8 replies to this topic

[Greenhorn]

I once thought that Tobex was greatest achievement in the history of modding and Apply Concentration Check On Damage one of it's many jewels and that all works flawlessly but now I'm not so sure. OK, Tarnesh managing to cast Illusion mirror while being hit by Wand of magic missiles and Larloch's minor drain, why not? Dire wolf interrupting my Flame strike with 8 damage, sure, it is double edged sword. But Neira, assassin in Nashkel inn managing to cast Rigid thinking under blow from my paladin for 17 damage (  A spellcaster passes the concentration check if (1D20 + luck) > (spell level + damage taken, AKA 20) and Xzar's unsaved Burning hands is just too much. This component will never be installed in my games anymore. And by the way "Drop Inventory on Frozen Death" maybe managed somehow to screw Sarhedra's quest to kill ogres, somehow the one killed by wand of frost didn't count and she refused to recognize that all were killed. Not sure is it original game bug but first time to see something like that. 

[subtledoctor]

 This component will never be installed in my games anymore.

The component only enables concentration checks.  It doesn't fix every spellcaster in the game.  A bunch of casters are scripted to successfully cast their spells regardless of incoming damage, and regardless of whether there are concentration checks.  That is the fault of the game.

 

Old situation:

some enemy casters: never ever fail to cast spells

player, and other enemies: always always fail casting when suffering even the slightest scratch

 

With concentration checks:

some enemy casters: never ever fail to cast spells

player, and other enemies: sometimes succeed in casting, on successful check

 

The latter seems plainly superior to me, but I guess YMMV.

Edited by subtledoctor, 26 May 2020 - 11:44 AM.

[Greenhorn]

Well, thanks Doc, this is actually quite enlightening. Makes sense, although I don't know why for the life of me Neira would be scripted to be uninteraptible with the priest 3 script without SCS, BP, Improved battles and that sort of things. Although I have DSotSC installed which modifies some spellcasters ( Davaeorn, wacko druids from Larswood and so on ) she isn't touched. Interesting thing happened with Zordral, while he was casting Horror he got two arrows from Imoen and Khalid which interrupted his casting animation but he managed to release it, nonetheless. And just when I lost all hope Khalid managed to interrupt  that Goblin shaman (from Aurora mod) from casting with 8 arrow damage. Maybe it is just Tutu thing,  "shrug" , so I will just bravely carry on. 

Edited by Greenhorn, 26 May 2020 - 01:39 PM.

[subtledoctor]

 I don't know why for the life of me Neira would be scripted to be uninteraptible

I don't think there is any "why" of it - some of the Bioware coders just didn't do a very good job back in the day.  Whether out of laziness or simply not knowing how to do it really well, there are a number of instances of uninterruptible casters.  IIRC this afflicts BG1 more than BG2, so it may be more a case of inexperience; it also may not have mattered as much in original BG1, when this engine was shiny and new to everyone and players viewed it through rose-colored lenses.  In BG2 they presumably got better, and also the player base got better at optimizing strategies, and spellcasting in general played a much bigger role, so fairness in the chance of interruption *mattered* more. 

 

Then too, there is that fact that almost every player of BG1 these days is actually playing Tutu, BGT, or BGEE, so the original scripts have been imported into a newer BG2 engine.  Maybe those ForceSpell actions worked differently back in the true BG1?  I dunno, it's been a VERY long time since I played it. 

 

I do know that SCS plays fair, so I like to use it so that as many casters as possible use SCS scripts instead of vanilla scripts.  But I suppose there are still a few cases of casters who slip through with the old uninterruptible status.  It's super annoying, I hate it... but I'm pretty sure they are in the minority.

[Greenhorn]

Yeah, your theory sounds very plausible, although I didn't pay much attention to this matter until now. I really wanted to use SCS this run but I was prevented because of incompatibility with IWDification which isn't fixed in v.33 from what I saw.    Although I shudder to think of what Rhialto the Marvelous is capable of in it. He is nasty enough with his custom wild magic, symbol spells and slow... 

[The Imp]

Yeah, your theory sounds very plausible, although I didn't pay much attention to this matter until now. I really wanted to use SCS this run but I was prevented because of incompatibility with IWDification which isn't fixed in v.33 from what I saw.    Although I shudder to think of what Rhialto the Marvelous is capable of in it. He is nasty enough with his custom wild magic, symbol spells and slow... 

The SCS doesn't touch Rhialto's AI... cause it's specific for specific reason.

[Greenhorn]

Good to know it Jarno, although from SCS readme I got the impression that it changes all spellcasters, vanilla and mod ones. So to be on the safe side I installed Spellshaper after SCS. Glad to know that DavidW was making exception with it. As to why some spells are uninterruptible I just had a thought that perhaps Jimfix mod may had something to do with it since I could swear that previously I successfully disrupted all aforementioned cases.  Just a hunch without proof though... 

[Bloodtitan]

I do not use SCS anymore for a different reason: on some larger maps with multiple Vampires, all vampires run towards your party from all over the map. While killing stupid enemies in the fog of war with AoE and cloud spells is lame, the exact opposite isn't much better.

[Greenhorn]

I do not use SCS anymore for a different reason: on some larger maps with multiple Vampires, all vampires run towards your party from all over the map. While killing stupid enemies in the fog of war with AoE and cloud spells is lame, the exact opposite isn't much better.

Yeah, SCS is tricky beast, you must be very careful and selective what you choose. " Better calls for help" is obvious case. But on the other hand many players actually like this sort of stuff. Like in all things tastes differ...