Now I seem to recall it. But iirc you've used one of already labeled in msectype.2da, not a new one. The idea however (I believe) is to use new sectype, as they don't end after 0xd. Of course, it may impose unnecessary complications when abused (like making 'protection from fire/cold/elements/enegry' and they ilk refreshable without stacking), but as a bugfix for just a single spell it can definitely pass.

Well, give it a try (if you want) and let me know the result as well. I'm not much optimistic about its chance of success though.

Because I didn't looked it up in IA? Last time I looked into IA's files was a few years ago, and I really didn't recall it having done what I'm suggesting now.

Yes, I'm suggesting to use a new secondary type, but each and every removal spell protection should be able to use an almost identical shell spell system. I don't see all those complications you're talking about though. How would it be "abusable"?

Regarding "making 'protection from fire/cold/elements/enegry' and they ilk refreshable without stacking" being an abuse, why? Anyway a simple Protection from Spell effect prevents it.

Glad to hear that!

However, since you had used IA's ideas and tweaks in the past (such as the modifications applied to the Spell Immunity spell which were introduced by IA for the first time) without mentioning anything about IA in your mod's readme file and without giving the credit when credit was due, it was easy to assume that it might have happened again. I'm glad to hear that it wasn't so in this case, at least.

SR's changes aren't based on IA features.

I'll surely give credit instead to Galactygon for SR V3's Flame Arrow, because his use of "random targeting projectiles" was innovative, and without him I probably wouldn't be able to do it ever.

I gave you the example in my previous post; I don't see why you are trying to deny the obvious.



The question is not whether you know how to implement something from a technical point of view. When you use someone else's idea in your mod, giving the credit is due (regardless of whether you already knew how to technically implement it or not).

Anyway, this thread is not for such discussions and I don't think that you'll agree with me even if we continue this debate; I just mentioned it here for the record, not because I was optimistic that you would agree.

Perhaps because it's not the truth! We just happened to have the same opinion on that matter, nothing has been "stolen". You're suggesting that everytime someone has an idea he/she should search on google if someone else thought about it too and scream: "hey, I have to credit this person, he got there first!".

Example: I suggested to block melee attacks during Time Stop at SR's forums long before you posted about it in this topic (and I only noticed your post a few days ago). Should I claim copyrights on that matter? I don't think so...we probably both arrived at that idea because playing BG we noticed that using melee attacks during a Time Stop seemed unfair.

Thus I'll repeat myself: SR's changes aren't based on IA features.

Sorry for the off-topic, I won't insist.


P.S I have to remove that SI's tweak because of "compatibility" issues with SCS's AI, thus I won't have to credit you anyway!

Don't play with words. IA's modification to SI has been known to everyone since long ago and you were an active visitor of this forums on those days; you didn't need to google anything. And it was already implemented in IA; it wasn't just a mere random thought thrown somewhere in a post (similar to what you said about your post about timestop in a forum I don't browse unless someone sends me a link to).



The SI tweak was only one example; you have taken several other things from IA quite "silently".

I didn't want to continue and reply, but it's really hard to tolerate such a degree of shamelessness.

Conciliatory observation: I'm an "active visitor of this forum" but I have no idea what "IA's modification to SI" is. Sikret: I think you're overestimating the extent to which we all pay attention to each other

You know "IA's modification to SI" very well. You even posted about it in SP forums (that in IA, mutliple SI's don't stack and SI:abjuration gives immunity to all abjuration spells including magicattacks).

Plus, Demivrgvs was once an IA player who surely knew all those features of IA. He even used to send me PMs asking how to implement this or that modification to the game. I'm pretty sure he had read IA's readme file on those days, which makes his recent comments about the need to googling a game with the words.

Oh, sorry, that's what you mean. My bad.

... but look, you're the one who's been saying that it's "cheese" or "cheating" or something to stack SI or for SI:Abj not to protect from abjuration. If it's supposed to be obvious to players that this is an oddity of the spells, or whatever, then I take it it shouldn't be surprising to find other modders doing it as well?

(In fact, I'm in the opposite camp: the first time I played BG2 I assumed SI didn't stack. I was mildly surprised to discover it did, but then couldn't see any reason why not.)

I prefer to stop discussing this issue at this stage, as it's really off-topic. I just mentioned what I did for the record. I'm not really hoping to convince anyone about how to behave with courtesy when they pick and use someone else's ideas and work.

(And yes, if it was a plain bug of the vanilla game, fixing it in different mods without giving any credits to the originator of the fix wouldn't probably be much of a problem or surprise.)

Fine: happy to agree to differ.

Well, to answer and to pretend I'm having the last word here
For examle, imagine a Breach taking down all of Pro from fire/cold/etc at once. The textbox would be flooded with "Target - Protection from xxxx dispelled"-like messages (I wish it were possible to block them :sigh: ).

What about halflings? They have improved STs also.

Side note: I reread the whole changes in v6 and I made a sad conclusion. Whole game is nerfed down. Some items nerfed down, some spells nerfed down, some classes (bard, cavalier), THACO, dual classing (specialist mage and scroll reading), trap XP etc. Only enemies will be stronger. I agree with most of the changes, I don't want to be negative, just this makes me sad. I would be so happy to see some improvements for weak items, classes, spells... Now I see only very very rare tweaks like old Horn of Valhallas.

Well there are actually some improvements to help the player as well - the numerous new spells (both divine and arcane) are specifically designed to be useful in IA. This has certainly been the case in testing. The expanded stronghold quests give new powerful items for the protagonist (as well as extra xp and other treasure). The bug in Improved Invisibility (which IA has inherited from Baldurdash) is fixed which will help the player fight against enemies who use Improved Invisibility + SI:D.

I don't know what kind of improvements you are looking for, shadan. If you are looking for improvements which work in favor of the party rather than the enemies (and make the party more powerful or their options more interesting), then there is already a long list of them in the progress report (did you only see the one about the horns of vanhalla?). Let me quote some:



And all these are in addition to the many new things (including new items) you will see and find during the new quests added to v6. Just see the list of new quests in the initial post. Even without the expanded druid stronghold, the content of v6 is now 100% more than v5 (i.e. double amount of v5).

Yes, I read those what you linked, Sikret. And they are great. I am sure, new spells will be useful also. I wrote also, there are some improvements (like old summing items, a some new spells, few new HLAs). Just my feelings was after a complete reread most changes are nerfing down... Maybe if I could read more times XY spell/item/class is improved a bit. Don't concern me, I just wanted to write down my feelings. Final conclusion comes only after I played v6.

What's about halflings? Their saving throw bonuses also decreased?

Yes, halflings use the same table as dwarves. I had only forgotten to mention the halflings in the initial post (just edited). Thanks!

Hello Sikret ! The NPC Mazzy has a +++++ short bow skill , this is really a waste in IA if I want to get her to play IAv6 in future , can you do some change for her ?

Will probably redistribute her prficiency skills. Thanks for the feedback.

By the way, I like your username . Johannes Brahms is one of my favourite composers.

What do those numbers (at the end of your nickname) indicate? Do they possibly refer to one of his works?

First , thanks for the reply^_^ ,though I was considering how to get Mazzy as fast as I can (I think it's really hard to rescue her using a team just escape from the Irenicus' Dungeon.)

And , yes, Johannes Brahms is one of my favourite composers , too .

The numbers are just my birthday(28th Feb), I only want to be special from other people using this name .

I just read abuout nerfing of small people like Dwarves etc...
Am not too happy about it, I must say. But, I think this was just a matter of time seeing where this is heading.
What I wonder is this / isn-t IA going pretty much a one-way road..no new encounters&items for Evil people, even more quests for Rangers only, multiclasses now come out short of single class fighters or swashes, Rangers simply rule in melee with Contact with Nature, imp.haste etc - shouldnt all fighters get something like that, Regeneration which is undispellable. I find it, and must say sadly, that a Ranger is a better fighter then a Fighter. Which is, IMO, a bit dumb. Rangers have been balanced with fighters in vanilla / they could cast some spells, and that is it. Practically on par with fighters. In my current game, Valygar is a better fighter than kensai, and I believe that no fighting class in game should be made that is a better fighter in one-on-one combat than kensai. It doesn-t make sense. I-d personaly remove "Contact with Nature" immunity to Imprisonment, and reduce it-s Regeneration speed by half. Still powerful, but not as wild as it is now. And no boots of perm.imp.haste, just a bit tooo much, in comparison what fighters get. (Read: nothing). Haste is not enough. Also, cloak of magic shielding, usable by all fighter classes, always find it. why not? Are Vagrants that special?
Vagrants already have a significant advantage (well, they have numerous advantages) by being able to summon the most useful summons in game, which outgun both Elemetal Princes, Devas and other 1 hit and yer gone crap.
Don-t want to criticize, just my toughts of the game. A bit more balance between fighters and rangers would certainlly be welcome change from IA5, at least for me.

Vagrant's summons in full are almost like a second party by your side. Rangers are better fighters than fighters and better conjurers than conjurers. ;F

Riskbreaker (if played well) is the No. 1 killer in v6; and it's a fighter (not a ranger). Read everything if you read!

As for new quests, Necromancers get many new quests in v6 and druids gain one (but a very big) new quest. Vagrant rangers (being one of my favourite classes) will gain one other new big quest as well. Other classes and kits should wait for v7.

Short people's nonsensical +5 bonus to saves will also be nerfed (as it should have been since long time ago).

That Dwarfs and halflings (cant speak to gnomes) are highly resistant to magic is a long standing fact in fantasy lore. Giving them a good bonus to their save vs spells is hardly nonsensical though +5 may be excessive.
Riskbreaker may or may not be the best pure warrior in the game (it is certainly open to debate) but the Vagrant really does put the fighter in the shade. It is a shame that the v6 version (from what I've read) does tend to narrow the games parameters a bit both tactically (its even harder) and with the nerfing of the rogue class, the lack of attention paid to the monk , lack of content for clerics (compared to druids), ignoring the Evil NPCs with regard to items or quests yada yada yada
Having said all that I enjoy the mod and it being Sikret's creation he can make it in his own image.

Only those who play v6 can contribute useful comments to this debate and what I said about the riskbreaker kit was based on the feedback I received from IA testers.

Rangers (even the vagrant) are not offensively more powerful than fighters. Defensively, however, they are better (as they should be) and have special abilities (such as the vagrants' affinity with swanmays or the 'Contact with Nature' HLA which is for all rangers). Kerkes loves the kensai kit and every few months writes something to complain about why this or that kit (even the Riskbreaker) is more powerful than Kensai. I am accustomed with this sort of things he writes and I simply 'pass'.



As I said, all classes and kits will eventually have their own "expanded strongholds" and additional class-specific quests. It's just a matter of time. For v6, I have added new content for druids, Necromancers and Vagrants. For v7, I will add content for a few other classes and/or kits.



Thanks, yes; I make it the way I enjoy it and the way I imagine it to be best. As yet, I have not been able to play this game (to the end) with an evil protagonist (or even with evil NPCs in the party), because I can't imagine myself in such a role. It gives me a very bad feeling to play evil parties. Hence, adding content for evil characters has indeed the least priority for me.

I definitely agree with Frazurblu, Sikret's mod, make it as he likes. No problem. There are other fighter kits, not just Riskbreaker, mind you, I've played IA quite a lot, and they are all nothing compared to Vagrant. I don't think the kit is overpowered. But it's equipment is. Say for example, you go to fight Demon Knights in Underdark. With my current party, this was very hard. My protagonist can not survive 3xADHW on his head, since I had no Magic Shielding Potions (Vagrant will have plenty, however, so if you play a ranger it doesn't matter what your saves are. You make them automatically, even under malison, and a cumulative doom.). Say you've got a Vagrant with his "mega cloak". 3x ADHW? Bring it on, and I'll just laugh when it's over...

Late game?
85 % dmg resistance (JD is not all that hard to get, but even without it their power is unsurpassed)
50% mag dmg resistance, or, 75% with Belt
perm.imp.haste
Contact with Nature
best wpns in the game
immune to elemental dmg
summon best creatures in the game
8 APR

Dwarven berserker (non-good), also dual-wielder

better AC (hardly if Vagrant has imp. imp.boots with AC bonuses), but anyway
40 dmg resistance (or 50, but Flail of Eastheaven is crappy if not upgraded)
immune to fire
partial resistance to other elements (65)
25 or 50 mag dmg resistance (end game, a Vagrant gets his exiting Underdark)
no particular immunities, besides those provided with certain equipment like Equilizer
better saving throws, which doesn't matter in late game anyway
summon - nothing
wields Foebane +5 and DoTC (or whatever, I like these 2, Crom is also good)
permanent haste, 6 APR
Enrage x 10
weapon grandmastery

Judge for yourself which is better in Anvil battles, and what you'd like..

As for Riskbreakers, they are also strong in IA5. IF you know how to play them.
Besides, doesn't Riskbreaker also get some innate "regenerating" ability? Which, perhaps, makes him that good?

@ Sikret

Read the "my favourite" (where did you get that idea from?) kensai kit description, that's where I got the "nonsense" idea that no ranger should be more powerful in melee. What was I thinking anway?
My favourite kit is, actually, a specialist mage, who specializes in summoning creatures and objects to assist him, followed closely by Inquisitor...not kensai.
I take kensai for the reasons I wrote, not "because I like the kit".
I may have been wrong in my 1st post ("rangers are better fighters than fighters"). Should have written "Rangers and Riskbreakers are better fighters than fighters."

@Kerkes

First of all, please edit your posts to add new lines to them instead of sending mutiple posts in a row. I'll appreciate if you do the same in your walkthrough topic as well. I merged your two posts to one in this case.

Riskbreakers are also fighters. So, your complain that "riskbreakers are better fighters than fighters" is not accurate. It can boil down to "Riskbreaker is more powerful than Kensai", which gives the impression that you are not comfortable with seeing any warrior better than Kensai's in melee.

I suggest that you stop writing about this fighter/ranger comparison thing in the future, because you can't convince me and it won't change anything. But if you feel better by writing it, do it. I have no particular problem with it.

It won't change anything, I know that well. I'll stop, of course - I only wanted to say my opinion of it, that's all.

I've never seen the melissan fight as an anticlimax. I've just always viewed EDE as the final battle, and the Melissan fight is just a fun cutscene. Sort of like FF7, which I'm sure everybody has played before. Last fight in FF7 is just a bunch of omnislashes, the penultimate fight being the true final battle (even in the hardcore version). Imo, easy melissan is fine. However, I am looking forward to further improved EDE... can't wait. More "Chess-like" I presume? (although tbh Chess is a flawed game due to draw death and first-move handicap. Go is a far superior strategy game, sorry Sikret) I do agree with Brahms though. It seems your affinity for the technically challenging extends to music as well. I played Violin Concerto in D 1st and 3rd movements when I was 16 and I gotta say, that shiz is no picnic... even for a prodigy

I know the bard discussion is "closed", I just want to note that nobody will ever consider making a bard anymore in IA if it's nerfed so much. Even if defensive spin is buffed to give -50 AC, bard would still get owned in the blink of an eye at later levels without expending an inordinate number of pfmw scrolls. With nerfed dispelling ability and capped at 36 that's a complete wrap on the class. Oh well, I never used bard much but whatever. Cookie cutter parties will abound, and repeatability in gameplay will probably decrease. However, that first playthrough's enjoyability will most definitely increase... alot of interesting changes.

Oh, man.

Level 8 spell suggestion:

Disrupt

School: Abjuration
Cast time:1

Interrupts one spell
Can't be used more than once every 2 turns.

Save: none
Duration: instant

Comparing the other two +4 weapons(Phosphorus +4 and Guildmaster's Dream +4), it is just too cheap and too easy to get. It is better to give it some disadvantages in IA6. But in my opinion changing it into a +3 weapon is not a good idea. So I considered two suggetions about it.

1) Usability is restricted to druid and potector(the new ranger kit). After all it is a natural weapon, so only the classes who fight for the nature should be able to use it.
2) Once equiped, it can only be removed by the great druid in druid grove(by some fee) or when the wielder is dead(similar with a cursed item). Since it is the arm of a treefolk, if you want to wield it, you must let it grow on your arm.

I fully agree about removing TS trap (never used them, nor any traps) and limiting TS actions to spell (no physical attacks)
I also agree about limiting Wish options (TS + alacrity and party rest)
Just my 2 cent about the latter,
1°) why not make WISH TS + alacrity a HLA available once (use 1/24h) for single class mage (and remove it from wish options)
2°) why not make party rest only available through a further upgrade of cat figurine? (and usable 1/day)



any opinion?

Cat figurine is already very powerful, and fine the way it is. Also, I hear the wish issue has already been addressed, playtested, and fixed in v6, but nobody except Sikret and his QC team members know what the changes will be exactly. I'm pretty sure the changes are actually already pretty close to what you've proposed nicoper, but I'm certain they will be fine even if theyre not. It's one of the things we accept beforehand when we decide to take advantage of other people's hard work, which happen to be provided free of charge, and for our personal enjoyment. It'll be "good" no matter how you analyze risk/reward, cost/benefit, etc.

There is some information about the changes in the first post of this topic (as I've said several times). It's possible it will be revised before v6 is released of course.

Ya'know, if you cast ray of fragmentation on the golem under timestop the spell will be "frozen in time" but...if you cast hand of undoing instead of ray nothin will be frozen and the hapless chap will take damage normally (which means that all that timestop cheese is utterly broken in vanilla and should be removed from the game, imo, which is my real point actually, man, BG1 and IWD are much better games from this point of view) ...to the point (x3) when he will be "near death" status and suddenly become completly immune to the type of damage which makes him almost dead. (sigh) And this is "anti-chease" feature which doesn't make ANY sense to me. There is no logic whatsoever in the fact and in the entire situation when some creature suddenly becomes immune to damage type which works on that creature and refuses to die coz "anti-cheese" triggerd. What, imo, makes sense is either making that create immune to timestop or just letting it die. But bear in mind that I'm not timestop+melee (I think that TS-melee is a cheat in the way that under TS you just hit them and THACO doesn't matter, I'm not sure) supporter or/and user, I'm far far away from it, never use it in IA, hehe, never seriously play with F/M in the party, but no, I'm not trolling. ;] I still have in mind that wonderful times when TS-melee Red Badge dudes from Tactics with 10 apr + assassination.

Wish is even more cheesy than timestop. "Rest" option is plain, implemented in vanilla, cheat imo. I've done Orcus, Supreme Leader, Ancient Dragon and the final showdown from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly quest without even think of casting "cheesh" and, yeah, I'm quite proud of it.

Aclarity for single class mages only and time trap removal should be done earlier, both changes are simply delightful.

Are dual-classed mages considered single-class or multi-class mages in IA? Will they be able to cast wish in v6? Can they currently equip specific items such as Golem Slayer? Will they have access to any extended mage stronghold quests? I apologize beforehand if somebody's already asked this before.

No, dual-class mages are not considered single-class.

I want just to congratulate SIKRET for his outstanding work which is IA V6.
You are All, very lucky to have such a genius scriptwriter in this website.

BRAVO!

I don't post much but I play v5 religiously.

Can't wait for v6! May is right around the corner.

Nice to read from you again, Chevalier! Thanks for the kind words.




Thank you, Hideous the Wu Jen!

I really apologize for the delay and changing the estimated date of release for a second time (it's now set at July 2009). Although I accept the entire responsibility for the delay in preparing the mod and apologize for that, I'm not really the only person invloved in creating IA. All of us have RL issues and each of us contribute our share to the delay (in the same way we contribute to the mod's content and quality, we contribute to its releasing delay as well ).

Take your time, I might be able to finish this run I'm on now.

Two things I wanted to ask about though - Casting 3xRR from a Chain Contingency to dispell a characters SI:Div seems cheesy. The only battle that made me even consider using it was the Tieflings in WK due to the wild magic. The CC doesn't seem to be affected by the WM and makes this fight ten times easier. I see that you'll only be able to cast CC once per day in v6, but once you dispell the mages SI the fight is basically over. So I wouldn't mind having 3xRR being blocked somehow as well.

The other thing that made a battle a lot easier is in my Planar Sphere I told the Guardian Golem to protect me while in the sphere. In the battle with Pashad Mahmuud(sp?) The Golem helped me which is fine, but he stayed at near death forever while a couple enemies kept pounding him. Can something be done to stop that.

Thanks.

Yes, this is already fixed in v6. The golem is now killable.

I agree. Moreover, when cast on imp. ivisible character that's not cheesy, that's cheating. This is vanilla game leftover exploit/cheat, I remember it was the only way to dispel tactic's liches protections, when they're cast on themselfs imp. inv. and immunity: divination, abjuration stacked (fight cheese with more cheese).



Casting 3xrr shouldn't be blocked. Casting spells (from sequencers and scrolls) on imp. inv. characters should and I think it's blocked in IA6.

I agree to limiting bards...the way it is now, bards are in some areas better casters then mages and better fighters then pure class fighters. It's like the real class equilvalent of david beckham composing canon in D and writing a physics thesis on the sideline.

In fact, I think there should be a greater distinction between single class and multi class characters. A multi class fighter/mage should realistically be only half as good a fighter and half as good a mage compared to a pure class. Right now, they are only 2-3 lvls behind if I recall correctly, which is not really a big deal.

Yeah, the majority of players who like rogues, like them for the wrong reason (i.e. for the abilities rogues--bards in particular-- have but shouldn't have rather than for the abilities they have and should have). This will be amended in IA by nerfing/omitting the wrong abilities (and adding/enahancing the right ones).

Sikret, what do you think about improving Vongoethe the lich from Amkethran? I mean, for a powerful undead wizard who bargains with souls he's just pathetic. Even though he admits that he doesn't want to fight with protagonist, it wouldn't hurt to upgrade him a bit, like Odamaron from Sendai' Enclave. Maybe, give him a couple of Skeleton Grandlords or two or three fellow liches Every lich I encountered in the game, always proved to be more or less of a challenge, unlike this one. Why make him an exception?

Will add it to my to-do list, Critto!