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aTweaks Fiends


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#1 WanderingScholar

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Posted 14 May 2017 - 08:44 PM

This is great content, I'm impressed by the whole mod especially the changes made to fiends. A few minor things I've noticed

- Fiends summoned by the player do not attack liches for whatever reason.

- From what I see in the files gelugons only get an 3 APR when they should get 4

- Pit Fiends according to 2nd Edition manual have a base 6 APR, since it looks like the highest base you can set is 5 maybe just consider giving them a permanent haste. 

 

It would also be nice to add an option for 50% increased hp of fiends like SCS has (meaning +50% from the PnP values). It just doesn't make sense that your fighters can have more hp than a massive demon even if it's not PnP accurate. 1 or 2 hasted level 9 fighters can take out a pit fiend in a few rounds without trouble.



#2 The Imp

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Posted 15 May 2017 - 02:08 AM

Let's analyze what you said, on a game balance side:

It just doesn't make sense that your fighters can have more hp than a massive demon even if it's not PnP accurate. 1 or 2 hasted level 9 fighters can take out a pit fiend in a few rounds without trouble.

It actually makes a perfect sense for a FIGHTER classed CHARACTER to be able to take out a MAGE class characters SUMMON, that takes a round to conjure up.

This way you can't just have 6 mages on your party and roll over EVERYONE. You did miss the fact that for example the fighter needs to put proficiency points towards the weapon they don't know if they will have to get the full benefit on the weapon they will use. In my case, the mages summons should have about as much as 1/4th of their opposite fighters HPs. Why, well there's the mage, that has ~half, and the at least two summons they conjure up. y=z, as much HPs on both sides. 

 

Mages were never meant to be the only powerful class in the game. ... this has multiple things that need to be addressed at the same time, as the game rules are clearly not aD&D or PnP. How's that... just the fact that there's no true rounds/turns etc. So fighters don't have the free shots they get from enemy movement away from the in the turnbased systems.

That's besides the fact that the monsters usually also have other things they can do than just take damage on the behalf of the caster.


Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit). 
OK, desert dweller, welcome to the sanity, you are free to search for the limit, it's out there, we drew it in the sand. Ouh, actually it was still snow then.. but anyways.


#3 WanderingScholar

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Posted 15 May 2017 - 05:30 AM

It actually makes a perfect sense for a FIGHTER classed CHARACTER to be able to take out a MAGE class characters SUMMON, that takes a round to conjure up.

 

I can understand what you're getting at with this however summoning the aTweaks demons on an SCS install is still a double edged sword. There is hardly a major battle you can get through in SCS without having someone in the party breached or dispelled, then with PfE gone every one of your summoned demons turn hostile. The point that I'm trying to get at with the hp increase is that SCS has this option for it's own fiends with the logic that they can stay around in battle a bit longer. aTweaks doesn't even give Balors and Mariliths the chance to stoneskin for example so they can get wiped in a matter of seconds against a prepped party. Heck even the PnP Aerial Servant has more hp than these guys and I've gone in and nerfed that a bit in my own game. I've only elementary modding knowledge so I'm not sure how much of a chore a +50% option would be it just sounded like a nice idea since you can do this to a number of summoned creatures in SCS.  



#4 The Imp

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Posted 15 May 2017 - 06:43 AM

Heck even the PnP Aerial Servant has more hp than these guys ..
And the king in Chess has 1 hit point, and it dies without being ever hit once.
The above is an exact example that what ever you say, the game is not a PnP game, so any values in that system or any other DOESN*T matter one bit.

How hard is it to change .cre's hitpoint, you open the file with Near Infinity and edit the two values it has for HPs. Should take about 30 seconds, maybe. Ouh, and you have to load a save game that doesn't have the creature placed into the game map.

Edited by The Imp, 20 May 2017 - 07:41 AM.

Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit). 
OK, desert dweller, welcome to the sanity, you are free to search for the limit, it's out there, we drew it in the sand. Ouh, actually it was still snow then.. but anyways.


#5 Wisp

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Posted 20 May 2017 - 05:51 AM

- Fiends summoned by the player do not attack liches for whatever reason.
Vanilla liches have an item which grants them permanent protection from summoned demons and aTweaks demons specifically do not attack creatures that have this item equipped. Off-hand I'd guess it's a clumsy way of making sure liches are not attacked by their own summoned demons, but I'm not sure what it's doing in aTweaks. The precaution should be unnecessary and it has some obvious problems, as you have found.
- From what I see in the files gelugons only get an 3 APR when they should get 4
They have 3 APR with their main haind. Their off-hand attack is the 4th.
- Pit Fiends according to 2nd Edition manual have a base 6 APR, since it looks like the highest base you can set is 5 maybe just consider giving them a permanent haste. 

Haste has many side-effects. I'm inclined to keep them at 5 APR and call it an engine limitation.
It would also be nice to add an option for 50% increased hp of fiends like SCS has (meaning +50% from the PnP values). It just doesn't make sense that your fighters can have more hp than a massive demon even if it's not PnP accurate. 1 or 2 hasted level 9 fighters can take out a pit fiend in a few rounds without trouble.
I'll consider it. I agree PnP HP values are frequently insufficient in the high-rolling world of BG.

Edited by Wisp, 20 May 2017 - 05:59 AM.


#6 subtledoctor

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Posted 20 May 2017 - 06:58 AM

IMHO PCs with 150+ hp is just players messing up their own games. This [i]is[i] billed as a PnP mod, and it's not the mod's fault if a player deviates from the PnP rules and grants him/herself oodles of extra hp.

But then of course, I suppose more options are always nice (and in this case it seems to be pretty easy to code).

Edited by subtledoctor, 20 May 2017 - 06:58 AM.


#7 The Imp

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Posted 20 May 2017 - 07:22 AM

IMHO PCs with 150+ hp is just players messing up their own games...
To me, a 152 hp's on the charname is not a problem... but a non dragon opponent with that many HPs is(or of that scale).
This is strictly from the fact that a warrior's HP max is, what it is.

PnP rules suck, and thus the game doesn't use them. As you can clearly see the spell power caps at levels 10, 15 and 20, HP caps at levels 9, 10, 12 and so forth.
As this is not a PnP, but a RTS. Try to argue with that with anything else than what's in the game is not good enough.

Editing the x with a mod via a separate mod component is GOOD design, as long as there's a readme of the properties you expect them to resolve into is good.

Edited by The Imp, 20 May 2017 - 07:34 AM.

Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit). 
OK, desert dweller, welcome to the sanity, you are free to search for the limit, it's out there, we drew it in the sand. Ouh, actually it was still snow then.. but anyways.


#8 subtledoctor

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Posted 21 May 2017 - 11:17 AM

PnP rules suck, and thus the game doesn't use them. As you can clearly see the spell power caps at levels 10, 15 and 20, HP caps at levels 9, 10, 12 and so forth.
As this is not a PnP, but a RTS. Try to argue with that with anything else than what's in the game is not good enough.

 

Actually in this case the game DOES use PnP rules, so that's a weird thing to say.  Average HP for warriors is 5.5, so a 20th level warrior should generally have 82 hp.  118 if you max stats like a champ cheese.  It's only players, save-scumming or using the new Beamdog gameplay option, who cheat themselves up to 150+ (and then complain that Core Rules is too easy, because of course everything is is easy when you have an artificial 40 hp cushion)...

 

Damn.  That turned into a rant there.  tl;dr: options are good but I don't think Wisp should feel too obligated to spend time on this when he likely has lots of other stuff going on (like, y'know, a whole new brand of Weidu).



#9 The Imp

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Posted 21 May 2017 - 01:00 PM

So and nope. A Barbarian with a 25 Con=7hps per level + and max 12 from the d12 = 9*19 = 171 ... +3*11 = 204. Yes, BUT that's a son of a god. WITH MAX stats. Not 118. And basic math.
Now, if we go with your figures, then the demons also should have not 150 hps, but a d8's... which say you have a 20th level pitfiend(the vanilla games 13th level pit fiends have 80 or 100 hit points), it has 8d10+2*10, much like a cleric, but it's a general monster, which averages to 64 hit points, at level 20, which is definitely not 150 hit points, or 100 nor 80 hps at level 13(=44+3*2=50). I have seen a few players that say that's a challenge, but that's what they should have by the by. If this would be a PnP game. With the level caps the game has for everything else, so yeah. :devil:

It's a rant... but that's what we do. As saying too little is not what we are about.

Edited by The Imp, 21 May 2017 - 02:34 PM.

Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit). 
OK, desert dweller, welcome to the sanity, you are free to search for the limit, it's out there, we drew it in the sand. Ouh, actually it was still snow then.. but anyways.


#10 subtledoctor

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Posted 22 May 2017 - 05:53 AM

Imp, please read the post before replying. ;)

Max stats and (especially) max rolls can only be had by cheating. With average stats and average rolls a fighter gets 82 hp, a barbarian gets 91. Go to 18 CON (because you can legitimately do that, unlike maxing out rolls) gives you 36 more.

Fiends are not classed characters, they are monsters, so they get d8 per hit die - their HD doesn't stop at level 9 like with fighters. With average rolls, 20d8 gives you 90 hp.

The concession I would make, since the game actually forces you to have unusually high stat rolls, is to figure that fiends, being physically powerful, should have above-average CON scores. Since CON applies to every HD roll, that means 16 CON gets them another 40 hp and 18 CON gets them another 80 (if you consider them to be warriors).

#11 The Imp

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Posted 22 May 2017 - 06:31 AM

Imp, please read the post before replying. ;)
I DID !

But that's not the reason our opinions differ, this is:
With average stats and average rolls a fighter gets 82 hp, a barbarian gets 91.
Fiends are not classed characters, they are monsters, so they get d8 per hit die - their HD doesn't stop at level 9 like with fighters. With average rolls, 20d8 gives you 90 hp.
Sorry but nope. A fighter's random max HP cap is reached at level 9... while a monsters, it's at level 10. The reason for this is that a mage, clerics and roguers all, are capped near the same level.

That's the rule we hold... or we can't hold anyone up to anything. After the cap, they get a +2 per level... just as if they were a divine caster... (I also have an issue with this ... but that's a subject on it's own, as the rogues should be the ones that get the d8, ... )
The exception is build to larger than life creatures(dragons, bhaalspawns, Irenicus... etc), as they usually have to take on the whole group by themselves.
Now, if you go and look, a pitfiend is a level 13 monster in BG2(EE), and it has 80 hit points(the other one has 100)... even with your 13d rule, it comes to 13d8=117/2= 58.5 hit points. Which is no where near to 80 or 100... just like I said above. Their CON is 9 by the by. And nope. you can't fix the CON just cause you like it to be other things. Unless you op to another component, which this is not the case.

Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit). 
OK, desert dweller, welcome to the sanity, you are free to search for the limit, it's out there, we drew it in the sand. Ouh, actually it was still snow then.. but anyways.


#12 subtledoctor

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Posted 22 May 2017 - 09:24 AM

You're mixing a lot of 3E+ stuff there... this mod is about 2E rules.

And btw in 2E monsters can definitely have ability scores. Some fiends have some stats specified in the Monstrous Compendiums, while others don't. For purposes if this mod, I think 1) it's therefore reasonable to give fiends a hit point bump for presumed CON scores (I say just make them up), and 2) it's worth adapting those scores to the BG game; e.g. in PnP max human STR is 18/00 and several monsters which are supposed to be strong have that score; but in BG you can reach 20-23 STR without breaking a sweat... you can START with 19 STR which is totally fugazi. So I would bump Monstrous Compendium stats by 1 or 2 points.

Are 2E pit fiends really only 13HD? That seems kind of crazy. Or is that also information from another edition?

#13 The Imp

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Posted 22 May 2017 - 09:31 AM

You're mixing a lot of 3E+ stuff there... this mod is about 2E rules.

And btw in 2E monsters can definitely have ability scores.
Are 2E pit fiends really only 13HD?

Or is that also information from another edition?
No. This is the ingame edition. Open the ingame files with Near Infinity. Their CON is 9.
And their ingame level is 13.

That's that.

Edited by The Imp, 22 May 2017 - 11:23 AM.

Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit). 
OK, desert dweller, welcome to the sanity, you are free to search for the limit, it's out there, we drew it in the sand. Ouh, actually it was still snow then.. but anyways.


#14 subtledoctor

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Posted 22 May 2017 - 11:22 AM

The .cre files mean nothing. Bioware gave straight 9 stats to most .cre files even when they were supposed to have particular stats. E.g. Instead of giving a creature base AC 10 and DEX 18, they have the .cre file base AC 6 and DEX 9. Because it is easier to code, and it doesn't make any functional difference when it's an enemy you are fighting. That is well-documented.

Again: this is a PnP focused mod. Like literally, read the readme file. If you want to tell me what pit fiends' CON is, find a 2E source and post it.

Off-topic: I just found the actual current stats of aTweaks pit fiends, and I notice that they have 25 CHA. This means that, with my mod's revised stat bonuses, they will have a +2 bonus to Luck, which should indirectly, but substantially, increase their power.

I do suggest a higher STR and CON score though, they should probably be at super-human levels. I'd say, 20 or so. These are generals who match armies across the lower planes and engage in epic battles against infinite hordes of tanar'ri. I think they probably have pretty good endurance... (and more hp to reflect the higher stat).

Edited by subtledoctor, 22 May 2017 - 11:22 AM.


#15 The Imp

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Posted 22 May 2017 - 11:52 AM

The .cre files mean nothing. Bioware gave straight 9 stats to most .cre files even when they were supposed to have particular stats. E.g. Instead of giving a creature base AC 10 and DEX 18, they have the .cre file base AC 6 and DEX 9. Because it is easier to code, and it doesn't make any functional difference when it's an enemy you are fighting. That is well-documented.
Erhm, sorry to disappoint you there but there's a very real factor on those stats.

In other words:
I do suggest a higher STR and CON score though, they should probably be at super-human levels. I'd say, 20 or so.
This is the most cheese idea you have ever had. Why, you'll find out when I ask you: In that case, what should their AC and Thac0 then be ?
That's the point that the easier to code thing did consist on... they could set the AC to the creatures natural armor value, instead of the human equivalent + natural armor. They set the Thac0 to what they wanted, instead of it rockering to high heaven when the STR boosts it by +5 and the Thac0 is already at 7. That's still can be armored against... but try the same with Red Dragon. It's Thac0 is already -5 plus it has 25 in STR which ups it to: -12... there's no armor that can protect against that. Why, cause the player character is AC capped at -20... so 13 out of those d20 strikes will hit everytime.

Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit). 
OK, desert dweller, welcome to the sanity, you are free to search for the limit, it's out there, we drew it in the sand. Ouh, actually it was still snow then.. but anyways.