Anything that stood out to you? How do some of the other mods bode with SpellPack?

In B4, I have included a cutscenized spell, Deathbolt. It is meant to be a controversial component to see how people react to something that doesn't necessarily fit within the bounds of BGII. So far, considering there are almost 1000 downloads from B4 since January, I haven't heard anything good or bad about Deathbolt.

-Galactygon

Hello Galactygon,

I'm currently installing a Big World setup, but I cant install the spellpack 5.0b, there are my Weidu.log (renamed weidu.txt) & setup-spellpack.debug.

This is the error I get :



I have tried downloading the mod three time, no change.

Could you attatch SPWI524.SPL so I can replicate it? This spell file does not exist in my installation, so it is one of the mods.

-Galactygon

The spell is indeed added by NEJ2, and get and (not yet applied) patch by the "S&H BP patch".

"SPWI524" is the one added by NEJ2.

"spwi524s.spl" is the patch from the "BP S&H Patch".

I was able to replicate the error and correct it, but the bad news is, it is not my bug.

I opened SPWI524.SPL in DLTCEP, saved it, and the error disappeared. I have attatched the file, so all you need to do is copy it into your override folder, and rerun the SpellPack installer.

This means that SPWI524.spl was patched/edited incorrectly by some other mod beforehand. I will send Vlad a PM.

-Galactygon

Thanks, Ill take note of that.

Hello Galactygon.
Your Spell-Pack-Mod is great,I am looking forward for new or a finished version of your Lost Crossroad/Spell pack mod,so I gonna tell you my expierence I had with the mod thus far in hope you gain any helpful information for you further work on the mod.

Here my issues with the content..
After installing the Core files of the mod you start missing some bams/animations or whatever they are,probably because they got moved around or something(dunno,note I am not a great modder,I just know how to do this and that in most games )
wich caused the damage animations of cold/electric and fire animation when hitting a monster with a weapon that causes that damage type to vanish (an animation for an nme suffering acid damage aint shown neither,but no clue if there is even one).

Another set of animations that vanish from installing the core files of the spell pack are spelltrap and the cloak of mirroring effect. (some people like that,i also like that the spelltrap effect vanished,though i like the effect that appears under your avatar when wearing baldurans shield for example >_>'' it makes him look more powerful and less like a "gimp of bhaal")

Now to my "atm" few ingame experience with the mod..
While some spells like fairy fire seem to make no sense,others re plain overpowered.
Theres a spell that has no name and no desctription on the cleric spellbook lvl6 wich has the symbole of a hammer and actually is the same spell than the wine ranks but does extremly overpowered damage for a spell like that,its an AE with can hit 30-50's for about 10rounds or so (i cant read how long it lasts),i went solo to Firkraag the red dragon with a 10fighter 11cleric and totally owned him with that,and also with normal melee when i was buffed up and i didnt lose 1hp,with avrage equipment.

And theres another wierd spell,its not in english like the other spells from you so i am not sure if its altered or if its from you mod,its the summon animal spell in the cleric spellbook lvl6 wich someones "bigger werebears".
I used that spell 2 times wich caused 4 bears to be summoned who than totally raped Firkraag aswell wich seemed abit wrong lol.They also rape him 2vs1 and probably even 1vs1.They regenerate so fast that he cant kill them etc.

And about the Deathbolt spell.. it appears to be a quite balanced spell 10d6 damage and instant death if you fail rolling a -4 for a lvl 8 spell (if i aint wrong?) i think it fits into BG2 and magic can actually have any form in D&D and is not limited to a liniar direction,you can probably form anything out of magic in D&D and as Mystra the mother of all magic says herself.. shes the second strongest god directly beneath Ao the overgod ^^.

Hope this information is any help.
And if theres anyway to get my animations,like the mirror effect under me when wearing the shield of balduran for example without deinstalling the mod,please let me know.
And tell me how the effect when casting unholy plague/holy smite is called please

And the mod is really been cool thus far,the new spell animations re quite cool,like the alysums tears or something,or the new comet effects
and the flamestrike/call lightning effects re like 1000x better than the old ones.

This is intentional; I removed them because I find them distracting when a lot of creatures get hit. I find it unrealistic that cold sparks appear when the characters suffer frozen damage. This is something minor, and I might change it if people start complaining or I change my mind.



This one is accidental. I have them removed from Lost Crossroads because it's more important there, and somehow they got into SpellPack. Thanks for pointing that out.



Faerie Fire lowers AC and renders invisible creatures visible.



That is not supposed to happen, the damage is supposed to happen only once. I will look into this.



That is not my spell, for sure.



Unlike Finger of Death, there is no penalty to the saving throw and characters may be raised by a raise dead or a resurrection. What makes it a level 8 spell is the 10D6 points of damage you suffer if you succeed in your saving throw.

Does the cutscene work?



Delete the fire "SPMIRROI.bam" from your override directory.


Sorry, I can't understand the question.



Yes, I am in great need for feedback.

-Galactygon

I dont know about the cutscene yet since I dont have a spellcaster in my party atm but I will let you know as soon as I freed the avariel girl out of the circus.
I only tested lvl 1-6 cleric spells yet but I will let you know about any issue etc with other spells as soon as I can use them.

Ive removed the data "SPMIRROI",though I didnt get animation effect back,I also removed the data in the SpellPackB5\SpellsAndEffects\CommonAnimations folder wich had no succes in regaining the animation thats caused by the Spell: Bounce Projectile effect.

I meant how the 3D effect/animation is called that appears after landing a hit with the spell holy smite and/or unholy blight,I planned to put it on a weapon since I am missing the effects when assaulting creatures in melee with my char.
I already put Graphics: Play 3D Effect:SPFLESHS and LCFLSRIN on a flail for some funky effects but my game started to have some probs with them or so and when I kill a foe with melee the game sometimes crashes so I want to change the effect. //EDIT nvm,its something else that crashes my game.. probably gotta reinstall my game for the 100th's time.

I will have more Infos about how the mod is doing soon I think,since you can progress really fast through the game with a one man party.
And I apologise for my limited english,I am not the best at expressing myself in this language lol.

Well I bet people have diffrent opinions about that,you could still make it so that someone is asked if he wants to install it or not so you dont have to take it out,some may find it a useful thing to have but I am an effects freak.. the more the better but thats just my opinion,everyone is diffrent ofc.

EDIT: And the Deathbolt cutscene works fine.Its quite funny.. I used Vhalors helm to make a clone but instead I got hit by the Deathbolt spell.

This means I will have to make a seperate component that removes the elemental damage animation, and SpellPack already has at least 36. If I make a seperate component for each request that number will quickly grow and the components will become tedious to install.

If many people request a feature to be separated into its own component, I am willing to talk.



That is not supposed to happen. I will fix.



Nevermind, you are supposed to remove 2 files from the override folder: SPTURNI2.bam, and SPTURNI2.vvc. But by removing SPMIRROI.bam, you restored the SpellTrap/SpellDeflection animation.

Because there are existing mods that deal with this, I will remove both of these from SpellPack.



I am somehow starting to like the original two spell graphics better than mine. If people agree with me, I can revert the original graphics.



I am sorry, but I am not responsible for, nor do not have the time to help people messing around with the stuff that comes with SpellPack. This sounds more of a generic "I need help with..." problem, so I recommend you ask this somewhere else.



My thanks.

-Galactygon

Really nifty, currently trying to see all new spells ,

found some bugs:

Casting Otilukes Resilent Sphere on a really dead skeletoncorpse from Animate Dead crashes the game instantly.

Chain Lightning strikes through Otilukes Resilent Sphere on a Animate Dead Zombie.

Disintegrate on a friendly zombie only makes him "perfectly" invisible but still control/killable.

I think you casted the spell not on the corpse, but on whatever items it has dropped. I am aware of this issue. Certain spells crash if you cast them on a container, and this is something hardcoded. I will do something about it by B6, a workaround is doable with a little patching.


I am assuming you are using my version of Chain Lightning. Does Chain Lightning damage the zombie inside and continue to arc to other creatures? Or does it simply continue through the sphere without damaging those within.

If the latter is true, then this is not a bug. It it's the former, then yes, it's a bug.



This is what Disintegrate is supposed to villains with MINHP1.itm equipped. Turn them invisible and set their hit points to 1 so their dialogue is launched.

I wasn't careful enough with undead; I will make sure their hitpoints are set to zero so they are destroyed as they should be in B6.

Thanks again for the feedback, I will be a around more often.

-Galactygon

Hello Galactygon. I'm trying your SpellPack 5 with the fresh BGT v1.07, and I'm having problems with the Web spell. The beacons simply don't disappear. I cast it two times, and the game became so slow I cannot play anymore. Maybe the mods just can't work together, but I wished to know it from you before dropping it... Please, let me know, okay?

Web spell lasts a very long time, 2 turns/level IIRC.

The slowdowns happen because web is a graphically intensive spell. You can help yourself by disable brightening and 3D acceleration.

Web will not look so pretty, but it will make your game run smoother. Hope this helps.

-Galactygon

Yeah, I know it, but I'm trying the BGT v1.07, doing a full start game from Candlekeep thru Throne of Bhaal. I try to cast Web with Dynaheir at level 3, and it lasts for much more time than it should be. I can even sleep two times, and the web won't wear off. Some times one or two beacons seem to disappear, but the other nine or eight don't. It happens always, had I disable the 3D acceleration or not. So I started to think it should be a compatibility problem between SP5 and BGT. Any information about that?

That would be a bug, not a compatibility problem with BGT, since the only file I override is SPWI215.spl. I should be able to reproduce it, so I will put this on the list for things to check. Do the rest of the stuff work?

-Galactygon

Hey, I saw your answer in the SHS forum, and thought it would be more apropriate to continue the dialogue here, since the problem was related with Spell Pack 5. First I would apologize for changing your spells on my own. It seemed to me that all reports of errors was being archieved for a future release of SP6, this way I decided to try and fix it myself.

I was able to fix the problem with Web spell, deleting the second effect in the web.spl, as it casts web2.spl which does the same things spwi215a.spl does, plus making the invisible web creatures immune to lc_weba2.spl and lc_weba4.spl, the ones that kill the creatures. That's why they never died, and the web beacons remained forever.

The Flame arrow spell was creating the arrows even when I choose a target, actually duplicating the spell. I changed the spwi303z.spl to be cast on target instead of self, and its effect that protects against spwi303v.spl (remove arrows) to be cast on self instead of target. This way the arrows are created on the target of the spell, and instantly removed if target is not the caster, but remains for the duration if so.

I also changed Melf's acid arrow opcode to create weapon instead of create inventory item, because there's no point in opening the inventory only to equip one arrow that lasts only for 2 rounds in the weapon slot, and after launching it, open again to equip the former weapon. By the way, the part of the spell that allows to choose a target is not functioning for me.

That may be the same thing as Produce flame, which I figured out later, had the wrong number on counter of effects, and the spell never showed out its abilities. That must be because the macro that grants the effects to destroy webs didn't reassign the counter, changing 7 to 10, and 9 to 12. Once I done it, the spell worked fine.

Hope this can be of any use, I sincerely admire you job, and want to play SP5 with full functionality.

Fixed locally as well, will upload a hotfix.



I cannot include these in the hotfix, because I have to change more than a few files. Will be fixed in B6.



I don't see a bug here, the spell works fine in my install, and the macro ADD_SPELL_EFFECT assigns counters properly.


Thanks.

-Galactygon

I forgot to say it, but I also noticed Hammer of Retribution lacks description, and also does nothing. That's because the files sppr616.spl, sppr616a.spl and sppr616d.spl are overwrited by duplicates when you install the wizard spell Disintegrate, which is actually spwi616. Then you must delete them before, otherwise they will mess the priest spell formerly installed.

I'm playing BGT from the beggining and testing the spells as they become available, and only noticed this problem because I was trying the Tempus Kit from Divine Remix together with CLUAConsole to advance in levels and see if the spells would be granted correctly. This means I may be posting further information if spells don't function as intended (hope this doesn't happen anymore).

I read you would give the password for the workroom to those willing to get the patches and later releases. Please, I would like to have it too, can you send it to me?

Reproduced and fixed on my local version, will post more instructions in the B5 thread.

PM sent.

-Galactygon

I've run into a problem during the install, using the updated .tp2 and macro files. The install generates an error when trying to patch ABZAWAY.spl. I've included the Spellpack debug file and my WeiDU log, but the error was Patching failed - unknown macro (add_bytes_spl_itm). Looking around, it seems that the only mod which touches this file was G3 fixpack. Any clue as to what might be causing this?

Edit: Just tried it on a clean BG2 install without any other mods, and got the same error.

Yup, there is a line I forgot to delete in "SpellPackB5/Macros/graphics_changes.tph" that was looking for an outdated macro. Hotfix thread updated.

-Galactygon

Hi again! I was intrigued why so few hobgoblins were been killed by dynaheir's level 7 fireball, and why so many gnolls was being able to take no damage at all when I fireballed them in the cave at bandit's camp. Then I took a look at the spell with NI, and figured the way it was made only half damage can be caused, and even none of it. The spell has an effect that causes half-damage (as intended by the description), but it offers a save vs. spell, meaning it can be skipped. The next effect grants immunity to damage if the foe fails the save, and then comes the effect that causes the other half of the total damage, this time without save. But it could have been granted from the immunity effect, which means some foes can actually take no damage at all if they fail the save two times in a row! Although it can be less seen when the game advances thru Shadows of Amn, since gnolls and hobgoblins have high savings (more chances to fail), this leads to a paradox with low level creatures being able to take none damage, while high levels take it only when they manage to successfully save, thus failing to get the immunity effect. In any case, you can never get the spell to do total damage, because when someone fail the savings, this actually means they become immune to the other half of the damage. I only checked the Fireball spell, but this mechanism may be present in many other spells, including the ones that create items or weapons.

I handle half damage saving throws in 3 effects, that happen in this order:

1.) Full damage is applied, with a saving throw that negates the damage.
2.) Another effect is applied that protects against the 3rd effect. I do it with protection from opcode (opcode 12)
3.) Half damage is then applied with no saving throw.

If a creature fails its saving throw, effects 1 and 2 would be fired: the creature takes full damage, and effect 3 does not happen.
If a creature succeeds its saving throw, effects 1 and 2 are skipped, with only effect 3 being triggered.

The reason I do this is purely cosmetic: I like damage being displayed with a single text, and the text window isn't spammed by "x did # to y" twice for each saving throw.

I've used this for years, and haven't had issues. The only way this can happen is if the .exe handles effect order differently in a way that #2 is fired before #1 and #3. Do the other save-or-half damage spells do the same thing? Did anyone else experience this?

-Galactygon

Well, I did some changes in the effects, halving the damage of effect 1 and deactivating the effect 2 by turning its probability to 0. Indeed, it made the spell to show 2 lines of damage for each target. Then I reverted the changes back and now it seems to work fine. Weird! I faced something as strange as this before, when Xan's moonblade was showing green instead as whitening blue. Once I solved the problem with the droppable flame arrow, it turned blue as intended by the 1PP flame sword mod. Maybe it's due to some mods that change the .exe, as RR and SaS, while I don't know what relation it may have with the spells... Sorry about that.

Sounds like a local issue, I doubt any mod that touches the .exe would cause this. Rebooting the system sometimes helps, it did for me every once in awhile.



There is no need for any apologies. Bug reports are for our benefit, and I could easily have made an oversight.

-Galactygon

Great to see you are still working on this great mod. I can't stop repeating how much it adds to the atmosphere of the game.
Maybe it's just me, but I think, apart from being kust a really good spell mod, it really improves the game through its graphics.
To me the game almost seems like an early BG3 would have looked like.

So having said this., I'd really love to see a "graphics and sounds only" component of this mod. I know I keep saying this over and over, but this just shows how much I want this thing =)!
Don't get me wrong, the spell alterations are awesome, but for a guy like me who likes playing BWP, there are still too many incompatibilities. Often I ended up with serious issues where spells, especially the ones from enemies, would crash my game. During really hard fights, when I was about to win, the enemy casted something and BAM, CTD!

I would really recommend you to make this component. Gamers, who like to play BG2 only would install the whole mod because it's less possible that the game crashes without all the dozen of other mods. Gamers who,like me, play BWP and want a stable game would install graphics and sounds only.
I don't want to miss your mod anymore, but if I install it, I'm sure to get CTDs in the most inconveniant moments.

I really hope you'll consider this!


Thanks for this great mod,

Marvin

Thanks for the comments.


The core component installs graphics/sound changes, installs some files used by some of my spells, and overrides Raise Dead and Resurrection. In B6 I will split and narrow the components down, so that only the parts you really need are installed.


I'm interested to hear what those spells cause CTDs. Are they systematic or are they random?

-Galactygon

Hi Galactygon,

Good to see u around.


OK, since i've recently installed another BWP version I give u a little feedback. I always install Spellpack as my last mod, so I can uninstall it when I encounter CTDs. In this install, the following things occured:

1. Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting has no projectile explosion animation.
2. Web does last forever, even with your hotfix. I think it's SPWI215.spl.


Then I wanted to adress something about the core component. When u install only the corecomponent, then some graphics are not installed, like entangle, web and ice storm, to name a few. I would appreciate if the core component actually installed all the great new graphics and sounds and the subcomponents alter the spells.


I cannot give you any names of spells that crashed my game in the past. It's too long ago, I don't remember. I know that the wildmage-additions enemy crashes the game.

Marvin

Will be around more this summer to do work for B6.


I am unable to reproduce these with the hotfixes installed.


Until someone comes up with a hack, it's impossible to add new explosion graphics in the game. I solve this by summoning invisible creatures that launch multiple small projectiles in random places. This is not a low key solution, I don't think it's worth the time and effort to do this as a patch. But if someone comes up with a hack for FIREBALL.ids, I am all for it.

-Galactygon

Great mod keep up the good work

Thanks!

-Galactygon

I'll give you a reply, even if it's late and B6 is on the horizon. Everyone deserves this explanation.

1. ADHW didn't have a projectile explosion animation because I assumed in the .pro file, that the component was installed. It's an oversight from my part, and B6 does not have this issue.

2. That's true, I've done a thorough bug fix, and tracked it down. The error was in SPWI215B.spl, it was not supposed to have a projectile. There are actually 2 ways web works: one is the web spell that is dispellable and not permanent. The other is the natural web ability used by creatures (such as spiders and kuo to bolts). This form is non-dispellable, permanent, and pierces (Minor) Globes of Invulnerability. Both forms of web are equally vulnerable to fire damage, and (starting in B6) area effect slashing damage.

When you cast the web spell, invisible creatures are summoned with the natural and magical web applied to them. The magical web is applied first (through SPWI215B.spl) and prevents the natural web from being applied. But since SPWI215B.spl used an invisible projectile, the magical web was applied too late for the natural web to be blocked. So you created natural webs instead of magical webs.

In B6, you will actually see a permanent form of web.

-Galactygon