Maybe someone played them together? What about their comptability?

In the Improved Anvil version 5 readme-> it says



So basically, any kit or spellpack that adds "ANY" spells to the player, be them original or new.

I'm also trying to figure out what's compatible with Improved Anvil, but the more I find out, the less is compatible...

Nevertheless, I believe it's a great project. So perhaps sacrifiing a few kits and mods here and there will be worth it in the long run

My guess is that... "no" it would not be compatible, but you should ask Sikret, just to be sure. I'm no expert on this mod, that's for sure.

They should install and not have any game-breaking issues. The IA scripts may not take some of the spells and HLAs into account as optimally as Sikret desires, but its not like it will cause crashes or similar issues.

In its current form, the kit is totally incompatible with IA. If Caedwyr is willing to release an IA-compatible separate version of his kit-mod, I'll gladly work with him.

What exactly would it involve to make a kit IA compatible? Are there certain things which automatically make a kit incompatible? I'd be interested in hearing how one classifies a kit's compatibility.

Basically, if you have a kit which has access to duplicates of certain standard wizard or divine spells, the kit will be incompatible with IA (unless certain measurements are considered during creating those spells).

Also, if your kit has innate abilities which casting/using them will grant certain immunities, those innate abilities will have to be made with certain considerations in mind to make the kit compatible with IA.

Thank you Sikret for the information, I appreciate having this clarified.


Short Version: The issues are mostly conceptual and not technical, several of the HLAs may cause suboptimal targeting by IA's scripts. If you are worried you can skip any HLAs that grant some form of immunity. This shouldn't be game-breaking either way.

Long Version

Ok, so you are talking about a conceptual incompatibility and not a technical incompatiblity. I was curious because I went out of my way when coding up the kit to make sure I used all of my own resources and in the case of existing spells made a copy and renamed it for the kit's use (so it will inherit whatever changes were made prior to installing the kit).

As far as the first point you list:

That part is already accounted for by the installation procedure. If IA makes any changes to the following existing standard wizard or divine spells



Then if the Geomantic Sorcerer kit is installed after IA, IA's changes will be inherited. Install the Geomantic Sorcerer kit prior to IA and you'll have whatever version of the spells were there before.


For the second point

There will be conceptual incompatibilities. There shouldn't be any game-breaking issues (you cannot continue the game due to a bug), but there may be occasional targeting issues with the IA AI depending on how Sikret has accounted for checking what the player is and isn't immune to. I know that the SCSII AI seemed to target things intelligently and not have any major issues with these, and I've been told that the IA AI is as good or better than SCSII's AI. Like I've mentioned before, at the worst this might cause some suboptimal targeting in a few battles.

Specifically,







Are the abilities/innates/immunities that may cause issues. All are HLAs. Sure, they may be somewhat overpowered on paper, but I typically find them to be less so in my games in actual practice due to how the game actually works. Of course IA would likely change the balance with respect to that.

So, if you are concerned about them unbalancing IA or causing suboptimal targeting for the scripts then you can avoid choosing them when leveling up.

Thank you, Caedwyr.



Yes, I understand this, but it is not enough.

The changes IA applies to spell x will be inherited to the spell's duplicate in the kit; that much is understood and it is nice, but as I said, it's not enough for two main reasons:

1- We are not merely concerned with the changes IA has applied to spell x (itself), we are also concerned about the changes IA has applied to other spells and creatures in regard to spell x. When you copy spell x and rename it, you successfully keep all the changes IA has applied to spell x (itself), but if spell y is also tweaked by IA to grant immunity to spell x, immunity to your new spell will not be added to it (or to creature z who is immune to spell x).

2- The second point is that for some spells, it's not just the spell's file (itself) which matters; it's also the spell's exact file-name and its location inside the SPELLS.IDS which matters as well. Even though your new spell has inherited all of the attributes spell x had, it still has a different name and probably has no entry in SPELLS.IDS.

All these issues can be (hopefully) solved by either creating a separate compatibility patch or creating and releasing a new and separate version of your kit-mod (if you want to accept the trouble of making and releasing a new IA-compatible version of your kit).

And yes, installing the kit even in its current situation will not cause the game to crash, but it will make IA's changes to the game's rules inconsistent. Note that it's not just about targeting and smart AI; it's about the game's rules as well. When we say that spell y is tweaked tio grant immunity to spell x, the player expects the rule to be consistent even if a character with a new kit is casting a duplicate of spell x on a character protected by spell y.)

Would you happen to know/have a list of which of the priest/druid spells I listed in my earlier post would be affected by



I'd rather not have to dig into the guts of each and every spell in IA to see which of the ones on the list would actually be affected by this situation.

About point 2, I'm not entirely sure what the issue is here. Does the detectable spells component of IA require a very specific set of spells, and wouldn't this make IA incompatible with any mod that introduces a new spell (or spell-like ability) unless extra steps were taken. This is sounding more like Total Conversion type territory. I hope you don't mind if I ask others to see if I can hear some more opinions on that issues since it sounds like something that could be very major for any mod with semi-intelligent scripting.

After a quick look, I found 14 spells in the list which fall in this category (20 spells for those who play IA with 'The Four'). I could write the exact list, but it will matter only when we decide to do something.



As I wrote, point 2 is only for some certain spells. Each time you cast any of those particular spells during the game, IA's polygonal system tracks the spell in SPELLS.IDS and keeps very accurate track of what you are doing. During the battles, the conjunction of the polygonal system and Detectable stats offers a very potent resource for smart behavior on the enemy side (which can't be acquired by Detectable Stats alone). That's why enemy spellcasters in IA never make some certain mistakes you sometimes see in other tactical mods.

And yes, this complex and multi-dimensional artificial intelligence (AI) makes Improved Anvil incompatible with mods which use Detectable Spells or mods which add new versions of some certain spells to the game. But as I have said before, these issues can be mostly solved either by creating separate compatibility patches (similar to what Vlad and I are making for compatibility of TS and IA) or by creating new versions of those other mods which will be designed to work with IA (and can also use the extra resources IA adds to the game, of course).

I appreciate your taking the time to go over this with me. To be honest, I don't really see the value in making the significant effort required to make the kit totally fit in with IA. There doesn't seem to be the audience for it, and the current situation isn't game breaking, so people can mix and match if they really want to play the mods together.

I begin to play BG2 now with this mod. And I think that this kit is very good, especially for IA, and it will be wonderful if it will be possible to make it compatible with IA. May be you can make some patch to avoid this problems with AI of IA, becase its most tactical interesting conversation now. And lightly overpowered kit for vanilla game (like geomantic sorcerer) will be very interesting to play with IA (not other tactical mod).

Sikret, may be you can answer how much XP I can get in BG2+TOB+IA+tower of decerption (i ask this because i`m not sure if i can reach 30 or more levels in my game with party like this:
Protagonist (Geomantic Sorcerer) plan more than 30-35
Aerie (SK to Kensai/Mage) plan 21/more
Minsk (SK to Berserker/Mage) plan 9/more

Can i reach this levels without any big mods or it is impossible? (Sorry for writing here)

From what I've been told, you should have ample XP to make those levels if you do all sidequests with only 3 characters.

Do you know that Sikret recommends using 5 or 6 characters?

I think the morituri and even wild mage may pale in comparison to this kit. Most people play a tactical mod like IA looking for a harder game. Are you sure you want to play this kit?

I think that the point Sikret was trying to make to you is that you will not face the real IA when using this kit. Your adversaries in IA will not always react optimally against you or may not have their proper defense against you. Winning with this kit just won't have the same meaning as winning with a kit that is compatible...

That's interesting - I'd wondered why you weren't just using detectable stats. What's an example of something this system can do that a pure DS system can't?

I have some problems with game now. Mage stronghold didnt start.

If Sikret changes the class check required for mages needed to take the Mage stronghold, then there could be problems. The Geomantic Sorcerer counts as a sorcerer for the purposes of class checks (gear/restrictions), and has been tested to be able to get the mage stronghold under the vanilla game and a variety of other mods. IA may have additional checks and restrictions for who exactly can go after the mage stronghold that would block off the Geomantic Sorcerer and any other classes/kits in a similar situation.


Alternatively, it could be something else as well. Strongholds tend to be notoriously finicky and the Ease of Use multi-stronghold patch available on weidu.org had a number of problems (including reliability) that were cleaned up over time when it was intergrated into the BG2Tweakpack. I am unsure if the version of Ease of Use that Sikret recommends for use with IA went through the same bugfixing process.



Also, unrelated, but I'd be interested in a response to DavidW's question as well from a modder's perspective.

I think it is safe to say that Sikret's philosophy with Improved Anvil is more in line with Total Conversion than an item, quest, tactical challenge, etc mod.

One way of going about creating compatibility, with the least amount of work involved, would perhaps be to change the Innate abilities and spells to cast a trigger that will cause a script to place normal IA spells on the special kit character. So instead of Clarity, one might chaotic commands + vocalize cast upon the kit.

That can be added in a patch to certain baldur.bcs, although I'm unsure of the exact scripting language that would have to be used.



I think on a conceptual level, anyone that would want to play the kit with IA is perhaps looking for high level tactical challenges so that using the kit's abilities won't feel too easy and effortless.

A benefit to Sikret would perhaps be that he could make even more difficult challenges for players with that kit in the party. But that's speculation and whatever potential benefits there might be, it is certain that bringing in any new magic kit will disrupt the delicate game balance and experience/level system Sikret has worked on for a couple of versions of IA.