New spells

Yum yum. I'll respond to this in depth shortly.

 

Thanks for the efforts Pygmy, I will reply at length tonight (finally got some time off work and yes, thats two lengthy replies owed ) Can I just say though, copy-pasting from pg 224 of my pdf of the PHB 3.5

 

Okay, first things first. Krotos, you'll forgive me for cut-pasting the following from the thread 'the limits of ToEE modding'.

So, for instance, Wind Wall looks like this:

Code:

[B]spell.duration = 1 * spell.caster_level[/B] // (set duration)
[B]target_item = spell.target_list[0][/B] // (work out where to put it)
[B]spell_obj_partsys_id = game.particles( 'sp-Wind Wall', target_item.obj )[/B] // (create graphics)
[B]target_item.obj.condition_add_with_args( 'sp-Wind Wall', spell.id, spell.duration, 0, spell_obj_partsys_id )[/B] // (create wind wall.)

So there is no 'code' to play with, you just add the argument 'sp-Wind-Wall'. We could change the graphics to fire and add some damage effects, even work it out directionally so it burns people on the right side of the wall, but it will always act like a wind wall.

Ditto Call Lightening, Produce Flame etc: to get those spells to keep acting round after round, the arg 'sp-Produce-Flame' - which is a call to the engine - is in the script. We can write the nicest script saying we want our new spell to do this or that (and I did, for Sunbeam) but when the moment comes the game just calls something in the engine and you get the Call Lightning effect, or the Produce Flame effect, or whatever. A clever scripter could maybe in turn alter those original spells and use Persistent Data to keep track of who is doing what, but I am just an old hacker and for the moment I am beat.

In a nutshell I am saying that when you suggest, 'just borrow a snippet of this code / a touch of that code', well, if you mean use the scripts, there is probably nothing there to use, just a call to the engine. So its not a go

So, on that note, here are my suggestions on your suggestions:

Summoning Swarm: The manual suggests this was in the original game then removed before release. They must have had their reasons.

Flaming Sphere: I was thinking how to do this - can be done, to a point - but it was nagging me that Darmagon already did. So I checked, and there it is: Spell 179. Yet there is no .txt file to activate it, and I checked back into the Co8 5s and can't see it. Weird... I'll chase this up.

Wall of Fire: As above: this would be a Wall of Wind, with some fire damage / effects, if it worked at all.

Wall of Thorns: As above, unless maybe doing it as a differently shaped 'Spiked Growth' effect. Never use the latter, but have toyed with using it to introduce caltropes.

Touch of Idiocy: Very doable Always meant to add it, actually. Have you tried 'Ray of Entropy'? Same thing, different parameters.

Pyrotechnics: Both forms are doable, but are you sure you want a 120' radius burst of blindness? Thats like 3 screens wide

Ray of Exhaustion: The only fatigue effect I have found in ToEE is Barbarian fatigue. A real pity, as a lot of alchemical items inflict or alleviate fatigue / exhaustion, but the makers of ToEE really did not implement it (probably since they were not implementing running, swimming etc).

Evard's Black Tentacles: couldn't do the graphics, couldn't do the grappling, wouldn't do it justice. Plus, Entangle hates me - please don't mention it again.

Wall of Ice: I can see ways to implement part of this, but the enemy AI is not set up to deal with it... We wouldn't do it justice, I think.

Wall of Stone: as above.

Nightmare: No. 'The nightmare leaves the subject fatigued and unable to regain arcane spells for the next 24 hours.' This sort os stuff just has no meaning in ToEE.

Acid Fog: I made this one (imperfectly) and it was in 5.6.1, for memory. However, alphabetically it is spell 000, just before spell 001 Aid, and the game doesn't handle such things well (many files internally say 'don't use entry 0!', and anyone who remembers the 'skeleton key' from the first incarnation of Hickory Branch? That was because it used entry 0, for some reason). Apparently there were insurmountable problems with it, so it was removed.

Otiluke's Freezing Sphere: an exploding freezing globe could be done. The 'freeze water things' part would be problematic, but would have to be attempted, as we do, after all, play an elemental game. Possible, and V_P's 'Scintillating Sphere' particle effect would work nicely with it.

Incendiary Cloud: Doable up to a point, sure.

Scintillating Pattern: Seems quite doable based on the Colour Spray script.

Meteor Swarm: 4 Scorching Rays that hit with bludgeoning damage and explode like fireballs (at twice radius). Too easy

Again, these are only my suggestions: smarter people than me may look and say, "that one is easy!". My recommendation, Krotos, is you crack a few of the .scr files and try to do them yourself, and ask for help when you need it: I for one will be happy to advise. Start with Touch of Idiocy: copy any touch attack spell then cause it to do Fox's Cunning, Owl's Wisdom and Eagle's Splendour as 'damage', but with negative values.

 

Hi again Pygmy,

After much testing I am cponfident that you got hit by the 7.9 CTD bug, rather than by anything in the spells. Certainly the spells aren't bugged, as is demonstrated by other people being able to run them. just bad luck that it happened right when you installed the spells (well, it may have been more than luck - changes to the same sort of files that cause the bug, but I won't go into it here) but on the up side, I have every reason to believe that bug has been squashed by Gaear and Ag, again based on extensive testing. So it should all be seemlessly working in 8.0 Thanks for your efforts.

Krotos - hope I haven't scared you off!

 

Hey Endarire,

Here is Acid Fog for you to play with. Note that the implementation is really crude, I just blat everything in range of the spell object with acid every round, and for memory it goes off far more often than it should (since it was a high level spell that never bothered me). Check the new Vigor spells for a more refined time-based implementation, which I couldn't get working but they proved could be done.

I'll post the other spell files for the Bucket o' Spells stuff when I can find a PC that has them, I think there is one at my mum's place.

 

Hey again Endarire,

Here are the activation files for the extra spells from the Bucket o Spells pack, as mentioned previously the other files (py, mentions in spells.mes etc) are already in the Co8 pack. Just pop these in your data/rules/spells folder and you can use them and see if they are of any value.

Btw, here is the link to the original thread, it has a lot of chatter about making new spells :

LINK

Now, the Vigor spells, I think are in the Domain spells pack? I didn't make them (V_P) or get them working properly (Rudy?) but I did roll them in

LINK

Note both the mod to download and Sitra's fixes a few replies below. Also note that you are the last person to comment on that thread

 

Heh, I was going to look into Flaming Sphere 6 years ago - wonder if I did?

Nothing at my end, try the Temple+ folks. Since they seem to be changing the code my initial limit of "we can't change the code" seems to have been superceded.

Such modding as I do is focussed on IWD first and then the long-promised KotB 2.0 release.