8 replies to this topic

[Vlan]

It seems like that there is a compatibility issue between PnP tweaks and Spell Revisions which reverses the Gate spell to its original form (cleric being able to summon a demon again instead of a new Death Knight).

I want to change the Gate spell to the Spell Revision Gate spell (called Summon Death Knight) in the clerik spell book but do not know which file I have to edit. Any info on that?

Edited by Vlan, 24 March 2015 - 07:05 AM.

[The Imp]

It should be the spell itself(in case it was overwritten) or the hidespl.2da file.

And yes, the Spell Rev mod hides all the spells it doesn't like... which in my opinion is very bad...

Edited by The Imp, 24 March 2015 - 07:22 AM.

[Vlan]

Thanks once again for the fast answer!

[Mike1072]

It should be the spell itself(in case it was overwritten) or the hidespl.2da file.

And yes, the Spell Rev mod hides all the spells it doesn't like... which in my opinion is very bad...

 

SR disables spells for technical reasons, like as a result of moving the spell to a different spell level.  Without hiding the old disabled versions, those spells would be taking up some of the limited space on the spell selection screen that should be reserved for real spells.

[The Imp]

That's a valid point in the Enhanced Edition game, but in the normal, where we have ToBEx and the ADD_SPELL -function, and there the limit is... ouh yeah, ~990 spells.
And the SR doesn't abide to it, yet.
And yes, I understand that this change is likely to come in the not next but after that version as the next is nearly complete... but I can still jank your chain about it, right ?

Edited by The Imp, 25 March 2015 - 01:40 AM.

[Mike1072]

SR doesn't use hidespl.2da to arbitrarily hide spells.  It hides things like Protection from Fire (level 3) that are replaced with SR's Protection from Fire (level 5).  If ToBEx is not installed, that disabled 3rd level version would be taking up one of the 24 spots available for actual spells.  If ToBEx is installed, there's still no reason to have the disabled version show up.

 

There are a few cases where SR replaces vanilla spells (like the cleric version of Gate and the wizard version of Cacofiend) with new ones (like Summon Death Knight).  As far as I recall, the only spell that gets a complete change in functionality is Infravision => True Strike.

 

Regarding ADD_SPELL, yes, some of SR's new spells have the potential to overwrite spells added by other mods (depending on installation order).  However, this is not the intended behaviour and a later version of the mod will swap to ADD_SPELL to prevent this.

 

 

@Vlan: the cleric version of Gate/Summon Death Knight is sppr703.spl.

[The Imp]

SR doesn't use hidespl.2da to arbitrarily hide spells. It hides things like Protection from Fire (level 3) that are replaced with SR's Protection from Fire (level 5).

I am glad that you brought that up, see... Does the sppr306.spl need to be a level 3 spell ? No. That's it, now you should be getting it, and intensely arguing against this... I understand.

The only things you would have to change is the spells actual level, and it's the figure at offset 0x0034, and setting it to 5, and it shall show up to new players character at the level 5 cleric spell slot(should be around the 9th level up).

 

Yes, this makes the NPCs and enemy mages have a wonderful variety of spells to utilize, but utilize the already existing spell table clean up feature the Spell Revision mod has in it, and it won't be a problem to the player that starts a new campaign after installing the mod.

The enemy mages, well can handle things on their own if you don't change the targeting and make a horrible mess -so don't, as it shouldn't matter if the spells are a bit higher level if they do the same thing(almost)... now the second and pivotal point to this is the SCS and how it handles the casters theoretical spells distribution, but that mod and it's effects can be taken into consideration when making the changes on the SR's spells, just like in the past. So what if the cleric has a few level 5 spells more on the cost of 3rd level slots ? As we can know that and add more :insert an element: based attacks to the player, or whatever, yes might be bad example.
Well of course you are likely wanting to make sure that any of the spells have an effect at any level, so you might have to adjust the spells minimum level to be one, aka set the offset 0x0082 = 1, yes that's at the first extended header, at offset 0x0010 ... but that's easy, unless you have quad-dozen non spells that don't have extended headers, but just check that the .spl's length is at least 82 bits.

This whole thing follows up us to the innate spells, where there's only one level, not nine, and so all the spell levels should be set to be level 1 in them, like the BP's Innate Spell fixer did, and now the LolFixer does. And I would remember other mods too.

 

Yes, the links are there for easy to browse usage, not because I would think you didn't knew all of this..    man it's hilarious..

And now I am looking forward to your counter arguments. Or Demi's, and other people's. And yes, I edited the post above...

K, there's the script based spells... that can be a problem. 

Edited by The Imp, 26 March 2015 - 01:56 AM.

[Mike1072]

Changing the level specified in the spell doesn't make it appear at a different level on the spell select screen.  The spell select screen determines what spells to display based on filenames, which is why an additional spell file needs to be added to the game when moving a spell to a different level.

[The Imp]

Changing the level specified in the spell doesn't make it appear at a different level on the spell select screen. The spell select screen determines what spells to display based on filenames, which is why an additional spell file needs to be added to the game when moving a spell to a different level.

Ahh, you mean this screen:

Not the spellbook screen:

The fun fact, the two ... don't actually behave as one would consider them, as the later uses the .spl's own level. While the first uses the file name.
Yes, I have made a mod that makes some of the cleric spells to be mage spells useable by a kitted-cleric which is switched to be a mage in BG2:ToB. The trick was to use a macro to edit the spell level and type.

Spoiler

///////////////
DEFINE_PATCH_MACRO ~divine_spells_to_level_five~ BEGIN
  PATCH_IF ("%SOURCE_SIZE%" > "0x71") BEGIN
    READ_LONG  0x64 "abil_off" ELSE 0
    READ_SHORT 0x68 "abil_num" ELSE 0
    READ_ASCII ("%abil_off%" + 0x04) "bam" (                    // reads the bam filename from ability
    WRITE_SHORT 0x1C 1                                // sets spell type to Wizard (1)
    WRITE_LONG  0x34 5                                // sets spell level to 5
    WRITE_EVALUATED_ASCII 0x3A "%bam%" #8                    // writes the bam filename from abilities to spell icon
    FOR ( index = 0 ; index < abil_num ; index = index + 1 ) BEGIN
      WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0x02 + (0x28 * "%index%")) 2            // changes ability icon location to spell (2) just incase
      END
    END
  END

COPY_EXISTING ~SPCL233.spl~ ~override/IJ#P233.spl~                //not exactly divine but anyways
  LAUNCH_PATCH_MACRO ~divine_spells_to_level_five~
COPY_EXISTING ~SPPR417.spl~ ~override/IJ#P417.spl~
  LAUNCH_PATCH_MACRO ~divine_spells_to_level_five~
COPY_EXISTING ~SPPR413.spl~ ~override/IJ#P413.spl~
  LAUNCH_PATCH_MACRO ~divine_spells_to_level_five~
COPY_EXISTING ~SPPR409.spl~ ~override/IJ#P409.spl~
  LAUNCH_PATCH_MACRO ~divine_spells_to_level_five~
COPY_EXISTING ~SPWI513.spl~ ~override/IJ#P513.spl~                //not exactly divine but anyways
  LAUNCH_PATCH_MACRO ~divine_spells_to_level_five~
COPY_EXISTING ~SPPR507.spl~ ~override/IJ#P507.spl~
  LAUNCH_PATCH_MACRO ~divine_spells_to_level_five~
COPY_EXISTING ~SPPR517.spl~ ~override/IJ#P517.spl~
  LAUNCH_PATCH_MACRO ~divine_spells_to_level_five~

////////////////

Hmm could there be a point in ... yes, we could actually use the 8 character spells(spcl2306.spl) as the actual castable spells, while the 7 character spells(spcl306.spl) are the ones in the selection box. It will take it's own sort of a remake to arrange these. But it would be worth the effort. And then you could hide as many spells as you liked. Yes, arrange the spclxxx's to give the ability to cast spell spcl2xxx.spl .

Edited by The Imp, 25 March 2015 - 05:43 AM.