5-21-05

Chant has been completed, and gives bonuses to saving throws. The duration is now infinite until the caster stops chanting (ie until he moves away, casts a spell, attacks, etc.). If you have played Fields of the Dead, it works in a similar method. It is cumulative with Prayer, Bless, and Recitation, but not with itself.

Temporal Stasis, Imprisonment, and their reverses have also been completed. As with all touch attacks, Imprisonment now requires a touch attack from any melee weapon the caster is holding.

Timestop's duration has been set to 1D2+1 rounds rather than what was in PnP (1D3 rounds), because there is little point in casting timestop that has a chance of lasting only 1 round.

-Galactygon

5-29-05

I decided to switch back to PnP, so Skulltrap works similarly to what is present in Fields of the Dead with a few slight differences.

-Galactygon

5-31-05

I have some interesting news today. I found a nice method of changing the characters' avatars when they equip a robe or armour so they actually look like they are wearing one. So for example, a mage/thief equips a robe of the archmagi and they actually look like they are wearing the robe with the elegant sleeves and hood. Then, the mage/thief equips a leather armour and looks like he/she is a thief with high boots and such.

-Galactygon

?

The avatars of mage/thieves are fixed, they don't look like single-class mages neither as single-class thieves.
Normally, when a mage/thief equips a Robe, (s)he will still look as without it (but his major and other colours change a bit according to the robe's colour attributes.). Everything is similar in case of leather armours.
I suppose Galactygon now can make mage/thieves look in their Robe as if they were single-class mages (and in their Leather Armour as if they were single-class thieves).

Yes, what Baronius said. Apologies for any confusion I might have caused among the readers.

-Galactygon

6-2-05

I have tested my method in BG1; it works there as well.

Since I am not a WeiDU ninja, I have sent those files to Cam, so he could incorporate it into the G3 tweak Pack.

-Galactygon

6-3-05

Blacksphere has been completed.

-Galactygon

6-4-05

The following spells have been completed: Battlefate, Chaotic Combat, Animal Rage, Blood Rage, Blessed Warmth, Call Upon Faith, Champion's Strength.

Using an old trick of mine, I am able to implement saving throws against particular effects. For example, Protection from Fire will grant immunity to non-magical fire, grant 50% damage reduction from magical fire, and a +3 saving throw bonus against magical fire.

I have also seperated the magical/non-magical fire and cold damage effects. A burning oil or a flaming torch might inflict normal fire damage, but a spell that deals with fire will inflict magical fire damage (with the exception of Produce Fire). As for cold, I don't really know what inflicts normal cold damage rather than magical (except for Produce Ice), since the setting isn't Icewind Dale.

-Galactygon

For normal cold, I'd say it would be a spell that affects the environment, rather than directly inflicting the cold damage. So if the spell lowers the temperature of the surroundings (and will remain until it warms up after the spell duration ends). For example, a spell that causes a freezing blizzard to descend on the area would be a normal cold, whereas a spell that causes a freezing orb to strike the target would be a magical cold. The blizzard can remain after the spell ends, but the orb only lasts as long as the spell does.

That's the way I'd make the distinction anyways.

Doesn't the game crash if a creature is killed with the magic fire/magic cold damage type?

It does.

And I took care of it.

-Galactygon

6-5-05

The spells of Adamantite Mace, Animate Dead (both the wizard and the clerical versions), Charm Person or Mammal, Circle of Bones, Cloud of Pestilence, Cloak of Bravery, Cloudburst, Command, Confusion (clerical version), Conjure Air or Water Elemental, Conjure Earth Elemental, and Conjure Fire Elemental have been finished.

-Galactygon

Sounds good!
May I ask how?

You don't allow the creature to get killed by the fire damage; you have a MINHP1 effect set for an extremely short duration (0). It *has* to come before the damage effects are fired, or else you will run into the problems igi described above.

After the MINNP1 and damage effects, you cast a spell (with a timing mode of Delayed and a timing value of zero) on the targets that kills them if they have 1 hit point. Since you don't have an effect that does this, you may use the Power Word Kill opcode and increase the hit points of the creature by 58 right before the Power Word Kill effect is fired (but with a duration of 0). This way, a creature with 2 hit points will not get killed, but a creature with 1 hit point will get killed (since 1 HP + 58 HP is 59 HP, and that's the maxmimum number of hitpoints PWK may affect).

That's how I did it. As a player, I haven't noticed anything different if I had applied regular fire damage instead, without any tricks, since the trick I described above happens in a much quicker succession that what the human mind may follow.

-Galactygon

6-17-05

Movement modifiers of the various player races have been altered in addition to bonuses/penalties derived from strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. Gnomes, halflings, and dwarves have a movement rate that is considerably slower than humans, while half-elves are faster than humans, with elves even faster than half-elves. I shall post in general of what I have modified regarding stats:

Strength:
- The weight the characters may carry have been reduced according to AD&D, as well as bashing doors/opening chests

Constitution:
- Non-warriors with 17 or above constitution also recieve some bonuses to their hit points for every experience level attained; it goes up to as high as +4 rather than the original +2; for warriors it remains up to +7 max. I have done this to mimick that characters with high constitution may not get 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s when rolling the Hit Die. It does have its flaws, but it is still better than the status quo.
- Saving throw penalties vs. death/poison are attained if your constitution is too low. The penalties turn to bonuses as your constitution gets higher.
- Characters with godly constitution scores (19 and above) regenerate their hit points at an alarming rate; characters with a constitution of 25 don't need the ring of Gaxx.

Intelligence:
- Wizards and Bards (not sorcerers) may learn spells of a particular level only if their intelligence allows it. Having an intelligence of less than 9 means you may not cast wizard spells at all; you have to have an int of 10 to cast 5th levels spells, an int of 12 to cast 6th level spells, an int of 14 to cast 7th level spells, an int of 16 to cast 8th level spells, and an int of 18 to cast 9th level spells.
- Characters with godly intelligence scores (19 and above) automatically dispel illusions; the higher the intelligence of your character is, the more powerful illusions your character may dispel. A character of 25 INT acts as a permanent true sight (only 8th and 9th level illusions remain intact)!

Wisdom:
- Characters with high/low wisdom scores gain a bonus/penalty to saving throws made against certain spells that affect the mind of the character.
- For priests, you have to have a WIS of 17 or more to learn level 6 priest spells, and a WIS of 18 or more to learn level 7 priest spells.
- Spell failure for priests with low wisdom scores have been implemented. So Anomen, with his WIS of 12 will have a 5% spell failure.
- Characters with godly wisdom scores (19 and above) gain immunities to certain spells and effects. For example, a character with a wisdom of 25 is impossible to charm (domination works, however), confuse, or even kill them by a death spell (unlikely, since such characters are above level 8).

While some of these may seem dismal to many characters (ie only Edwin may cast level 9 spells, etc.), there is a new Planescape: Torment feature I am planning on implementing: you have a chance to increase any of your stats on every 4th level-up (for the Bhaalspawn, it will be every third level-up). This is why low-level characters have realistic stats, and high-level characters have heroic or godly stats (hence they ARE [anti]heroes and gods).

-Galactygon

Sounds cool. Are you going to lower the starting stats of any npcs to somewhat balance this out? Also, will Imoen, as another bhaalspawn, also gain stats faster?

Yes, in addition to making them more consistent with their character. I have always had the impression that Bioware gave Aerie a WIS of 16 rather than an 8 so that she gains extra priest spells. I also thought Minsc's word choices are more fit for a character with an INT of 11 rather than an INT of 8. Another example would be Edwin's wisdom that should be raised and his intelligence reduced.


No.

-Galactygon

Err, Edwin doesn't strike me as being very wise. He does a fair bit of rather foolish messing around with the Nether scroll, and also does a bunch of verbal baiting on individuals he really shouldn't be pissing off if he knows what is good for him. High Int, low wisdom fits nicely

While messing around with an unknown scroll is foolish or insulting the lessers; most wouldn't resist those actions in Edwin's shoes; even the somewhat wiser than average person. You could also take the background of Edwin into consideration .Edwin isn't wise, but he is better than average.

-Galactygon

I agree with you on Aerie, but you sure Minsc should have above average intelligence (I know it's barely above average, but still, why not below?
Why not?

Bioware couldn't resist the attempt to produce Shakespeare-level (well, not that level, but a quite a high level) dialogue for all characters; that includes Minsc and Korgan. Minsc's stats are appropriate for BG1, but not BG2.



She shouldn't steal <CHARNAME>'s thunder.

-Galactygon

I remember having this discussion some time last year . I found some useful info on the subject in the 3.5 Edition Player's Handbook:

6-22-05

Mislead, Project Image, Simulacrum, Shooting Stars, and Robe of Healing have been completed.

Mislead will now teleport the caster 10 yards in a random direction, with a duplicate of the caster being created exectly where the caster stood. In fact, casting the spell appears as if the caster were still standing there. Even players will be fooled when opponents are Misled; the Misled Image will cast the same spells as the spellcaster (albeit they are always illusionary), but from a different direction than the actual spell-caster.

Project Image is a similar spell, except the caster is not turned invisible, but the Image is impervious to everything and may cast spells from the caster's memory (I still haven't gotten this part to play perfectly).

Simulacrum is now permanent and may be cast on others, but the image only has 30-50% of the levels the actual creature has. The casting time has been set to 2 rounds.

Shooting stars conjures a large mass of small stars within a 50 yard radius sphere, inflicting 6D10 points of damage. In addition, 6 larger stars are called, with the points randomly determined. Anyone caught within one of the larger stars' area effect (15-foot radius) recieve 24 points of damage, with anyone within 5 feet of the point of impact will recieve 48 points of damage. I have used the decutscenized-PS:T spell, Elysium's Fires as the animation.

Robe of healing conjures a white robe that radiates an aura of healing, curing 1D4+4 points of damage to all who approach the wearer within 10 feet. A creature remaining next to the wearer as well as the wearer himself is cured the same amount of damage per round. Note that the caster may give the robe to someone else to wear.

-Galactygon

What's the URL to your site now, Galactygon? The links in your profile don't work, and neither does http://galactygon.blackwyrmlair.net

The same applies for the download links of the Romance-Friendly Imprisonment and the Fixed Creatures mods...

Yes, I took the old site down. Most of the pages were ridiculously outdated and were even misleading; it is better to have no information than false information. I do plan on moving in to BlackWyrm, but I need some time for that.

I believe TheWizard has mirrored my mini-mods (and perhaps even Dragon's Hoard), so you can always download those mini-mods there while I get reorganized.

-Galactygon

7-21-05

Lycanthropy has been introduced to the game.

-Galactygon

Please specify (I'm sure you just knew I'd ask this.. ).

I will not give any details this time. The most I will say is players that have fought against werewolves, wererats and the like will expect some of their party members to act a little strange.

-Galactygon

I only asked some info on this because of this idea has seen many implmentation attempts in the past, yet each and every one of them failed at one point. I was merely curious how you managed to solve these problematic points.

It has?

7-26-05

The following priest spells have been completed: Courage, Creeping Doom, Cure Blindness and Deafness, Cure Disease, Defensive Harmony, Dictate, and Dimensional Folding.

Some interesting things about these spells are:
* Creeping Doom summons a swarm of insects (as in IWD), which can instantly kill any creature it attacks without any saving throws, etc. It may seem unbalancing at first glance, but the following should be taken into consideration:
1. The creeping doom may not affect creatures protected from normal weapons or from normal insects
2. The movement rate of the creeping doom is extremely slow, and almost all of the creatures may outrun it (it will be included with the AI)
* The reverse of Cure Blindness and Deafness requires a successful touch attack within 1 round of the casting. If the caster succeeds, the victim has to roll 2 seperate saving thows against both blindness and deafness.
* A caster that has reached the 12th level may cure Lycanthropy from party members.
* Defensive Harmony grants a +1 bonus to the AC of all creatures within the area of effect based on the number of creatures affected. For example, if Defensive Harmony were to affect 6 characters, the AC bonus would become +6 for the duration or until dispelled. Fortunately, I didn't have to touch a single .bcs file to implement this one.
* Dictate is an area effect "Command" spell. Since I thought 1 round/level is a bit too powerful, I decided to lower the duration to 2 rounds.
* Dimensional Folding is an exact copy of the 4th level wizard spell, Dimension Door. You cannot teleport through walls or any solid obstacles.

-Galactygon

I'm sure you anticipate someone complaining about the Creeping Doom spell, so I'll not disappoint. I offer the following words of caution:

I have some problems with the spells "Death Spell" and "Cloudkill" in the original BGII due to the fact that they basically created a plateau for the enemies that would still be a challenge for the caster. Once a mage learned Cloudkill, for instance, all creatures with less than the given number of hit dice would be eradicated immediately. Translated, those creatures will from now on pose next to no threat to the caster. While the hit dice limit on these spells may be designed to kill enemies the relatively high-level caster could have easily killed already, your version of Creeping Doom sounds as if it might go a step beyond that. In Throne of Bhaal, there are foes encountered who are not immune to regular weapons who are challenging to the party nonetheless. Would Creeping Doom effectively make these still-somewhat-difficult battles a walk in the park? Hopefully the A.I. adjustments will react in an intelligent manner to the Creeping Doom and yet not so much as to make it a worthless cast.

Obviously, I have not used the new spell and am going only on your description of it.

How about a new spell: Protection from Normal Insects?

Yes, I remember at least two attempts at old FWS (not FW!). One of them died in it's planning state, the other was abandoned later on.

I would be surprised if no one would complain.


Yes, intelligent creatures will run away if they see a swarm of hundreds of insects creeping towards them. Held and unconscious creatures are hopeless against the swarm.

Oh and I forgot to mention the swarm is extremely vulnerable to area effect spells such as gust of wind, fireball, etc. Although the insect swarm has (1D6+4) * 100 hit points, area effect spells destroy a swarm, since every insect (1hp) is affected.



*Checks his list* Yes there will one.

-Galactygon

Then i could summon five gnolls to get an incredible +11 bonus to AC. What do you think about it? Maybe spellcasters should be discarded, involved in the count of creatures to determine the amount of bonus but not receiving it.

Yes. There is a maximum bonus of +5 in AD&D, but due to engine restrictions it didn't make it. The spell only lasts 6 rounds.

-Galactygon

Mine is capped at +5.

-Echon

I will take a look...I am trying to avoid scripting however.

-Galactygon

8-6-05

I have encountered yet a another OMG HRADDISK FAILURE!!, but it coincidently happened 2 days after I backed up all my files, so very little work has been lost.

Apart from that, I have been working more on the GuI than anything else in the mod. I am estimating that 3/4 of the GuI work has been finished.

-Galactygon

Is the new fantabulous GUI going to be an optional component? I am just curious because mods like BGT-WeiDU and BP that add their own GUI cofigurations would be incompatible I'm assuming.

Yes, and once I finish the GuI, there will be a seperate early release in addition to what will come with the full mod.


Those mods might alter the main menu, but it will be overriden by my GuI once you install it on top. Other than the main menu mentioning "Lost Crossroads" instead of BP-whatnot, there will be no compatiblity issues.

-Galactygon

8-14-05

The reverse of Knock ~ Wizard Lock has been completed. Since creatures will open internal doors quite often (and even make lockpicking/bashing attempts), this might prove quite useful.

-Galactygon

8-18-05

The reason I haven't done much work in terms of new spells these days is because I have been fine-tuning some of the secondary spell effects to add more realism.

A couple examples are:
* Held, stunned, and unconscious creatures automatically fail their saving throws against something that could be dodged (such as a fireball, disintegrate, sphere of annihilation, etc.)
* Seven Eyes absorbs the first effect that would affect the caster. So for example, if the caster is protected from poison (either via a spell, potion, magic resistance, or even innate resistance) or succeeds in a saving throw against poison, the eye that would normally absorb a single poison attack still remains.
* Dispel Magic destroys potions as if they were created by a wizard of 12th level

-Galactygon

8-27-05

Strength of one has been completed with the following changes from the PnP version of the spell:
1.) It affects non-lawful creatures
2.) The spell may not bestow more than 20 strength.

-Galactygon

9-5-05

As I have posted in the workroom, I have completed around 40 priest spells these past few 2 weeks, which is quite impressive. I will not mention every single one of them, with the exception of 2 spells I found particularly interesting.

The 6th level priest spell, Skip Day transports the party 24 hours into the future. To outside observers, it seems the party disappeared (and then reappeared 24 hours later if they remain at the same location for 24 hours), so most creatures will be gone. Spells and timers will also expire for the party, so you could speed up romances. It is important to note that this spell is not an automatic guarantee of success in every battle, because the party still needs to rest and creatures make use of those 24 hours by resting. It is useful if you decide to pick enemies one by one and cast this spell after a few creatures have died.

Another 6th level priest spell, Seclusion, allows the priest to hide a creature in an extradimensional space that moves with the caster, and release the creature at will. Unwilling creatures recieve a saving throw to prevent being hidden. Only one creature may be hidden in the space at a time, and the creature may not affect or see the outside world, which in turn does not affect or see the creature. If the priest dies or the spell ends, the creature is automatically expelled from the space. This spell is quite useful for hide-and-transport tactics.

-Galactygon

9-13-05

Desert Hell has been finished. The spell transforms the surrounding landscape into a scorching wasteland, causing damage to all (allies included) within twice the line of sight of the caster. I think I made good work of this cutscenized spell, which looks similar to the one in PS:T).

-Galactygon

9-17-05

Sphere of Security (a quest-level spell that conjures an immobile sphere of protection very similar to PST globe of invulnerability), Spike Growth, Spike Stones, Strength of Stone, and Storm Shell (now remodified to grant +3 bonuses to saving throws against fire, cold, and electricity) have been completed.

-Galactyon

9-25-05

Summon Insects, Sunray, Thief's Lament, Thornwack, Timelessness, Transport Via Plants, Wall of Fire, Wall of Moonlight, Watery Fist, and a re-modified Whirlwind have been completed.

I only have 10-20 priest spells left, which accounts for 95% of the priest spells. Once I finish those, I have a couple dozen of wizard and bard spells I need to complete.

Judging from what I have done so far, I am estimating that 70% of the mod has been completed so far. And work is speeding up, since I have completed some of my hardest years in my academics.

While several of my previous release guesses ended up in embarassing situations, I am quite positive I can complete this mod within a year-and-a-half, if not a single year unless something major occours in my real life.

-Galactygon