172 replies to this topic

[Shaitan]

Stunning. That is so sweet

Looking foreward to compleeting BG1

[aVENGER]

Glad you like it.

BTW, here's some more stuff that I'm planning to add shortly.

• Hovering creatures won't take any damage when crossing lava pits/acid pools
  
• Lower Fire Resistance will reduce fire resistance by 50% rather than nullifying it. Multiple castings will be cumulative. For reference, this ability had to be changed due to an engine limitation. The proper PnP version will be implemented if/when TobEx fixes the relevant opcodes.
  
• Creatures that are supposed to get Fire/Ice/Stone/Iron Wall spells in PnP will get Fire Shield (Red or Blue) Stoneskin and Iron Skin since the original spells are unimplementable in BG2
  
• Frost Salamanders will get a proper soundset. They are eerily silent in the unmodded game due to a missing 2DA file.
  
• Similarly to the Blood War reactions of aTweaks' fiends, certain creatures in PnP Elementals will taunt and fight each other. Examples: Frost Salamanders vs. (Noble) Fire Salamanders, Imix vs. Zaaman Rul, Ogremoch vs. Sunnis, Yan-C-Bin vs. Chan etc.

[aigleborgne]

Creatures that are supposed to get Fire/Ice/Stone/Iron Wall spells in PnP will get Fire Shield (Red or Blue) Stoneskin and Iron Skin since the original spells are unimplementable in BG2

Is it ? I read wall of ice spell's description in P&P and I made an implementation (maybe not very good but a good approach I think).
It is said a wall of ice can be used in many ways. I've chosen to fall a wall of ice on a creature. Wall's size depends on caster's power I guess, it was a big one for a Death Knight,.
Then, I choose to modify ice storm, duration 1 round and correct damage to match P&P.
If I was able to change animation and projectile, I would.
Finally I left damage to ice but maybe crushing would better fit. More logical and harder to resist.

Blue shield is good but it is quite cheap, it shouldn't move at all (as in P&P).
I don't know which one is the best...

[aVENGER]

It is said a wall of ice can be used in many ways. I've chosen to fall a wall of ice on a creature. Wall's size depends on caster's power I guess, it was a big one for a Death Knight.

Yes, Wall of Ice is an exception. I use the same implementation for Gelugons (in PnP Fiends) and will probably do so for elementals too.

However, the other wall spells cannot be used in this manner.

[Pol]

I'd like to do some alpha testing, but version 3.80 doesn't seem to be downloadable as a zipped folder.

Wall of Ice: I imagine it to be possible to trap a creature with the wall (hemisphere shape), although no saving throw is mentioned in the spell description and I'd expect there to be one for a powerful effect like immobilizing a character...

Should a fire elemental's attack be at least partly physical damage? They're mentioned to be able to inflict (reduced) damage on fire-using creatures like red dragons, which they cannot, if their attack deals pure fire damage.

If elemental princes can summon allies I doubt they need their original (doubled) hp values. Also, the evil elemental prince of air has fewer special abilities than Chan, even though their xp values are the same, is this intended?

Edited by Pol, 16 February 2012 - 03:27 AM.

[aVENGER]

I'd like to do some alpha testing, but version 3.80 doesn't seem to be downloadable as a zipped folder.

That's odd... I've just tried it and it seems to work for me. In case it matters, you need be on the WIP branch before trying to download the zip archive.

Wall of Ice: I imagine it to be possible to trap a creature with the wall (hemisphere shape), although no saving throw is mentioned in the spell description and I'd expect there to be one for a powerful effect like immobilizing a character...

Nice, I'll see if something can be done with that.

Should a fire elemental's attack be at least partly physical damage? They're mentioned to be able to inflict (reduced) damage on fire-using creatures like red dragons, which they cannot, if their attack deals pure fire damage.

That's a good point. Perhaps one quarter of their total damage output could be changed to crushing.

If elemental princes can summon allies I doubt they need their original (doubled) hp values

That's why it'll be an optional component.

Also, the evil elemental prince of air has fewer special abilities than Chan, even though their xp values are the same, is this intended?

No idea, ask Monte Cook? (he wrote the relevant Monstrous Compendium)

[aigleborgne]

Wall of Ice: I imagine it to be possible to trap a creature with the wall (hemisphere shape), although no saving throw is mentioned in the spell description and I'd expect there to be one for a powerful effect like immobilizing a character...

In all cases, it should be possible to destroy this wall with fire.
A creature with fire shield should be immune and a fireball or sunfire should destroy this wall.

[aVENGER]

The Nereid and the Water Weird are ready.

Shoal vs. party

A couple of notes on this. First, the Nereid's Beguiling Aura deliberately doesn't cause charmed party members to turn on each other. The Nereid merely 'fascinates' male characters effectively taking them out of combat but leaving them open to her Drowning Kiss. Secondly, I got Displacement to work exactly as I wanted using opcode #232 with param2 set to 7. That way, a single mirror image triggers when an attack is attempted (i.e. before the actual hit lands) which makes it especially potent against missile weapons. Thirdly, as you may have noticed from the dialogue window, Shoal's deadly kiss can now be avoided via dialogue. I've also left the option to receive it, for players who may want that.

Lastly, it should be noted that Shoal is treated as a unique Nereid so her superior stats and XP value won't be lowered to PnP standards. In compensation, I plan to add a couple of regular Nereids somewhere. Any suggestions for their location would be welcome.

[Salk]

Wonderful, aVENGER!

I am really looking forward for the next release of your aTweaks!

Shoal's deadly kiss can now be avoided via dialogue. I've also left the option to receive it, for players who may want that.

You made me laugh quite much with this, you know!

[phordicus]

if a creature has 3 separate weapons (i.e. tail, claw, bite) each with a different damage output, due to technical reasons, I'm forced to make them into single attack with an average damage value instead.

Couldn't you use SelectWeaponAbility in their script?

Edited by phordicus, 17 February 2012 - 04:43 PM.

[Wisp]

if a creature has 3 separate weapons (i.e. tail, claw, bite) each with a different damage output, due to technical reasons, I'm forced to make them into single attack with an average damage value instead.

Couldn't you use SelectWeaponAbility in their script?

You can, but it adds to script lenght and script complexity and you can not coordinate this with APR (so, e.g., of the three attacks per round, all three are made with the Sword of Doom and none are made with the Tail of Weaksauce, even though the former is only supposed to be swung once per round.)

[aVENGER]

Couldn't you use SelectWeaponAbility in their script?

As Wisp said, that's one of those things that are technically possible but not actually feasible in practice.

However, it should be noted that aTweaks does try to implement up to two separate attacks by having the creature "dual-wield" two weapons. For example, the Balor from PnP Fiends wields a Vorpal Sword in his right hand and a Flaming Whip in his left. Similarly, Fire Salamanders from PnP Elementals have separate spear and tail attacks.

[aigleborgne]

As Wisp said, that's one of those things that are technically possible but not actually feasible in practice.

However, it should be noted that aTweaks does try to implement up to two separate attacks by having the creature "dual-wield" two weapons. For example, the Balor from PnP Fiends wields a Vorpal Sword in his right hand and a Flaming Whip in his left. Similarly, Fire Salamanders from PnP Elementals have separate spear and tail attacks.

Even for 2 weapons, I find it very difficult if not impossible to switch them regularly. I tried it with Ettercap : they attack 2 times with claws and 1 with bite, their bite inflict poison, which is their main strength.
Now, if they don't bite every round, they loose a lot of power. If they bite 3 times in a round, they become overpowered.
Average damage and probability for special effects is probably better. At least, I think so.

[Hoo]

Why don't you use IA's water elemental animation instead of the current one? IMO, since IA's one gives human type form to water elemental as air/fire/earth elementals, it's better to give unity to them.

[aVENGER]

Why don't you use IA's water elemental animation instead of the current one?

For the same reasons that I opted not to include IA's vastly superior Pit Fiend and Succubus animations - drastically increased download size and dependability on EXE patching. The latter would also prevent the mod from installing on the Mac version of BG2.

On the other hand, Infinity Animations is welcome to take into account aTweaks' elementals when it assigns proper avatars, as it already does with aTweaks' PnP Fiends. However, note that a Water Weird is actually supposed to look like a watery snake creature, so in that particular case, Bioware's avatar shown in the screenshot above is PnP accurate.

[aVENGER]

I've added a couple of new things. As mentioned earlier, Fire Salamanders and Frost Salamanders now hate each other as per PnP and will fight whenever they meet, even if they are both technically enemies to the party (red circle).

Fire vs. Ice

In light of that, Frost and Fire Salamanders no longer spawn right next to each other as they sometimes did in the unmodded game. This is covered by the "More sensible elemental encounters" part of the PnP Elementals component which also does the following:

• A few Nereids are added to the Lighthouse map, near the treasure cave and to the northern part of Balduran's Isle in BG1
  
• Similarly, several Nereids are added to the Sahuagin City (AR2300) and to the Small Teeth Pass (AR1700) in BG2
  
• The Fire Salamanders that occasionally spawn in Mekrath's lair (AR0705) are replaced with Frost Salamanders. This was done due to the fact that Fire and Frost Salamanders hate each other and wouldn't work together under any circumstances
  
• A single Salamander Noble is added to the Planar Sphere's fire chamber (AR0412). Furthermore, all Fire Salamanders in the Fire Giant temple (AR5201) are replaced with Salamander Nobles

And finally, I've made Shoal release any charmed party members from her grasp if they promise to free her from Droth. She will also unsummon her Water Weird in that case. Gratned, these are small details, but they might make the gameplay experience a bit more immersive.

Edited by aVENGER, 19 February 2012 - 05:23 AM.

[Salk]

I understand and fully welcome the tweak to the encounter with Shoal and also the replacement of the Fire Salamander's in Mekrath's Lair. But why the additions?

[aVENGER]

I understand and fully welcome the tweak to the encounter with Shoal and also the replacement of the Fire Salamander's in Mekrath's Lair. But why the additions?

Generally, the goal is to get a better representation of creatures that are underused in the original game.

For example, the party normally encounters only one Nereid (Shoal) in the entire Baldur's Gate trilogy. aTweaks' simply adds a few more of them to places where Nereids could logically be encountered, according to their PnP description. Similarly, there are no Salamander Nobles anywhere in the game (the CRE file is present but unused). Hence, the addition of one at the Planar Sphere. Also, Bioware's version of the Fire Salamander was somewhere in-between a PnP Fire Salamander and a Salamander Noble. Since aTweaks makes that distinction much clearer, I've opted to include the more powerful variety at the Fire Giant Temple as the lesser creature wouldn't be an adequate challenge for a ToB party. As you can see, everything balances out in the end.

[Andrea C.]

This is coming along quite nicely Keep up the good work, aVENGER! aTWEAKS is now on top of my mandatory mods list!

[Daulmakan]

More great stuff.