IATweaks 1.1 - IA Rebalance, New spells, enemies, items and many balancing changes Options

[SparrowJacek]

Hello,

Today I'd like to share the results of my ambitious project to rebalance Improved Anvil. What began as a loose collection of changes in a few separate areas kept growing month after month, as new ideas appeared and my experience with Near Infinity modding increased. What I present now is a project that touches many aspects of the game: new creatures, animations, spells, items and kits, as well as a number of changes to the graphical interface.

I took inspiration from many amazing mods, such as SCS and Spell Revisions. I went through the component lists of dozens of projects, trying to adapt the best solutions in a way that would still fit the spirit of Improved Anvil. At the same time, I implemented several completely unique elements that have never been used in any mod before (for example, a fully rewritten Hide in Shadows mechanic).

This was a very ambitious undertaking, especially for a single person. Despite hundreds of hours spent on development, the work is still not complete - many encounters remain untouched or only lightly adjusted, and I already have plans for future releases. Because of the sheer scope of the changes, I was not able to test everything exhaustively. I am certain there will be issues, particularly with the redesigned enemy AI, which in many cases was written from scratch. If you notice anything strange, please let me know and I will try to fix it as quickly as possible.

I tried to rebalance many aspects of the mod, toning down things I deemed too powerful and improving things that were unusable in Improved Anvil, however that was just one man's perspective, checked only with a single run and a specific party composition. I count on you for feedback regarding the changes, it will surely help to create a more fun and balanced mod, I'll be really grateful for any comments and suggestions for improvements.

Known issues (the list might change):
- You might see "Sequencer Active" icon on some characters that shouldn't have such abilities. Without going into details, there are some new abilities that internally rely on mechanics related to Sequencers, however the game automatically puts the icon if such effects are active on a creature and there is no way to remove it without breaking the mechanics, so please just ignore the icon.
- Hide in Shadows button works only for party members, using the button on any other creature (like a dominated Thief) will not work properly and might bear strange results. The game does not allow any modifications of real Hide in Shadow button, so in order to make reworked Hide in Shadows to work properly, I had to create some hacks and workarounds, which are sadly limited to party members.
- If Controversial Changes component is applied, then most rings and cloaks +X will apply their bonuses with a slight (1s) delay, so their effects won't be visible immediately.
- Single Weapon Style bonus to APR might also take around 1s to be applied

I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who helped - directly or indirectly - in the creation of this mod.

First and foremost, the amazing Improved Anvil team: Sikret, Critto, Bulian, Nicoper, HTRT.
To Pekkae, who volunteered to test parts of the mod while it was still in a very early state.
To Morpheus, for sharing the fantastic new animations you will see in this release.
To OlvynChuru, for the tool that allows seamless addition and removal of class- and kit-specific spells.
To the many modders whose work inspired me and showed how to implement the mechanics used here.
To Berzerkerzz, for his passion and tremendous work on his own vision of IA encounters.
And last but not least - to all the fans who keep the mod alive, for the hundreds of posts across IA threads and especially for your ideas on how to make Improved Anvil even better.

You can find the latest version of the mod here: https://github.com/SparrowJacek/ImprovedAnv...ee/IA_rebalance
To download, please press the green "Code" button and select "Download ZIP"
For more details, please check the readme file provided with the mod files.

The mod has only been tested on BG2EE version 2.6.6. and with IA v7

This post has been edited by SparrowJacek: Mar 6 2026, 04:07 PM

[pekkae]

M/C are quite weak in general, so there was no need to nerf them further by preventing them from learning IA. And regarding Aerie - there's a component now that turns her into a Shaman and changes her specific item upgrade. You can readd about it here http://forums.blackwyrmlair.net/index.php?...494&st=361# if you missed it.

Yes, but this is definitely a move into the right direction - not sure if they are now on par with Cernd but they are now much closer - which is a really good thing!

Aerie's new armour looks fantastic; she now looks like a very playable character and one that is probabbly even more powerful than a PC shaman (for the added spells!) - while the PC Shaman plays a little bit differently (would play it so that it can take a more active role in H2H as well - as the Half-Orc version of the Shaman should be quite nice withthe gauntlets).

Some changes were small, some larger, but Spellstrike is now a completely diffferent spell, I hope it'll be an interesting choice now, though RVE/Wish are still unmatched smile.gif

You'll be able to use it much more reliably now, though you might have to invest some money into it. And all of the item's abilities should be useful at some point.

Haha. I'll need to buy a new Mac now, to try out all of the stuff. These things look really, really good!

A few other notes from the readme:

"IA loves Golems, but gives too few means of dealing with them. Since we have specialized anti-Golem spells, they should really help when fighting Golems. And if we're talking about Elemental Golems, the most rewarding way of dealing with them was to prolong the fight till all lesser Golems spawn, which was tedious, but gave a huge advantage; this is not the case any more, Golems can die in 1 round and the reward will still be the same now."

How does the dynamics work now? But this definitely is the way. I actually felt that this was one of the most straining sides of the game that one needed extreme durability for the fights, even though I think milking out all of the golems from supreme golem in WK was qute thrilling the first time around, haha. But. Really good stuff this!

Regarding APR's

"It always bothered me that a 6th (not 9th!) arcane spell is actually the best spell in the entire game and warriors can't reach their full potential without an arcane caster. Now this is changed and the progression of APR should be smoother. IH should still be useful, but not mandatory to win the game."

How is this changed?

Thank you, again