greater, the deceased will rise as a revenant. The chance of a recipient of Hoar's Prayer of Revenance rising as a revenant if his or her ability scores do not meet the normal criteria for a revenant is 5%. 4. If killed unjustly (as adjudicated by the DM) and not raised from the dead (or able to be raised), a doombringer always rises as a revenant. The weakness of this revenant is not always to fire, as is normal for a naturally-occurring revenant, and should be determined by the DM. For example, some such revenants have had to be immersed in fresh water for one turn or only been vulnerable to nonregeneratable damage after a particular item associated with them in life is destroyed in a particular way.
At 3rd level, doombringers can cast shocking grasp (as the 1st-level wizard spell) once per day. At 5th level, doombringers can cast lightning bolt (as the 3rd-level wizard spell) once per day. At 7th level, doombringers can cast hand of Hoar (as the 4th-level priest spell) once per day. At 10th level, doombringers can cast thunder staff (as the 4th-level wizard spell) once per day. At 13th level, doombringers receive the benefits of a permanent protection from normal missiles spell."
1. rage (from berseker kit) should help to add 2. Control undead works 3 and 4 doesn't work so you don't need to think to do anything for it..
spells like shoking grasp, Lightning bolt should be easy to add and permanent protection form normal missile.... that one i don't know if it is possible or not the rest of the spells like Hand of hoar and thunder staff (I think this spells is IWS spell not sure here) you can skip...
so basically the kit wil look like this
Doombringers (or Nemesis if you have Warriors and Priests of the Realms handbok ): REQUIREMENTS: Dexterity 10, Wisdom 9 WEAPONS: Any (if fitting, as described above): change this to schimitar,wazakashi and ninjato and spears and staff.. (hoar uses a sword and javiline as god... there isn't any javeline or broadsword but the priest have one skill in slashing weapon,on in piercing and one in B ) ARMOR: Any ALIGNMENT: LN MAJOR SPHERES: All, charm, combat, law, guardian, necromantic, summoning, travelers, weather MINOR SPHERES: Creation, divination, healing, protection, time MAGICAL ITEMS: Same as clerics plus weapon of choice
well i hope this way of thinking helps you.. keep the good work up...
The problem with the Hoar kit is really that the three Hoarite spells listed don't really work in BG. Although I do like the idea of a revenant rising from the fallen Hoar priest, though that won't work if that character is the protagonist.
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I just compared the interface buttons of BG2 and BG:EE, and there is a size difference. The BG2 interface buttons are 42x42 pixels while the BG:EE ones are 54x54 pixels. So it seems that I can increase the spell icons from 32x32 to something like 41x41 pixels at the most. Haven't tested this yet but as long as I get the right co-ordinates it seems completely doable. That would make these icons larger by a third.
Only problem is it would make the icons complete unusable in vanilla BG2, but then again that's not really a problem. Can't make everything backwards compatible.
@Mordeus Then I would recommend to skip The Hoarite spells or change them with existing spells Scent of Vengeance = base it on the doom spell Hand of Hoar = Cloak of fear (or some other morale spell) Revenance = better raise dead version (maybe you get 50% of you hit points back instead of 1 hp or that it include bless+ raise dead 1 hp)
In my opinion a lack of compatility is not a huge problem and may even end up being a unique advantage if other modmakers follow suit, if there are enoug quality mods that only work properly on bgee then it encourages people to buy bgee then it means more money for beamdog which means an improved bg2ee and a better chance of an eventual bg3
I believe that this is the trend of most mods in the future. BGEE has some changes that make things easier for modders, such as externalization of the animations and ogg support, for instance. The new version of DSotSC, for instance, will be EE only, although I may be wrong about this one.
I've complete the new spell icons. I'm just going through the process of converting them to .bam format.
Here's the spellbook, the icons have been increased to 40x40. There's still an aliasing problem with some of the icons but I'm going to look into fixing that at a later date.
Here is what the icons look like in the interface menu. They are 40x40 pixels with the co-ordinates of (4, 4) to get them centered.
And here is what an icon looks like when it appears over the character portrait. It pretty much blocks out the face, but it's also a whole lot clearer.
OK just finished converting the 470 spell icons into .bam files. That's one big component of the mod done. I'm going to start on converting the arcane spells into the new format especially since some of the priest kits use arcane spells. But that may not be ready for the first beta release.
There's just some troubleshooting work to do with some of the new spells and then some quick testing until release. Meanwhile I'm going to make a tome item for each priest that gives a blurb on their god. It's pretty much going to be copy and pasted from the 2nd supplement they come from. But it'll save the player time from googling the information.
It's looking like we are on track for a March 30th release.
I've just begun the long design process of tracing the pre-existing Mage Spells. So there will be an update in the next week or so that will convert all the spells both arcane and divine to the new format.
Should I do the same with the innate ability icons too? I'll need to come up with a new colour system for those since they don't fall under the spell school system that currently owns the colours blue, cyan, green, white, purple, red, pink and yellow. The only colour that I can use that hasn't been taken is a bronze/gold colour that is not all the dissimilar from the colour used in the Pocket Plane icon. But even then it is fairly hard to distinguish from the spell icons.
Maybe I should use the pre-existing red/blue/white system but remove the metallic gradient and give it a more flatcolour style instead. Although the red/blue/white system will need some rules applied. Like Red being purely for damage, Blue purely for defense and White for Miscellaneous. Because at the moment among the shapeshifting skills, half of them are blue and half are white which doesn't really help.
If I can't get them distinguished from the spell in terms of colour. I could also add a small little icon in the top left of the icon around the size of the status symbols that signifies that it isn't a spell. Maybe like a small little sword for attack, shield for defense, a small monster face for shapeshifting, a potion vial for healing, a small little hammer for skills that create things and maybe a question mark for miscellaneous skills. Since we are introducing a Non-Weapon Proficiency system that pretty much overhauls the innate skills, these things have to be taken into consideration.
Luckily the new 40x40 pixel size allows for the addition of extra small icons within icons.
Also with the arcane spells certain ones will be gone because we've moved them into the divine list according to 2ed rules. Spell Immunity is a divine spell now and Energy Drain is I think the reverse of the Regeneration divine spell. But the vast majority will be left unchanged for now.
Eventually we will be overhauling the arcane list completely because there are certain spells that shouldn't be there for regular mages. For example the Summon Djinni and Hakeshar spells should be for Sha'ir wizards only, etc... For every spell we alter or replace, there will be a new spell there to take their place. It'll be about balancing the schools since at the moment Invocation, Conjuration and Abjuration vastly dominate the arcane spellbook while schools like Illusion are hardly represented even though in 2ed its' one of the bigger schools if not the biggest.
We want to introduce special mages like the Red Wizard, Metamage and the Sha'ir who have very special individual spells that can only be used by them. Originally they were going to be Sorcerer kits but at the moment it is not possible because the Sorcerer spell lists are hardcoded. The only way around that would require altering pre-existing .spl files that would require altering pre-existing .cre files and that's just not feasible.
[edit]
After listing up all the arcane spells up to level 10, there are way less than I remembered. I'd say the divine spells plus the ones created for the mod just about surpass the arcane ones at this point. Over the coming months, we may just have to beef them up a little.
Energy Drain is I think the reverse of the Regeneration divine spell.
Actually energy drain (a necromancy spell) has little to do with the regeneration spell and continues to be an arcane (and divine) spell in 3rd edition and thus, in my opinion should be left as a wizard spell.
Otherwise, very good ideas. I think sword/shield style approach in innate abilities would be nice and I'm especially waiting for the new mage spells. Too bad sorcerer lists are still hard coded, one can only hope the devs find time to unhardcode it soon.
You're right, I was going off the top of my head and forgot that it appears in both Divine and Arcane magic lists in 2ed. When it is in the Divine Necromantic sphere it is the reversed form of Restoration.
Yeah the hardcoded spell lists is a real problem right now since there isn't too much point in Sorcerer kits if you can't mess with the spell menu. The Dragon Disciple could have really benefitted from now one of a kind dragon spells added to their repertoire.
Been going through the Wizard's Spell Compendium and there's alot of spells to choose from. I'd estimate around a 1000. But the interesting thing is the way they've categorised the spells.
You've got the main 8 schools of magic then you have 12 optional schools of magic. These are Dimension, Elemental, Force, Shadow, Alchemy, Artifice, Geometry, Wild, Song, Mentalism, Chronomancy and Incantation (Metamagic). Then you have spells for Kara-Tur and Al Qadim and spells for specific races like the Drow and Elves. Even Bards have spells that they can only use. There's also some spells that have alignment restrictions, particularly for evil mages.
So on top of the 8 specialist wizards of the Necromancer, Evoker, Illusionist, Enchanter, Diviner, Conjurer, Trasmuter and Abjurer. You've also got the Dimensionalist, Elementalist, Force Mage, Shadow Mage, Alchemist, Articifer, Geometer, Wild Mage, Song Mage, Mentalist, Chronomancer, Incantatrix, Wu Jen and Sha'ir.
Then you have some other specialist wizards like the Witch, Nature Mage (Arcane Druid), Healer Mage (Arcane Cleric), Paramander (Arcane Paladin), Dream Mage, Frost Mage, Storm Mage, Ninja, Ghul Lord, Red Wizard and Harper.
So it's a matter of looking through the pre-existing spells and seeing which of those spells can be also added to other optional schools. And then adding 10-20 more spells that fill in the vacancies. We might have to create some NPC vendors. One for each new list of spells. For example a Shadow Magic vendor, Wu Jen vendor, Elven Magic vendor, etc...
One thing that might be controversial for some is that if we are to expand the way Arcane magic is treated, we will have to use the Optional Rules for specialist wizards. For example the original 8 specialists will end up having two barred schools instead of the usual one (Diviners only have one barred school and Illusionists have three). This is because the Optional specialists have two barred schools too with the other kits like the Paramander, Incantatrix, etc... having four barred schools. On the plus side, they also gain some innate traits to make up for their lost schools. The result will be that the specialist wizards will be specialised in more than just spell restrictions.
We will also have to disable the spell menu during character creation because of restrictions with the usability flags (this will not effect sorcerers). Much easier to just restrict access to the scroll .itm files directly. But what we will do is give you 3-5 scrolls from your chosen school upon creation.
This all sounds fairly complex but funnily enough it is much easier than the divine kits because we can use pretty much all pre-existing spells. The tricky part is to create the spell lists for each school.
@Mordeus Hmm.. what I know about those 8 school of Philosophy Specialist do look like this in PnP
Philosophy Specialist wizard: Specialist Opposition School(s) Abjurer can't use Alteration, Illusion Conjurer can't use Divination, Invoc./Evoc. Diviner can't use Conj./Summ. Enchanter can't use Invoc./Evoc., Necro. Illusionist can't use Necro., Invoc./Evoc., Abjur. Invoker Can't use Ench./Charm, Conj./Summ. Necromancer Can't use Illusion, Ench./Charm Transmuter can't use Dex Abjur., Necro.
In BG games they give you only one opposite school.. but in PnP they have 2 or more
also if you want more information on the Specialists in Schools of Effect and Specialists in Schools of Thaumaturgy please do read the book Spells & Magic they explain those new school in deepth and it might be somewhat useful for you
of all the new specialist school the Elementalis (now sorcerer build in 4th edition) Shadow mage( was called shadowcaster in 3,5 edition and Nethermancer in 4th edition) and Shai'rs are the most popular and interesting classes that survived all the editions so far... personally i do also love all the other the specialist of school of effect (Dimensionalist, Elementalist, Force Mage, Mentalist) and do hope they will do a return in Dnd next. I also hope that the Nethermancer, Shai'rs and Elementalist is core class now in Player handbock dnd next... it's always tiresome to wait 1 or 2 years for them to show up again...
hmm... so far the best edition name of shadow mage is Nethermancer... love that name
I've read the Player's Option: Spells and Magic supplement. However The Wizard's Spell Compendium does a much better job of detailing and categorizing the spells available to the new specialists than PO:S&M, it's pretty much the definitive guide to Arcane Spells in 2ed. There's many inconsistencies listed in PO:S&M that the Spell Compendium sorts out.
I was thinking of maybe merging the Shadow Mage with the Shadow Walker and the Song Mage with the Spellsinger. But there's no real need to change the names around since they fit in fairly well with the naming convention of the Wild Mage. There's versions of the Elementalist called the Pyromancer, Geomancer, Hydromancer, etc... but really I think we should just call them by their 2ed names because that shows they are purely sourced from 2ed. Haven't checked but I'm sure there are some differences between the Nethermancer and the Shadow Mage, just like there are differences between the Shadowdancer and Shadow Walker. The priority for us is to work on 2ed material because it's what founded Baldur's Gate rather than retroactively adding in content that would never have made it into BG in the first place.
As for the Sha'ir, that's probably going to be left out for now. Out of the Kara-Tur and Al Qadim kits, the Kara-Tur ones are way easier to introduce into Baldurs Gate. It also helps that we already have the Kensai, so introducing the Samurai, Ninja, Wu Jen and Shukenja isn't too much of a stretch. The Wu Jen and Sha'ir are pretty much elementalists, the difference being that the Wu Jen has 2ed spells that are clearly described and fleshed out while the Sha'ir is really incomplete with only a handful of spells. We could piece together something from 3ed and 4ed in regards to the Sha'ir but the priority for us is to work in 2ed concepts before even beginning to touch post-2ed stuff. The way magic works with the Sha'ir and their gen servants makes it seem like it would be a much better fit as a Druid kit (or Sorcerer kit but for now that's impossible thanks to the locked in spell menu). The reason is purely due to how the gaming engine works. If the summon gen servant dictates what spells are available (so a fire gen would replace the spell list with fire ones and a sand gen would replace them with sand ones) then the non-erasable spellbook is ideal. Having to work in the Sha'ir with the scroll system and erasable spells would present alot of problems.
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For now it seems like the spell categories we are going to use are these.
- The main 8 schools (Abjuration, Alteration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion & Necromancy). All spells will be listed as one of these however not all spells will be available to their specialist since some are unique to specific kits.
- The secondary 14 schools (Alchemy, Artifice, Dimension, Force, Geometry, Mentalism, Shadow, Song, Wild, Incantation, Air Elementalism, Earth Elementalism, Fire Elementalism and Water Elementalism). I've moved the school of incantation into this group since the Incantatrix is pretty much a specialist.
- The 4 racial/alignment/gender schools (Drow, Elven, Evil and Female). Since there isn't a Drow race, it's going to be available to evil Elven characters while the main Elven magic is available to good Elven characters, neutral Elves will probably get access to both. Then you have spells available to Evil characters in general and then you have a small group of 3 charm spells given to female characters.
Then we have some left over categories of the Bard, Harper, Pure Necromancy, Red Wizard, Witch and Wu Jen. There's 4 viable Bard styled spells which we can give to them easily. Then there is up to 20 viable Harper based spells. We could make a Harper kit or maybe add in a Harper society quest that gives a character access to their spells or scrolls. Maybe the later since the Harper kit from 2ed is really quite lame.
Then we have the Red Wizard which has its' own list of spells, however its' counterpart the Rasheman Witch (Wychlaran) has no spells of its' own. So I'm thinking of giving it the list used by the generic Witch instead. There's also the Wu Jen (Oriental Wizard) which will probably be introduced as one single kit instead of breaking it up into elemental kits, we'll leave it up to the player on how they want to roleplay that kit. There is also the Ninja with its' own spells but that will probably become a thief styled Ranger kit.
The last left over spells is those of Pure Necromancy. To give all of these spells to the Necromancer would be really unbalanced. So there will be three specialist kits of the Undead Master, Anatomist and Philosopher. The Undead Master will have spells dealing with manipulating the undead, the Anatomist will have spells dealing with manipulation of the physical body and the Philosopher will have the really evil spells of a Lich. The catch of these specialist kits will be that they are stuck with Necromancy only and cannot branch out like the generalist Necromancer.
So a recap of the 28 mage kits are the abjurer, transmuter, conjurer, diviner, enchanter, invoker, illusionist, necromancer, alchemist, artificer, dimensionalist, force mage, geometer, mentalist, shadow mage, song mage, wild mage, incantatrix, elementalist of air, elementalist of earth, elementalist of fire, elementalist of water, red wizard, wychlaran, wu jen, undead master, anatomist and philosopher.
With the Ninja being a ranger kit, the Sha'ir being a Druid kit and the Paramander being a Paladin kit. We are also going to add in the Elven Dualist (Dual Specialist wizards) kits which will raise the number to 32 in total. Sounds like a lot but 26 of them are just a matter of school restrictions and 1-3 innate traits. I think I've covered all the viable 2ed mage kits.
Just wanted to say that I'm really looking forward to this mod. It looks incredible, and very thorough! It seems like it will add a lot of variety to the game. I am humbled by your efforts.
Hi, I just want to ask you about the scope of the mod. It already sounds really amazing. It will be a divine Spell and Kit overhaul right ? But it looks like you planing on reworking all Magic ? I got lost in this (very nice) wall of text (I will take my time and work through it) Will this mod be compatible to other mods like Rouge Rebalance ?
Comments
Game mechanics wise it has hardly any effect (especially since you wouldn't know what alignment is gained), storywise it would require a massive rewrite if you suddenly smack a Lawful Good on Mulahey, Tazok, Davaeorn or likewise. They'd probably fall to their guiltwracked knees immediately, presenting a host of plot complications.
Edit:
To avoid making a point with critisism only; the mod does look fantastic and I really look forward to playing...well ALL the clerics. Possibly smack some kits on all the NPC's and make an all-cleric party (which, in theory, should steamroll over every encounter).
I do think the 'drawn' look of the spell selecting looks very confusing though. I know it's probably a mod for veterans of the game but even after a dozen BG runs, I have to stare closely at that selection to identify most spells.
If possible, please colour them in, even if it looks poor.
Thank you so much for making BG so much fun with this mod and everything else you are doing!
For example Shillelagh is labeled as Alteration while Flame Blade and Spiritual Hammer is Invocation/Evocation. Even though Alteration requires the alteration of something pre-existing, while Invocation is about creating something from nothing. It doesn't make sense the cudgel of Shillelagh is magically created, not morphed from something pre-existing.
Then some dual school spells don't really give anymore detail than what they would if only one school is listed. So I'm thinking of moving some of the spells around to schools that properly describe what their function actually is and doing the same for spells that are dualed for no clear reason.
My understanding of the schools' function is below.
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Abjuration represents spells that ward off, banish or protect. While Conjuration/Summoning represents the sending of items or creatures to the caster, not away from them.
Alteration/Transmutation represents the altering or changing of physical matter, items or oneself into something else. While Invocation/Evocation represents the channeling of magical energy into weapons or harmful effects that didn't previously exist.
Enchantment/Charm represents the magical enhancement (not physical enhancement) of items and the influencing of behaviour. While Illusion/Phantasm represents the deception of one's senses without explicitly controlling the target's behaviour and the creation of illusionary forces.
Necromancy represents spells that have dominion over life, vitality and death.
Divination represents detection and knowledge based spells.
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So am I correct in my understanding? I simplified things since sometimes Abjuration and Conjuration, Alteration and Invocation, Enchantment and Illusion, etc... overlap at times. Hence the majority of the confusion with the categorizing.
Secondly should I change the spells with inaccurate schools around at all? Or just leave things be. This will effect the look of the spell icons and the way the spells are classified in the infinity engine. It will certainly make the spells more direct in their functions but it would at the same time go against what they are listed as in the 2ed books.
I've just finished the work on creating the linework for the icons, so the last thing left to do is get them coloured and converted into .bam files. But I can't get to the next step without getting this issue sorted.
Your descriptions of each school is quite accurate, but there are always exceptions and ways of making magic work differently. I find it perfectly reasonable that Shillelagh is in the alteration school, just as mage armor is a conjuration spell and shield an evocation spell. I really hope they will all remain in their proper schools of magic.
But what about the spells that exist in dual schools? Like Aid, Dolorous Decay, Glyph of Warding, Free Action, Sunray, Goodberry, Wondrous Recall, etc... Half of these examples were changed by BG developers to fit into a single school, even though they are treated as dualed in 2ed. The other half were left as dualed even though the infinity engine can only treat spells as if they are from a single school. So something like Dolorous Decay which is Alteration/Necromancy, is actually considered as an Alteration spell by the infinity engine, even though Necromancy is more descriptive of what it does.
Would it be ok if I treated all dualed spells as single school spells by picking which school is most applicable out of the two choices presented?
I'm not sure if it would break the game by moving spells into other schools. I think it would make Spell Immunity more effective for it to guard against spells that conjure or transmute, rather than spells within conjuration or transmutation. It would cut out alot of the loopholes, though I could see why people would find the loopholes useful in getting around Spell Immunity. Nor would it really break the wizard specializations since it makes logical sense for an Abjurer to be forbidden from all spells that alter or transmute physical things than just spells that fall within Alteration. Or having a Diviner forbidden from anything that conjures to them, than just spells within Conjuration. It would only really force the specialized mages to be even more specialized.
But I'll make sure to only touch the dualed spells. Afterall these things could always be altered in future releases.
I am currently pulling together all of the kits and working on a selection dialog for when the player enters candlekeep upon starting a new game, it's pretty much done, just trying to make it feel natural which is surprisingly difficult.
There are likely to be 25 cleric kits at release, restricted variously by alignment, race and even gender in some cases. Halfbreed races get the choices of both parents e.g. half elves can choose human and elven deities. Deity choices are fairly relaxed to allow for a wide range of options, but unrealistic choices will obviously not be available e.g. a lawful good male dwarf would never worship Lolth.
I have almost finished adding very rudimentary but functional sphere system support for the other divine classes (paladin, ranger, druid). I call it rudimentary because there is as of yet very little adaption to match the flavour of the kit. This is for people who want to play with the sphere system in place even if the other class kits are not added. Please note that this will NOT work with modded kits (not yet at least). Current sphere access is as shown below:
Paladins: Healing (curative only), Protection, Combat, Divination - Also cavaliers now really can't use missile weapons, including weapons which are both melee and throwing.
The blackguard will have the reversed healing sphere and reversed necromancy sphere (rather than normal healing and divination).
Rangers: Plant, Animal, Sun (Light producing only), Weather
Druids: Major - Animal, Charm, Creation, Combat, Elemental (All), Plant, Protection, Summoning, Sun, Weather
Minor - Travelers, Healing, Guardian, Chaos, Law
None - All, Astral, Divination, Necromantic, Numbers, Thought, Time, War, Wards
Before release I hope to also add support for adding kits to NPC's, much like my original kitpack. Since I have had this working previously I don't see it taking too long.
Mordeus has been busily working away on the spell icons which look genuinely great, and he is almost done with them. He has also been working on the kits he was responsible for and laying down the (very awkward) groundwork for the mage and sorcerer kitpack to come next.
We are both also obviously testing whatever we can as we go along, trying to get as many bugs out of the way now as possible to prevent an unmanageable influx when the beta is released. We are however both conscious that the mod adds a lot of new content, and the chances are there will be bugs which some people find glaringly obvious that we have missed through chance or tiredness.
The mod has been tested (although not rigorously) on both BG2 and BG:EE so compatibility should be pretty good, including BGT, moving forward the support may eb limited to BG:EE for certain things (such as sorcerer and monk kits).
As it stands we are still on track to release the beta before the end of march.
Haven't tested the icons out yet but at the moment I'm using the background of an empty interface socket in place of the round stone tablets that the original spell icons use. So when casting a spell, the spell icon will be presented against a blue-ish stone square. Which probably isn't too much of a problem since it's either a stone square or the usual rounded stone tablet. But on the bright side, the icons are about 20-30% larger than the originals, so it's got that going for it.
I'll post a picture of the icons around tomorrow, just to get the final say on them and then I'll .bam convert them. Best to get them signed off before I go too far, afterall there are around 500 of them. Good thing is once this is all sorted out, the icons for the arcane spells will go much faster.
Funnily enough out of all those spells, only one of them was from the school of illusion. Had to turn it into Alteration since it was dualed. So technically none are from the school of illusion. But aside from that is looks like there is an even spread of spells between the 7 schools (well aside from Divination).
Don't have time to get a preview done for all the spell icons. So I've taken Armor of Faith and rendered it in each of the 8 colours. I've also decided to just reuse the same style of icon in the spellbook just with a little bit of a drop shadow.
The icons shown here aren't screenshots, so the final product won't look so bright because the contrast changes during the .bam conversion. I'm using the same gradient as the grey-blue interface icons just with a different coloured overlay. That seems to give the best results.
So what does everyone think of the colour and style of the icons?
I think the interface icons are done but I'm not 100% sure on the spellbook ones. I have to darken the white Divination spells because they get lost against the background. But maybe I should darken the other icon colours too?
There's a problem I just found out now but I'm not sure if there is anything I can do from my end. As you can see in the screenshot of the spellbook, the icon third from the top, third from the left has an aliasing problem. The lines in the center of the circle are supposed to be straight like they appear in the interface screenshot.
The icons also look slight more vibrant and larger in BG2. Have the BG:EE team increased the pixel size of an icon from the old 32x32 standard? If so, then that is the problem and could be easily fixed. Or that the 32x32 standard is still in place but hasn't been given the same scale ratio as in BG2. The colour difference I'm also experiencing could just be a screen resolution problem, though they don't seem as metallic as they do in BG2.
The same problem applies to the original icons, but since I'm creating new ones from scratch I figure maybe there is something I can do that can fix things.
I see the picture of Priest of Hoar and Sharess you have put here.... will this modds have those clerics???????
As for Hoar, I'm looking through the abilities and some seem tricky to pull off. The specific deity spells seem near impossible to introduce into the game since their effects are so vague. The kits that don't have at least one easy to implement deity spell were passed up when we were first going through the kits.
So basically Sharess is high priority but Hoar isn't so much.
The book AD&D Forgotten Realms - Powers and Pantheons says:
"1. Doombringers can incite a focused rage once a day in themselves. This rage allowed them a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls against a specific being or group of beings they are seeking to bring satisfactory justice against and a +2 bonus to all saving throws. It takes one full round to incite this rage, which then lasts a turn or ceases earlier if all foes of the identified type are dead or unconscious. While in a focused rage, the recipient cannot flee from a fight against his or her targets. The target of the rage must be specific, such as "Therian Blackbeard," "this man before me identified as the murderer of an innocent child," or "the outlaws here of the Flaming Sword band." This cannot be applied to all creatures of a type, such as "all orcs," or "all thieves," and the group or individual the rage is focused on must be the target of a mission of righteous justice the doombringer is engaged in completing.
2.Doombringers cannot turn undead, but if they make a successful attempt to command undead, they can order unliving creatures to seek out and attack their creators regardless of any commands (magical or otherwise) to the contrary, assuming the monsters did not seek undeath prior to their transformation. If an undead creature is nonintelligent, it ceases to seek vengeance as soon as it is no longer under the control of the doombringer. Intelligent undead do not cease their quest for vengeance until they are permanently destroyed or their creator dies or is destroyed. When the creator is killed, his undead creations immediately collapse into dust, their vengeance spent.
3.If a dying being begs for revenge against his or her killer or killers on his or her deathbed with a doombringer in attendance, the priest can say a special Prayer of Revenance upon the death of the luckless recipient. This increases the chance to 25% that, if the recipient's Constitution is 18 and Wisdom or Intelligence is 17 or greater, the deceased will rise as a revenant. The chance of a recipient of Hoar's Prayer of Revenance rising as a revenant if his or her ability scores do not meet the normal criteria for a revenant is 5%.
4. If killed unjustly (as adjudicated by the DM) and not raised from the dead (or able to be raised), a doombringer always rises as a revenant. The weakness of this revenant is not always to fire, as is normal for a naturally-occurring revenant, and should be determined by the DM. For example, some such revenants have had to be immersed in fresh water for one turn or only been vulnerable to nonregeneratable damage after a particular item associated with them in life is destroyed in a particular way.
At 3rd level, doombringers can cast shocking grasp (as the 1st-level wizard spell) once per day.
At 5th level, doombringers can cast lightning bolt (as the 3rd-level wizard spell) once per day.
At 7th level, doombringers can cast hand of Hoar (as the 4th-level priest spell) once per day.
At 10th level, doombringers can cast thunder staff (as the 4th-level wizard spell) once per day.
At 13th level, doombringers receive the benefits of a permanent protection from normal missiles spell."
1. rage (from berseker kit) should help to add
2. Control undead works
3 and 4 doesn't work so you don't need to think to do anything for it..
spells like shoking grasp, Lightning bolt should be easy to add
and permanent protection form normal missile.... that one i don't know if it is possible or not
the rest of the spells like Hand of hoar and thunder staff (I think this spells is IWS spell not sure here) you can skip...
so basically the kit wil look like this
Doombringers (or Nemesis if you have Warriors and Priests of the Realms handbok ):
REQUIREMENTS: Dexterity 10, Wisdom 9
WEAPONS: Any (if fitting, as described above): change this to schimitar,wazakashi and ninjato and spears and staff.. (hoar uses a sword and javiline as god... there isn't any javeline or broadsword but the priest have one skill in slashing weapon,on in piercing and one in B )
ARMOR: Any
ALIGNMENT: LN
MAJOR SPHERES: All, charm, combat, law, guardian, necromantic, summoning, travelers, weather
MINOR SPHERES: Creation, divination, healing, protection, time
MAGICAL ITEMS: Same as clerics plus weapon of choice
well i hope this way of thinking helps you.. keep the good work up...
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I just compared the interface buttons of BG2 and BG:EE, and there is a size difference. The BG2 interface buttons are 42x42 pixels while the BG:EE ones are 54x54 pixels. So it seems that I can increase the spell icons from 32x32 to something like 41x41 pixels at the most. Haven't tested this yet but as long as I get the right co-ordinates it seems completely doable. That would make these icons larger by a third.
Only problem is it would make the icons complete unusable in vanilla BG2, but then again that's not really a problem. Can't make everything backwards compatible.
Then I would recommend to skip The Hoarite spells or change them with existing spells
Scent of Vengeance = base it on the doom spell
Hand of Hoar = Cloak of fear (or some other morale spell)
Revenance = better raise dead version (maybe you get 50% of you hit points back instead of 1 hp or that it include bless+ raise dead 1 hp)
Here's the spellbook, the icons have been increased to 40x40. There's still an aliasing problem with some of the icons but I'm going to look into fixing that at a later date.
Here is what the icons look like in the interface menu. They are 40x40 pixels with the co-ordinates of (4, 4) to get them centered.
And here is what an icon looks like when it appears over the character portrait. It pretty much blocks out the face, but it's also a whole lot clearer.
There's just some troubleshooting work to do with some of the new spells and then some quick testing until release. Meanwhile I'm going to make a tome item for each priest that gives a blurb on their god. It's pretty much going to be copy and pasted from the 2nd supplement they come from. But it'll save the player time from googling the information.
It's looking like we are on track for a March 30th release.
Should I do the same with the innate ability icons too? I'll need to come up with a new colour system for those since they don't fall under the spell school system that currently owns the colours blue, cyan, green, white, purple, red, pink and yellow. The only colour that I can use that hasn't been taken is a bronze/gold colour that is not all the dissimilar from the colour used in the Pocket Plane icon. But even then it is fairly hard to distinguish from the spell icons.
Maybe I should use the pre-existing red/blue/white system but remove the metallic gradient and give it a more flatcolour style instead. Although the red/blue/white system will need some rules applied. Like Red being purely for damage, Blue purely for defense and White for Miscellaneous. Because at the moment among the shapeshifting skills, half of them are blue and half are white which doesn't really help.
If I can't get them distinguished from the spell in terms of colour. I could also add a small little icon in the top left of the icon around the size of the status symbols that signifies that it isn't a spell. Maybe like a small little sword for attack, shield for defense, a small monster face for shapeshifting, a potion vial for healing, a small little hammer for skills that create things and maybe a question mark for miscellaneous skills. Since we are introducing a Non-Weapon Proficiency system that pretty much overhauls the innate skills, these things have to be taken into consideration.
Luckily the new 40x40 pixel size allows for the addition of extra small icons within icons.
Also with the arcane spells certain ones will be gone because we've moved them into the divine list according to 2ed rules. Spell Immunity is a divine spell now and Energy Drain is I think the reverse of the Regeneration divine spell. But the vast majority will be left unchanged for now.
Eventually we will be overhauling the arcane list completely because there are certain spells that shouldn't be there for regular mages. For example the Summon Djinni and Hakeshar spells should be for Sha'ir wizards only, etc... For every spell we alter or replace, there will be a new spell there to take their place. It'll be about balancing the schools since at the moment Invocation, Conjuration and Abjuration vastly dominate the arcane spellbook while schools like Illusion are hardly represented even though in 2ed its' one of the bigger schools if not the biggest.
We want to introduce special mages like the Red Wizard, Metamage and the Sha'ir who have very special individual spells that can only be used by them. Originally they were going to be Sorcerer kits but at the moment it is not possible because the Sorcerer spell lists are hardcoded. The only way around that would require altering pre-existing .spl files that would require altering pre-existing .cre files and that's just not feasible.
[edit]
After listing up all the arcane spells up to level 10, there are way less than I remembered. I'd say the divine spells plus the ones created for the mod just about surpass the arcane ones at this point. Over the coming months, we may just have to beef them up a little.
Otherwise, very good ideas. I think sword/shield style approach in innate abilities would be nice and I'm especially waiting for the new mage spells. Too bad sorcerer lists are still hard coded, one can only hope the devs find time to unhardcode it soon.
You're right, I was going off the top of my head and forgot that it appears in both Divine and Arcane magic lists in 2ed. When it is in the Divine Necromantic sphere it is the reversed form of Restoration.
Yeah the hardcoded spell lists is a real problem right now since there isn't too much point in Sorcerer kits if you can't mess with the spell menu. The Dragon Disciple could have really benefitted from now one of a kind dragon spells added to their repertoire.
You've got the main 8 schools of magic then you have 12 optional schools of magic. These are Dimension, Elemental, Force, Shadow, Alchemy, Artifice, Geometry, Wild, Song, Mentalism, Chronomancy and Incantation (Metamagic). Then you have spells for Kara-Tur and Al Qadim and spells for specific races like the Drow and Elves. Even Bards have spells that they can only use. There's also some spells that have alignment restrictions, particularly for evil mages.
So on top of the 8 specialist wizards of the Necromancer, Evoker, Illusionist, Enchanter, Diviner, Conjurer, Trasmuter and Abjurer. You've also got the Dimensionalist, Elementalist, Force Mage, Shadow Mage, Alchemist, Articifer, Geometer, Wild Mage, Song Mage, Mentalist, Chronomancer, Incantatrix, Wu Jen and Sha'ir.
Then you have some other specialist wizards like the Witch, Nature Mage (Arcane Druid), Healer Mage (Arcane Cleric), Paramander (Arcane Paladin), Dream Mage, Frost Mage, Storm Mage, Ninja, Ghul Lord, Red Wizard and Harper.
So it's a matter of looking through the pre-existing spells and seeing which of those spells can be also added to other optional schools. And then adding 10-20 more spells that fill in the vacancies. We might have to create some NPC vendors. One for each new list of spells. For example a Shadow Magic vendor, Wu Jen vendor, Elven Magic vendor, etc...
One thing that might be controversial for some is that if we are to expand the way Arcane magic is treated, we will have to use the Optional Rules for specialist wizards. For example the original 8 specialists will end up having two barred schools instead of the usual one (Diviners only have one barred school and Illusionists have three). This is because the Optional specialists have two barred schools too with the other kits like the Paramander, Incantatrix, etc... having four barred schools. On the plus side, they also gain some innate traits to make up for their lost schools. The result will be that the specialist wizards will be specialised in more than just spell restrictions.
We will also have to disable the spell menu during character creation because of restrictions with the usability flags (this will not effect sorcerers). Much easier to just restrict access to the scroll .itm files directly. But what we will do is give you 3-5 scrolls from your chosen school upon creation.
This all sounds fairly complex but funnily enough it is much easier than the divine kits because we can use pretty much all pre-existing spells. The tricky part is to create the spell lists for each school.
Hmm.. what I know about those 8 school of Philosophy Specialist do look like this in PnP
Philosophy Specialist wizard:
Specialist Opposition School(s)
Abjurer can't use Alteration, Illusion
Conjurer can't use Divination, Invoc./Evoc.
Diviner can't use Conj./Summ.
Enchanter can't use Invoc./Evoc., Necro.
Illusionist can't use Necro., Invoc./Evoc., Abjur.
Invoker Can't use Ench./Charm, Conj./Summ.
Necromancer Can't use Illusion, Ench./Charm
Transmuter can't use Dex Abjur., Necro.
In BG games they give you only one opposite school.. but in PnP they have 2 or more
also if you want more information on the Specialists in Schools of Effect and Specialists in Schools of Thaumaturgy please do read the book Spells & Magic they explain those new school in deepth and it might be somewhat useful for you
of all the new specialist school the Elementalis (now sorcerer build in 4th edition) Shadow mage( was called shadowcaster in 3,5 edition and Nethermancer in 4th edition) and Shai'rs are the most popular and interesting classes that survived all the editions so far... personally i do also love all the other the specialist of school of effect (Dimensionalist, Elementalist, Force Mage, Mentalist) and do hope they will do a return in Dnd next. I also hope that the Nethermancer, Shai'rs and Elementalist is core class now in Player handbock dnd next... it's always tiresome to wait 1 or 2 years for them to show up again...
hmm... so far the best edition name of shadow mage is Nethermancer... love that name
picture of the book I'm talking about
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FXGQBCH2L._SL500_SS500_.jpg
I was thinking of maybe merging the Shadow Mage with the Shadow Walker and the Song Mage with the Spellsinger. But there's no real need to change the names around since they fit in fairly well with the naming convention of the Wild Mage. There's versions of the Elementalist called the Pyromancer, Geomancer, Hydromancer, etc... but really I think we should just call them by their 2ed names because that shows they are purely sourced from 2ed. Haven't checked but I'm sure there are some differences between the Nethermancer and the Shadow Mage, just like there are differences between the Shadowdancer and Shadow Walker. The priority for us is to work on 2ed material because it's what founded Baldur's Gate rather than retroactively adding in content that would never have made it into BG in the first place.
As for the Sha'ir, that's probably going to be left out for now. Out of the Kara-Tur and Al Qadim kits, the Kara-Tur ones are way easier to introduce into Baldurs Gate. It also helps that we already have the Kensai, so introducing the Samurai, Ninja, Wu Jen and Shukenja isn't too much of a stretch. The Wu Jen and Sha'ir are pretty much elementalists, the difference being that the Wu Jen has 2ed spells that are clearly described and fleshed out while the Sha'ir is really incomplete with only a handful of spells. We could piece together something from 3ed and 4ed in regards to the Sha'ir but the priority for us is to work in 2ed concepts before even beginning to touch post-2ed stuff. The way magic works with the Sha'ir and their gen servants makes it seem like it would be a much better fit as a Druid kit (or Sorcerer kit but for now that's impossible thanks to the locked in spell menu). The reason is purely due to how the gaming engine works. If the summon gen servant dictates what spells are available (so a fire gen would replace the spell list with fire ones and a sand gen would replace them with sand ones) then the non-erasable spellbook is ideal. Having to work in the Sha'ir with the scroll system and erasable spells would present alot of problems.
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For now it seems like the spell categories we are going to use are these.
- The main 8 schools (Abjuration, Alteration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion & Necromancy). All spells will be listed as one of these however not all spells will be available to their specialist since some are unique to specific kits.
- The secondary 14 schools (Alchemy, Artifice, Dimension, Force, Geometry, Mentalism, Shadow, Song, Wild, Incantation, Air Elementalism, Earth Elementalism, Fire Elementalism and Water Elementalism). I've moved the school of incantation into this group since the Incantatrix is pretty much a specialist.
- The 4 racial/alignment/gender schools (Drow, Elven, Evil and Female). Since there isn't a Drow race, it's going to be available to evil Elven characters while the main Elven magic is available to good Elven characters, neutral Elves will probably get access to both. Then you have spells available to Evil characters in general and then you have a small group of 3 charm spells given to female characters.
Then we have some left over categories of the Bard, Harper, Pure Necromancy, Red Wizard, Witch and Wu Jen. There's 4 viable Bard styled spells which we can give to them easily. Then there is up to 20 viable Harper based spells. We could make a Harper kit or maybe add in a Harper society quest that gives a character access to their spells or scrolls. Maybe the later since the Harper kit from 2ed is really quite lame.
Then we have the Red Wizard which has its' own list of spells, however its' counterpart the Rasheman Witch (Wychlaran) has no spells of its' own. So I'm thinking of giving it the list used by the generic Witch instead. There's also the Wu Jen (Oriental Wizard) which will probably be introduced as one single kit instead of breaking it up into elemental kits, we'll leave it up to the player on how they want to roleplay that kit. There is also the Ninja with its' own spells but that will probably become a thief styled Ranger kit.
The last left over spells is those of Pure Necromancy. To give all of these spells to the Necromancer would be really unbalanced. So there will be three specialist kits of the Undead Master, Anatomist and Philosopher. The Undead Master will have spells dealing with manipulating the undead, the Anatomist will have spells dealing with manipulation of the physical body and the Philosopher will have the really evil spells of a Lich. The catch of these specialist kits will be that they are stuck with Necromancy only and cannot branch out like the generalist Necromancer.
So a recap of the 28 mage kits are the abjurer, transmuter, conjurer, diviner, enchanter, invoker, illusionist, necromancer, alchemist, artificer, dimensionalist, force mage, geometer, mentalist, shadow mage, song mage, wild mage, incantatrix, elementalist of air, elementalist of earth, elementalist of fire, elementalist of water, red wizard, wychlaran, wu jen, undead master, anatomist and philosopher.
With the Ninja being a ranger kit, the Sha'ir being a Druid kit and the Paramander being a Paladin kit. We are also going to add in the Elven Dualist (Dual Specialist wizards) kits which will raise the number to 32 in total. Sounds like a lot but 26 of them are just a matter of school restrictions and 1-3 innate traits. I think I've covered all the viable 2ed mage kits.
It will be a divine Spell and Kit overhaul right ? But it looks like you planing on reworking all Magic ?
I got lost in this (very nice) wall of text (I will take my time and work through it)
Will this mod be compatible to other mods like Rouge Rebalance ?
Thanks for the awesome work you doing.