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Avernum 2: Crystal Souls - GIANT MOD! (beta version 0.3 released)


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Introducing the first gameplay mod for Avernum 2: Crystal souls! (at least that I've found)


This mod is largely based on the work of Slartibus and Akhari Blaze moding Avernum:EftP; but also adding many of my own contributions.

 

Click here to download Version 0.1

Click here to download Version 0.2

Click here to download Version 0.3 (changes detailed in latter post)

 

To install this mod: Simply copy the contents of the zip file into your game directory at "\Avernum 2 Crystal Souls\Avernum 2 Files\Scripts".

- If you can't find the game directory right click the games icon and select "view file location".

- Or on steam, right click the game in library, select properties, go to local files tab and click the  "browse local files button).

 

 

The goal of this mod is to add a tiny bit of realism to combat, while improving gameplay and build depth. It adds new mechanics, and new potential builds, while nerfing the most dominant builds from the base game.

 

Here are the detailed changes for the current version:

 

>>>)) Armour ((<<<

Spoiler

- Item weight has been made more realistic. You will now need to put points in strength just to wear chain mail. (The "Strong Back" trait is a bit more viable now).
    
- Plate Armours now increases parry rather than evasion.

 

- Shields now improve parry chance more than armour. Also hit penalty has been reduced for all shields.

 

- Many hit penalties have been reduced down from -5%. Note: Mages can wear up to -9% hit penalty and still cast spells.

 

- Many misc items are now equipable as armour. Have fun!

 

- Items that give riposte chance now give significantly more, (up to 5x as much).

 

- Energy resistance is a bit more rare now.

 

- Various and minor changes to legendary armour.


>>>)) Weapons ((<<<

Spoiler

- Spears are 1-handed weapons, with a -10 dual wielding modifier, to discourage it; They are also too heavy to be wielded in the off-hand.

     This is to allow spear users to carry a shield. All spears have also -5% parry (similar to shortswords).

 

Two-handed swords (waveblades, iron claymore and Greatsword of the Depths): similar to halberds in damage output, but smaller cleave chance but can impale for critical damage(15% chance); also have a 5% parry bonus.

 

Quarterstaves (Mage Staff[was Lava-Fired Spear] and Staff of Arcana[was Chaotic Halberd]): 5% parry bonus, CtH and energy damage that scales with intelligence, not strength, but they need investment in pole weapons (2 for 50 flat damage, 6 for scaled damage, 10 for more damage and cleave chance). They give also a passive bonus useful for mages, though.

 

Halberds no longer impale, but instead have a MUCH higher cleave chance (I wanted to make them different from spears, and most of the halberds depicted in spiderweb games look more like long axes, having no massive point on the top, so this change made more sense to me).

 

Shortswords, and light weapons that can be wielded off-hand carry a -5% parry penalty.

 

Daggers carry a -10% parry penalty, but they now scale better than they do in the base game, they also give a +5 Dual wielding bonus!

    New Legendary daggers will be added in future updates.

 

- !New! Blunt Weapons (Hammers, Battle Hammer[was gleaming dagger], Elgar's Hammer[was farsight band]): Single-handed weapons that tend to be as heavy as two handed weapons. Do not scale with any weapon skills but instead scale with endurance as well as strength. Also have a slim chance to daze the enemy 1 turn. Ideal for tank or paladin builds.
    Note: I could be wrong, but I think making weapons scale with with endurance will only increase their damage but not accuracy. Could be a problem down the line...
    more legendary hammers will be coming in future updates.
    Sorry, there is no new PC graphic for blunt weapons.

 

- Various misc items can now be equipped such as picks and hatchets. This will make the opening sections of the game a bit more interesting 😜

 

- Rocks can now be thrown, they scale with Dex and Str (but not Thrown Weapon skill). Useful when your melee characters are immobilized.

 

- Most Bows have Been reworked:

    -Renamed longbows to composite bows.
    -Increased the scaling on bows to be the same as composite bows. (Excluding some magic bows). Note: I am reducing the level of archer enemies to compensate
    -Increased the weight of all bow types.
    -Gave Composite bows a flat -10% accuracy penalty, but increase their crit chance bonus to 25% (this will not effect other equipped weapons).

The idea is that this will make composite bows better for dedicated archers, being an overall buff. While off-builds such as the popular priest-archer, will likely stick to using common bows.
 

Explanation for bow changes

First off I want to point out that the graphic for longbows depicts a composite recurve bow, and the standard bow graphic depicts a single-piece recurve bow. All Longbows bend in a single curve. Longbows are bigger heavier, but considerably easier to use. The string bends more making drawing easier and faster, but releasing significantly less power in your shot (complete opposite of the longbows in Avernum). Recurve bows bows bend the wood much more(which can effect accuracy for the inexperienced), and composite bows are made from multiple parts that help the bow bend. Power is stored in the wood itself in addition to the string, allowing for much more powerful shots that demand more effort and precision. Composite bows are however MUCH more difficult to make, and have a much shorter life span.

 

- Throwables now have weight, so watch how many you have equipped at one time! (remember to shift+click to only select a few).
    
- Various and minor changes to leagendary weapons.

 

 

>>>)) Weapon Disciplines ((<<<

Spoiler

- All Weapon Disciplines have been buffed, but also now have skill requirements to use. (You need to actually put points into the required skill, bonuses from items do not count).

    Furthermore, the Disciplines will improve as you put more points in the skill. Damage improves as well as gaining additional effects.
    Focus SpiritBladeshield and Adrenaline Rush have no base requirements, so they can be cast by anyone with sufficient melee/missile skill, but are far more efficient if used .

 

- Stunning blow has been replaced with Swords Dance: Essentially a stronger blade sweep. Reaches a wider area and causes debuffs.

 

- Leg Sweep now also causes stun at higher levels of quick action.

 

- replaced Mighty Blow with Reversal: Now flings the target backwards behind he user, instead of a normal knockback, also causes immobility and terrify at higher levels.

 

- Focuss Spirit is now a lot more useful providing self-healing, bladeshield, and an extra action at higher levels.

 

- reworked ranged battle disciplines:
    * Flawless Shot: At higher levels will ensnare an area of enemies and daze the target.
        
    * Heavy Javelin(was Flawless Throw): At higher levels will knock back and disable the target.
    
    * Sharpshooter Spray(was Blinding Shot): deals damage over a cone area, damage improves with sniper.
        
    * Enchanted Javelin(was Blinding Throw): deals more damage and applies elemental effects, improving with sniper. (still looking to do more with this one)

 

Bows offer the most variety in standard shots, and often default to using adrenaline rush. Throwables aren't as great with adrenaline rush since it costs you way more ammo, so I redesigned the other disciplines with throwables in mind. Basically you want to use razordiscs to damage multiple targets and a javelin to hit single targets harder, the disciplines available to both reflect this.

 

- Almost every point in blade master will improve a weapon discipline (Well-aimed blow, Shield Breaker, Blade Sweep).

- Every other point of quick action improves a weapon discipline (Leg sweep, Battle Frenzy).

- Lethal Blow improves Reversal.

- Dual wielding improves Swords Dance.

- Sharp Shooter improves Flawless shot / Heavy Javelin.

- Gymnastics improves adrenaline Rush.

- Sniper improves Sharpshooter Spray / Enchanted Javelin.

- Priest skill now improves Focus Spirit.

- Mage skill now improves blade shield.

 

>>>)) Spells ((<<<

Spoiler

- Most spells have had their energy cost increased by 20% to 100%

 

- Damage scaling on AOE spells has been heavily reduced, but base damaged has slightly improved.

 

- Early healing spells have been nerfed. Late game ones largely unchanged (buffed even).

 

- reworked summons: Simulacrum is great and all, but I just enjoy playing the summon lottery too much to get rid of the other summons so I completely reworked summon spells!
    Sadly I can't get randomly summoned creatures to scale with your characters level, but I can make them scale with a skill.
    So this might be a bit confusing at first but improving summon spells no longer does anything, the spell will not change if you buy it multiple times. Instead the level of the creature summoned is dependent on a skill:
        Beast Summon is Cave Lore x1.5 + 5 (max 23), now costs 10 mana.
        Summon Aid(was minor summon) is Mage skill x1.5(max 28), now costs 20 mana.
        Arcane summon is going to be replaced with Quickfire or Kill in a later update, currently it's unchanged.
        Summon Shade is unchanged for now but will be looked at in a future update.
        Divine Echo will remain unchanged for now. The summon is more of a decoy than anything for fighting with.
    *Note that this does not include skill bonuses from items or traits.
    Furthermore more creatures such as demons can now be summoned.
    Also note that the level is the average level of creature summoned. From my testing the creatures level seems to vary within 10 levels lower or 5 levels higher than the average.
    Lastly the summoned creature will get a variety of buffs, the duration of the buffs is affected by the associated skill.
    
- Slow now improves with each level.
    
- Icy Rain now makes the effected area cold, damaging both enemies and allies.

 

- Spray Acid: at level 3 it affects all enemies in range 1, even if the lightning effect affects only the targeted enemy. Reduced cost (10->5).

 

- Blink has been given additional effects.

 

- Summon Aid replaced with Freeze:
    Single target damage and CC, attempts to stun and immobilize a single target, while doing considerable ice damage, as well as additional ice damage over time.

 

- Howl of Terror replaced with Circle of Madness:.

   AoE spell centered on the caster, inflicts random ailments with different probabilities (slightly increasing with level):

   weakness & war curse (always), partial-charm (80% at lv.1), stun (40% at lv.2), full-charm (25% at lv.3), range 3.
    
- Minor Heal replaced with Prayer which randomly heals, cures or causes regenerating, (Note: Regeneration is a flat heal, so it is VERY strong early game)
    The likelyhood of a heal improves greatly with spell level.

 

- Smite replaced with Holy Scourage, still deals damage but now has more emphasis on debuffs.

 

- Call Storm cost increased immensely, damage reduced but effect increased at higher levels.
    (I don't use it much, tell me if it needs changes)

 

- Unshackle Mind: Since having 3 mental statuses is rare, level 3 now adds a 30% chance of giving the target Battle Frenzy(2 turns) instead.
    
- Domination: The cost to success rate of this spell is just painful. Increasing the level now increases the chance of the effect procing in addition to increasing it's duration(the charm duration increases if it procs multiple times).

 

- Move Mountains: At level 2 the spell now has a chance of Ensnaring enemies; at level 3 it has a chance of Daze. Both of these effects are far more likely to proc in the centre of the circle.

- Mass Healing: at level 3, the chance for regeneration has become a chance for curing (50%).

 

- Mass Curing has been replaced by Spine Shield, that also cures 1 effect at level 2 and has chance for regeneration at level 3.

 

- Divine Restoration: 1 (cures 1 effect)/ 2 (cures 2 effects + 1 mental) / 3 (regeneration 5 turns, 20% bonus)

 

- Return life now is different depending on the training: 1 (weakness/war curse on the caster), 2 (nothing), 3 (bless party)

 

 

>>>)) Misc ((<<<

Spoiler

- Bandages are now WAY more effective healing items. be sure to stock up at the many stores that sell them for only 16 coins

 

- Food items now heal more as well, but not nearly as much as bandages.

 

- Wands and scrolls are MUCH stronger: they hit more often and do more damage. Terror and Inferno wands are untouched (they were already level 50), other wands range from level 30 to 45, depending on value. Also non-defensive scrolls are somewhat stronger.

 

- Purging Crystals now also heal mental statuses.

 

- Invulnerability potions replaced by Heroism potion (battle frenzy + bladeshield)


- Bags of Sugar are now stackable!

 

Phew, that was quite a bit to go over. I hope people enjoy this. I will make  a few updates to this when I finish my playthrough, and when I feel it's done I'll get started on a RW mod.

Actually before that, I think this mod adds enough original stuff to warrant being ported to EftP, let me know if anyone wants that.

 

Have fun!

- Giant Friendly Talking Spiderman

Edited by GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman
Deleted spoilers at request of the OP
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I'm working on an update soon, but I have a lot off work this passed week and am really burned out. I finally have some time off mid-week so I'll post it then.
In the meantime I just want to point out that a few late game items have incorrect stat's or graphics.
I also nerfed deadeye cloak to what it was in base game because archers are much stronger than they were in A:EftP. I also fixed an issue with snipers belt not giving all the stat increases I believe it was meant to, (one stat was overwriting the other).


Lastly I wan't to point out that you can apply the update without any risk of damaging your save file.

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VERSION 0.2 RELEASE

 

To install version 0.2 just do everything you did to install the previous version, Your save existing files should still work, though there could be minor inventory issues. (like a hammer equipped as a ring :P)

 

>>>)) Fixes ((<<<

Spoiler

- Various item stat error corrections:
    -Steel Broadsword is no longer a two-handed sword
    -Blessed & Radiant Breastplate no longer improves evasion instead of parry.
    -Radiant Greaves now give the correct amount of armour (18%)
    -Ghostly Blade no longer reduces parry chance, (also has +5 dual wielding now)

    -I also fixed an issue with Snipers Belt not giving all the stat increases I believe it was meant to, (one stat was overwriting the other).

    -Stone Crescent was broken. It is fixed now.


    
>>>)) Changes ((<<<

Spoiler

- Steel Shortsword now uses a similar graphic as the Iron Shortsword instead of sharing a graphic with Steel Broadsword, (this always confused the hell out of me).
    
- I realized that Focus Spirit with 2 priest skill is worse than curing which only requires 1 priest skill, so I decided to adjust Focus spirit.
    It now requires only 4 priest skill to provide a heal that now scales with priest skill.
    At 8 Priest skill it now gives the user enough focus to counter all incoming attacks for the following turn (1 turn of bladeshield)
    It now costs 5 mana to avoid infinite free healing.

 

- Due to Bladeshield's high weapon skill requirement, I have reduced the Mage skill required to improve Bladeshield by 2.
    I have also reduced it's fatigue cost by 1, (7->6), in exchange I have given it a mana cost of 6;
    (I still don't think it's worthwhile for a warrior to put 2 points into Mage Skill just to use Bladeshield, they probably have better options by that point considering they are probably too encumbered to cast any spells).

 

- Due to an error, Mighty blow was doing WAY too much damage starting at 8 lethal blow; this has been corrected.
    I have also noticed that the terrify effect unlocked at 8 Lethal Blow is never pocking, I suspect that it's resisted just as often as daze making it useless late game. So I decided to make it inflict immobility starting at 4 Lethal Blow, to just make it a superior Shield Breaker.

 

- Staff of Arcana no longer provides +10% parry and critical bonus, instead provides +6 melee weapon skill
    What is the point of a two-handed weapon that provides the same stat's as a shield?
    This will make battle disciplines such as Bladesheild more usable for a polearm mage. Because let's face it, most of them aren't worth building to if you don't have Str gymnastics or fatigue reduction.
    I might revert this change this back if I realise Bladeshield is OP.
    I may have to change this weapon's name and graphic, or else the dialogue for crafting it will be messed up. "Arcane Halberd?", "Wizzard's Halberd?"

    
- I have re-balanced shields:
    Bronze shields (and legendary shields based on bronze shield) offer more parry but weigh more
    Iron and Steel shields have a harsher hit chance penalty.
    

I nerfed Deadeye Cloak to what it was in the base game because archers are much stronger than they were in A:EftP.

 


>>>)) New Stuff ((<<<

 

Elgar's Hammer: (replaces farsight band, the most disappointing item I could find)
    25 lbs
    -10% parry chance
    +10% accuracy
    +10% crit chance
    80% chance of inflicting weakness curse (2 turns)

 

 

 

>>>)) Coming soon (suggestions wanted) ((<<<

Spoiler

- New spells: Is it just me or does simulacrum just kinda invalidate the other summon spells, I could replace them with new spells!
    If anyone has any ideas shoot them at me! (I'd prefer spells already in the game for monsters and NPCs)
    I want to experiment with setting the ground on fire soon, I still don't know if it will work the way I expect, if it turns out burning ground only hurts allies... SHOULD I BRING BACK FRIENDLY FIRE ON FIREBLAST???? (I want too, but people might not like it).

   [UPDATE]: I found it! Burning ground only damages friendlies even if you create the fire. The damage of being on fire doesn't exactly scale well into the late game so I'm not sure if I can do friendly fire as well as I hoped, however quickfire is still on the table.

 

[UPDATE]

- Battle Disciplines: I just noticed that I never remembered to fix Sharpshooter Spray... currently it's just vanilla Blinding shot. Also I think flawless shot/throw is doing more damage than it is supposed too.

- I could easily make flawless shot and flawless throw different abilities, I'm considering if I should.

- Lastly, I am thinking of replacing Mighty Blow with a new ranged ability. Mighty blow is pretty dull as, "just shield bash but stronger" and we don't have enough ranged disciplines. It will still scale with lethal blow but but I have no ideas what it should be yet.

 

- Effectiveness of healing items scale with users first aid skill.
    want to make the skill good, currently it feels like a waste in skill points
    I could also do something similar for arcane lore and wands, or cave lore for something else. But those skills already provide some small bonus to combat so I don't think it's needed.
    
    A new legendary knife: Blessed Athame! Still thinking on what it will do...
    
    Make Whips a real weapon??? Sounds cool but have no ideas for it.

 

Edited by GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman
Minor update
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VERSION 0.3 RELEASE!

 

To install version 0.2 just do everything you did to install the previous version, Your save existing files should still work, though there could be minor inventory issues. (like a hammer equipped as a ring :P)

 

 

>>>)) Fixes ((<<<

Spoiler

    Fixed an oversite causing Slith Flingers to know Purge instead of Blinding Throw
    Fixed an oversite causing Warrior Monks to know Sword Dance instead of Stunning Blow
    Fixed an oversite causing Shamblers to know Mass cure instead of Thornshield.

    Fixed an issue that caused Flawless Shot to do much more damage than intended at later levels.
    Fixed an isse that caused Divine Retribution to do 0 physical damage. (I personally don't understand why it was decided that this skill should do physical damage, I'm considering changing it back to energy, Int-priest builds aren't exactly OP).
    Hatchet was importing the wrong value, it no longer incorrectly gives -10% parry.
    Fixed a mistake that caused Quarterstaff weapons to not work at lower levels of pole weapons and deal too much damage at other levels.
    Fixed an issue that caused Frozen Mageblade to give Acid resistance instead of it's intended +5 accuracy.
    Fixed an error that prevented Spine Shield from improving with spell level.
    Fixed a typo that caused Radiant Shortblade to provide + 0% energy protection.
    Fixed multiple errors with First Expedition Bow. It now provides the correct stats.


    
>>>)) Changes ((<<<

Spoiler

- slightly adjusted the weight of some weapons.

- to contrast most high level armours being changed from giving evasion to giving parry; a few enchanted items that boosted parry have been changed to boost evasion instead.

- Daggers were proving a bit more effective than I expected. I also didn't realize how easily obtained the legendary daggers were in CS. So I'm increasing their parry penalty to ensure that they are used for dual wielding. (Besides have you ever tried parrying with a dagger? it's not great)

- increased the item level of common hammers by 1(4->5);
    I originally pictured them as the "crude" class of the weapon, but that title actually goes to sticks. Standard hammers should compare to "bronze" gear, and battle hammers should compare to "iron or steel" gear. 

- Blessed Boots weighed too much to be useful so I lowered the weight(14->10). The name does not imply that they are heavy metal leg wear anyway.

- Scroll - Stoneshatter is now 15x more powerful in combat.

- Scroll - Sanctification is now 2x more powerful of a heal.
    

- a number of Weapon Disciplines have had their base damage reduced at early levels (well aimed blow was doing a lot of damage for a level 2 PC).
- Leg sweep now has longer immobility duration.
- Adrenalin rush is pretty strong. So strong that it kind of was always a better option than any of the ranged battle disciplines. Not to mention insane on an archer-spellcaster. So I increased the gymnastics requirement to the standard. No more low-level spell spamming! You can still use it the same without gymnastics; it now offers 16 Action Points at 5 Gymnastics (which is effectively the same if haste or snipe procs). If you want the guaranteed 2 extra actions you will need 10 points in Gymnastics.
    If this makes archer-caster builds non-viable let me know. I just think you should be using your archery skills as often as your spells.
    
- reworked summons: Simulacrum is great and all, but I just enjoy playing the summon lottery too much to get rid of the other summons so I completely reworked summon spells!
    Sadly I can't get randomly summoned creatures to scale with your characters level, but I can make them scale with a skill.
    So this might be a bit confusing at first but improving summon spells no longer does anything, the spell will not change if you buy it multiple times. Instead the level of the creature summoned is dependent on a skill:
        Beast Summon is Cave Lore x1.5 + 5 (max 23), now costs 10 mana.
        Summon Aid(was minor summon) is Mage skill x1.5(max 28), now costs 20 mana.
        Arcane summon is going to be replaced with Quickfire or Kill in a later update, currently it's unchanged.
        Summon Shade is unchanged for now but will be looked at in a future update.
        Divine Echo will remain unchanged for now. The summon is more of a decoy than anything for fighting with.
    *Note that this does not include skill bonuses from items or traits.
    Furthermore more creatures such as demons can now be summoned.
    Also note that the level is the average level of creature summoned. From my testing the creatures level seems to vary within 10 levels lower or 5 levels higher than the average.
    Lastly the summoned creature will get a variety of buffs, the duration of the buffs is affected by the associated skill.
    
- reworked Slow:
    Improving Slow used to increase it's duration by 5%... yeah not fantastic, so I gave it some other stuff, not buffs mind you. It's already a really strong spell.
    Slow at level 1 now also slows the user(only at level 1).
    Slow at level 2 is unchanged.
    Slow at level 3 adds 2 turns of War Curse.
    
- reworked Icy Rain:
    Now makes the effected area cold, damaging both enemies and allies.

        *Damage from Frozen status seems to scale with the recipients level, usually amounts to around 16 damage after resistances.
    Reasoning: I felt it kinda sucked that the only cold spell was so weak, I literally only ever used it when a 3 or more close range enemies happened to be at 1 Heath. So I made it stronger at the cost of adding friendly fire. Speaking of...
    
- reworked Circle of Madness:
    Now costs 10 less mana (40->30)
    Now causes charm for 1 turn instead of Daze. (if charmed for 1 turn an enemy will instantly recover when it tries to take it's actions, but will be attacked by allies until it does).
    Duration and chance of Stun reduced.
    Now requires 12 mage skill
    I feel like This is the best way to demonstrate just how rarely metal effects actually work on enemies. (maybe I should do more testing on normal difficulty to see if there is a difference... meh)
    
- reworked Unshackle Mind:
    Since having 3 mental statuses is rare, level 3 now adds a 30% chance of giving the target Battle Frenzy(2 turns) instead.
    
- reworked Domination:
    The cost to success rate of this spell is just painful. Increasing the level now increases the chance of the effect procing in addition to increasing it's duration(the charm duration increases if it procs multiple times).

 

- reworked Move Mountains:
    At level 2 the spell now has a chance of Ensnaring enemies; at level 3 it has a chance of Daze. Both of these effects are far more likely to proc in the centre of the circle.
    
- smoking pipes can now be equipped as helmets, they don't do anything but they make you look really cool.


    
>>>)) New Stuff ((<<<

Spoiler

- replaced Mighty Blow with new skill Reversal:
    Now flings the target backwards behind he user, instead of a normal knockback.
    First I wanted to replace mighty blow with something useful for ranged characters, but I didn't have any ideas. Then I had a great idea for an attack called leaping strike that allowed you to move closer to leap to a nearby enemy. Sadly it could only scale with dex so I scrapped it. Now we have this for now, it's nice for dealing with fleeing archers... I might go back to thinking up a new ranged discipline. Speaking of...

 

- reworked ranged battle disciplines:
    * Flawless Shot(unchanged):
        3 fatigue
        [at 1 Sharpshooter] causes ensnare
        [at 4] cleave & 25% crit chance
        [at 7] ensnare is now area of effect & more damage
        [at 10] daze and more damage
        
    * Heavy Javelin(was Flawless Throw):
        3 fatigue
        [at 1 Sharpshooter] causes immobile
        [at 4] knockback(3 spaces) + more likely bonus damage boost
        [at 7] more damage
        [at 10] stun and more damage
    
    * Sharpshooter Spray(was Blinding Shot):
        6 fatigue
        deals damage over a cone area, damage improves with sniper.
        
    * Enchanted Javelin(was Blinding Throw):
        5 fatigue
        deals more damage and applies elemental effects, improving with sniper.
        still looking to do more with this one.
    
    Bows offer the most variety in standard shots, and often default to using adrenaline rush. Throwables aren't as great with adrenaline rush since it costs you way more ammo, so I redesigned the other disciplines with throwables in mind. Basically you want to use razordiscs to damage multiple targets and a javelin to hit single targets harder, the disciplines available to both reflect this.

 

- replaced Howl of Terror with new spell Freeze:
    Requires 11 Mage skill, costs 10 mana
    Single target damage and CC, attempts to stun and immobilize a single target, while doing damage comparable to Icy Rain.
    Howl of Terror and Circle of Madness are too similar, one needed to be reworked or replaced. I preferred to keep circle of madness because terror almost never works late game.


    

>>>)) Coming soon (suggestions wanted) ((<<<

Spoiler

- Find out why ranged battle disciplines damage don't scale at the same rate as the melee ones.
    
- Rework Arcane Blow or Fireblast
    There are just too many cone AOE Mage spells.
    I want to make Arcane Blow into the Shockwave spell from ye olde Exile but that could prove difficult.

 

- I just noticed Flaming Sword was buffed in A2, and oh boy was it. I may actually nerf it just so it doesn't blow away the competition so badly...
    
- I still want to make Arcane Lore, First Aid and Tool Use improve something, much like I did with Cave Lore and Call Beast. However I have no ideas since I realized that consumable items won't scale with player stats.
    
- A new legendary knife...

 

- Another new Hammer...
    
- Make Whips a real weapon??? Sounds cool but have no ideas for it.

 

Edited by GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman
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  • 3 months later...

Hello Muscleguy,

 

Jeff has coded the Avernum games so that the meat of their content – the scripts – is the same regardless of what platform you're using. It's really quite a nice system! The advantage is that, if someone makes a mod like this, it will work in exactly the same way for all platforms. The only difference between a PC and Mac user is that they'll be putting the files in a slightly different place.

You're right that, as a Mac user, you'll want to put these scripts in the Resources folder inside the application. Before making any changes, I highly recommend making a backup of the entire Avernum 2 application, just to make sure you can go back to it if something goes wrong, or if you don't want to use the mod any more. All you then need to do is to drag the several text files that make up the mod into the Resources folder. These will overwrite the originals (which is why I recommend making a backup!), and the game will then be modded.

I haven't used this mod myself, but all the text files it provides are also included in the standard Mac version of the game. The PC and Mac versions use the same set of text files! In order to make big changes like this, only a couple of important scripts need to be changed. That's why you're not seeing hundreds of text files. In fact, most of the files in the mod are just changes to the help dialogues – it's only 'a2itemschars' and 'a2objsmisc' that carry all the gameplay changes. Just drag all the text files over and see what changes the modder has made to the engine!

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And why is a fine steel waveblade a two handed weapon but an ordinary one is a one handed weapon? a fine steel version would be lighter.

 

This mod is touted as being more weapon realistic when in fact it isn't. BTW my grunt is wielding a FSW and a shield, because he was doing so in the unmodded game I opened. 

 

And the strength levels needed for armour are ridiculous. And the blade sweep discipline is also ridiculously strong. A blade sweep cannot be too strong as it would get stuck in the first target. You don't seem to understand that. 

 

I'm less and less sold on this mod as it seems less, not more realistic. 

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  • 6 months later...

Most of what you complained about is fixed in the latest version of the mod(v0.4) which I will post sometime this month.
I held back from posting any new releases because I broke half the the priest spells and became too ill to continue progress on the mod. But my health has improved and I've found the issue that was breaking the priest spells.

 

The 0.4 release will be near-final. Here are some things to expect:


- It will feature many new items (replacing unique sale items)
- The ability to hire some familiar mercenaries.

- Heavy spell rebalancing.

- Weapons that siphons mana or health from your enemies, (perfect for paladin builds).

- Two new weapon types: Rapiers and Flails.

- A potion that removes fatigue.

 

Things I'm still working out:

 

- Light sources now have a use.

- Alcohol now has a use.
- I want to find a use for first aid outside of minor convenience.

- Personally I've always preferred single target spells over AOE, I am considering having some spells start as single target and upgrade to an AOE.

- I would love to do a total ground-up overhaul on the spells, but I'll probably do that later as an alternative mod that provides a fresh new experience.

Edited by GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman
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On 10/15/2018 at 2:16 PM, Muscleguy said:

Why do they animate with a two handed spear when they have a one handed sword equipped? After all this is supposed to be that spears are one handed?

This is unfortunately a hardcoded part of the engine. All two-handed weapons will cause your PC to look like they are holding a spear. The only way to correct this is to change the actual sprites in the game files, but you would need to change that every playthrough depending on your builds.

 

On 10/16/2018 at 3:37 AM, Muscleguy said:

And the strength levels needed for armour are ridiculous. And the blade sweep discipline is also ridiculously strong. A blade sweep cannot be too strong as it would get stuck in the first target. You don't seem to understand that. 

Yes Armour is heavy, because in real life armour is heavy. People almost never walked around in great helms and full plate mail, and if they did it was very slow and awkward.
If you want to rock a full suit of heavy armour the "strong back" trait will do you wonders.

Very little is realistic about the weapon disciplines in general. Sadly there is no way for me to determine the order targets are being hit. At best I could make the initial target take a different amount of damage than all of the other targets, but then the skill would be too similar to "well-aimed blow" which has guaranteed cleave.

 

I'm not going for absolute realism in this game with magic and talking spiders. I'm mainly focused realism that adds more gameplay depth and build variety. Also I have to settle some personal pet peaves like, "Why can't my ensnared PC just throw a rock or something?".

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/7/2019 at 12:23 PM, LastShade said:

I just wanted to thank you for your mod... it was needed, and it's good work!

Thanks, I'm glad your enjoying it! The next update will add a lot of new stuff you can do and fix some bugs. I plan to port this mod over to Avernum 1&3 after I'm done. It shouldn't take very long to port the mod but I'll need to do a test playthrough to ensure I didn't break anything.

I've had some distractions lately but I'm still hoping to put out the next update before the end of the month.

I have a small dilemma though; Since I'm adding blunt weapons I wanted to consider that blunt weapons are more effective to armored enemies. So I thought maybe they should deal energy damage? Can anyone think of any notable drawbacks to this? There are almost no creatures in the game that resist energy damage, but there are a few!
 

Also if that sounds broken, know that the scaling on blunt weapons is pretty bad. In play testing I found they are best used as a back-up weapon since they only scale with base stats. I tried building an all endurance priest on my test run and he's feeling like a jack of all trades. Not enough armour or deference skills to make him tanky, hard to heal with all of that HP, and his melee damage is still less than my archer-mage. (I'm trying some "out there" builds to make sure I didn't make anything too abuseable).

Edited by GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman
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Every creature in the game resists energy damage.  What you mean is that there are very few that have bonus resistance to energy beyond what all creatures are assigned based on their level.  And because automatic elemental resistance increases more slowly than automatic armor, the advantage in dealing energy damage is actually greater against higher level enemies, not just enemies with higher bonus armor.

 

That's OK for blunt weapons balancewise, I guess.  I do think it's kinda weird thematically.  If I'm thinking about bludgeoning weapons versus armor, I wouldn't expect a mace to be relatively more useful against dragons, archmages, or vampires...

 

(Also, do you really mean only scale with base stats?  Wouldn't they scale with everything except Melee Weapons (which I presume you removed from their ability)?  This includes level, which factors into all damage formulas, as well as all % bonuses to melee damage.  At low levels 10 points in Melee Weapons can make a big difference but at high levels, when a fighter will have 30+ natural Strength and another 25-30 levels of damage from level/str traits/item level, missing out on those 10 points amounts to more like a 15% penalty.)

 

(EDIT: Wait, I didn't see that you had them scaling with Endurance instead.  At high levels that will just about make up for the Melee Weapons points even with no manual investment in Endurance.  I don't see much of a penalty anymore.)

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Sorry for the lack of clarity. When I said, "creatures in the game that resist energy damage", I was referring to special resistances. All creatures that have bonus resistance or immunity to a damage type have attributes nodes for that. I'm merely concerned about abilities or event scripts that may also grant energy or elemental immunity, and aren't immediately apparent in the code.

 

Also for the balance of blunt weapons, I did simply mean that they scale with endurance instead of a weapon skill. This makes a bigger deal depending on how many points you normally put into endurance.

 

First I need to mention that blunt weapons don't scale as much as most weapons, this is to prevent them from being overly strong early game. (I tried lowering their base damage first but it didn't help for reasons I can't quite recall at the moment).But lowering their scaling means their damage falls off harder late game. 

 

So if I made a fighter that used blunt weapons, the number of damage dice he can potentially have on each swing is limited by his PC level, base stat points, and trait points.
But if I made a fighter that used a sword of equal level, the number of damage dice he can potentially have is limited by his PC level, base stat points, trait points, AND skill points.

This is another factor that reduces the potential damage of blunt weapons in the late game.

 

BUT if I were making a tanky fighter that has just as much endurance as strength then he might actually get more dice than he would with a sword.

This also means that blunt weapon users are dissuaded from unlocking later weapon disciplines, because it requires them to sink extra points into a weapon skill that inherently provides nothing for them.

A priest or mage with any points in endurance would also inherently be better at using a mace than a sword, without any investment, hence why I proposed that they made nice back-up weapons.

 

I think the easiest solution is to make a late-game energy hammer, (Mjolnir?). Since energy damage is often better than fire or cold, it helps balance the smaller damage output it would have compared to the flaming sword.

Edited by GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman
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  • 4 months later...

- Soon

A lot happened to me over the past few months and as I've finally found myself some time to start up Queen's wish I remembered about this and figured that I should post something.
It's been so long I have no memory of where I left off on this project (although I do have thorough notes), and I kinda just want to start queens wish right now. The last thing I need in my life at the moment is more stress, so I'm putting this on hold until I beat queens wish. Who knows, maybe Queens wish will inspire some new additions to this mod...

The upside for anyone who happens to be eager for this mod is that I have a new deadline to finish it, since I may be using the game for a project with some friends, and before we start that I want my mod to be done and tested. It's not a difficult feat since the mod is mostly done already, but I may not find time for it until early next year.

For anyone curious what I've been up to for the past half-year:

Spoiler

I tried getting 3 jobs to earn back some tuition money, all 3 jobs shorted me on the hours they promised. I was only working a total measly 15 hours a week, far cry of what I needed. I had to borrow money so I could continue my last year of education. In September I had a month-long relapse of my medical condition and had to drop out of classes, further delaying my education another year. I'm feeling better now, but we're still trying to find out why I had the relapse. Thankfully I still have two of those jobs and one has started giving me more hours... still a far cry from what I was promised and I'm not earning a living wage. So I'm still looking for proper employment as I slowly suck money out of my tuition funds.

I'm shelving my game design ambitions for now and am considering writing a novel out of the plot I had for one game in an attempt to escape this financial cascade.

 

Edited by GiantFriendlyTalkingSpiderman
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  • 2 weeks later...

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