I'm not too keen on the idea of lots of mages and priests being in Yaga's army. I'm of the opinion that the *vast majority* of folks in an army would be fighters & warrior type monsters. Even in a magic rich world like FR it just seems silly for there to be 1 mage for every 3 fighters for instance. IMO it would be more like 1 for 100 or even less. It also seems very strange that the mages would be randomly mixed in with the warriors. Yes adventurers do that, but armies? I think not. The exception might be Yaga?s personal lieutenants (which is what I saw his final followers as).

Does more random mages make for a tougher battle? Yep. But it's still not very likely IMO and would actually make the fight *less* enjoyable for me.

A better solution might be instead of spawning random mages is to spawn a *group* of mages at one point in the battle. It could be the 'mage squad' or 'magic battalion' or some such all arriving on the scene at one time as a group. *That* would be both realistic and interesting. Ditto for priests.

I'm also not keen on the splash damage. Yaga is a fire *giant* not some sort of mystical fire creature.

Finally I worry about the constant spawning. My old PC could *barely* handle the ascension battle & I *always* made sure to take out all the spawns before tacking Yaga since I usually had major technical problems if I didn't. One time the variables that reduce his vulnerability didn't get set. Another time the game locked. You get the picture. This little proposed 'refinement' is realistic and may even make for a more fun battle but could be a literally game killer.

- slightly revise the .cres of the army soldiers, including mages and priests;

That was the like that looked like more mages to me. The infrence I drew was that some warrior cre files were going to be changed from soldiers (fighters) to mages and priests.

I disagree with your assessment of the 'army' and the role of the priests, but I'll have to post that later.

I've got another 2.0 question.  Will savegames with the current versions of Refinements work if upgraded to 2.0?

For instance I *know* that there are problems when I take a game where characters have normal HLAs and then try to level them up in Refienments.  Will this be an issue with 1.x to 2.0 as well?

From the Revised_HLAs readme

We advise to use our new HLA system as a whole, or not use it AT ALL. 
We have built all the tables in the attempt to rebalance and refine the whole system, and all these
tables should be used together for coherency (consider also that some material is shared between
our tables: this may include new icons, portrait icons or visual effects.)

These arguments apply even for aVENGER's Rogue Rebalancing Mod, which, among its other components,
provides new HLA tables for all rogues.  However, in this case some very special notes are in order
since aVENGER graciously granted us permission to use his material.
We have used aVENGER's material and a little bit more: we debugged his HLAs, refined them (by our
judgment, we admit), added new icons to them (in line with the rest of our tables), added new portrait
icons where needed, and lastly we placed them in a better context.
For instance, we created the Use Scrolls ability that aVENGER also desired for thieves, but didn't
realize for his mod.
In the end we've tried to keep to his ideals, not sacrifice them. So we think it's best if you install
Refinements after Rogue Rebalancing.
Actually, we *STRONGLY* advise to use aVENGER's mod together with Refinements:

-First, you'd get all the rest of the good additions and "refinements" provided by Rogue Rebalancing.

-Second, Refinements is really *meant* to be installed over it: to address some compatibility issues, we
coded our stuff *assuming* the presence of the Rogue Rebalancing Mod.
Refinements adjusts thieves' weapon proficiencies in the same way aVENGER's mod does, but without the
additional kit abilities and rebalancing provided by Rogue Rebalancing. This means that things won't be
entirely balanced if you don't use Rogue Rebalancing together with Refinements. 

Think of it as if we are thanking aVENGER by "forcing" you to use his mod

AFAIK we only modify some monk HLAs, the Tracking and Precision abilities, and thats it...

... Sorcerer (shockwave).

You read them correct, they last that long.
But if you think about it, it is completely logical for such a powerful spell: the necromancer makes his/her creations stronger, and I'm sure he wants them to retain this power longer than a few rounds - that would be literally useless.

BTW, Dark Pact is one of my favourite HLAs...

Both of the Necromancer specific HLAs are fantastic!

Ieldra you do know that that WeiDU will uninstall the Imoen Romance, make the changes to Refinemens, and then reinstall Imoen Romance if you do that don't you? That's the way WeiDU works.

What is installed last stays last.

Ieldra you do know that that WeiDU will uninstall the Imoen Romance, make the changes to Refinemens, and then reinstall Imoen Romance if you do that don't you?  That's the way WeiDU works.

Indeed. So it should be possible to install *only* SwashImoen first, without the other Refinements components, then Imoen Romance, and then the rest of Refinements, leaving SwashImoen alone. Thus, SwashImoen will not be uninstalled, there will be no need to uninstall the Imoen Romance, and Refinements sans SwashImoen will go on top of everything.

If I recall correctly, I had already done this with another pair of mods where I had forgotten one component - when I installed it after everything else, and answered "no change" for the mod components already installed from the same package, the new one would simply go on top.

Sigh. Let's just pretend that you install just these two mods.

You install Refinement's SwashImoen *only*.

Then you install Imoen Romance.

Then you kick off Refinements again to install the rest.

WeiDU will uninistall Imoen Romance, make the Refinements changes, and then re-install the romance. It re-runs the Romance setup for you automatically. That's just the way WeiDU works. It does everything it can to keep mod order constant.

Combat Casting is not balanced for fighter/mages. They will be too powerful this way.


Could you specify what this uninterruptibility refers to ? The spellcaster would use his spells even if he is hit, poisoned or affected by insect spells ?

I disagree.

It's thematically good & doesn't seem unbalanced at all. I mean really. How often is a high level F/M getting interrupted anyway? Maybe one or two battles at most.

Between Spell Immunity, Protection from Magic Weapons, Stoneskin, Mirror Image and the rest a F/M can be functionally immune any time he cares to.

Hmm, here is a pic of her... (she'll kill me for posting it, but anyway...)

Heh.  It's about the right size for a portrait....

It actually seems quite illogical to me TGM. A good druid would gather herbs whenever there was a chance.

Plus I want to note that some insteresting AD&D fungi & moss that could be used in Herbalism only grow underground....

The idea solution IMO would be to have a HLA that could only be "charged" underground or outdoors and then used whenever.

Am I the only one who thinks that they are very unbalanced?

I've been considering this as well. I have two thoughts.

First, yes 95+% resistance is way powerful. Just walking around this way all the time might indeed be too much.

However the counterpoint is that even without Refinements it is pretty easy for a Barbarian to do this. Don't forget that Barkskin adds to resistances. With that long lasting spell from a friendly druid, Hardieness, and the Flail it's pretty easy to duplicate this without Refinements.

I would be good either way if this stays or if it goes.

Sorry! Armor of Faith is what I was thinking of! Shorter duration that Barkskin but it adds 5% +5% every 5th level to the 3 resistances.

Another idea for Thief-Mages:

Slippery Mind
In a nutshell, the T/M becomes immune to Charm effects.

I'm willing to bet that a good portion of Thief-Mages are elves or halfelves. These are already resistant to charm at level 1. Maybe you could add immunity to confusion and/or stun.

In PnP Elves and Half Elves are. 90% for elves & 30% for half if I remember right. It works like a specialized MR for sleep and charm.

However this was never in unmodded BG or BGII. There are some tweak packs and mods that add this back in (I think aVENGER had one like this). Not sure how these mods impliment this though.

Worst case this is a redundant HLA. However IMO *Immune* is better than *Resistant*.

That's what I get for confusing Barkskin and Armor of Faith.

Though in fairness to me I do have the tweak installed that lets Barbarians dual class in game ... and there is always SK.

I've also been toying with the idea of a multi or dual barbarian for a while now. The big downside to this is that many items like the Amulet of Power are coded as unusuable by Barbarians which affects say Barbarian/Clerics but not Fighter/Clerics or Beserker/Clerics. This renders these non-standard PCs somewhat disadvantaged but not too much so IMO considering what they get. Still it's only been consideration to this point.

I really don't want to gain any more bad karma but I thought that I might add that The Black Wyrm folks have released a Herbs & Potions Add-in for Baldur's Gate II mod ... I *know* that TGM already is aware of this, but not sure about others.  

From the look of things it's substantially different from the HLA idea proposed here but, still, I thought that it would bare mentioning.

Anyway what *I* would like to see from a Druid Herbalism HLA is the following:

1. The ability to create a *small* number of existing potions.  Ones I favor include Elixir of Health (only healing potion good over the whole game IMO & no other Healing potions via Herbalism they are either too powerful or too weak), Potion of Clairity, Potion of Mirrored Eyes, Potion of Insight, & maybe a few others.

2. The ability to create a *new* potion or two.  Elixer of Insect Repellant (immunity to summon inscets spells) would be one such idea.  Another thing that I would love to see would be access to 1 to 3 cleric only spells via this HLA.  Stuff like Zone of Sweet Air & maybe Sanctuary.  (Heh.  Think an Armor of Faith potion might be too powerful for the Barbarians?   )

3. The ability to create a *new* druid only wand or two.  Nothing too powerful but IMO druids could really use a special *wooden* or plant wand or two.


I see threee ways to do item creations.

1.  100% Random, just like the old wizard scroll & wand HLAs.

2.  Have a 'Spell Immunity like' submenu to let the Druid pick what he wants to create & give him a % chance of success depending on his level and what he picks.

3.  Have the *area* the druid is in influence the odds of item creation.  For instance the Druid might only be able to create the most minor of potions & such using their gathered supplies while in the city or Watchers Keep.  However in the Grove they might have a shot at creating one of the new wands.  I see this as a blend of the 'can use Herbalism anywhere' schools & 'should only be useable outdoors' schools.

I have another idea, though I'm not entirely sure if it is implementable.
How about modifying HLAs that enable the characters to create items (Assassin's Brew Poison, spellcasters Scribe Scrolls, the upcoming Herbalism and Craft Wand HLAs...) so that every single use of them would cost a specified quantity of Gold and maybe even XP (as seen in ToEE for example)? I think this addition would make them a bit more realistic, and would help to balance them at the same time. This way one would have some limits in acumulating waste amounts of these - or to be more precise, it would be possible, but at a significant cost.
BTW I already had the same question in the Help forum, but I ask here as well: is it possible to reduce the XP of the caster by the "Experience(?)" opcode?

Opinions?

I favor this *ONLY* if the player gets to pick exactly what he wants to make *and* has 100% chance of success each time. XP cost *only* for the most powerful items IMO.

Heh, I didn't expect a new component, but then again this is an easy change.



Thanks for the thought Bigg!

he said in his spell guide that some cres that are immune to TS aren't to Wish:Time Stop).

If so, than this is a nasty bug, and should be fixed. Wish-TS shouldn't differ from the normal TS effect. Unless it is documented that way, but I fullheartedly doubt it.

Well it *is* 'Double Strength' so it should require twice the immunity to resist!  

Perhaps this armour would work?

(Rathwellin wipes drool off of mouth.)

Bug with Inner Focus. My sorcerer picked it up at 18th level & it functioned 100% correctly. However when he leveled up to 19th his save vs. spells was reduced by -1. The level up thus 'removed' the 'permanent' +1 to save vs spells bonus of this HLA.

I think that wish could be improved ... but how far are you willing to go.

For instance it always bugged me that I couldn't wish Aerie's wings back.  That seems like a no-brainer wish to me.  (Heck Regeneration might be able to do it too & she will eventually have both spells in ToB).  However would you guys be willing to update her profile, avatar, & in game animations and give her dialogue for this?

However on a more mechanical front what direction would you want to go.

Would you restructure Wish so that it worked more like Limited Wish with some options being repeatable & others being one time only?  I think that I might like that.  Heh.  Just imagine making the wish for rest being one time only.      Wouldn't change much though as it is still super easy to go to the pocket plane and rest.

Or would you change things so that there was a 'cost' of doing wishes.  In 3.5 I think that Wish costs XP each time it is cast.  Would you make wish non-random, but cost XP for the powerful effects?  I don't like this as much but it dovetails with some of your suggestions regarding item making HLAs.

First Mprilla and then you?! I smell conspiracy!

And just in case you don't know what I'm talking about, look HERE

Yep! I know. It's just ironic that all. Should have put smilies in that first post. Well I'll just have to make up for it.

B) :edwin: :^^: :thumb: :nana:

And contrats Bigg!

Sigh. Look about half way down the main forum page for this.

http://www.shsforums...showtopic=11153