12 replies to this topic

[Pol]

Returned to playing BG2 after nearly a year, liked aVENGER/Wisp's mod a lot. Currently just done with Ch 2.

 

Undead: Shadows, wraiths, spectres etc. seem weak and unable to hit my party. Maybe change their attack to a touch attack (since they're incorporeal) with +4 to hit, base damage type changed to none, dealing pure magic or magic cold damage.

 

Since wraiths and spectres are incorporeal, maybe give them the ability to "vanish" into the ground and re-appear behind your party's front lines (...just a delayed dimension door, in engine terms).

 

The temple ruins (Umar hills quest): The undead here could really use an upgrade (same idea as the other "more sensible x encounters"). The random spawns might be quite hard (depending on level and installation) and SCS improves the Shadow Dragon and Shade Lord, but everything else is kinda pitiful. For instance, the "ambush" at the bridge is just some shadows and weak shade wolves, the unique shadow (RNGSHA01) who's in the cell and will be fought alone by the party is no stronger than a regular shadow. There must be some reason that shadow was dangerous enough to lock up...

 

Elementals: The earth elemental that SCS adds to the druid grove is replaced with an elder earth elemental, it can still be fought with a 8-9th level party but its earthquake is hard to defend against if you go here straight after CI as most people do.

 

Aerial servants are worth 9000xp, I'd think only enemy summoned servants should grant xp (via death script), even if it isn't the mod's purpose to "police" exploits. Edit; just checked and it looks like all summoned elementals are worth xp.

 

With SCS the enemy summoned elemental princes (DW#ESUNN, DW#ECHAN and DW#EZAAM) don't seem to benefit from the component to increase the HD of elemental princes.

Edited by Pol, 27 October 2013 - 06:55 PM.

[Wisp]

Thanks for the feedback.

Undead: Shadows, wraiths, spectres etc. seem weak and unable to hit my party. Maybe change their attack to a touch attack (since they're incorporeal) with +4 to hit, base damage type changed to none, dealing pure magic or magic cold damage.
 
Since wraiths and spectres are incorporeal, maybe give them the ability to "vanish" into the ground and re-appear behind your party's front lines (...just a delayed dimension door, in engine terms).

I'll see what I can do to make them more interesting.

The temple ruins (Umar hills quest): The undead here could really use an upgrade (same idea as the other "more sensible x encounters"). The random spawns might be quite hard (depending on level and installation) and SCS improves the Shadow Dragon and Shade Lord, but everything else is kinda pitiful. For instance, the "ambush" at the bridge is just some shadows and weak shade wolves

I'll give it some thought. There is some precedent for making encounters more difficult (cf. Lea'liyl).

the unique shadow (RNGSHA01) who's in the cell and will be fought alone by the party is no stronger than a regular shadow. There must be some reason that shadow was dangerous enough to lock up...

Yeah, you're right, RNGSHA01 should have his quirks preserved, at least.

Elementals: The earth elemental that SCS adds to the druid grove is replaced with an elder earth elemental, it can still be fought with a 8-9th level party but its earthquake is hard to defend against if you go here straight after CI as most people do.

I'll look into it. Perhaps SCS' choice of a non-elder elemental should be respected.

Aerial servants are worth 9000xp, I'd think only enemy summoned servants should grant xp (via death script), even if it isn't the mod's purpose to "police" exploits. Edit; just checked and it looks like all summoned elementals are worth xp.

Sounds like something that should be fixed. On the same subject, it looks like you never gain XP from enemy-summoned undead.

With SCS the enemy summoned elemental princes (DW#ESUNN, DW#ECHAN and DW#EZAAM) don't seem to benefit from the component to increase the HD of elemental princes.

Will fix. IIRC, there's also some prince from Refinements that is not on the list.

Edited by Wisp, 28 October 2013 - 08:25 AM.

[Pol]

Thank's Wisp.

 

Also, dw#0w406 and dw#0w602, SCS prebuff (minor) globe of invulnerability are not made dispellable.

[Pol]

Actually, I'm thinking of DW#SW406 and DW#SW602, those are the prebuffs, the others are used in sequencers/triggers. I wonder why SCS clones spells, it's bound to create this sort of bug.

 

Further feedback (I've just reached the underdark).

 

Nymphs - whether summoned by the player or enemies - are well scripted but overpowered; their save-or-be-blinded every round is too much. I think a person who saves upon seeing the nymph should be immune for the rest of the encounter (a turn or so).

 

Earth elementals are also overpowered: The earth portal in the underdark is now quite a tough battle, even though Chaotic Commands (erroneously imo) and berserker/barbarian rage protect from knockdown by earthquakes the 6d6 + 3d6 + 2d6 crushing damage (especially with the save at -6) stacks up quickly when multiple earth elementals shoot it at you (you're likely to have 8-9 elementals capable of casting this spawn), and there's no easy way for non-stoneskinned characters to protect themselves from it without epic levels - well, Ilbratha works, seems this AoE is not flagged as bypassing mirror image.

 

(There's a similar balance issue with the earthquake-capable earth elemental summoned by druids, you get two 7th level spells for the price of one)

 

The fire elemental portal is super easy in comparison, since their attack is mostly fire damage and hence resistible. Maybe add a couple of salamander nobles with their "lower fire resistance" spells? It was a great idea to add one of those to the planar sphere fire room btw.

 

The underdark balor is weaker since aTweaks removes his resistances and bonus hp, as this is supposed to be a "boss" fight would you consider giving him some extra demon allies? Of course he can already gate these in during the fight, but doesn't last long enough to do so.

[DavidWallace]

Actually, I'm thinking of DW#SW406 and DW#SW602, those are the prebuffs, the others are used in sequencers/triggers. I wonder why SCS clones spells, it's bound to create this sort of bug.

Either to change the name of the spell (as in: "Stoneskin (cast previously)") or to make the casting time instant (you can't use ReallyForceSpell because it doesn't respect timestops and disabled creatures). Because SCS is supposed to be installed as late as possible, it mostly isn't a problem (SCS auto-checks for resources that references the old spell and clones the reference). aTweaks is a special case because it's actually supposed to be installed after SCS.

[kreso]

I saw EE2 compatible version available just as I finished installing SCS on EE2 with BP-Ascension. I'm very happy, I can finally play this game.   May I assume it works on EE1 as well?

 

More on topic:

I generally agree with Pol, most notably, Earth Elementals are indeed very powerful, and an Elder might indeed be slightly too much for Druid Grove (this thing alone would probably destroy whole Trademeet  alone).

A suggestion for next versions:

- make "encounters" a seperate part of install - if for nothing else, then for BG1 players - Nereids/Sirens are very difficult to handle there with their posion/blindness/charm/summons etc.

- and make more of them! 

[Wisp]

May I assume it works on EE1 as well?

Not at this time, it doesn't.

[Wisp]

Actually, I'm thinking of DW#SW406 and DW#SW602, those are the prebuffs, the others are used in sequencers/triggers. I wonder why SCS clones spells, it's bound to create this sort of bug.

(Will fix.)
 

Nymphs - whether summoned by the player or enemies - are well scripted but overpowered; their save-or-be-blinded every round is too much. I think a person who saves upon seeing the nymph should be immune for the rest of the encounter (a turn or so).

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree something should be done to lessen the ability. Everything else that has on-sight auras and stuff has it taking effect with a lower frequency.
 

Earth elementals are also overpowered: The earth portal in the underdark is now quite a tough battle, even though Chaotic Commands (erroneously imo) and berserker/barbarian rage protect from knockdown by earthquakes the 6d6 + 3d6 + 2d6 crushing damage (especially with the save at -6) stacks up quickly when multiple earth elementals shoot it at you (you're likely to have 8-9 elementals capable of casting this spawn), and there's no easy way for non-stoneskinned characters to protect themselves from it without epic levels - well, Ilbratha works, seems this AoE is not flagged as bypassing mirror image.
 
(There's a similar balance issue with the earthquake-capable earth elemental summoned by druids, you get two 7th level spells for the price of one)
 
The fire elemental portal is super easy in comparison, since their attack is mostly fire damage and hence resistible. Maybe add a couple of salamander nobles with their "lower fire resistance" spells? It was a great idea to add one of those to the planar sphere fire room btw.

Not much to do about Chaotic Commands. Earthquake implements its fall-down effect through the sleep opcode. I can flag them as bypassing MI, however (obviously, only for engines that support that functionality).

About the portal, I can reduce the probability of Greater Earth Elementals appearing. It'll skew the probabilities compared to the other portals, but since they are more powerful... I can also mix in some Salamanders at the fire portal (and take some of the lesser elementals out of the rotation), like you suggest. The air portal already get Aerial Servants, so they already have something going for them. Opinions?

About the spell, is this that bug that has more elementals appearing than the description would have you believe?
 

The underdark balor is weaker since aTweaks removes his resistances and bonus hp, as this is supposed to be a "boss" fight would you consider giving him some extra demon allies? Of course he can already gate these in during the fight, but doesn't last long enough to do so.

Yes, that balrog balor should perhaps retain some of his bonus stuff. I don't know about minions, though.

[kreso]

About the portal, I can reduce the probability of Greater Earth Elementals appearing. It'll skew the probabilities compared to the other portals, but since they are more powerful... I can also mix in some Salamanders at the fire portal (and take some of the lesser elementals out of the rotation), like you suggest. The air portal already get Aerial Servants, so they already have something going for them. Opinions?

+1 for Salamader spawns. 

[aVENGER]

I think a person who saves upon seeing the nymph should be immune for the rest of the encounter (a turn or so).

This sounds good. Having the ability work once per encounter if you already saved against it does make sense.

Salamander spawns from the fire portal are cool too, since they originate from the same plane as the fire elementals. The underdark Balor can be treated as a unique creature and his stats can remain higher than normal.

As for encounters being a separate component... I think we already have too many components.

[aVENGER]

Aerial servants are worth 9000xp, I'd think only enemy summoned servants should grant xp (via death script), even if it isn't the mod's purpose to "police" exploits. Edit; just checked and it looks like all summoned elementals are worth xp.

Green circled creatures don't grant XP when killed.

The only way you could get XP from summoned elementals would be if they turn on you, which is fair I think.

[kreso]

As for encounters being a separate component... I think we already have too many components.

You could merge "additional racial traits" into a single option.

[kreso]

This one still seems to be there:

 

Actually, I'm thinking of DW#SW406 and DW#SW602, those are the prebuffs, the others are used in sequencers/triggers. I wonder why SCS clones spells, it's bound to create this sort of bug.

(Will fix.)