DavidW

Here's something about WoP I've been mulling over for a while, and (now that ToF is just beginning to approach stable, albeit many bugs left to squash) I'm starting to think about. Vanilla ToB has a very clear stylized framework. You kill one of the Five, you get a dream sequence. WoP disrupts this: after you kill the last of the Five, you miss out on a dream, but get a clue that sends you back to the elven grove. You have a fairly minor combat encounter, then you get the prophecy that reveals that Melissan is planning to usurp Bhaal. That triggers the last dream. Feedback on WoP suggests that this is thematically awkward: it breaks the structure to not have a fifth dream when you kill Bhaalspawn #5, and the battle in the grove is anticlimactic. I'm sympathetic to that criticism. I toyed with a sixth dream sequence, but it's awkward resource-wise, not least because every dream sequence is tied to a challenge and there are only five challenges. My inclination is to revert to the original structure and roll WoP's content into the fifth dream sequence. But I thought I'd see what people thought first!

It should be fixed in beta 9. (I mostly test with the sound off, so I missed it.)

Some of that will be beta bugs and balance issues, notably the overpowered saving throws.

This should now all be incorporated in beta 9.

I've just released beta 9 of ToF (later than I hoped, blame RL). This incorporates the various critical hotfixes and a few other fixes to the UI, and also includes several dozen more specific fixes to HLAs, ability boosts, priest spells and others. (I still have a long list of issues to address but I wanted to get this version out now.) Full changelog: Fixed a critical bug in the UI edits that was disabling the start of the game, and two related bugs that disrupted character generation and level-up. Selecting the character button no longer plays everyone's selection sounds if 'NPC Customization and Management' is installed. Fixed a library bug which was adding spurious entries to the fighter kit-select screen. Fixed a UI bug which sometimes caused the game to crash if you went from the wizard to priest spell screen when 8th or 9th level spells were selected. New component: revised shields. New component: revised weapon styles. (This and the last components are partly to address a bit of a mismatch in attack vs defense created by the new strength scores.) If you use the 3e-style ability scores, NPCs now have their Strength, Constitution and Dexterity ability scores adjusted to keep their modifiers approximately unchanged. In addition, various (mostly humanoid) monsters now have minimum strength and dexterity scores, determined by race. (This attempts to address the issue that ability scores are rather more important now than they were.) New component: revised paladins and blackguards. This is just for convenience: it combines the 'IWD-style paladins', 'revised Smite Evil', and 'extra uses of Lay on Hands and Smite Evil' components. (They are still available separately.) This was actually added earlier (beta 7?) but I forgot to announce and document it. Third-party mods that add scrolls with '!' or '#' should no longer confuse the spell system. Fixed a couple of bugs that were making saving throws too good. Fixed a serious library logic error which was preventing kits properly installing on the BG and SoD parts of EET. Fixed a library bug that caused (harmless) WARNINGs when installing kits on EET. Subraces should now install on EET. Characters who dual-class into speciality mage kits now get their one bonus spell per level. Fixed some residual documentation issues with proficiencies. The deities of the realms have decided that their most powerful followers would be better served if they were actually granted a Holy Symbol at level 25, rather than just briefly glowing. Drow NPCs in BG/BG2 no longer cause a double Reputation penalty. Aasimar Sunscorch innate now works properly. Greater War Cry, Greater Whirlwind, and Greater Deathblow no longer work once only. Summon Elemental Prince no longer displays an erroneous 'the prince does not answer your call' message on first casting. Adjusted the descriptions of Abyssal Pact and Infernal Command to make clear that these are powers that command existing fiends, not summon new ones. Fixed a broken projectile in the paladin Holy Aura HLA, and also made the visual feedback a bit less intrusive. Projectiles weren't being set correctly for many rogue HLAs: Set Exploding Trap, Set Acid Trap, Set Toxic Trap, Sound Burst, Mass Charm, Enthralling Melody, enhanced bard song, enhanced Jester song, enhanced Skald song. (This caused them not to work at all, to target the party or caster, or other weirdness.) Set Spike Trap now does piercing damage as intended. Poison Aptitude and Poison Expertise should now work. Improved Defensive Stance can now be taken the correct number of times. Kensai can no longer take the Deadly Aim feat. Thunderous Rage and Fiery Rage no longer require Greater Rage to work (this is a holdover from an older design). Fixed a typo that prevented Volcanic Rage and Tempestuous Rage from working properly. Mass Raise Dead now has a proper description. Spirit Warriors have resolved to be team players and can now be selected. Resonating Weapon now has the correct icon. Barbarians can now multiclass as thieves. Barbarian Wizard Slayers now gain access to the Spell Immunity high level ability. Resist Magic high-level ability now adds 20% to Monk and Wizard Slayer MR, rather than just giving a flat 50%. Empowered summons should now get the correct AC and attack bonuses. Fixed a general effect-order bug that meant Berserker Rage was not granting most immunities. Barbarian Rage no longer stacks. Berserker and Barbarian Rage now protect against Feeblemind at level 8 rather than 6, as per their description. Fixed a library bug which was tying Feeblemind protection icons to the wrong opcode (Stun). Berserker and Barbarian Rage now correctly protect against Confusion. In light of EEFP discussions on Hold/Paralysis, better separated Hold from Paralysis in revised kits. Readme now clarifies that Barbarian immunities match Berserker immunities. Readme now documents that Barbarian damage resistance starts at level 7. Extended Barbarian damage resistance changes to barbarian multiclasses. The various Animal Spirit HLAs now work correctly, and have unique icons. Spirit of the Snake now protects from confusion as well as charm and poison. The Animal Spirit HLAs are now available to Shamans as well as Totemic Druids. We now adjust Str, Con and Dex scores for all creatures to values as close as possible in effect to their old values. The documentation for Thralls of Orcus listed their required alignment as Lawful Evil, not Chaotic Evil. (If Orcus is reading: this was Asmodeus's doing, not mine. Please don't kill me.) Reduced the benefit of Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes and Great Fortitude from +2 to +1. Fixed a small bug in the militant wizard/bloodrager code that might have been messing with multiclass mages' item use. Fixed a couple of logic problems which were messing with the ability to detect druid multiclasses (this was breaking some quests that checked for the PC being a cleric). If you are using the new ability system, Blades automatically start with Ballad of Three Heroes rather than an unknown bard song, and Jesters/Skalds get the proper descriptive text for their special songs. Tweaked the description for bard kits to note that they do not automatically learn the IWD bard songs (they can get them through taking abilities). Nerfed water genasi damage resistance a bit, from 15% vs slashing/piercing/missile to 10% vs piercing/missile. Tweaked documentation to clarify that the Ballad of CHARNAME replaces the Ballad of Three Heroes, that the Mesmeric Melody replaces the Jester's Melody, and that the Saga of CHARNAME replaces the Saga of the North. Improved documentation of Mesmeric Melody. Deprecated the Concentrated Venom ability for now, as it's a bit underpowered. Increased the damage from Fury of the Pack, from 2d8 to 3d8 per wolf. The wolves summoned by Fury of the Pack can no longer critically miss. Thunderstorm now uses the correct projectile and associated visual effect (it was using Burning Hands, not Call Lightning. Dragons and other very large creatures were not correctly immune to Abyssal Fury. Foebane+5 now casts Larloch's Minor Drain at level 1. Ice Knife correctly does piercing damage now. Scroll scribing now displays the correct XP cost. Elemental transformation now grants the correct animation. Elemental shapeshift forms now have weapon icons. Added a spell tweak that renames 'Favor of Ilmater' to 'Favor of the Martyr'. Goodberry is now correctly assigned to the Plant sphere rather than the Nature sphere. Cause Serious Wounds and Cause Critical Wounds are correctly assigned to the Necromantic sphere rather than the Divine sphere. Clerics and Favored Souls of Kossuth can no longer take the Elemental Immunity: Fire HLA (they don't benefit from it). Clerics and Favored Souls of Auril can no longer take the Elemental Immunity: Cold HLA (they don't benefit from it). Elementals are now immune to their own offensive spells. Ice para-elementals now cast Ice Storm, not Spike stones. The Conjure Fire Elemental power of clerics of Kossuth now correctly appears in the Innate Abilities bar. Beast Claw is now properly handled by the 'Revised Ability Score' component (including if you have the Priest of Malar kit). Oghma has recognized that his standards for what counts as 'learned' were overly demanding, and he now grants innate abilities to his followers. Talos has reached a deal with the Union of Talos Worshippers and has agreed to grant them a working version of the 'Lightning of Talos' spell. Lower Resistance now displays the correct level of resistance decrease. Fixed a typo in the description text for Tymora's Favor. The descriptive text for clerics of Velsharoon and Myrkul is a bit clearer on what bonus they get to Command Undead. Addressed an edge-case issue which meant that enemy-summoned fiends were sometimes party-controllable. Fixed a layout problem with the description of single-target Power Word Blind.

OK, going on to the first January 12 list. Agreed in principle, but not a priority (vanilla issue really). Should both be fixed in beta 9. The documentation could probably be clearer here, but the idea is that bards can use wands already, so satisfy the prerequisite automatically. Can't reproduce, it works fine on my install. Should all be fixed as of beta 9. Intentional (it's strictly better); documentation now indicates this. Should all be fixed in beta 9. It means they don't get the new songs automatically when they level, like regular bards do. I've edited the description a bit to make this clearer. I've rewritten the description to be more explicit. Fixed in beta 9. Can't reproduce, though probably that just means it was fixed en passant by some of the proficiency-description fixes. Intentional. (Whether it's a good idea could be debated.) I can't remember what I intended here, but I think it's a documentation error: I got rid of the 50% APR penalty but didn't adjust the documentation. I think I'm okay with Haste removing the slow. I'm not sure either; I've left it for now. (I think it's true in unmodded IWDEE.) Fixed in beta 9. I've left this for now (it's ported directly from the Refinements mod). Fixed in beta 9. This should now be working ok (as of beta 9) - there were some fairly complicated mod-component interaction issues. Resist Magic now grants +20% to Monks and Wizard Slayers, rather than a flat 50%. --- That's as far as I've got systematically, though I've fixed a few of the later ones ad hoc because I happened to come across them. (Fury of the Pack critical misses, for instance.) I'm going to try to get beta 9 out before pushing on. Thanks once again for such a detailed list.

Going on to the January 11 cleric list: The mistake is that they get cause wounds at all; fixed in beta 9. Fixed in beta 9. It is a bug, actually: they shouldn't be casting Spike Stones at all. Fixed in beta 9 (they now get Ice Storm). This is a general issue with wizard spells given to priests as special spells. I can't really fix it (not without manually redoing all the spell descriptions). The note added at the end, '(This is a priestly version of a spell normally restricted to wizards.)' is supposed to address it. Fixed as of beta 9. This issue should be fixed (in general, not just for this innate) as of beta 9. Both fixed as of beta 9. Should be fixed as of beta 9 (there were several issues with beast claw). It's okay on my install; might have been fixed en passant. That's an inconsistency between IWD and BG2 spell conventions, that gets carried over by @CamDawg and my spell converter. I'll note it to be fixed there. Fixed as of beta 9. Can't reproduce, probably fixed en passant by some of the other UI fixes. Fixed as of beta 9. Fixed as of beta 9. Fixed as of beta 9 (it's a general issue with Lower Resistance). Fixed as of beta 9. I've tweaked the description to be a bit clearer. Dolorous decay looks okay on my screen; where's the extra line break? (The other empty line issues are fixed; see above.) Fixed in beta 9. They get an extra pip in their favored weapon. So that's two pips if it's a weapon clerics start proficient with anyway (e.g., mace), one pip if not (e.g., sword).

That's fine, though. If that component is installed, no-one starts dual-classed. The flag just needs to be removed. Thanks for the report.

In general (and in this case) if ToF throws a warning it means a serious problem. In this case it’s a substantial EET compatibility issue. That particular issue will be fixed when I manage to get beta 9 out, though in general I’m prioritizing getting the mod stable on non-EET installs first.

OK, that's helpful - I might try that. (Though not immediately - RL constraints!)

Thanks for these; will investigate.

Probably not (though thanks for the suggestion): there are hundreds of deities in the Realms and I don't want to spend my whole (modding) life writing new ones! My design goal for ToF was (a) to have a sufficiently wide range to give players lots of options; (b) to provide kits for most or all of the clerics you meet in the game, especially the joinable or fightable ones; (c) to build a robust system that in due course others could use to design their own kits.

Thanks. Will consider.

Should both be fixed as of beta 9 (possibly beta 8). The script thinks favored souls are shamans. I haven't yet tried to update the player AI scripting, so this one is still extant. Fixed as of beta 9. Intentional. Ideally there should be some feedback, yes, so leave this one extant. Bug, still extant as of beta 9. All fixed as of beta 9. Should be fixed as of beta 9. Haven't checked this one yet, probably still extant as of beta 9. Fixed as of beta 9. Hopefully already fixed in beta 7. Not sure what this one means, sorry. Fixed as of beta 9.

It's there intentionally; but yes, it should be identified. Fixed locally, will be in v35.11. Thanks.