5286 replies to this topic

[psycros]

Frankly, I've always felt that weapon usage should only be limited by strength, dex and things like what deity your priests follow or what kit you have. You'd be penalized for using a permitted but non-class weapon - you'd need two points to gain a proficiency rank with it. I wonder if a mod like that exists?

There isn't such a mod. It's impossible to do that in this game engine. Well unless you really wish to go about it the hard way.
Sure, A low level HLA -approach can be taken... but it will have it's own restrictions. Like compatibility with everything else. -this is just a though experiment, not directed towards you psycros.

Yeah, the usefulness of the answer is just limited by it's understand-ability, which I try to emphasize... but like with all evil doers, the legitimacy of the action is only revealed when killing the thousands saves millions. Cause hundreds weren't enough, ups..

LOL, whatever you say, Professor Stalin So what about the paladin requirements?  Do you know if that is possible?  If so, how would I go about giving it a try?  It might make a nice lesson for an uber-newb.

[The Imp]

I would love to be able to do some simple things like change the minimum CHR needed to be a paladin (I think it should be 16).

Well, depending exactly what you want, this needs few things:
1) the ToBEx mod(this is in the non-EE games, it should be installed in all the BWS games) is needed to allow paladins to be select-able in the other races -component, you also might need to edit the .ini file it sets to enable the options during game play. As installing the primary part of the mod doesn't necessarily mean that the component is activated. That is if you want other races to be able to access them. There's no need for this if you don't want that.

2) And you need to change the class requirement that the "abclasrq.2da" -file contains, these lines in it:

2DA V1.0
0
                        MIN_STR MIN_DEX MIN_CON MIN_INT MIN_WIS MIN_CHR
...
PALADIN                 12      0       9       0       13      17 
...

CAVALIER                12      0       9       0       13      17
INQUISITOR              12      0       9       0       13      17
UNDEAD_HUNTER           12      0       9       0       13      17
...

..and what ever other paladin kits you mean to subjugate under the restriction.
The 17's to be what ever you want... 16 for example.
It's in the Near Infinity's "2DA" folder.
 
3) Also if you want kits, you might need to make or extend the K_P_x.2da -files, where the x is the race...

Edited by The Imp, 04 October 2016 - 02:14 AM.

[subtledoctor]

The paladin thing is super-easy (you're playing the EEs, right?). As the Inp said, just a matter of changing the 17s in abclasrq.2da.

The proficiency thing is harder, and probably wouldn't be as fun as you think (you put one pup into a weapon, and it has no effect... and then 4 levels later you add another pip, and then you can use it?

When thinking about weapon usability and proficiencies, you have to have a comprehensive system in mind. Here's an idea:
- Any class can use any weapon
- Any class can gain mastery with any weapon
- Effects of weapon mastery are smoothed out (something like, +1 thac0 each pip, +2 damage/+.5 apr on alternating pips)
- But certain weapons are unsuitable for certain classes/kits, and carry an inherent thac0 penalty. So if you want to be a thief wielding a bastard sword or morn

[subtledoctor]

The paladin thing is super-easy (you're playing the EEs, right?). As the Inp said, just a matter of changing the 17s in abclasrq.2da.

The proficiency thing is harder, and probably wouldn't be as fun as you think (you put one pup into a weapon, and it has no effect... and then 4 levels later you add another pip, and then you can use it?

When thinking about weapon usability and proficiencies, you have to have a comprehensive system in mind. Here's an idea:
- Any class can use any weapon
- Any class can gain mastery with any weapon
- Effects of weapon mastery are smoothed out (something like, +1 thac0 each pip, +2 damage/+.5 apr on alternating pips)
- But certain weapons are unsuitable for certain classes/kits, and carry an inherent thac0 penalty. So if you want to be a thief wielding a bastard sword or morning star, you have to spend more proficiency pips to overcome the base penalties for doing so.

That would be doable.

[psycros]

The paladin thing is super-easy (you're playing the EEs, right?). As the Inp said, just a matter of changing the 17s in abclasrq.2da.

The proficiency thing is harder, and probably wouldn't be as fun as you think (you put one pup into a weapon, and it has no effect... and then 4 levels later you add another pip, and then you can use it?

When thinking about weapon usability and proficiencies, you have to have a comprehensive system in mind. Here's an idea:
- Any class can use any weapon
- Any class can gain mastery with any weapon
- Effects of weapon mastery are smoothed out (something like, +1 thac0 each pip, +2 damage/+.5 apr on alternating pips)
- But certain weapons are unsuitable for certain classes/kits, and carry an inherent thac0 penalty. So if you want to be a thief wielding a bastard sword or morning star, you have to spend more proficiency pips to overcome the base penalties for doing so.

That would be doable.

 

Awesome!  Thanks for that info, fellas.  My hope is to keep from crashing the game every time I choose paladin for a dwarf..I've enabled "remove racial restrictions for single classes".  Their max CHR seems to be 16, which I thinks is plenty reasonable for a paladin.  Heck, even 15 should probably be good enough - I've always thought so.

 

The weapon thing: ahhhh, yes - exactly what I'm wanting, and actually, that DOES make it a smoother ride.  So does this work because the game supports (a) different gains per pip depending on class (I know mods can do this) or, (b) different penalties to proficiency depending on class (or maybe even penalties to particular weapons??)

Edited by psycros, 04 October 2016 - 08:38 AM.

[The Imp]

  So does this work because the game supports (a) different gains per pip depending on class (I know mods can do this) or, (b) different penalties to proficiency depending on class (or maybe even penalties to particular weapons??)

Well, the proficiency gain is dictated by the kit the player uses for each character(in weaprof.2da -file). So a Kensai won't be able to put any proficiency points to bows mostly because he isn't supposed to be able to use them"- Cannot use missile weapons ", but there can be bow items from mods that he will be able to use, but he won't be proficient in them ... unless the player installs a mod that allows that too. So the system is a combination of the .itm files, and the weaprof.2da -file that says what each set their proffs towards, not if they can use them.

The class only says what the non-proficient penalty is, mages/sorcerer get a -5 thac0, for clerics/druids it should be -3, thieves/bards -2 and warriors(fighters/barbarians/paladins/rangers) it's just a -1. Or something along the line, the first and last are definite. Subtledoctor will correct me if I am wrong on the two other categories...

Edited by The Imp, 04 October 2016 - 08:51 AM.

[psycros]

  So does this work because the game supports (a) different gains per pip depending on class (I know mods can do this) or, (b) different penalties to proficiency depending on class (or maybe even penalties to particular weapons??)

Well, the proficiency gain is dictated by the kit the player uses for each character(in weaprof.2da -file). So a Kensai won't be able to put any proficiency points to bows mostly because he isn't supposed to be able to use them"- Cannot use missile weapons ", but there can be bow items from mods that he will be able to use, but he won't be proficient in them ... unless the player installs a mod that allows that too. So the system is a combination of the .itm files, and the weaprof.2da -file that says what each set their proffs towards, not if they can use them.

The class only says what the non-proficient penalty is, mages/sorcerer get a -5 thac0, for clerics/druids it should be -3, thieves/bards -2 and warriors(fighters/barbarians/paladins/rangers) it's just a -1. Or something along the line, the first and last are definite. Subtledoctor will correct me if I am wrong on the two other categories...

 

He does seem to be kind of an encyclopedia.  Of course I probably would be too if I'd written half the popular mods

 

I think I get it.  Would I right in saying that if somebody copied ALL the .ITMs to Override and edited every class to allow them to use any weapon, then you'd effectively have no class/weapon restrictions?  Also, I'm not sure what I'm seeing in those K_P_xx files.  Are the numbers referring to line numbers or record numbers that are assigned to kits in another file?

 

It also occurs to me that I've kind of hijacked this area as a tutorial or general modding discussion.  Is there a more appropriate place?

Edited by psycros, 04 October 2016 - 09:21 AM.

[The Imp]

I think I get it.  Would I right in saying that if somebody copied ALL the .ITMs to Override and edited every class to allow them to use any weapon, then you'd effectively have no class/weapon restrictions?  Also, I'm not sure what I'm seeing in those K_P_xx files.  Are the numbers referring to line numbers or record numbers that are assigned to kits in another file?
 
It also occurs to me that I've kind of hijacked this area as a tutorial or general modding discussion.  Is there a more appropriate place?

Yes, you would be able to remove item restriction from the game if you edited all the .itm files in the game and wanted to remove them. And you could do what ever you wanted with them also... but install any other mod that adds items and the new items won't be affected at all. Which is practically the reason why the BWS actually exists.
The numbers in the k_... files are indeed the games internal, aka you can see their names in the kitlist.2da file that holds other info about them as well.The first number at the start of the line is the one that ends up in the k_.. -file. And yeah, they all hold the pure 0 too cause that's the unedited Paladin/Ranger/etc that the kits are just variants of.

And yeah, you could have a k_d_h.2da that has a (f)ighter as a feature but that usually end up a broken character, because it's not generally meant to be there.. but sometimes you need that freedom.

 

This thread has so multiple pages that it really doesn't matter what it's about anymore, as long as it's is tangentially related, and assumed that it's not fully read by everyone. Cause that would be less than sane approach to the subject at hand. I haven't read the whole topic... although I have answered to a lot of the posts.. if memory serves. And I was the first one to reply to it.

You can ask questions here... but you might also ask them here.

Edited by The Imp, 04 October 2016 - 09:43 AM.

[subtledoctor]

The numbers in the K_X_Y.2da files refer to the row numbers in kitlist.2da.

Regarding the weapon proficiency stuff: ignore what Jarno said. Like I said before, you would equalize all proficiency limits and usability restrictions for all classes.

What you would do, is add thac0 penalties to every weapon in the game, based on its weapon type, behind a 177 effect filtering by class. So for all longswords, you add a -2 penalty for thieves and a -4 penalty for clerics and mages. For maces, you add a -4 penalty for thieves and mages but no penalty for fighters or clerics. Etc. Proficiency advancement would be equal for all classes, but for some classes with some weapons, you would be starting with a disadvantage. That would stress that certain weapons are inappropriate for certain classes, but allow the player to still use them if they really really want to.

I don't recommend you actually try to implement that! The only reasonable way to do it would be with Weidu, and for that you would have to learn Weidu.

[psycros]

The numbers in the K_X_Y.2da files refer to the row numbers in kitlist.2da.

Regarding the weapon proficiency stuff: ignore what Jarno said. Like I said before, you would equalize all proficiency limits and usability restrictions for all classes.

What you would do, is add thac0 penalties to every weapon in the game, based on its weapon type, behind a 177 effect filtering by class. So for all longswords, you add a -2 penalty for thieves and a -4 penalty for clerics and mages. For maces, you add a -4 penalty for thieves and mages but no penalty for fighters or clerics. Etc. Proficiency advancement would be equal for all classes, but for some classes with some weapons, you would be starting with a disadvantage. That would stress that certain weapons are inappropriate for certain classes, but allow the player to still use them if they really really want to.

I don't recommend you actually try to implement that! The only reasonable way to do it would be with Weidu, and for that you would have to learn Weidu.

Oh, trust me, I don't have the ambition or the smarts to try actual modding..I'm just curious about how they work (although I did just roll up a dwarven paladin, heh heh - thanks!).  Long ago I had dreams of being a  programmer but unfortunately I can't do math and I can't visualize anything technical.  In all truth it makes no sense for, let's say, a wizard to take up the longbow.  Multi-classing a warrior makes so much more sense and is exactly how the game expresses he concept of a multi-disciplined character.  However, there are two limitations on this that have always bugged me, both of which modders have addressed to varying degrees:

 

* If a character has at least one class that can use a particular weapon or armor type then he should always be allowed to equip it unless there are specific reasons for not permitting it (insufficient attributes, religious restrictions and so on).

 

* I personally do not accept the idea that wearing armor interferes with any part of spell-casting except somatic components.  I love mods that penalize arcane casters with a higher chance of spell failure or slower casting speed while armored.  Unfortunately I cannot get Tome and Blood's implementation of this to work   if my single-class wizards don armor the "casting disabled" message pops up instantly.  I was going to mention this in the appropriate place but I'm kinda already talking about it, so..

Edited by psycros, 04 October 2016 - 02:04 PM.

[The Imp]

Unfortunately I cannot get Tome and Blood's implementation of this to work   if my single-class wizards don armor the "casting disabled" message pops up instantly.

Did you install the mod to an already existing game, aka you loaded a save that was made before the mods install, that won't work, because the items are already in the saved games ...
Nor will it work with special armors that do not match what ever is used to edit the files themselves.

Now, I haven't installed subtledoctors mods, but there can be various reasons why you got this result on single class mage. But there are other mods that do similar things that do not have that as a feature. Of course they might not allow the use of them for a mage, but just like the bow, you just need to edit the items usability tags with Near Infinity or build your custom weidu mod to enable the use of armors with mages. That we can help to create.

Regarding the weapon proficiency stuff: ignore what Jarno said. Like I said before, you would equalize all proficiency limits and usability restrictions for all classes.

What you would do, is add thac0 penalties to every weapon in the game, based on its weapon type, behind a 177 effect filtering by class. So for all longswords, you add a -2 penalty for thieves and a -4 penalty for clerics and mages. ...

Sorry, but that's not clearly an easy way to start making mods, and telling others to do it your way is... how do I emphasize this correctly ... FUCKED UP MAN.
So forget about forgetting what I said.

Then there's the bow-using mage. Sure enough, Xan (the insane NPC necromancer) has a THAC0 of 24 with a shortbow, at 1st level with a DEX of 16. But the same is true for slings because he has no points in it, so I guess one could say that a bow would be just as good for him as a sling

This is tied to the weapon usage, and that mages can usually put point to the sling proficiency, so they get the thac0 penalty removed. Now were all things equal, yeah a bow would be better than a sling in the case the character doesn't put points to the weapon... but why would they not ? Ouh and the mage stops gaining proficiency point at a point because they run out of things to put them into not because they run out of levels. So slings will be definitely better. In the long run.

Edited by The Imp, 05 October 2016 - 01:05 AM.

[psycros]

Did you install the mod to an already existing game, aka you loaded a save that was made before the mods install, that won't work, because the items are already in the saved games ...
Nor will it work with special armors that do not match what ever is used to edit the files themselves.

Now, I haven't installed subtledoctors mods, but there can be various reasons why you got this result on single class mage. But there are other mods that do similar things that do not have that as a feature. Of course they might not allow the use of them for a mage, but just like the bow, you just need to edit the items usability tags with Near Infinity or build your custom weidu mod to enable the use of armors with mages. That we can help to create.

Yeah I made a new char before I saw the issue with straight wizards.  At least I'm 99% sure I did.  Hmm...better make sure..

Edited by psycros, 05 October 2016 - 05:44 AM.

[subtledoctor]

@psycros there is currently an incompatibility between the YARAS component of SoB and TnB's armored casting. We haven't figured out exactly what the problem is, and I'm waiting till the new version of TnB is released before I start adding/changing code in SoB, so that I know what I'm dealing with.

@Imp sorry, he was talking about adding weapon penalties for certain classes, and I skimmed your post and saw you talking about editing weapprof.2da and wspatck.2da and profs.2da, when what he wanted is best implemented in .itm files. That's why I said ignore that stuff (the .2da files). On closer inspection I see you were giving him a more general explanation, so I apologize.

Edited by subtledoctor, 05 October 2016 - 08:52 AM.

[eXistenZe]

Hey there. According to beamdog forum only IWD in not implemented. Does this mean EET (RC7?) is already supported?

 

Best regards,

xz

[The Imp]

..he was talking about ..so I apologize.

Ha finall.. It's not like that has happened to me like a thousand times..     T-ha, never mind.

Does this mean EET (RC7?) is already supported?

Well, that still a Research Candidate, it's mostly upto ALIEN Quake to do the updates, he might have been busy a bit more.. as there has not been direct updates as of 28.9... but fear not, there will be them.

[WanderingScholar]

I noticed on my first install using BWS that Infinity Animations is installed pretty early in the process. This causes mods that change animations such as PnP Fiends to override these animations. Right now I manually install IA close to the end of my setup and only have things like "turambar fixes tweaks" after it. Is there a reason it's installed so early?

 

[The Imp]

I noticed on my first install using BWS that Infinity Animations is installed pretty early in the process. This causes mods that change animations such as PnP Fiends to override these animations. Right now I manually install IA close to the end of my setup and only have things like "turambar fixes tweaks" after it. Is there a reason it's installed so early?

Well if you want to install PnP Fiends that has different type demon animations, then you install the mod and have them as such. There shouldn't be any mods that use the LOW_ animations in the install order after the IA though, as that would crash the game. That's about as much as I can tell you without going to specifics.

You could ask the PnP Fiends mod component to have a graphical(/animation) and other component, but that's about it ... and that has it's own troubles.

[WanderingScholar]

I noticed on my first install using BWS that Infinity Animations is installed pretty early in the process. This causes mods that change animations such as PnP Fiends to override these animations. Right now I manually install IA close to the end of my setup and only have things like "turambar fixes tweaks" after it. Is there a reason it's installed so early?

Well if you want to install PnP Fiends that has different type demon animations, then you install the mod and have them as such. There shouldn't be any mods that use the LOW_ animations in the install order after the IA though, as that would crash the game. That's about as much as I can tell you without going to specifics.

You could ask the PnP Fiends mod component to have a graphical(/animation) and other component, but that's about it ... and that has it's own troubles.

I won't ask you to go into details as I'm not a modder. It was just something minor I noticed and wanted to report. I haven't had any problems putting IA at the end of my install so I thought it would be nice to do the same through BWS.

[psycros]

@psycros there is currently an incompatibility between the YARAS component of SoB and TnB's armored casting. We haven't figured out exactly what the problem is, and I'm waiting till the new version of TnB is released before I start adding/changing code in SoB, so that I know what I'm dealing with.

@Imp sorry, he was talking about adding weapon penalties for certain classes, and I skimmed your post and saw you talking about editing weapprof.2da and wspatck.2da and profs.2da, when what he wanted is best implemented in .itm files. That's why I said ignore that stuff (the .2da files). On closer inspection I see you were giving him a more general explanation, so I apologize.

Thanks for info.  I've been rolling up parties of various mixes and I'm actually seeing a lot of issues - kits not appearing, kits appearing multiple times in list, etc.  Its really seems like a modded game is just a total crapshoot and you'll never see the same thing twice, even if you don't re-run BWS between fresh games.

[The Imp]

Its really seems like a modded game is just a total crapshoot and you'll never see the same thing twice, even if you don't re-run BWS between fresh games.

Ha, there's a little tiny difference between modified game and MEGAMODDED game, the fact that you have to look things to not get a total crap shot out of the outcome. Of course if you like a little randomization ... then who cares, but if you don't, then you install only the mods you WANT, and NOTHING ELSE. Ask any mod maker and this is always the case. Actually there plenty that say that their mod is the only one they support and any bugs coming out of installing multiple mods is yours to deal with ... essentially.