Neverwinter Nights Reloaded

[Tuberski]

Invest in Spot.

ACK!

[Jamski]

Or grab one of those nice Spot helmets

-Jam

[duke o' york]

Polka dots may be the in thing in Waterdeep, but I'm in Luskan now and their fashions are a little more refined.
I played a bit (too much ) over the weekend, and am now fighting my way through to one of the Captains' bases. I can't remember what he's really called so I'm going to call him Kurtz, if only in the hope that some cool helicopters start appearing over the town.
I've got the fire magic arrows at the nasty chests things sorted now, and even got some ordinary arrows just so that I could fire at the zombies in the graveyard just outside the gates of Luskan because it amused me. I did all of the quests in Port Llast (that I had in my journal at least) except the spellbooks, but only because I forgot to take two with me when I left the castle in Charwood. Mutamin's dungeon crawl was a breeze, and I was hoping for a slightly harder riddle at the end. Even Gollum would have got that one. I was also annoyed that I couldn't sell the crystal figurines I picked up. Bloody waste. I've just completed the first few rooms of Kurtz's stronghold and am looking to use my dragon breath at some point. I've had it for quite a while, and never remember to use it when I'm in a scrap. Maybe I should put it on the ordinary quickbar, instead of as Ctrl-F8 or whatever it is.

[DrSpike]

Yeah the riddle was so easy I took a while to consider whether or not it was a trick question.

[duke o' york]

Oh no, another Doc holiday!

[DrSpike]

Not really. I am home to work on some research material I want to get published.

It sucks taking time off to work.

[Qilue]

Jamski, here's a hak that would really improve Folderol.

http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/hakpacks/data/1099798040000.shtml

Basically, this fixes all the problems in the NWN spell scripts. I have played both a wizard and cleric on a PW that uses EMS and it is far better than the default BW spell scripts.

[DrSpike]

Better how?

[Harovan]

Originally posted by duke o' york
Mutamin's dungeon crawl was a breeze, and I was hoping for a slightly harder riddle at the end. Even Gollum would have got that one. I was also annoyed that I couldn't sell the crystal figurines I picked up. Bloody waste.

You could have placed them in the chest first, deliberately answering the riddle wrong. This would have summoned more monsters to kill and get XP for, and give you the chance to repeat at will, until you finally put in the right item.

By the way, did you get in trouble with a guy named Lenton (archeologists camp) while in chapter 2? He didn't answer to talk request, because he's busy hacking on a dummy. Or did Bioware finally fix this annoyance?

[DrSpike]

Both myself and Duke got that bug, though I thought it was because I completed his quest before speaking to him.

[duke o' york]

I completed my quest by trying to hack the dummy and accidentally taking his head off.
I have now killed Kurtz, and was off in pursuit off Baram too (not fair to just kill one of them and not the other ) when I got sidetracked exploring the sewers. Having lots of fun, and the ghoul lord was a respectable opponent, if not that difficult. He also had a lever for that sewage refining machine. Makes me wish I had more empty bottles than I do.

[Qilue]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Better how?

History

29 Oct 04
chg: Death Arrow a FOD-like effect with DC 10+AA
chg: Seeker Arrow does Magical damage since DR doesnt work (YABB)
fix: Imbue Arrow dice and DC (YABB)
fix: Keen Edge applies to any bladed weapon (YABB)
fix: Entangle was using BW HB's, which don't work (YABB)

21 Oct 04
chg: War Cry damage bonus is to party, not just caster

19 Oct 04
fix: Bebelith Web had all the usual BW bugs
fix: Blinding Speed wasn't Supernatural (YABB)

5 Oct 04
add: Greater Wildshape uses the Shapechange fixes (BAB, saves, etc)
chg: Woodland Stride does not trump magical entanglements (PHB)
chg: Non-Light Armor disables Evasion (PHB)
chg: PWS and PWK now 6*(L+B) and 4*(L+B) respectively
chg: Epic Mage Armor "autofix" uses real EMA DC of 46, not BW 26
chg: Focus Abj grants +2 on Dis checks, likewise GFocus+4, EFocus+6
fix: being incorporeal does actually trump entanglements (YABB)
fix: stonehold is not a mind-affecting spell (YABB)

1 Oct 04
chg: increase ability buff and summon durations to 10T/L
chg: nerf WOF confusion duration to 1d10R: minutes is way too annoying in MP

28 Sep 04
chg: give everyone R/2 for the elem dmg on Ice Storm and Meteor Swarm
chg: remove the immobilise from Earthquake: too much chaincasting abuse

26 Sep 04
add: fix Rabidness's fixes :P to MOB effects and add them

24 Sep 04
add: the unused Greater Ability Buffs are now Mass Buffs
chg: Holy Sword increased to 2d6 Divine
chg: Bigbys that miss or fail a grapple retry rather than abort
chg: Prayer now self-only
fix: slowly turning Shapechange into a usable spell

20 Sep 04
add: dispels can also remove GMW/Darkfire/etc, and Morks always do
add: TT also grants Great Cleave since Cleave is so broken
chg: Blade Barrier now R/L
chg: Invis Sphere now Mass Invis to fix numerous exploits
chg: Imp Invis genuinely PHB Greater Invis
chg: Blackstaff hits cause GDis rather than Dis (better chance to beat DC)
but with a maximum of one effect dispelled per hit
chg: removed Uncanny Reflex from Premonition

16 Sep 04
fix: workaround for 1.62 bug in GNOTL: was making AOE_Init unreliable

08 Sep 04
add: PHB Metamagic (stack, heighten, etc) for level 21+ casters
chg: MTA's now automatically succeed if you have True Strike
this isn't technically correct, but it solves the 1=miss problem
chg: disable Epic Scaling by default in favour of PHB Meta

22 Aug 04
add: Epic Scaling fix. L40 casters now actually different to L20 ones \o/
chg: remove SP success message if you can't possibly fail SP
chg: Water Elly Drown attack now actually a Drown: BW's was Banshee ffs
chg: Bigby 8 and 9 now face SR on EACH attack
fix: replace BW's TouchAttackMelee
fix: AOE's now expire on caster death rather than just caster invalidation
certain crappy lootable corpse scripts were causing problems

30 Jul 04 (mostly HOTU stuff - great game, but AWFUL code even for BW)
fix: Ball Lightning now almost useful
fix: Blackstaff now uses our dispel and doesn't totally suck
chg: Combust and Inferno were stupidly overpowered
fix: Hammer of the Gods W/2 was unreliable (calc order)
fix: Holy Sword bugs, stacking, and now uses our dispel
fix: override wrong/misleading 2DA "Hostile" settings (VampTouch, Darkness,
Prayer, BattleTide, etc) were messing up "intent-aware" Dispels
chg: Identify just DOES. The atrocious UI path is giving me RSI. Seriously.

22 Jul 04
fix: Darkfire and Flame Weapon bugs and stacking
fix: Ultravision and True Seeing remove the 20% miss chance of Darkness

20 Jul 04
fix: doom howls etc had the usual BW immunity!=effect bug (like phantkill)

18 Jul 04
fix: BG Summon Fiend actually summons a Vrock at L9
fix: more typical BW crap: Divine Might+Shield were subject to dispels

16 Jul 04
chg: SpellCache is now built at compile time - makes initialisation instant
chg: Wall of Fire now PHB
chg: Entangle has no SR, per PHB

--


Terminology

To save confusion:
CHARACTERS have levels. Spells have CLASSES. Fireball is a CLASS 3
spell, learnable by a LEVEL 5 Wizard or a LEVEL 6 Sorc.

R/L means "1 round per caster level". Likewise with T for turn and
H for hour.
10/L means "10 points per caster level"
N/2L means "1 N per 2 caster levels", i.e. +1/5L means +1 for L1-5,
+2 for L6-10, and so on.
(F/2), (R/2), and (W/2) after a spell's damage means a save of that
type for half damage.
A spell with damage listed as e.g. "Ld4 B + Ld4 C(R/2)" means that
ONLY the cold has a Reflex save, and the physical has none.

Anything noted as "Correctly (per BW)" means that a bug was fixed
in BW's implementation relative to THEIR description of the spell:
it may well be that the behaviour is not PHB, and often not even sane,
but that's not the point. :P
It's very common for PHB to say one thing, BW to SAY another, and the
BW code to DO a third. In those situations I've made judgement calls,
generally favouring PHB first, BW's supposed behaviour second, and BW's
actual behaviour last, because frankly they're just not very good at
getting code right.

Damage types are ABCDEFMNPS - no spell does piercing or slashing
damage that I'm aware of.


************************************************** **********************

Global Changes
--------------

Spells use real saves. Treating a 1 as a failed save even if you beat
the DC is beyond retarded. Want to kill a 60HD Epic Dragon with a level
11 char? Just Slay Living a couple of times and wait for a 1...
Yes, I know this is the "brilliant" new 3E rule. It's still one of the
most atrocious design decisions in history.

Empower has been bugfixed. In NWN, 2d4 Empowered can be 12: roll 8,
multiply by 1.5. 2d4 Maxed though is always 8. This is pretty clearly
not how things should work.
Empower is now (roll+max)/2, so it's always better than un-Empowered
(which also isn't true in NWN); never better than Maximised; and on
average is exactly the +50% it's supposed to be.

Spell Resistance works correctly. Yes, it's broken in unpatched NWN:
level 11 casters get resisted by SR12. SR checks are now shown as well.
SR against your own spells also works correctly, but is not shown as
it tends to flood the screen if you're in your own AoE's.

Dispels work correctly. This is huge (not to mention unique in NWN. :P)

AoE's work correctly. There is a known bug with ALL non-instant AoE's
in NWN where their SP, DC's, caster level, and metamagic can (usually, do)
become wrong as soon as any other spell is cast. For example, a Cleric
who casts Blade Barrier and then Turns Undead will suddenly discover
that the BB does 0d6 damage.

Spells correctly handle Evasion and Improved Evasion.
Creatures that are stunned, paralyzed, asleep, or petrified don't get
to use Evasion. I mean, ffs. Yes, Evasion is Supernatural, but you're
Helpless. YOU CAN'T MOVE *AT ALL*.

Multi-target homing spells like firebrand and the Isaacs will only hit
visible targets.

The Bigbys will switch to a new enemy once their initial target dies.
The new target must be visible to the caster, as this is a "directed"
attack, not an automatic one.
If the new target succeeds at an SR check, the Bigby is dispelled.
Attempting to control multiple Bigbys of the same class at the same
time reduces the duration of ALL of them because your focus is divided,
and they will all expire when the oldest one does.
While they still don't permit stacking they at least TRY to avoid
completely wasting a second casting, by retargeting themselves if the
original target already has the SAME class of Bigby active on it.
Bigby 8 and 9 now face SR on EACH attack rather than just once. This
avoids the absurd situation where a caster attacked by Bigby 8 gets
stuck in a permanent loop of "Fort Save, fail, stunned for 1 round"
because even a scroll-cast version of the spell is almost impossible
to dispel. This way, if they manage to make the save they can at least
cast a Mantle and absorb the spell on its next attack.

Summons are T/L rather than H/L. You don't need to be a one-man party
all the time if magic actually works.
Summon VII+ correctly now include Earth elementals (BW use d3, oops :P)
Summon I-IX cause a Battle of Wills unless cast from memory, regardless
of the caster's class. If you lose, the creature will go hostile.
Gate causes a Battle of Wills under ANY circumstances. You receive a
+4 bonus if you are have a Protection From Evil, Aura Versus Evil, or
Magic Circle Against Evil in effect, and a -4 penalty if you do not.
Rogues Do Not Gate, and neither does an L3 Wizard with a scroll.
Planar Summons do not require a Battle of Wills since the creature
is of your alignment and considers you an ally.
Creating Undead requires a Battle of Wills unless cast from memory.
Fixed an exploit where Munchkins could take a single Cleric level and
the Animal domain to get improved summons as mages/Druids/etc.
Fixed a bug with the various Shadow Conjurations summoning higher
undead than they should (they share the script with Shadowdancers,
so they were just using the casterlevel to determine the creature
rather than the actual SPELL that was cast).

Spells that require a melee touch attack (poison, slay living, etc)
now correctly do the attack BEFORE checking SR.

Charming does not work properly on NPC's at HC and above, so it has
been converted to Daze on those difficulty settings.

UMD no longer sucks (PHB is retarded and BW is even worse).
To use the improved UMD rules, the x2_pc_umdcheck script must be added
to your module separately. It has been moved from the EMS HAK to the
Source Archive because of problems with NWN's search order for scripts:
HAKs inexplicably take priority over module-specific scripts, so it
would otherwise be impossible to override without creating *another* HAK
just to put that in.


************************************************** **********************

Notes on Families
-----------------

Quite a lot of spells run in "families", i.e. several forms of what is
essentially the same spell, but improving in one way or another as the
class increases. Some of these families are utterly broken.

For example: what do C3 Clarity, C5 Lesser Mind Blank, and C8 Mind Blank
have in common? They're all exactly the same spell, and in a world where
every NPC is Evil they're all massively inferior to the C1 Protection
From Alignment.

On the other hand you have the Elemental DR family, which is
fundamentally solid except for a few small flaws:
C1: Endure: 24H, 10/- to a max of 20
C2: Resist: T/L, 20/- to a max of 30
C3: ProtFrom: 24H, 30/- to a max of 40
C5: EnergyBuffer: T/L, 40/- to a max of 60
It really isn't hard to see what's broken there, is it?


************************************************** **********************

HotU Spells and Weapon Enhancement
----------------------------------

1.62 introduced "temporary item properties" and spells to go with them:
essentially, a way to make weapons +X, Keen, have bonus damage, etc.
None of them work correctly in several important ways.
The damage bonuses are done as spells, which means they don't do xN
damage on crits; they don't activate Cleave if they cause a kill; and
they can't ever be Dispelled. They also stack with each other, with
a weapon's existing bonuses, etc: i.e. you can have a sword that does
2d6 Fire damage "naturally", and also 1d6+5 Darkfire and 1d4+10 Flame
Weapon, for a grand total of up to 37! bonus damage on every hit. That's
not counting Divine Might and Divine Favor, Bless Weapon, etc, which can
take the bonus to over 60.
As usual, most also have implementation bugs on top of everything else:
e.g. Darkfire is supposed to go up to +10, but BW never could get math
right. :P

I'm repairing these as time goes by, generally by changing the damage
to fixed amounts (this is required by NWN engine limitations) based on
caster level and fixing the stacking issues.


************************************************** **********************

That's the global changes which I snipped from the changes.txt file. basically, this hak redesigns almost all spells to fit 3.5E D&D rules.

[DrSpike]

Wow, some people really have too much time.

[duke o' york]

Yeah, imagine posting enough times to make yourself a deity.....

I think it's great that people do this - similar to Folderol, that NWN lives on in its community, rather than in the OC (well, except for me ) which just isn't up to scratch. When is NWN2 planned for again, and when will fans start building modules for that, or will we have NWN worlds and mods for a long time yet? Oh, and Spikey - when NWN2 comes out then you can't have my codes! I want to be able to play rather than just watch.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by duke o' york
He also had a lever for that sewage refining machine. Makes me wish I had more empty bottles than I do.

You don't need empty bottles for that machine. It's only limitation is, that it won't make more than 30 potions. Try various lever positions (save beforehand). Most of the 16 possible combinations create different potions. One of them even creates potions of sewage , which you probably won't want.