[MOD] Favoured Soul
dib
Member Posts: 384
Alright after learning some more of weidu for the past week or so I've managed to finally produce the kit (technically sorcerer kit) Favoured Soul.
Be aware that because of engine limitations some things won't be very pretty. Item usability, for example; in IE kits inherit the unusables from its class and all you can change is what other items the kit CANNOT use, you can not make it able to use items its main class cannot without some heavy workarounds which I'm really not into doing. I chose a rather simple solution, giving the kit Use Any Item at level 1 and then restrict the use of many item types like swords, spears, scrolls, wands etc. The downside with this is that some items like priest wands and priest scrolls will be unusable as well, and some items that are restricted to specific classes will be usable by the favoured soul. I specifically blocked the use of wizard rings and mage robes though, and I guess more items could be blocked from use if it horribly unbalances the kit or ruins immersion.
Another thing is spell selection. Using the normal sorcerer spell selection is just no feasible without changing every wizard spell in the game and completely ruin the normal sorcerer class. Instead, when you start playing the game you will be given a special ability that allows you to "request" priest spells to add, permanently, to your spell selection. You will be given this ability every time you level up, at those levels where the sorcerer normally gains new spells.
You will still have to select wizard spells on the level up screen though, but they will be removed as soon as the game starts so just pick some random spells. Many wizard spells will not be selectable because I restricted what spells you'd be able to choose to save me some work.
There might be (very likely) some bugs or problems since I'm still quite new to weidu and I haven't had time to do a full test run of everything. You can report any problems in this thread.
Anyway, here's the description and the attached zip file can be found at the end of the post:
FAVOURED SOUL: Favored souls cast divine spells by means of an innate connection rather than through laborious training and prayer, so their divine connection is natural rather than learned. The favoured soul has the same level progression and spell progression (up to spell level 7) as a sorcerer.
(NOTE: Must request a spell from deity after gaining a level by the use of an ability that appears among the character's special abilities. Spells already known are not excluded from the list of availabe spells so be careful not to pick a spell that you already know or the ability is wasted.)
Advantages:
- A favored soul casts divine spells (the same type of spells available to clerics), which are drawn from the cleric spell list. She can cast any spell she knows without preparing it ahead of time the way a cleric must.
- May wear helmets.
- May wear any armor.
- May only use non-bladed, non-piercing weapons (war hammer, club, flail, mace, quarterstaff, sling).
- May only become Proficient (one slot) in any weapon class.
- May only become Proficient (one slot) in any fighting style.
- Hit Die: d8
Disadvantages:
- Can not Turn Undead.
- Can not Dual-Class
- Can not use wands or scrolls
- Must be Human, Elf or Half-Elf
-------------------------------------
To install, unzip files in [...]\Data\00766 and run Setup-FavouredSoul.exe
Be aware that because of engine limitations some things won't be very pretty. Item usability, for example; in IE kits inherit the unusables from its class and all you can change is what other items the kit CANNOT use, you can not make it able to use items its main class cannot without some heavy workarounds which I'm really not into doing. I chose a rather simple solution, giving the kit Use Any Item at level 1 and then restrict the use of many item types like swords, spears, scrolls, wands etc. The downside with this is that some items like priest wands and priest scrolls will be unusable as well, and some items that are restricted to specific classes will be usable by the favoured soul. I specifically blocked the use of wizard rings and mage robes though, and I guess more items could be blocked from use if it horribly unbalances the kit or ruins immersion.
Another thing is spell selection. Using the normal sorcerer spell selection is just no feasible without changing every wizard spell in the game and completely ruin the normal sorcerer class. Instead, when you start playing the game you will be given a special ability that allows you to "request" priest spells to add, permanently, to your spell selection. You will be given this ability every time you level up, at those levels where the sorcerer normally gains new spells.
You will still have to select wizard spells on the level up screen though, but they will be removed as soon as the game starts so just pick some random spells. Many wizard spells will not be selectable because I restricted what spells you'd be able to choose to save me some work.
There might be (very likely) some bugs or problems since I'm still quite new to weidu and I haven't had time to do a full test run of everything. You can report any problems in this thread.
Anyway, here's the description and the attached zip file can be found at the end of the post:
FAVOURED SOUL: Favored souls cast divine spells by means of an innate connection rather than through laborious training and prayer, so their divine connection is natural rather than learned. The favoured soul has the same level progression and spell progression (up to spell level 7) as a sorcerer.
(NOTE: Must request a spell from deity after gaining a level by the use of an ability that appears among the character's special abilities. Spells already known are not excluded from the list of availabe spells so be careful not to pick a spell that you already know or the ability is wasted.)
Advantages:
- A favored soul casts divine spells (the same type of spells available to clerics), which are drawn from the cleric spell list. She can cast any spell she knows without preparing it ahead of time the way a cleric must.
- May wear helmets.
- May wear any armor.
- May only use non-bladed, non-piercing weapons (war hammer, club, flail, mace, quarterstaff, sling).
- May only become Proficient (one slot) in any weapon class.
- May only become Proficient (one slot) in any fighting style.
- Hit Die: d8
Disadvantages:
- Can not Turn Undead.
- Can not Dual-Class
- Can not use wands or scrolls
- Must be Human, Elf or Half-Elf
-------------------------------------
To install, unzip files in [...]\Data\00766 and run Setup-FavouredSoul.exe
Post edited by dib on
3
Comments
To add insult to the injury, they will, endgame, lag 9 levels behind the Cleric, and as such will have less HLAs.
As an experienced 3.X player, I must tell that the FV is easily one of the worst classes available there too, discounting its incredibly imbalanced spell list - they are unable to use DMM, are MAD (2 casting attributes, like the archivist, but without their nifty bonuses (casting spells from any divine spell list)), can't use healing spells spontaneously (not a big loss UNLESS the campaign is short on magical items and summons are disallowed (like mine), but is a prereq to some useful feats), can't wear heavy armor, are restricted to their deity's favored weapon (which they gain fighter feats on, but nothing relevant in the long term) and gain some DR and useless wings.
It definitely needs improvement, namely something to emulate their innate skill with weapons (i.e. allowing grandmastery for weapons (spear for talos, mace for lathander, bastard sword for helm)) and their DR (1% damage resistance for physical damage for each level after 10, 1% elemental resistance for each level after 5) - but even then, they will still be weaker than a cleric.
IMO, Pathfinder's equivalent of the FV, the Oracle, succeeded where the original failed, but here is not the place for such a discussion.
I could also make three kits, one for each of the three deities, and allow them to use the weapons you mentioned and achieve grand mastery.
Turn undead would be a lot trickier to add though, since it's technically a sorcerer kit.
Wizard Spell Selection - It would be easier to not restrict any spells, and instead instruct the player to just use the "Pick for me" option. You'll know exactly which spells to worry about, and pushing the button will not crash the game as it does with the restrictions your using. Picking spells is currently confusing since half of them are highlighted as specialist spells, but it means nothing as to which spells can be picked.
Spell Immunity - Since your only duplicating the spells under another name, anything that requires the specific spell immunity opcode will not protect against your duplicates of the priest spells. There is an easy way around this though, instead of creating duplicates, create spells which themselves cast the original priest spell, using Cast Spell[146] and Cast Spell at Point[148] depending on the target type. It would need 0 cast time, no animation, no projectile(for each ability), and a separate ability for each level it needs to be cast at, but it can all can be done automatically with Weidu.
HLA's - You included Energy Blades and Mass Raise Dead as available L7 spells and available as Quest Spell HLA's. However, your HLA table is broken, you misspelled the spell ID's, forgetting an "S": "D#FA721" instead of D#FAS721" In-game it's just a blank grid, unable to complete the level-up process.
Alternatively their Quest Spells could be implemented as L9 spells, since sorcerer's do get L9 spells at the same level they get their first HLA. Separating their L7 spell slots from Quest spell slots would help offset the loss of bonus wisdom spells.
The class could use an accelerated proficiency gain, the mage/sorcerer gains of 1/6 levels isn't enough. One option would be to grant their favored weapons proficiency points automatically at certain levels, and allow them to spend their normal pips on ranged weapons and weapon styles. You don't necessarily need separate kits for each this way, and could have as many weapon choices as you see fit, by having them choose the weapon of their deity through an ability, which could grant them a permanent ability, which would increase their proficiency in that weapon when used at appropriate levels. If you separate the needed "Disallow Item Type" effects into separate spells, you can use "Remove Effects by Resource" to re-allow certain weapon types.
Starting equipment for ToB is that of the Thief Class, instead of Cleric.
I think you could keep spell slots as as is in the 2da, but remove spell slots in the clab via spl (opcode 42 works for a sorcerer, right?) at each level (permanent timing) so that there is no spell selection screen. Then, again in the clab, add wizard/sorcerer spell slots again with opcode (42) but with the same timer ((4) delay 1) as per the kit revisions spl "dvbookpl". Then, use the method in this kit to request spells as normal.
You would need to apply these spls at each level to remove/add spell slots, but the end result would be worth it I think. (assuming it works--I think it would though)
It seems that this way you could have your cake and eat it too. You can cast spells as a normal sorcerer, have them be priest spells--this method should be combined with @kjeron 's suggestion re opcode 46--and not have any of the issues regarding spell selection (having to delete selected spells; mages and bg2ee bards/wizards being able to select favored soul spells). If you do this, I think you should give @Demivrgvs credit for the general idea though. It's really pretty ingenious.
edit: for clarity
Unfortunately the number of spell slots a Sorcerer has doesn't affect a their spell selection, it's handled by another file (SPLSCKN.2da). The game doesn't even care how many spells you have learned as a sorcerer, it instead subtracts the values in that file, your next level - your current level, and has you pick that many new spells. If you can't select that many spells, you can't level up or complete creation.
Priests spells are handled much differently, they can be added/removed through the CLAB file at creation and level up without issue, since they are added automatically before the CLAB file gets applied.
I also forgot that only the character creation screen has the "pick for me" option, so my suggestion wouldn't work for normal leveling, you would still need to restrict or remove them all.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/30579/exclude-wildmage-flag#latest
Edit: I suppose I should also request an exclude generalist that is not tied to the wild mage kit...probably also an exclude sorcerer...
Gibberlings3 has the mods 5e Casting and Faiths & Powers which add spontaneous casting for more classes. (5e Casting makes all casters spontaneous while F&P adds dedicated Sor-like spontaneous divine casters.)