I figured I change the thread title. The Sibel mod was alright in the end, could use exit points from the village though.

Riskbreaker: This kit was overpowered before and now ever more so. I removed all the speed bonuses but kept the speed bonus from the new boots later on. Did not upgrade the boots however as they are very overpowered. Also the potions of invulnerability makes the Riskbreaker lose all it's cons. I didn't end up using the Risk Decrement ability as it's overpowered as well. Also thanks to the new Flail of Ages buff this kit is ridiculously overpowered now. Even before v7 I was using the Improved Haste ability only once my mages got lvl 6 slots, otherwise it comes a bit early and throws the game off balance. So to recap: no heal/damage spell, no speed bonus, no use of invulnerability potions, and either tone down passive damage or even the new Flail of Ages bonus damage, and no use IH until your mages get it as well.

Wizard Slayer: I played this with Haste, not Improved. So he had one extra attack throughout the game, around 4 if I remember right. There was no way to play without it and have a character limping behind when moving around the map. I didn't upgrade the Regiment boots either as they are overpowered. I tried not to use the purge magic ability too often because it makes certain battles too easy. Purge Magic was used on a few dragons and other foes to speed up their demise. Some notable encounters where this ability was useful, a bunch of Grave Liches in WK and Demogorgon fight. Sibel was my only arcane caster in that run, dualed to a Mage at 9 wearing Vecna, and the Demogorgon fight would have been not doable without the purge magic from the Wizard Slayer. I did cast it in the middle so everybody got purged including Rozvanke which I baited towards the middle, and so it made the fight significantly easier. It really strips the enemies of their buffs this one. Anyway, Purge Magic is very powerful and I tried not to use it too often, perhaps it would be better balanced as a single target instead of area of effect. It's a strong kit now with ridiculous regeneration but needs basic Haste and the Purge Magic ability throws the game off balance if not use sparingly.

Avenger: Did not forge the Avenger Dream gear as it seemed a bit too overpowered, stayed with Rust Armor. Overall this kit is very strong and in another run I'm using it without the Clan Hunter summon, much more balanced imo without the clan hunter summon. The Clan Hunter could be better used perhaps on a different type of Druid kit.

Archer: Once you change missile damage into piercing he becomes a viable character. A ranged Kensai basically. However Called Shot needs nerfing, I set mine to 4 seconds for the effects. So with about ten shots per round, it would lower the Thac0 by about 8 max and Strength about similar. Seemed a bit too strong still, I think the effects should last 3 seconds, this way it would lower Thac0 by about 5-6 max and STR as well but only to the target that he is focusing on. The point is to soften the target. Archer comes in handy in many tight places but is a bit boring to play and the gear selection is not quite linear.
I set Fire, Acid and Ice arrows to +3 and lowered prices for +4 Arrows. He was using Gesen Bow most of the game and switched to Tuigan Bow and +4 Piercing arrows for the tough fights.


Party was: Avenger, Wizard Slayer, Riskbreaker, Sibel(Swash9/Mage), Shaman, Archer
Difficulty: Hard
No use of tomes, no max hp on level up, no milking of spawns as it throws the game off balance completely, no doing quests of random NPCs and no breach on clerics as their power is severely diminished if breached.

Hi Berzerkerzz.

Thanks for the honest feedback. You are right, some of the stuff is indeed more powerful. A less experienced player might appreciate these opportunities, whereas an experienced one can limit themselves to more reasonable options :-) Unless you are of the opinion that everything should be strictly hardcore. Wizard Slayer was intentionally made with those restrictions because Purge Magic is that powerful. Overall, one way to look at it is you can use these more powerful combinations if you're doing some kind of a challenge run or trying out other classes that are less performant than others.

Fair enough, but we could only do so much with our limited resources. I'd say the vibe is just right in that sense, but to each his own, I guess. Overall, the village segment is merely a puzzle and a few small encounters. You can probably do it in an hour or so.


Avenger was actually toned down quite considerably, including the summon. I think it is a sturdy enough character right now, definitely not super-OP compared to other choices that perform well in IA.

Archer is, I presume, a local modification, we did not touch that kit in v7. It's a valid idea, but ranged weapon overall is a tricky subject. With ranged weaponry there's a good chance kiting would become a regular tactic, not something we want to endorse, necessarly. We pondered on some ideas in these past few years on how to make the kit playable in a way that's agreable with our philosophy, but haven't had much success so far. But I'm glad you've found it enjoyable (or so I gathered) with these relatively small changes. Perhaps this is something that merits further investigation.

How did you find the shaman class?

No breach on clerics is an interesting self-limitation.

Yes the Archer was locally modified of course. I forgot to add that some enemy items might need some immunity to projectiles removed, memory is a bit vague now. Called Shot definitely needs a nerf though.

Shaman: I only played him once only and since I had plenty of melee characters he did not see much fighting action. A divine sorcerer I guess with some melee capabilities. Perhaps in another run I could make better use of him. It's a good class I'd say, those spiritual clarities come in handy in mid game even though I had an Avenger with permanent chaotic commands from the potion, Lilarcor user and there is also a Shield of Harmony in the game, but a handy spell nevertheless. Good quick healer in the midst of battles and he can give up his healing capabilities for a few rounds of melee prowess.

It's too bad some encounters still haven't been improved, like Balthazar, Heart Key at the Final Seal in WK, Mind Flayer mini-boss in Sendai's Enclave, War Party in the Underdark (Boz, Simbja, Nashtar, Demien), Abazigal Lair still has a lot of unimproved fights, Bodhi is still too weak in certain encounters, and there are several others. It was pleasant to see the Demon encounter improved after the ritual in the Drow City, it's a good fight really and optional too from what I remember. I also restored the Drow ambush to his original level, it's a bit too nerfed now being based on XP. The Drow bridge ambush I guess is alright now, that Ghost Spider just made things annoying and you had to basically split up your party.

The Druid Stronghold quests are good overall, was glad to see some new monster animations introduced. I guess AI was used for the stories and dialogues, it works well though. The Alpha Smilodon is pretty strong but apparently immune to Heal, regen works well on him though. Makes the final fight more bearable, I also remove the four purges from the Prince and have been doing this for many runs now. Yes it's easier without the purges but a much more pleasant fight. The Rakshasa has plenty of remove magics plus the minions he spawns also cast remove magics. I generally play without using the Wish spell, so no Wish for Rest usually in my runs which means limited numbers of improved hastes.
I also did the Old Ones fight with the Avenger in this run, it's obviously not suited for it and involves a lot of running around and using summons to make space. In a more recent run, also with an Avenger, I skipped the Old Ones fight and went straight for the Lesser Force fight, it's those Balors I was really after.

Another thing I noticed, the Elite Bountyhuntress and possibly the Warden or another foe now use Minor Globe of Inv instead of Globe of Inv, which means only two Ruby Rays are needed to remove the Spell Immunity. I had extra Ruby Rays left before leaving for Spellhold. I'll also mention this here, Planar Prison is best done before Spellhold. If you do it after yes you get a lot of those war dogs spawning but the encounter becomes too easy, the Warden is too weak for a chapter 6 fight. Another thing it's best not to deactivate his thralls because the encounter becomes a little easier that way. If you don't deactivate his thralls he has two extra mages with him and some other minions. You can always deactivate the Orb from the brazier after the fight is over, this way you get some extra dogs spawning but the Warden fight remains more challenging.

Thank you for this detailed input! Each such comment allows us to see the mod from a different angle and gradually make IA better!

Are you sure that strength bonuses applied properly to the enemies? Most creatures have an item that prevents any forms of strength modifications to them in IA. I assume this is done mostly to prevent stat-drain chunking and things like casting Strength (2nd level arcane spell) on enemies to lower their strength from 25 to 18 and similar weird applications of such spells.


You might be interested to check the IA_Rebalance component of IATweaks, whenI finish it. At least some of those encounters will be reworked and improved there. If there are any other enemy groups that you think that should get a boost/rework then let me know I post news regarding the current state of the mod in "Suggestions for the coming release" topic if you're interested to read about them or write your own suggestions/comments.

Well strength lowering might indeed not work on certain enemies, but thac0 and saves do work, it's like a cumulative doom. Extremely strong in it's vanilla form, especially if you have low AC, like your Riskbreaker using potions of Inv and having -24 armor already.

Effect available from the start: +1 penalty to target's THAC0 for 20 seconds
Effect unlocked at level 8: +1 penalty to target's save vs Spell for 15 seconds
Effect unlocked at level 12: -1 penalty to target's Strength for 6 seconds in BGEE and 10 seconds in BG2(EE)
Effect unlocked at level 16: +2 Piercing damage

I've never tried Called Shot in it's vanilla form because I knew from the start it's overpowered, so I lowered all of them to about 6 seconds then did a few tests and settled for 4 seconds. 20 seconds with 10 shots per round you are looking at +30 thac0. At 3 seconds duration you are looking at +5 or +6 thac0 and saves so much more reasonable, but some low and mid level enemies will have their strength lowered as well by 5/6 so an even higher thac0 for them.
To be honest the Archer had 8 attacks per round throughout most of the game, so my 4 seconds Called Shot ability was not that strong, but for the difficult fights Tuigan Bow and 10 attacks is the way to go.


I'll post my input in that thread then.

I did another run since then.

Avenger: I tried not to use the Clan Hunter but ended up needing some powerful summons in a few fights (Demon at Drow City ritual, Rakshasa Prince, Demon Prince at Judgement Day). I always played the Avenger with Treefolk and dual wielding but used Staves this run, Silent Hunt +4 and then Staff of Earth. Lower thac0 with staves so he makes a better fighter overall, Staff of Earth came around mid ToB but does a lot of damage.

Aerie: A bit frail in early and mid game, didn't go as well as I expected. The plan was to get her Improved Alacrity at Mage level 18 but that happened only in the middle of ToB somewhere after the Gromnir fight IIRC, so very late into the game. Her +4 Hammer gave me some headaches as using Energy Blades and Black Blade of Disaster messes up the spellbook. I ended up transferring the attributes from the hammer to a Ioun Stone she was using, towards the end of ToB she was using Hammer of Thor. Only 2 APR with the +7 Shield though. Her thac0 with the Avariel hammer was not that great, only with the Black Blade did she get to around -15 thac0. The best part was putting Chant + Bless in a Minor Sequencer and firing it once the fight started. Blade Barrier was changed to the same projective as Globe of Blades, so party friendly. Spell Trigger was usually Holy Power + Righteous Magic + Blade Barrier. She did ok in the Demogorgon fight, a bit slow on the speed casting side with only +1 from Foreknowledge. Chain Contingency was Spell Turning, Globe of Inv and a priest spell due to the Archpriest focusing on her (most enemy spellcasters targeted her instead of the Necromancer throughout the game), Spell Trigger here was Breach + 2x Lower Resistance on Belcheresk. Edwin had CC (3x Ruby Rays) on Kargoth and then manually 3 Ruby Rays on Blecheresk. Her damage output was rather small in this fight, two Spell Sequencers, a few Magic Missiles and a few Acid Arrows, Edwin did the bulk of damage with the second Chain Contingency of 3 Horrid Wiltings. She could have used some item to improve her casting speed throughout the game, Amulet of Power was mostly on other characters. The most important feature of this run was Aerie using the F/M/C potion before Spellhold to gain 500k experience points, 750k is too much and 250k too little. I felt 500k was just right and she gained one level in each class. Next time I would probably go with Imoen as a Cleric-Mage multiclass. Her amulet would work better and not break the spellbook, I would probably remove the +25% magic damage and Level Drain immunity and add the +1 Priest Spells per Level instead, this way she would get some casting speed as well.

Edwin (Necromancer): Chaotic Neutral Alignment. Turned his Amulet into a Ring and only +1 spell per level instead of two for balance purposes. The other ring was Reaching Ring. He got the Hades Amulet somewhere in late SoA to deal with Silence and eventually Lord of the Underworld. Poor natural wisdom and I don't really like to use the Wish spell anyway. Weapon was Rod of Smiting throughout most of the game. Necromancer fits him well, I like the party banter he brings. I also played him as a Sorcerer in the past.

Minsc (Champion of Arvoreen): Flails and Long Swords, that's Flail of Ages and Belm most of the game and eventually Judgement Day towards the end. Also in ToB in the off-hand was the picture attached (I usually leave that part of Watchers Keep for ToB and by that time +4 weapons are a must). First time playing this kit, it's pretty good overall, lot's of positives and few drawbacks but not as overpowered as the Riskbreaker kit. Nice thac0 boost, nice regen and armor, and level drain immunity comes in handy in the early and middle part. I'd pick this fighter kit again over all other fighters currently, powerful but more balanced compared to the Riskbreaker and Wizard Slayer (the purge magic ability is too strong and breaks the difficulty of many fights, yet no Haste also breaks this kit)

Haer Dalis: It's been a long time since I played the Blade, there was no need to nerf this kit. First he started out with Mastery in Katanas and eventually reached Grandmastery. Memory is a bit vague right now on what +3 weapon he used in the early game, but eventually a +3 Katana (likely from Samias party as I always do that fight in Chapter 3). Restored the "mxsplbrd.2da" to vanilla settings so he had level 6 spells eventually. Offensive Spin was also restored with +1 attack per round and I think it blocks Improved Haste if cast after, so that needed to be fixed as well. The Hood of Honorless comes in early and is a must for this kit. Thac0 is the main problem of this kit. He was wielding Githzerai Blade +5 and Celestial Fury +4 in off hand starting sometime in late SoA until the end. A decent fighter with 6 attacks per round, stoneskin and spell immunity. Thac0 was only about -11 at 23 Strength with a +5 weapon in late ToB, with some spells like Aid and Bless this can be increased to -13 or so, still not quite optimal. I think those Wondrous Gloves that come in mid ToB or so, should give -2 Thac0 instead of just -1. Perhaps even Foreknowledge as a High Level Ability (Innate).
I did the Planar Prison with him in my party, he was not taken hostage by the Bounty Hunters. This caused some problems and a huge headache when Raelis was rescued and she had to teleport the party back to the Inn. It's waiting for Haer Daelis to trigger certain variables for the teleportation back and well he was in my party so they weren't triggering. Eventually I managed to figure it out which Cut Scene was causing the stall, it's kind of complicated and I didn't write any of it down for another Blade run.

Keldorn: Not much to say, I played him with Mastery in Two-Handed Swords so he had a slightly better thac0 than usual and 16 dexterity instead of 9. The gloves of dexterity could make up for his Armor Class, but he had to use those Paladin Bracers eventually. The dispel magic, while often useful, can be tricky to use. Remove Magic would makes things much easier and I might try that in another run. For example I relied on Necromancer and Blade with spell sequencers (3x Remove Magic) for Rozvankee, which worked ok but sometimes it doesn't work because of the level difference and instead I could make use of that Inquisitor dispel however you waste about half a round pulling back fighters. Anyway, dispel magic is still alright with some skill and practice. I usually get the Dragons Lord Halberd to deal with Wing Buffet from enemies (Elite Fire Giants, Yaga Shura, Demon Prince), but somehow the Demon Prince kept switching targets and throwing them around the map. I didn't remember him switching targets like that in the past.

Lots of good insights here, thanks. I don't have the time to dive deep into them at the moment, but I've added to whole thread to the todo list for the future endeavours.

And no, there was no AI involved in production of story and dialogue for the new quest. Not sure if it was a compliment, or a criticism :-)

I guess that was the point, if you want to have him protected, you have to use some of your finite resources that can be easily dispelled.

Is the reworked FoA that much better now? How do you think it compares to Treefolk's Fury?

The dialogues were surprisingly good and it was cool to see some cutscenes introduced. There are several IA encounters that could use some type of cutscenes, Judgement Day fight is one of them. The fight is forced upon you as soon as you enter the area and the creatures spawn right next to you, very annoying for one but probably done on purpose. Anyway it could use a cutscene, where perhaps the Demon Prince and the party walk towards each other, some taunts perhaps and then the confrontation starts. Also perhaps some animations added for the creatures the Demon spawns instead of just appearing out of the blue. I vaguely remember some animation with some type of mirrors that are animated, I think the Vagrant quests use it for the Mirror Master fights, wonder what it's named and where you find them, projectiles perhaps?



The kit is too strong, his fragility was his only con. Too much gold in the game and too many of those potions freely available. You don't even need to buy any for having one in your party. Maybe if you have two of them you might need to buy some, it's really just for some tough fights.

The flail does double damage to most improved foes frankly, about 10% of the time initially and then eventually one in four attacks. If you add the Riskbreaker passive damage, you are looking at a lot of double and sometimes even triple damage.
I haven't really forged Treefolk anymore since using Staves on the Avenger. In the past on a Vagrant but I usually stopped at the +4 version. They are all a bit overpowered because the 8d6 damage is too high, it should be more like 3d6 or something like that. The last Avenger run that I used Treefolk with, I toned down the damage to about 3d6 or 4d6, even on the +3 version I toned the elemental damage to about 10 instead of 20.




It's simply too much damage, sure it doesn't work on many foes like Golems but on those it does work it makes the fights too easy and can break them. Don't remember if Golems are considered unnatural but if they are that's almost triple damage against them, much better than Golem Slayer or any other weapon in the game.

I improved the Kobold Krystal fight and uploaded a video. The three Guardians are only slightly improved, a bit lower thac0 and 25% physical resistance. They now hit for about 20 damage on Hard but they are still frail and fall quick. The Guardian Mage is somewhat more improved, but also more fun. Now it's a little party. Also two Amber Golems instead of one or three. Edwin, my only mage survived with 1 HP. This fight does have a bit more potential in it though, I might improve it a little bit further next time.

I've redone it, it's only slightly tougher and perhaps better themed:

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Kobold-Crystal-Asylum:d

Those changes look quite nice and make the fight much harder. I like the fact that in your final video the Witch Doctor uses mainly electrical spells, which fits the theme of the battle very well.

In IAv6 this fight was very tough, as there were 3 Amber Golems, then v7 lowered their number to just 1, which removed almost all challenge from it, I'll definitely add a second Amber Golem, but I am hesitant to make too many changes. The reason being, that this is a mandatory fight and there might be players playing IA for the 1st time, having lower levels, worse gear and maybe even less optimized party. How much exp do you have? Maybe making the fight tougher based on your exp would be a solution, though a powerful caster with Improved Alacrity might still be an overkill for standard parties at that stage.

I didn't use any insulation potions, so everybody was at 50% resistance from the guardians. I think for this fight, you should not be able to go above 50% with potions or anything else after the softening. It should be set or capped at 50%. You are basically half vulnerable for the Golems and the Witch Doctor. I get it you want to broaden the appeal of the mod and thus have toned down certain fights and introduced powerful items. Currently there are some slightly increased spawns based on difficulty level (Core / Hard) from what I noticed. The ideal way would be two versions during installation, so that scripts get improved as well but I know it's a lot of tedious work.
PC was around 2.45m EXP without the 250k EXP potion.

Party for this run is:

Avenger: Staves this time, Silent Hunt but better balanced (picture attached).
Valygar: Kensai9/Cleric of Tyr in fact, his +2 katana in early game then +3 flails later on. Only one Divine Fervor and one Exalation though, no Kai ability. Exalation is a really cool ability. I really like this kit so far. I could have forged some +3 Morningstar but decided to just up the Wyvern Tail to +3 and use that instead, removed the display string eventually as it was pretty annoying.
Minsc: Champion of Arvoreen again. Last time gave him 15 DEX, now started with 19 DEX so he has 22 in mid game. Very useful Fighter.
Kensai: Picked up Jan for the first time ever and turned him into a human Kensai with Sarevoks portrait. I quickly realized how annoying his voice set is when he was constantly burping. At first I replaced the burp with a less common voice command but then I finally had enough of his onion stories and changed his voice set to Sarevok. So it's Jan, the human Kensai, with Sarevoks voice set and portrait. Occasionally the party banter kicks in and Jan starts talking; it's funny. I have to fix that somehow I just don't know how.
Edwin: Kensai9/Mage. Katanas and Hammers. Turned his amulet into a ring and only one spell per level for a more balanced character. No use of scrolls before reaching the corresponding level, so no Ruby Rays at all before Spellhold. Level 6 slots were mostly all Improved Haste in the boss fights, relied on PFME scrolls and potions. Eventually in the Underdark he'll start using PFE scrolls once he reaches level 16. Plan is to use the scrolls and potions from the Strongholds as I slowly progress instead of selling them.
Cernd: Used the 250k XP potion in Spellhold and immediately got four level 7 Spells with the Circlet. Liches fear him.


Bodhi Spellhold: https://odysee.com/Bodhi-Asylum:1

Bodhi had 300 HP but needs some regeneration really as well. I should have toned down the experience a bit here for the minions and removed the loot drop (didn't pick it up again obviously).
The Vampire Lord has 200 HP and with Hardiness 90% resistance. He is immune up to level five spells. He needs to alternative his targeting though to make him more dangerous. The other minion was a Master Vampire. About 8 Rounds until she flees, if you don't finish her minions in time you lose the XP, at least that's how I wanted it to play out, not sure it worked quite as intended but it worked. The Slayer form constantly targets Bodhi and that's fine I guess.

Made an Odysee account instead since Google doesn't make things easy and uploaded the Bodhi fight in the above post.

Added a few more videos.

Restored the Drow Party in the Underdark to the original setup and improved it slightly:
https://odysee.com/Drow-Party:9

Drow Ambush:
https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Drow-Ambush:b

The War Party in the Underdark:
https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/War-Party-Underdark1:d

I could have done better but I'm still learning how everything works, including the Near Infinity tool. Some testing was done to ensure everything works but not extensive obviously. The War Party was vanilla so it needed a lot of work, the Drow Ambushes only got slightly better stats and buffs. Spiders were untouched.

Thanks, that's much more convenient.

I've watched only the War Party video, I saw some more prebuffs on Chandrilla (why does she have Acid Shield?), some more resistances on Damien and some more damage on Simbja. It would be nice if you could also provide some very brief info on the changes.

For this fight I hope you'll be satisfied with my changes, as it's already rebalanced for the upcoming version of IATweaks. I've changed not only the stats, but also kits and AI, so the enemies should fight a bit more like a team. And before fighting you, they already managed to dispatch a Drow party, so they wear Drow gear too.


Preventing players from going higher than X on some resistance is very hard, but doable if we assume that there can be a delay between your resistances going up and the softening bringing them back down. But the enemies can (and will) already lower your resistances via Improved Chain Lightning or via Golem's Discharge ability, so either you use your rounds on potions of insulation (if you have them) or you fight very low values for your electricity resistance anyway.

I've redone this battle because I realized the mages script didn't work properly and all the characters needed better resistances like Magic and Magic Damage. Removed the Minute Meteors since he has Darts of Stunning and gave him a good Staff (undroppable), he is a Fighter-Mage. He would cast Hardiness below 90% but didn't trigger in the video since he was busy casting something else beforehand. He opens up with ADHW and has two in total.
Average magic resistance is around 50% for this party with the Cleric and Mage having around 80-90% so they can have a good chance to cast their spells. The cleric still fell to Creeping Doom, I had two in total for this try but Cernd has a few more slots if needed.
Damien, the thief, gave me a huge headache and I spent a few hours trying to figure out why he wasn't triggering. He is neutral and normally approaches from further East. Eventually made him hostile like the rest of the crew and moved him near his party. The only problem is the Mage and Boz spawn around the Thief and are facing him for some reason, Boz faces south-west in the video even tough I didn't touch his spawn point. If I reposition the Thief, the Mage and Boz move from their original scripted spawn coordinates. Strange.. All those GOOD/EVIL-CUTOFF and some other commands and variables like that are completely above me, can't really make sense of them.
The Cleric has Acid Shield and Ironskins as prebuff to make him more dangerous and deal more damage. He opens up Storm of Vengeance. Acid resistance slots are somewhat more scarce compared to others. I had no acid resistance for this fight, though I could have had from potions and from two characters with Acid Resistance spells. I gave most Drow Clerics in the Underdark Acid Shield as prebuff to make them more dangerous and I think it fits their theme well and will be giving the Drow in ToB Acid Shield as well, and possibly some other cool abilities since it will be very late into the game by then.

Video: https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/War-Party-Underdark1:d
At the end of the video I showcased the stats of the main foes. Everybody here has over 130HP base with Boz having 200HP before bonuses.

As for the Kobold Crystal fight, the Mage needs to be dispatched asap but as you saw the Amber Golems are being kept busy nearby, so if the characters hitting the Mage reup their electrical back to 100% via potions then they dodge those Chain Lightnings, it's why he has a few other spells like Missiles, Arrows and Vampiric Touches. Perhaps the Crystal in the middle could be scripted to unleash some Lightning effects every other round or so on those characters who have 100% electrical resistance and bring them back to 50% but no further than that.

Uploaded a few more videos:

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Ghaunadaur-Drow-Leader:c
Ghaunadaur Drow Leader in Ust Natha. Replaced the two Oytyughs with Neo. Did not touch the Slimes. Both Clerics are improved and the Mage as well. I think the battle came out nice.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Qilue:f
Qilue encounter was vanilla so I improved everybody here. She has about 5 mages in her house, they all got better stats and scripts but not enough I feel. The mages spellbooks are still not dangerous enough and could be further improved.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Jaelat-House:9
House of Jaelat. This one was improved by IA but not enough, there was room for improvement. This battle has even more potential I believe. I went in invisible and the guards are scripted to move towards Player 1 since many of them come from the other room, so a bunch of them surrounded the Avenger which was at the entrance. They have invisible detection here but it's still not quite optimal and they could be better scripted, I just don't have the know-how yet. At the end about two guards were still left in the other room that didn't join the battle for some reason. The Clerics here use Creeping Doom and Storm of Vengeance, they also got Foreknowledge, Ironskins and Acid Shield as prebuff and I think the latter fits the Drow and Underdark theme well, makes them more dangerous as well. While they aren't immune to Breach, I don't use Breach or Remove Magic on them in general. Indra also starts with Aura Cleansing. We don't see Flame Strikes from the Clerics here because everybody is protected from fire, not sure how to get around that yet.

Those look pretty nice, that's definitely a good direction.


I hope that you'll like the current version of the fight that is already implemented for the upcoming IATweaks update.


I assume they didn't hear their allies shouting for help, I hope this is already taken care of in IATweaks by using a GlobalShout instead of Shout (which has a limited range) and enabling offscreen AI for enemies.

I really hope that after the Underdark people will appreciate pure Clerics and how dangerous and deadly they can be

I'm looking forward to new foe improvements.

Kuo-Toa Prince:
I repositioned his allies so they have better spawning points. The Captains in the back hit pretty hard now with ranged weapons. The Prince has a ranged weapon that hits with acid as well, he also casts some good level seven spells and summons a Smilodon, though a Greater Anaconda might be better themed. The Cleric is under Perfect Camouflage and Aura Cleansing, he unleashes Creeping Doom and Bolts of Glory. All the enemies here have better stats, resistances and gear. I like the way the battle came out.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Kuo-Toa-Prince:0

Demon Knights:
The Knights here have a bit more life and better gear, thought I should have improved them a little bit more.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Demon-Knights2x:d

Insane Dwarf and Priestess in the Mind Flayer tunnels:
I think the cells here should open at the same time to be more challenging. Forgot to improve the Umber Hulk though he is slightly stronger than usual, only the Dwarf and Priestess.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Insane-Dwar...ess-Underdark:9

Master Brain in Underdark:
I improved the Illithid in general but we only have two of them in this fight. They should have been both Ulitharids I think, though you can't really go overboard here since there are golems spawning and purge magics involved. The Master Brain has more HP here and even though his abilities all deal damage now, he doesn't use them often enough so there is some further room for improvement.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Master-Brain-Underdark:5

Dracolich:
This Dragon is more resilient now, almost triple the HP so he won't go down too easily anymore.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Dracolich:6

Demon Ritual in Ust Natha:
I didn't touch this one. It's a difficult battle as it is and a good fight overall.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Demon-Ritual:a

Lord Roenall:
The Archers here hit hard and will remove skins fast if not dispatched quickly. Mordekainen Swords are invaluable here. Took several attempts, the mage fell to Creeping Doom luckily even though he has high magic resistance.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Roenall-Stronghold:2

Buried Ambitions at Helter Stop:
https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Helter-Stop-Druid-Quest:5

Kruin:
He has better gear and stats here, double the HP and uses a slightly weaker version of Body Equilibrium. What this battle really needs though is one less Elemental Golem and tougher Githyankis, it could be more fun that way.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Kruin:8

Bodhi Hideout in Chapter 6:
I really like the way this battle came out, though it wasn't perfect as I had trouble with the vampires prioritizing targets (I still haven't figured it out yet). All the Vampires here are more resilient, particularly the named Vampires, but it's the way they are repositioned that really makes this encounter fun. There is an Eminent Vampire at the first junction and then a bat nearby slowly fleeing towards the blood pooled room thus drawing the player to the first part of the battle. The second part of the battle is in the dining hall and that's when the Guard makes his appearance as well. I could have added 1-2 more vampires at the entrance, medium difficulty like Eminent or Brides. This could be a good place to make use of some Level Drain scrolls instead of saving them all for the Orcus fight.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Bodhi-Hideout-Chapter-6:5

Firkraag:
Dragon has over double the HP and is slightly more dangerous in it's attacks. Forgot to add raised visual effects for the Skeleton Warlords spawning, also tempted to replace one of the Skeletons with a Red Abishai in the future.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Firkraag:f


Zallanora:
I redid this one as I felt I could do better. First off, Zallanora and Khollynnus are more resilient and more dangerous here, and now the Cowled Wizards as well. Golems are slightly more dangerous too, though very similar in stats as the Coin golems. The initially layout looks better now in my opinion, more spread out and you can actually make out what is happening and who is casting spells. I'm happy the way this one came out but there is still room for a few more improvements. I paid for the license to cast spells in the city so I can face Kruin in the Promenade but then revoked it so to speak later on.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Zallanora:9

So whats with the changes? Are you working on an Improved Improved Anvil ?

Yes, I'm further improving some of the enemies and adding a few more here and there, besides that some cosmetic changes and visual effects.
Some other changes as well but they aren't actually in the game. For example no Breach or Remove Magic on enemy clerics or the Avenger with no Clan Hunter, Smilodon or Word of Wisdom.

Bodhi Lair Chapter 6:
The vampires are more resilient in general and I swapped the Fledglings with Eminents for this fight. They all drain one level only, except the Masters and Lords who drain two and Bodhi drains three levels. The Kensai here got slowly lowered to level 12 and didn't die within a round to level drain effects, I think this works well so far. They way it's currently set up is for vampires to target mostly unskinned characters and wounded, though it's not set in stone yet and I'm still working their attack behavior. I also removed the gaseous form of vampires, though I will add it back once I manage to make them properly ethereal and pass through objects, in their current form they are blocking other vampires and NPCs especially here in the Lair since everything is so crammed.
Finally I added a Lich here as well though I'm still working on him, he casts a weaker version of Creeping Doom that lasts about half the normal time. Died a bit too prematurely, he was supposed to last a while longer. I did weaken Bodhi here with Holy Water, since I'm still in early-mid Chapter 6 around 4.3m EXP. She took a 100 HP hit, -4 STR and CON, slowed down her regeneration and reduced her movement speed slightly, all this for one turn.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Bodhi-Lair-Chapter-6:f

I've redone the Zallanora fight and updated my remarks as well. Overall I'm happy the way it came out. I'm still looking for some visual effects to go with the initial spawning points. Since the spawns are not based on coordinates, I don't see how I can enable the visual effect before they actually appear.

I'll probably do Bodhi's Lair again as I want to fine tune the Lich a little bit more.

Kangaxx:
It's a work in progress and it took a lot of time to get the spawn effects and location right. He curses everybody on sight and then the battle begins. He can't be pushed around with any rings so that he stays in the center all throughout the fight. The only place to hide is by the entrance door but from what I can tell it's only got room for one character, so all other PCs will be in his sight. I'm happy the way it played out, lots of close calls and it took quite a few reloads too to get it right. Looking back at this I realize the PfME spell has Set and Increment for the Magic Damage entries and this made the fight easier than it should have been, and the Lich is missing some other things as well like Power Word Kill entries and AoE conditions for the blocks. On top of those and some other fixes, the visual effects for the transition into Demilich form have to be redone since it's not quite satisfactory the way they were here.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Kangaxx:a

Ancient Priest:
He is more resilient here and better equipped. Gave him a Black Blade of Disaster type of sword with 30% to drain two levels but his buffs slowly wane so he becomes more vulnerable towards the end. Added some effects and offsets for the spawns as well. I only now realized his animation is that of a basic skeleton warrior and the Black Blade was not set to correctly display the blade in his hand, so I changed that to the black Lich which I think it's better suited for an undead priest.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Ancient-Priest:b




Lich Priest, Altar Level:
The guardian golems get activated as soon as the Lich turns hostile. He raises two higher level Skeletons and although they drop the usual clerical scrolls they only give 4000XP. Changed the Cloak of Fear spell to run each round for four rounds in total, then I added the Symbol Weakness as 7th level spell from Spell Revisions (-4 STR/DEX/CON for 1 Turn with no save). The Lich starts out with an improved form of Stoneskin and has two in total. He was supposed to heal himself before dying but died a bit prematurely due to Critical Strikes and Whirlwind.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Priest-Alta...Watchers-Keep:a


Statues, Altar Level:
Nothing remarkable here. All the statues here are buffed up though not by much, they also start out with a stoneskin effect and will hang around a bit longer than usual because of that. Once the ritual is complete all the statues get activated though there is a slightly delay from what I can see. Changed the Unholy Blight to affect neutral alignments as well since I have 4 neutral aligned characters in this run and I want enemy clerics to use that spell more often in general.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Statues,-Al...Watchers-Keep:e

Chromatic Demon:
I redid this one since I realized his physical attacks are a bit too weak for this stage of the game, he does about 20 damage against Hardiness now. He has almost double the HP here and his minions have about 30% more and better thac0 as well. He also heals himself between the morphs, which are not randomized anymore btw, so that everything plays out the way it's supposed to. The morphs happen ever three rounds instead of four. Bolts of Glory didn't do anything here and they should be reworked I think, could then be useful against Liches as well. Unleash Energy did well here on the other hand. Cloud based spells are too easily countered in general and his Acid Fog could have been immediately neutralized, I wonder how this can be balanced and I'm thinking about replacing Zone of Sweet Air with something else, just an idea though for now. A level 3 spell neutralizing a level 8 spell like Incendiary Cloud, which has a casting time of 8 btw, doesn't sit right with me.
I also nerfed the Soul Reaver here since I realized it's way too powerful in certain situation and it was causing the Demon to miss every attack, instead of lasting one turn the effects now last four rounds only. I also changed the Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades spells recently and I'm happy with the changes so far, they aren't set in stone and will need some further testing to see how they behave in different situation but so far everything worked out ok.
https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Chromatic-Demon:6

Squirreled Away:
I had to redo this one. Everybody is tougher here, more HP, better gear, higher resistances, lower thac0. Dracandros goes under Alacrity in the first round and hastes some of his friends, he now makes better use of his sequencers and contingencies as well. Pitre starts under Alacrity because the first two rounds are critical here, he casts a few Unholy Blights (affects neutral aligned too) and Sunrays (more damage) among other spells. It was a pretty good fight overall, the timings are really tight now. Took several attempts and a bit less than half an hour. Party was below 5M XP.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Squirreled-Away:60

You can extract specific projectiles to different 2DA files and make ZOSA have less than 100% chance to remove some of them, the opcode is suited to do so. That's a possibility, though it's mostly the enemies that are helpless against cloud spells, so I don't think we should touch that spell.

Your implementation of Kangaxx fight is really impressive Though if you were really mean, you could probably increase his vision by a bit, in order to make him see all of the area.


What changes did you make?

Thanks.
I removed the save on Barrier(5 feet range and party friendly) and Globes(4 feet range) then lowered the damage by a lot. It's not very effective in later parts of the game but might be more dangerous around Chapter 3 and 4. The blades seem to hit twice per round under haste, which is ok but would have been better if it did that without haste as well in order to be more consistent.
I'm still thinking about ZOSA, leaving this one for later though. To me it looks like enemy clerics have ZOSA as some type of anti-cheat measure. Anyway I wonder if I can script enemy mages and clerics to leave the cloud area if the player casts cloud based spells, just a thought I haven't looked into it yet.

This allows for very easy abuse, you just stand next to a caster and interrupt all of his spells, they decrease enemy number of stoneskins and they ignore PFMW/Absolute Immunity and work on Improved Invisible characters. I agree that the spells are kinda weak as they are now, but I'd prefer some other approach.


Yes, all periodic opcodes apart from opcode 333 are affected by haste/slow (even Regeneration), which is a huge problem for me, as there is no pretty implementation that would ensure that these spells/effects are triggered exactly once per X seconds. I have a rework of GoB and BB to trigger only once per round, but it's very low on my todo list.
Oh and opcode 333 has many other problems so it's still best to avoid using it whenever you can.


It's not easy and most probably won't work if more Cloud spells are cast at the same area, but I'm planning to reimplement what SCS did. It changed all Cloud spells to summon an invisible creature at the center of the cloud, so that enemies could use RunAwayFrom action. If there's a wall or another obstacle, they won't be able to deal with that and if they run away too far they might still be forced to come back into the cloud just to see our characters, but that's the best solution that you can achieve with the engine.

Guarded Compound:
I redid this one again and now everybody is behaving properly, simplified their fleeing strategy as well. The slavers are stronger and better equipped and all of them back on AttackOneRound as AttackReevaluate simply didn't work out at all, Koshi has over -30 thac0 for example. Everybody hits here including Sion who is under Energy Blades several times throughout the battle. The Arvoreen Champion, was a bit too strong here initially and I nerfed him a little bit after this encounter, he had about -27 slashing armor so even Koshi was missing hits on him. Olaf and Maferan only hit about 4 times per round but they do some decent damage now. Sion got off his Time Stop this time followed by ADHW and Energy Blades. Stalman did well too I think, he was stalling in earlier tries as I tried to prioritize his healings. Now he casts his offensive spells without issue. He is pretty resilient for the first turn after which he slowly becomes more and more vulnerable to attacks. He got off an Earthquake spell too, which I reworked (2 Rounds of Damage only, less shaking and a different visual effect which I think is much better suited). Gave Implosion a different animation which i think is slightly better suited though far from perfect. The Assassins also have better thac0 so better chances to hit the player. Made Ketta stronger, she is a mix of a Fighter/Thief/Swashbuckler now, takes off not long after the fight starts and rejoins later on. She has very good thac0 now though not many attacks. Party was still below 5M XP here. This one took over 40 mins and several reloads, definitely a late SoA encounter now.
The video quality should be better as well and slightly more saturated, it was a bit blurry before as the resolution was not quite set correctly.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Guarded-Compound:4

Regarding clouds, it would really be about enemy casters leaving the cloud in order to not be interrupted. I don't personally use clouds often since they disrupt my own castings, whereas enemy mages have higher magic resistance than the player and could still dodge the spell failure, but perhaps in early and mid game that's different. The main issue is the player having access to a level 3 spell that can neutralize the cloud, instead of just repositioning his characters. This needs a simple solution I think.

As for Barrier and Globes, usually by the time my characters are getting closer to mages these spells either expire or get breached/dispelled. I didn't realize these spells are not blocked by PfMW and AI, perhaps adding protection from these two spells to PfMW and AI spells, would that help? As for stoneskins, I don't know what to say, it's in their description that they remove skins and I think that's fine, I also think these blades should strike twice per round ideally even when the character is not hasted but I understand the current limitations. The way I see their animation and how fast it moves, I think the game mechanics should reflect that but once per round would be fine too.

This is how Globes and Barrier are set right now: Blocked by Stoneskins/Ironskins. Blocked by PfMW, Imp Mantle and Absolute Immunity. Blocked by Barrier/Globes and blocked by Shield of the Archons, so now Clerics and Mages have a very good chance to not have their spells interrupted. Clerics will refresh Shield of the Archons as well if the player casts Barrier/Blades after one turn.

Sunray: More base damage, less damage vs. undead. Essentially undead damage is the same but base damage is increased to 7D6.

Earthquake: Two rounds of damage, sleep for one round failing the save, third round is just aftershocks so no damage. Added some visual effects which are much better suited for this spell. Might add some additional fire damage if I can figure out a simple solution to it.

What visual effects did you use? The spell would benefit greatly from something more than just the screen shaking in terms of visuals, so it's a great idea

The Implosion visuals, slowed down over two rounds. It's in the Guarded Compound video at min 25:00.

Troll Mound:
I wanted to add some new animations for the trolls here but I haven't managed to install Infinity Animations. I downloaded the latest Master release but it doesn't have an executable and older version(5.12) doesn't seem to work with EE games. As it is right now, I just gave the King and Queen different colors. All the other trolls are stronger as well though not too much, some go down to a fireball sequencer. The Noble Trolls are bit more resilient than usual here, I removed their fleeing strategy in the end as it was too much. The King and Queen try to stick together and she heals him as well now. I did a major change here to the Troll Queen for this encounter, she is now a Druid though not just any druid. She goes under Alacrity in the first round. I had to do this encounter one more time since Fireshield or Spell Turning messed up her casting at the end in the last attempt. It came out pretty nice, I'm happy with the outcome and the way everything played out now, took several reloads to get it right. The timings are pretty tight here, the dispel magic just kept on coming though I toned that down now a little. Took over 40 minutes.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Troll-Mound:d

These are things I can do if you want. I'm going through and adding many of the new golem animations into the game (e.g., flesh, clay, stone, iron, adamantine, mithral, and shield golems) right now that you are free to use once they are released as part of Tactics Remix. If you do want the new troll animations, it will likely be a couple weeks before I have the bandwidth to make them. Also, please let me know if there is anything else from NWN that you would also want to use.

That's great to hear. I am not familiar with other game animations but this Infinity mod has a lot of cool animations. Their Master release is 1.2GB so lots of models, just needs an executable to patch the main game file since the slots are hard coded from what I understood. I see a lot of potential here. Is there some instructions anywhere on how to insert these animations manually?

They don't have it setup to install, but there are a great number of animations present within Infinity Animations that are free game to use. If you know how to pull from their archive, its really easy to be able to include in Improved Anvil. They have some NWN animations ready to go, and I am pulling many more animations from NWN that are not included in Infinity Animations. For example, I combined the Demon (Balor) animation with a greatsword that now works in game.

EDIT: As with the Dracolich animation, the animations I am creating are free use and may be included in Improved Anvil, if desired.

EDIT2: Does Improved Anvil have a git or something? I am happy to do a pull request for the Dracolich I created and assign the animation to your version of it so you can use that as an example.

I'm looking forward to this, the Demon looks good as well.

Yes, it's here: https://github.com/critto-bg/ImprovedAnvil

Also, I don't think you need to do an EXE patch in the EE version anymore, but I might be mistaken.


Thanks, this is much appreciated. I don't have a specific wish list for animations, but we'd gladly take a look at your selection whenever we get around to do another release.

I just sent a big request over with a lot of animation files. After I sent my initial change request to you, I realized you have your own animations folder created. I went ahead and moved everything to that folder and then assigned your dracolich with the new animation.

Thanks. I will take a look at some point in the near future. I see you added many other animations as well. Is there a catalogue somewhere where we can see them in action and understand what they look like?

Here is an assortment of the golems and animations I provided.

They look a bit funky, what game are these from?

These are from NWN. These are post rendering and before conversion into bams where a few more adjustments are made.

Will you be compiling all your changes and sharing them?