88 replies to this topic

[minotaur_in_maze]

Rangers get an animal companion in BGII?

When? Where?

Appearing on the screen w/players? Boo notwithstanding, I never knew this.

:bash:

[Rabain]

It's a part of the Ranger Stronghold quests, if your PC is a ranger only!

Normal rangers (minsc/valygar) don't get companions (apart from Boo and i think the magical aspect of a companion would put off Valygar unless it was a dog he met on a street or something!)

Anyway i believe animal companions for Rangers should be natural creatures, not magical ones and those for mages magical!

@Awake - yeah justing popping up maybe shooting off a random spell (web-how annoying) and then disappearing again but then this would have little or nothing to do with your Familiar Refinements really!

[Awake]

It would be really annoying, but it would also be kind of funny. Maybe i'll include that when it's finished and packaged and i won't tell anybody.

[Eclipse]

I still would rather know if it's possible to make all summons travel with the party like familiars... Think about it, it opens up other doors.

Ever wished your mage could act like other mages, creating spells, contructs and even enchanting items? I propose another Planar Sphere mod, hopefully compatible with the current one. The idea being Mage PC's can work in their golem room creating things.

Item Enchanting/Crafting Spells...
All you really need is a contrainer to act as the workplace, when the correct items are placed in it, random chance of it blowing up (depending on what kind of item you're creating), being created, fizzling out. Players could do it randomly, trying what ever at 1st. But perhaps hide scrolls through the game. They can give clues about how to create things... For example a scroll could list a few gems and what properties they possess regarding magic items.

Golems/Contructs...
Perchase coal for the furnaces, have a few apprentices there to spelt down items for ore, and then have a blacksmith to forge the ore into the golem parts, or basic weapons/armour. If summons could follow from area to area, it would be great. Then necromancers could create permanant summons, or ones with really long timers (1 week for example). And for the evil wizards out there, maybe throw in a few respawning peasants in various areas in the world, so when they need fresh corpses for they're work, they can go raid trademeet or somethings.

(for perm summons, maybe the mage should have to spend 1 constitution to maintain it, but gets the constitution back when it's dead/unsummoned.)

And just for the sake of it, how about a new epilogue for evil mages, about becoming a lich. Once the essence of bhaal is out of you, your soul is your own again to hide where ever you want.

That mod idea capture anyones imagination?

[Archmage Silver]

Sounds good to me. Are you sure though, that it isn't too 3E:ish?

[Eclipse]

What is too 3E ish?

I always thought it was unfair how even by the end of the game you're an incredibly powerful mage (assuming you chose an arcane caster type) that all these other (lesser) mages get to have all the fun and create their own spells, built constructs and enchant items.

Ps. How'd you get the 'master of the Art' title? someone hand them out or something?

[Awake]

How'd you get the 'master of the Art' title? someone hand them out or something?

um, on the summons following you out of the area, isn't there a mod that does this already? If not, it seems like it would be pretty easy.

still, anyone know what a familiar needs in order to be summoned and not screw up the game? I tried, but the game keeps on freezing.

[Awake]

Due to requests for additional mage abilities and such, this is now going to be called the Mage Refinements Pack.

As for getting summons to follow the party to different areas, i'm about to test this, but i think that all i have to do is change the EA to familiar. That should work.

[Stone Wolf]

What is too 3E ish?

I always thought it was unfair how even by the end of the game you're an incredibly powerful mage (assuming you chose an arcane caster type) that all these other (lesser) mages get to have all the fun and create their own spells, built constructs and enchant items.

Ps. How'd you get the 'master of the Art' title? someone hand them out or something?

Making new spells takes months of work. I think you could beat all of BG1 and BG2 (including expansionss) in less time than it would take to create a 9th level spell. You could try to take the time off, but it would eliminate any sense of racing against time.

There's also the fact that creating new spells is impossible to do with the game engine. I suppose they could have added something in, where you could choose opcodes and such, but they probably had other priorities. I can't see any way to mod that into the game, since I've never seen a "create spl file" effect.

On the other hand, it would be cool to make your own spells. The only game I can think of that allowed that is Daggerfall. Actually, that might have been one of the few parts of Daggerfall that didn't have major bugs.

[Eclipse]

Creating new spells is impossible in-game. But creating the illusion of creating spells isn't.

[Stone Wolf]

It could be set up where a character researches a spell he doesn't know yet, though of course that would be limited to spells already in the game. I just can't think of any way to make totally new spells in game. The closes I could come is usually tons of globals and making a tool for DLTCEP or something that reads the globals and makes the spell. Not very efficient, and you'd have to leave the game to actually create the spell file.

[Awake]

umm... the spell could be made, mage researches the spell, or something similar, and then a script causes a scroll to appear in the inventory. I don't see what's so difficult about this. It actually seems quite simple. I plan on addind extra spells, such as Monster Summoning 4 and 5. I'll just import them from Icewind Dale. Probably make some new items and expand the Planar Sphere a bit, I don't like the fact that there's a door in there that has no purpose at all. I'll make use of it.

[Deva]

Hmm.. whilst on the subject of familiar refinement, how about changing some of the sprites for some? The pseudo dragon and the quasit have identical sprites... oh, and howabout some of these familiars?

The Ice weasel (Minsc talked about it; but never gave you one )
Same stats as ferret, but can cast fireshield;blue, chilltouch. Maybe wehn the caster becomes more powerful it could learn some more stuff? Perhaps the ice weasel could give you a 45% resistance to cold when in your backpack, or something.)

The Vampire Bat
Hide in the shadows? Level drain ability?

Edited by Hishi, 19 September 2004 - 11:25 AM.

[Awake]

Currently i am not sure how i am going to add familiars. When i try the game freezes, but still it's good to mention the ideas, that way when i figure it out i can make them.

MAGE REFINEMENT PACK:
Planar Sphere Expansion
New Mage weapons(staffs, daggers, slings)
New Mage spells
New Familiars


These are the things that i plan on including in my pack. Or in our pack. meaning if anyone wants to help on this, it wouldn't be just my pack. Not all of these will be in the first release, but i would like to include some of them so that i can have some kind of a checkpoint.

[Awake]

your apprentices make a scroll in about three days

very good point, and i now realize what he was talking about. I thought he meant making a new spell with DLTCEP takes months of work. he was talking about in FR. That makes more sense, since i made a spell in half an hour :edwin: <--something went wrong though...

I'm not sure how i would do the bags or golem construct deals, if anyone, anyone wants to help, please PM me. OK, i'll let you post, but PMing means that you're a member, and members tend to be more realiable.

[Deva]

Heh, if you want any new item graphics (icons, ect.) done, I'll give it a shot.

[Awake]

Great, because i don't know how to do that part, and i'm not much of a computer artist anyways. That will come later though, as we don't have any work done on it yet.

[Schatten]

if you make the familiars stronger wouldnt that unbalance the game? same for the golem idea. i like those ideas but i also like good fights.

[Awake]

it would unbalance the game, so i would set it to where if the familiar dies, then the mage loses 2-3 points of constitution, and also, the spell will be higher than level 1.

Golems still sound like a good idea to me. Most mages have a golem don't they?