2 days late, SpellBack beta version 3 is up on the web at

http://dragonshoard.blackwyrmlair.net/down...SpellPackB3.zip (39.9 MB) Now 19.9 MB

There are some significant changes I have made since the last version. Since I forgot to upload the readme seperately, and I have limited access to the FTP Program these days, I will summarize the changes I have made from B2 to B3 (from my memory; there might be more):

Changes/Bugfixes
-Prayer now affects the caster
-Prayer is not cumulative with itself anymore
New Features
-Ranged Spiritual Hammer (as in IWD1/2)
-BG1 Fireball animation
-Everything I wanted to include in the LC Pre-Release planned last year (partially revamping the spell graphics)
-Some new Wizard spells! Modified PnP versions of Power Word Kill and Death Spell.
-Some new Priest spells! I forgot which, but I remember including recitation, and some fixed TDD spells (if you don't have TDD installed, it introduces new spells).

You can safely install beta version 3 on top of any previous versions. I might reccomend reinstalling Cleric Remix and Refinements after you installed beta version 3, or simply install beta v3 before either of those mods.

You can still see the features of beta version 2 in a previous post of mine, but you cannot download any of the previous versions.

You can still read the fully updated readme when you download the mod.

-Galactygon

I got a 404 Not Found error. You sure the download link is right?

Typo corrected, and link fixed. Apologies, for that.

-Galactygon

Not even 40!

Could this be mirrored somewhere? Due to the current lethargic nature of The Black Wyrm, I'm downloading at 2.9kb/s. Can't wait till someone wakes him up, and the site speeds along again :-)

Be patient... the Wyrm will wake up soon...

It works great for me, I'm downloading it at 60k/s. Is the server located in Hungary btw? This'd explain things.

It is


But MATAV is making me mad so our new server will be located abroad which is much more advantageous.

w00t Great news.

But, is this spellpack compatible with "The Big Picture" mod?
I'm not using BGT, just big picture (with the tdd, ts, sos, and the packaged fixes and enhancements).

(Edit)
well, after downloading 30 MB at about 2k/sec ..I think I was downloading 4 hours , got it installed.

I just did a quick battle with a wolfwere and greater wolfwere, testing prayer and chant.

Works quite nicely.

I did have a couple of questions:

1) Is chant supposed to give a saving throw bonus (also I assume, culumative with prayer?). Prayer is giving the +1 save bonus, but neither the original stock chant nor the spellpack chant is giving the bonus (at least not on the party).
It didn't do it in BG1, either.

2) Can you cancel a chant in progress in P&P, and if you can, does the IE allow spell canceling, anyway? I remember trying to futilely cancel a Polymorph self spell in BG1 TOSC, and had to sleep it off...I think it took almost 5 minutes of real time to end normally I assume an engine limitation with how it handles spells (there was a thread about this awhile back, about a bug that caused polymorph that -refused- to cancel at all (no matter if you were your normal form or not).

3) Does Prayer ignore a monster's magic resistance in P&P?
When I cast it, it said "Greater Wolfwere: Magic Resistance" and it wasn't affected, but the chant worked (Chant: Reversed).

It didn't resist the "prayer" on my "quick and dirty prayer" hack I did on the TDD prayer (I simply changed it to a "-1" chant effect on globaltargetexcludingparty and ignore magic resistance was already set, and no monster resisted it. But on yours, magic resistant monsters were occasionally resisting penalties to their attack rolls. Is this how it's supposed to be?

4) Spell icon borders are black

*BUG*
When uninstalling, some spells are not uninstalled correctly (Elysium's tears still works and still has the icon, but no name or spell description), and some of the other spells still have the new graphic with the black border.

Is there any way to fix that without reinstalling BP completely? (I don't know which files do what).


Very happy with how the chant and prayer spells work together now.

More about the uninstalling bug:

I think it's a bug in the tp2 file.....

(I had made a reply about some uninstall going wrong, or ignoring the wrong files, but perhaps the original files aren't put back correctly, so i edited the post).

A few examples:

I uninstalled "Beast Claw" and that was completely removed, but when I chose to uninstall Elysium's Tears, the spell icon (and the spell itself) were still there, but the name and description were removed.

Also, the spell icon for Entropy Shield and Storm Shell was not restored to its original spell, and there is a 5th level priest spell (first spell at top corner AFTER the uninstall), that also has no name and no description.

Keep in mind, the first time I ran the setup and choose uninstall the "required" file, it did its uninstalling, and that's when I noticed the problem.

I then tried a combination of reinstalling and uninstalling, but I could never get the spells restored back to normal.

It seemed to work fine for me (I don't have BP or any of that). I'll take a look, though.

-Galactygon

Will you be planning to change the existing spell effects icon on the portraits and add new ones for the new spells?

And how does Static Charge work exactly. Whenever I use it, it doens't have a "spell targetting" cursor. And the Guardian Angel icon looks messed up in HLA selection and "Select Spells" menu. It looks fine in the Priest Scoll however.

I'm using BGT-BP-NEJ if that changes anything.

About the bugs, did you restart your computer? You have to do that whenever you install/uninstall something. I think I forgot to mention that in the README. It happened to me also ~ until I restarted the computer.

maevre: Static Charge works like call lightning; a random enemy gets hit every turn. When you cast it, a charge will discharge on a random nearby enemy. You don't have to do anything except keep the caster alive, and you will have a random discharge every turn. About the spell icons, I suggest you restart your computer aftter installing. It happened to me also ~ until I restarted the computer.

-Galactygon

Hmm I didnt think that was necessary with Weidu.

Anyway, I reinstalled BG2+Big Picture completely, and I made a backup of the entire game folder. So now I am free to bug test the install/uninstall as much as necessary and I'll reboot between each.

I'll let you know what I find.

Ok,
I just finished doing everything by the book (install, reboot, (test and run game), uninstall, reboot again, (test and run game)

and the uninstall bugs are still there.

I am not far into the game so I don't have many mage spells, and only level 6 druid spells and L5 priest, but here is what I saw:
Here's a complete rundown (on my system with my average level characters),

Both spell effect bugs I noticed, and the uninstall problem:

After uninstalling and rebooting:

1) Elysium's Tears graphic is still on the level 3 page, the spell still works (still does damage, with the earthquake effect), but there is no name and no descrption for the spell.

2) Entropy shield has the new graphic icon you made, but the old descrption.
3) Flamestrike is missing both name and description, but the spell seems to work.
4) Storm Shell- new icon, original descriptoin.
5) Sun Scorch-just like #4

Rebooting doesn't help. (i already rebooted right after the first uninstall, immediately).
Had to recopy the original (backed up manually) override folder back over, after deleting the new one, to get everything back.

As far as the new *spell* bugs:

1) Prayer-- monsters get a magic resistance roll against it; if they make their roll, it says "Monster: Magic Resistance"
It's supposed to ignore all enemy magic resistance.

2) Monsters *ALSO* get a magic resistance roll against the chant, too.
(if they make their MR, "reverse" chant has no effect on them.--it does NOT say "magic resistance"--it just doesn't say anything. (instead of , say, Greater Wolfwere (chant: Reversed).

It still gives the affected party members the +1 to hit. (but no saving throw bonus).


I am using The Big Picture. (1.61G).

Thanks,
-Ike

I think I noticed the error. I forgot to clear the backup folder in the mod itself. It has to be empty before you install the mod or after you uninstall the mod. Sorry about that.

Version 4 will be coming in a day or two.

Meanwhile, you can do yourself a favour by clearing the backup folder of all files in the "SpellPack1-14-05_Files" folder except the keepme.txt.

-Galactygon

Thanks, uninstall works fine now

(for some reason, it thinks the mod is already installed (clean BG2+BP installation) when I try to install it after doing this, so I choose uninstall first, then Install, and everything is fine). Might have been because I deleted all the backup folders in the zip file, including the subfolders 1-24, as well as the files in them. (but not the folder "backup" itself.

Until your V4 comes out, I'm going to look in NI to see if I can find why the monsters are getting magic resistance against prayer and chant

*edit*, chant is working fine, apparently the Priest must see the monster.

Prayer, however, is giving magic resistance.

The magic resistance is on purpose. I think (realistically), the monsters should resist any type of magic, wheras in blessings and healings, they lower it on purpose.

-Galactygon

Hmm I never thought of it like that.

Now I see why you have them not resisting Chant...since the Priest is incapacitated

Though resisting prayer seemed a little weird at first; I thought Prayer was a blessing/curse from the patron diety, and resisting those would take a very powerful being. This could work both ways, though...I wonder how a DM would handle an enemy monster with 100% magic resistance, resisting a prayer...
Then again, the CURSE spell is resistable, IIRC...

This would make Prayer pretty nerfed in the later game or in TOB part, since (From what I have read...so many spoilers@_@), every monster has magic resistance there.

Hmm...I see heavy storm clouds outside my window...(runs......)

What about the +1 saving bonus for a chant? That planned for a future spellpack?

Then would every single priest spell bypass magic resistance? Even the lowliest command spell?

About ToB...


That mistake will be taken care of.

I believe the chant effect affects saving throws. If not, I'll take care of that.

-Galactygon

Yeah, Chant wasn't giving any saving throw bonuses (or penalities to enemies).

The save effect seems to be missing from the pre-built chant effect, as it didnt do it in BG2 stock or BG1, either.

It _DOES_ do it (save bonus) in Icewind Dale, though, but I have no way of checking if monsters are affected. BI must have done some tweaking of the more buggy BG2 spells.

Black Isle programmers (in IWD) also had a similar side-effect on the priest for chant, (the extended effect is even written the spiralbound manual), though they did allow the priest to attack. But sticking the Icewind Dale Chant spell into Baldur's Gate 2 (sppl203.spl) causes a nice wonderful crash as soon as the wizard and priest spells become disabled.

Hello
I understand exactly what you say about compatibility and CTB mod but I was curious to know that if the portions of this mod that werent compatible could be optional in the install if somone wanted to install this mod with BGT and the rest including CTB.
Not to offend by any means to you the author

I just want to include it if possible

Thanks

No offense taken.

The required component is incompatible with CtB. You can feel free to try at your own risk to see if this is really true.

In that case, I might reccomend you install the required component before installing CtB, installing everything else afterwards. I cannot be too sure whether or not that also works, given I don't have CtB anywhere near my computer (thank goodness).

-Galactygon

I think the link is dead again...

It's also on the DHDC: Spell Pack B3

Link fixed.

-Galactygon

Can you add a Tutu (and Tutu GUI compatibility) version for the V4 ?

Because I have had a change in plans (as I do quite frequently), I don't think V4 will ever be released; the full mod will have to come next.

The good news is it will probabbly work with BG1TuTu, although nobody confirmed it yet.

-Galactygon

Ooh - tempting, does this mean that you're getting close(ish) to completion??

I don't know. All I can say is, I am much closer to completing the mod than last year.

-Galactygon

Good answer!