The 2.0 version of this mod includes numerous changes to balance and scaling. In particular, many class abilities have cantrip scaling. It also ends support for the 1.x versions.
The 3.0 version of this mod further iterates on the 2.0 version's balance changes with an emphasis on upcasting and status effects. It also ends support for the 2.x versions.
Hell yes. I honestly don't care how balanced it is. Nor do I care to pretend I even know anything about balance. But what I DO care about is that it makes magic usable again, back as it was in NWN1/2 and there's a variety of things to do rather than concentrating the same 1 spell every time.
Haha, I'm glad you like it. Making every spell and ability relevant necessarily increases player power, but it also increases NPC power. I think that's balanced.
QoL request - the AoE stuff like "Crusaders Mantle" currently work on "anything friendly". So in a dense areas like lower city or even rivington the never-ending spam of "refugee gained effect/lost effect" is very heavy. Maybe make it party only?
That's a good idea, but another update for this mod is low on my priority list. If you want to do it, just change "not Enemy()" to "Ally()" below:
new entry "CRUSADERS_MANTLE" type "StatusData" ... data "AuraStatuses" "TARGET:IF(Character() and not Dead() and not Enemy()):ApplyStatus(CRUSADERS_MANTLE_AURA,100,1)" ...
I like most of the changes, but making Guidance and Resistance permanent is problematic.
First, for Guidance, it looks bad that a party member affected by the spell glows like a christmas tree until long rest. Second, for Resistance, now as long as someone have the cantrip spell, the whole party get permanent 1d4 boost (+2.5 on mean value) on any saving throw. To think that even Martial classes invest in Wis to get +1~2 Wis Save bonus, it's too overpowered.
It's just my small opinion. I am going to mod them for myself, so do not be bothered by it too much. Thanks for the mod!
I'm glad you're comfortable making your own edits ^^ I agree about the excessive visual effects. Thankfully there's mods for that. I would prefer if effects like Guidance were non-concentration but limited to one target at a time, but I don't know how to do that.
Hey so I like the concept of this mod and I'm fairly certain it's worked as intended before but I keep noticing some issues, namely one of the "adjusted" actions causing me to spend both the original cost AND your "new" cost. So like Thorn Whip, even though it shows as a half-action in like every part of the UI as you intended, costs me both my action (vanilla cost) and half-action (your cost). Same deal with True Strike, to name another I can confirm off the top of my head.
Have you ever encountered this sort of issue before? Is there some other mod or class of mod that I would need to avoid in order to actually be charged the correct action "prices"? The big gameplay ones I use are RAW, Expansion, Combat Extender, and 5e spells...any idea?
That's extremely weird. The only thing I can think of is if you have another mod that changes UseCosts to HitCosts. That's how vanilla smite spells work: they cost an action to cast, but they only cost a bonus action and spell slot if they hit. The Slowed effect will also spend both when you use either, but I feel like you'd know if that was it. Maybe RAW or 5E Spells changes them? They're both available at level 1, so you could try starting a new save with just this mod to see if it still happens.
Just discovered this mod and was looking for an answer on the topic of Mage Armor / Barkskin and how exactly their AC calculations work, since I'm not going to be able to test it out myself anytime soon;
If I'm understanding the documentation correctly they set your AC to 13 + SCA / 16 + DEX without considering any further bonuses. Does this mean that if you grab a shield or magic items with bonuses to AC, those bonuses wouldn't be factored into the equation?
If that's the intended case, I think that it isn't the right solution for those, as there are a lot of pieces of clothing that specifically give AC to grant Spellcasters a little bit more survivability. By negating those bonuses, I think you're effectively discouraging the player from using the spell at all and making it so that you'd be better off just dropping 1 level into barbarian or monk for unarmoured defence. Static AC is kinda the reason that vanilla barkskin gets left in the dust very quickly into the game and I don't think keeping that part of it and further spreading it to mage armour is a good idea.
I like the concept itself though, so as an alternative I would propose this: Mage Armour / Draconic Resilience: Base AC becomes 10 + SCA + DEX + other bonuses Barkskin: Base AC becomes 12 + SCA + DEX + other bonuses
This way you'd give spellcasting classes access to (effectively) unarmoured defence while still leaving them with the ability to scale it up via the defensive items that are tailored to them, just like the other unarmoured defence users do. I feel like that is a fair and comprehensive exchange for a 1st / 2nd level spell slot. I feel like keeping them self-target is still a good idea though.
I think someone else suggested that. It's not a bad idea if I can make sure it doesn't stack with armor. Even if it remains static, lower base + SCA + DEX might still feel better. If we assume a max stat bonus of +5 for simplicity and ignore shields and other bonuses (which are typically class agnostic), that's 20 or 22 AC. Barbarian can easily get 20 AC with Amulet of Greater Health + Gloves of Dexterity. Light, medium, and heavy armor are capped at 19, 21, and 21, respectively.
I'm getting ready to publish a big update, so I'll consider reworking that before I do.
Thanks for the quick response! Yeah, Im not saying static 13+SCA+DEX isn't competitive any means.
It's more about the feeling of static AC undoing the positiv impact of your gear selection, which I believe is a big part of buildcrafting in bg3. Static AC in D&D isn't that big of a deal, since you don't usually have access to remotely as many items as you do in BG3, which is why vanilla Barkskin doesn't translate well into this game. If you want the player to actually engage with the spell, then you shouldn't be taking away options provided by itemisation, especially if doing so might lead to the spell potentially being thrown away later in the game because it got outscaled by it's alternatives.
The scaling I proposed specifically doesn't lead to that restriction, while also leaving the player with the option of itemisation for more AC. Assuming a realistic lategame spellcaster spread of +5 in their SCA and +2 in DEX we'd get 10+5+2=17AC (or 19 for Barkskin). Since most lategame spellcasting related clothing offers a +1 and rarely +2, that would put us at 18-21AC, which I feel like is a fair baseline.
Now if the player chooses to itemise further by adding an AC cloak or ring, or even the gloves of dexterity into the mix to push their AC further, I feel like that's still reasonable considering that is what other characters can do too, all the while sacrificing that equipment slot, which they could have used for utility or offense instead.
As for the implementation, vanilla Mage Armour, Draconic Resilience, Unarmed Defense and Barkskin all already use a basegame function that makes them mutually exclusive by modifying the base AC value, and the former 3 all already only work if you're not already wearing armour, so changing the formula they set there shouldn't be too challenging.
I appreciate the thought you've put into this. I agree, it's always better to have more meaningful choices, and I ended up implementing your suggestion exactly. It'll be released with 3.0, hopefully in a few days.
I couldn't remember exactly how ACOverrideFormula worked, but it's as you described. The armor restriction isn't actually necessary to have it not stack, but it makes sense for flavor.
I noticed you made no changes to Expeditious Retreat. Do you find the concentration warranted I presume? I've been playing with it using this mod Valdacil's Spell Adjustments (Vanilla and 5E Spells) and their version has no concentration and also last until long rest. It doesn't feel bad at all. Most fights are done in close enough range that it feels awful to use a spell slot to be able to dash once as a bonus action (for the most part). Worse if it has concentration.
I've also noticed you are highly incentivized to "spam" a lot more spells at the beginning of your day (after long rest), specially cantrips like guidance and resistance which cost nothing but now I have to apply them to every single one of my characters every morning. Shield of Faith is another one but less egregious since it cost a spell slot. Perhaps some of these spells could be turned into either AoE versions that apply all their effects to the entire party an once and/or some others could be either restricted to the caster or restricted to one instance per.
Any chance you would be willing to make changes to the 5e spells mod as well? It would be great if when playing with that mod all spells would be altered under the same philosophical umbrella.
I didn't really know what to do with Expeditious Retreat. Monk, Rogue, and Boots of Speed all give Dash as a bonus action. I could make it action/no concentration/10 turn duration so it still has niche uses without being something you can just buff everyone with.
While you certainly can start your day by buffing everyone, it's time consuming and not necessary for most fights. And with the exception of Guidance and Resistance, both of which are pretty minor, each buff costs a spell slot. That said, I'm working on 2.0, which will make Shield of Faith more like a Paladin aura with a 10 turn duration (among other changes).
I don't personally like 5e Spells, but anyone who wants to make/publish their own versions or patches is welcome to.
Understandable. I would argue that Guidance are Resistance are in fact really good. Think how hard it is to get a +1 bonus to saves or ability checks. Imagine picking an item that says, "Give yourself and all allies within 30m +1d4 to all ability checks and saving throws". This includes Concentration checks, stealth, perception/survival checks, Dex saves to avoid damage, wis and cha saves to avoid debilitating CC. If you do the math a +1d4 is almost as good as advantage. Anyway, guidance is famously considered the best cantrip in the game in pnp dnd 5e, because of how much it does to help you make ability checks. Some popular homebrews are to reduce the bonus to just +1 or to make it +1 but scale like other cantrips, so +2 at level 5 and +3 at level 9.
Regarding buffing after long rests. You are right that it slow to apply but I think this is a bad take to think it's up to the player to decide if they want to go through the trouble of casting them every morning for a "minor" benefit. Most players playing the game right now are optimizers, if you give me a choice to make something tedious but get a minor benefit I will do it and blame the developer for forcing me to. Even though technically you are not forcing anybody directly, rewarding tedious gameplay with benefits feels psychologically bad and imho avoiding such pitfalls is part of being a good game designer. You need to trick people into having fun by rewarding the right behaviors and steering them away from the unfun ones.
On another topic, perhaps you should consider adding a max duration to some of the spells you removed concentration from. For example, an npc casted Hunter's Mark on one of my characters and I had that debuff on me (with it's graphical effect and noise) for over 30 min before I took a long rest. Same thing with Fog Cloud. I had an area covered by them (the skeleton fight right before withers) and not only and they visually noisy and pointless but they also lower performance ever so slightly.
I'm not saying Guidance and Resistance are bad by any means. Guidance I consider a non-combat ability, which can be cast as needed in the skill check window. Resistance has to be balanced against Bless, which makes it tricky. Ideally I don't want any spell to be made useless by another.
It's a fair point re. optimization. There's a quote: "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game." That said. I don't know. I don't claim to know what's best, but I don't feel good about the alternatives (e.g., making it multitarget or making it an aura).
Hex and Hunter's mark are getting concentration back in 2.0. Fog Cloud should only last 10 turns. Like Spike Growth, there's an added element of decision making since you can't just cancel it when it's convenient.
My notes on the 2.0 changes are below if you're curious. The reason it's 2.0 and not 1.2 is the changes in design philosophy: including changes to scaling and moving most changes to effects to other mods (including the Illithid Powers and Ranger's Companion sections).
***
[X] Shield of Faith - 10 turns, aura [X] Freedom of Movement - Bonus action [X] Stoneskin - No con [X] Banishing Smite - 6d8 to 7d8 damage [X] Dispel Evil and Good - Long rest
[X] Divine Intervention - Vanilla [X] Divine Strike - Vanilla [X] Blessed Healer - Temp HP (4 per spell level) [X] Disciple of Life - Temp HP (4 per spell level) [X] Preserve Life - d12 cantrip [X] Radiance of the Dawn - d12 cantrip [X] War Priest - Vanilla
[X] Symbiotic Entity - d4 to d8
[X] Second Wind - d8 cantrip
[X] Patient Defence - Bonus action [X] Wholeness of Body - d4 cantrip * 3 [X] Shadow Step - Short rest
Yeah even when something feels bad there can be worse outcomes. Resistance is useful when dealing with the saith'isk at the creche or here and there. Maybe I'm concentration was fine on them even though at first glance you would be tempted to remove it from them. They are cantrips after all, they are meant to be weak.
I'm looking forward to your 2.0 update. I love rebalance/overhaul mods so for my next playthrough I might do a full playthrough with this and perhaps some of your other mods.
Last gripe I have before I move on. Mage Armor. I like the idea of making it scale with spell casting ability, but I though it would be the spellcasting ability of the caster not the target. It also feels wrong that it no longer works with dex which intuitively feels like you should be able to. I made a sorcerer with 8 dex and with a single cast at level 1 ended up at 18 AC. 20 or more by the time I have 20+ charisma. Feels really powerful, maybe it's just be but I don't think a caster should have heavy armor levels of AC with a single level 1 spell slot. Perhaps 10 + Mod + Dex would be more appropriate?
It should be based on the caster's spellcasting ability modifier. I'll look into that. But. How are you getting a +5 modifier at level 1? The expected progression is 16-18 AC, which I feel is reasonable.
Edit: 2.0 is technically done. I just need to update the documentation. And I'm glad you like my work :) I'm going for a Vanilla Plus experience.
When I last casted it said, 13 + Spellcasting (which is 3 at level 1) so 16 AC. When I casted it on lae'zel it was giving her very little AC for sure. I believe it was only 13 (I no longer have the save since it was a quick test run). What I meant is that it's easy to make it to +5 or more on your spellcasting stat so you can have a mage that has much higher AC than a heavy armor wielding character. Heck you can do that already in vanilla because last time I played a sorcerer my AC was 22 or 24 with act 3 items and mage armor. If I were to use your mage armor on that character I would imagine it would be 28 AC.
Anyway I don't know if this is an engine limitation but I wonder if you could make it base 10 + dexterity of the target + spellcasting of the origin. I guess I find it a little shameful that dex is not involved but you could head cannon that the armor despite being very light weight is also very large and bulky making your dexterity not matter.
Ultimately because stats can get crazy easily I'm just concerned about making mages get even 1 or 2 more AC than normal. (Specially if you are making Shield of Faith an aura boosting AC).
I don't know how you're getting more than 22 or 24 at most in INT/WIS/CHA. That would be 19-20 AC, which I think is reasonable. What else are you stacking it with? Endgame armour + shield is 21 + 3 or 17 + DEX + 3 before buffs.
Edit: I've added a few changes to 2.0. Barkskin, Mage Armour, Shield of Faith, and Stoneskin are cast on self; Barkskin and Mage Armour don't stack with other sources of AC; Barkskin and Stoneskin are mutually exclusive; Shield of Faith is an aura (as previously noted); and Stoneskin applies to magical and non-magical damage.
Debilitating, healing, empowering, and cleansing effects on bonus actions, fine. Great, even.
But disabling effects, no way. Those have to take place of dealing damage. It's the reason why the Ring of the Arcane Scoundrel is so strong. If you can use both Actions and Bonus Actions to remove enemy turns, it's all you should ever do.
I'm still endorsing you because I like the overall direction, But I'm afraid giving everyone upcasted command on a bonus action just isn't going to fly.
Ok. I haven't playtested extensively, but here's my thought process:
1. It's expected that you're using difficulty mods. The best solution would be a mod that increases the abilities NPCs can use. Maybe something like Enemies Enhanced. 2. NPCs have access to many of the same spells, weapon actions, etc. 3. Command is one turn, it uses a spell slot, and it has a save. 4. There's more options to do damage with your bonus action.
It's not really a matter of whether or not you have difficulty increases, and whether or not the enemies also have access to more actions (I use combat extender, personally), or the resource cost. As you named the mod, it's all about action economy.
If you can use bane to get slightly worse enemy rolls or command to take an enemy out for a turn, you should always use command, because it's the option that puts you ahead in action economy.
But, most of the other usual suspects in disabling effects seem to still be costing actions so it's not so bad as I made it sound. Maybe you're right and in actual play it's not as big a deal. I'd still take a closer look at how impactful these bonus action disables will be, however.
Reducing the value of opponents' actions and increasing the value of yours is an aspect of action economy. Bane targets a different save, affects 3+ targets, and lasts 10 turns. Hold Person affects 1+ targets and also lasts 10 turns. Both are actions, so Command being a bonus action gives it a unique niche instead of being strictly worse.
That said, I do want to do a full playthrough with these changes to finetune things. I'll check out Combat Extender. :)
Hmmm... That puts you closer to winning, but it doesn't put you ahead on the action economy. It's like doing damage without getting a kill. You made progress toward victory! But so will the opponent.
Because your opponent didn't lose any actions from it, you see? The value of the actions changed, but not the amount or options. That means they can still match or counteract your actions. Being ahead in the action economy is strictly the amount of actions one side has vs the other, because it has a compounding effect on subsequent turns: Disabling a target before it even acts is like it never even existed. That's why disabling effects (or getting a kill) are really in a league of their own.
For me personally it's less about "CC can't be on bonus actions" and more about the fact that I already considered Command to be one of the most powerful spells you can cast with a Level 1 spell slot and there were already few things that could even compete with it in that tier of spells. Pretty much any other tier of spells has competitive options for different situations but Level 1 spell slots in particular have pretty few spells that scale throughout the course of the game or with difficulty mods. As you said it's more about opportunity cost and what you're giving up for each spell, and throughout the entire game I never feel that Command is a bad option even when it costs a full action. It's an extremely reliable, consistent option due to the cheap spell slot cost, it working on lots of different enemy types, and it doesn't care about HP thresholds. Even though it's only a 1 turn CC, I consider an enemy to essentially be taken out of the fight entirely if it both skips a turn and either gets knocked prone for my melees or gets its weapon yoinked away. It wouldn't be a bad idea to make other spells stronger to compete with Command, but I don't think Command itself needs to be any stronger than it already is.
For what it's worth I'm playing with the mod now and I've reverted the Command changes in my game and it still remains one of my favorite spell options. I'm happy with most of the rest of the changes though.
Heya. I'm happy to see people making their own versions to suit their tastes. That said, I still think Command makes the most sense as a bonus action. Even if we're just looking at level 1 enchantment spells, there's Bane, Bless, Sleep, and Tasha's Hideous Laughter. This mod improves Sleep scaling and makes Tasha's non-concentration. Sleep doesn't have a save, and Tasha's lasts up to 10 turns.
Hi, thanks for the mod. A lot of changes make sense and it is simply interesting to play with many viable options.
Suggestion: right now in the mod skills like Guidance or Longstrider can be applied by one caster to all characters - so it should be applied either to all characters at once (may be out of combat only) either 1 instance of the effect per caster (recasting removes the effects from the previous target, more balanced).
Question: is it possible to implement 'smart' temporary hit points? The better effect is supposed to replace the current one. If yes, please add it to one of your mods as option as least.
Another interesting workaround is allow temp points to stack but each new effect to be applied with 50% reduction. Most likely, it is hard to implement though.
Are you finding that that's not currently the case with one or more effects? In my experience, the stronger effect generally does overwrite the weaker one.
May be it is just Warlock then. In my particular case: a healer provides +5 temp hits, a warlock with 'Dark One' does not get any extra on a kill. But the warlock gets +8 temp hits on a kill when without the healer's buff.
Ok, here's what I've been able to figure out. Effects that grant temp HP normally define StackId and StackPriority, where StackPriority is equal to the amount of temp HP granted. Dark One's Blessing doesn't define StackPriority, which makes sense since it grants a variable amount of temp HP that can be as little as 1. So anything that does define StackPriority (e.g., Heroism) overwrites it.
These are the vanilla implementations of the Dark One's Blessing and Heroism effects:
new entry "DARK_ONES_BLESSING" ... data "StackId" "TEMPORARY_HP" data "Boosts" "IF(CharismaGreaterThan(9,context.Source)):TemporaryHP(CharismaModifier+ClassLevel(Warlock));IF(not CharismaGreaterThan(9,context.Source)):TemporaryHP(ClassLevel(Warlock))" ...
new entry "HEROISM_TEMP_HP" ... data "StackId" "TEMPORARY_HP" data "StackPriority" "5" ... data "Boosts" "TemporaryHP(5)" ...
Thanks for the explanation! From my point of view that's a game defect anyway. P.S. It seems I am dropping the game again, not much changed since august. And thanks for the mods, I liked the ones I downloaded.
42 comments
new entry "CRUSADERS_MANTLE"type "StatusData"
...
data "AuraStatuses" "TARGET:IF(Character() and not Dead() and not Enemy()):ApplyStatus(CRUSADERS_MANTLE_AURA,100,1)"
...
First, for Guidance, it looks bad that a party member affected by the spell glows like a christmas tree until long rest.
Second, for Resistance, now as long as someone have the cantrip spell, the whole party get permanent 1d4 boost (+2.5 on mean value) on any saving throw. To think that even Martial classes invest in Wis to get +1~2 Wis Save bonus, it's too overpowered.
It's just my small opinion. I am going to mod them for myself, so do not be bothered by it too much. Thanks for the mod!
Have you ever encountered this sort of issue before? Is there some other mod or class of mod that I would need to avoid in order to actually be charged the correct action "prices"? The big gameplay ones I use are RAW, Expansion, Combat Extender, and 5e spells...any idea?
If I'm understanding the documentation correctly they set your AC to 13 + SCA / 16 + DEX without considering any further bonuses. Does this mean that if you grab a shield or magic items with bonuses to AC, those bonuses wouldn't be factored into the equation?
If that's the intended case, I think that it isn't the right solution for those, as there are a lot of pieces of clothing that specifically give AC to grant Spellcasters a little bit more survivability. By negating those bonuses, I think you're effectively discouraging the player from using the spell at all and making it so that you'd be better off just dropping 1 level into barbarian or monk for unarmoured defence. Static AC is kinda the reason that vanilla barkskin gets left in the dust very quickly into the game and I don't think keeping that part of it and further spreading it to mage armour is a good idea.
I like the concept itself though, so as an alternative I would propose this:
Mage Armour / Draconic Resilience: Base AC becomes 10 + SCA + DEX + other bonuses
Barkskin: Base AC becomes 12 + SCA + DEX + other bonuses
This way you'd give spellcasting classes access to (effectively) unarmoured defence while still leaving them with the ability to scale it up via the defensive items that are tailored to them, just like the other unarmoured defence users do. I feel like that is a fair and comprehensive exchange for a 1st / 2nd level spell slot. I feel like keeping them self-target is still a good idea though.
I'm getting ready to publish a big update, so I'll consider reworking that before I do.
It's more about the feeling of static AC undoing the positiv impact of your gear selection, which I believe is a big part of buildcrafting in bg3. Static AC in D&D isn't that big of a deal, since you don't usually have access to remotely as many items as you do in BG3, which is why vanilla Barkskin doesn't translate well into this game. If you want the player to actually engage with the spell, then you shouldn't be taking away options provided by itemisation, especially if doing so might lead to the spell potentially being thrown away later in the game because it got outscaled by it's alternatives.
The scaling I proposed specifically doesn't lead to that restriction, while also leaving the player with the option of itemisation for more AC. Assuming a realistic lategame spellcaster spread of +5 in their SCA and +2 in DEX we'd get 10+5+2=17AC (or 19 for Barkskin). Since most lategame spellcasting related clothing offers a +1 and rarely +2, that would put us at 18-21AC, which I feel like is a fair baseline.
Now if the player chooses to itemise further by adding an AC cloak or ring, or even the gloves of dexterity into the mix to push their AC further, I feel like that's still reasonable considering that is what other characters can do too, all the while sacrificing that equipment slot, which they could have used for utility or offense instead.
As for the implementation, vanilla Mage Armour, Draconic Resilience, Unarmed Defense and Barkskin all already use a basegame function that makes them mutually exclusive by modifying the base AC value, and the former 3 all already only work if you're not already wearing armour, so changing the formula they set there shouldn't be too challenging.
I couldn't remember exactly how ACOverrideFormula worked, but it's as you described. The armor restriction isn't actually necessary to have it not stack, but it makes sense for flavor.
I've also noticed you are highly incentivized to "spam" a lot more spells at the beginning of your day (after long rest), specially cantrips like guidance and resistance which cost nothing but now I have to apply them to every single one of my characters every morning. Shield of Faith is another one but less egregious since it cost a spell slot. Perhaps some of these spells could be turned into either AoE versions that apply all their effects to the entire party an once and/or some others could be either restricted to the caster or restricted to one instance per.
Any chance you would be willing to make changes to the 5e spells mod as well? It would be great if when playing with that mod all spells would be altered under the same philosophical umbrella.
While you certainly can start your day by buffing everyone, it's time consuming and not necessary for most fights. And with the exception of Guidance and Resistance, both of which are pretty minor, each buff costs a spell slot. That said, I'm working on 2.0, which will make Shield of Faith more like a Paladin aura with a 10 turn duration (among other changes).
I don't personally like 5e Spells, but anyone who wants to make/publish their own versions or patches is welcome to.
Regarding buffing after long rests. You are right that it slow to apply but I think this is a bad take to think it's up to the player to decide if they want to go through the trouble of casting them every morning for a "minor" benefit. Most players playing the game right now are optimizers, if you give me a choice to make something tedious but get a minor benefit I will do it and blame the developer for forcing me to. Even though technically you are not forcing anybody directly, rewarding tedious gameplay with benefits feels psychologically bad and imho avoiding such pitfalls is part of being a good game designer. You need to trick people into having fun by rewarding the right behaviors and steering them away from the unfun ones.
On another topic, perhaps you should consider adding a max duration to some of the spells you removed concentration from. For example, an npc casted Hunter's Mark on one of my characters and I had that debuff on me (with it's graphical effect and noise) for over 30 min before I took a long rest. Same thing with Fog Cloud. I had an area covered by them (the skeleton fight right before withers) and not only and they visually noisy and pointless but they also lower performance ever so slightly.
It's a fair point re. optimization. There's a quote: "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game." That said. I don't know. I don't claim to know what's best, but I don't feel good about the alternatives (e.g., making it multitarget or making it an aura).
Hex and Hunter's mark are getting concentration back in 2.0. Fog Cloud should only last 10 turns. Like Spike Growth, there's an added element of decision making since you can't just cancel it when it's convenient.
My notes on the 2.0 changes are below if you're curious. The reason it's 2.0 and not 1.2 is the changes in design philosophy: including changes to scaling and moving most changes to effects to other mods (including the Illithid Powers and Ranger's Companion sections).
***
[X] Shield of Faith - 10 turns, aura
[X] Freedom of Movement - Bonus action
[X] Stoneskin - No con
[X] Banishing Smite - 6d8 to 7d8 damage
[X] Dispel Evil and Good - Long rest
[X] Find Familiar - Not ignored
[X] Spirit Guardians - Effect
[X] Conjure Elemental - Stats balanced
[X] Insect Plague - Con, long rest
[X] Hunter's Mark - Vanilla
[X] Hex - Vanilla
[X] Sleep - HP scaling (18 per level)
[X] Haste - Target scaling (1-4)
[X] Slow - Target scaling (3-12)
[X] Otto's Irresistible Dance - 10 turns
[X] Divine Favour - Exclusive with Crusader's Mantle
[X] Searing Smite - 2d8 to 7d8 damage
[X] Thunderous Smite - 2d8 to 7d8 damage
[X] Wrathful Smite - 2d8 to 7d8 damage
[X] Branding Smite - 3d8 to 7d8 damage
[X] Blinding Smite - 4d8 to 7d8 damage
[X] Crusader's Mantle - Exclusive with Divine Favour
[X] Warden of Vitality - 3d4 + SAM healing
[X] Heal - 14d6 + SAM healing
[X] Colour Spray - HP scaling (24 per level)
[X] Phantasmal Force - 1d8 bonus damage
[X] Contagion - Bonus action, vanilla
[X] Harm - 14d6 + SAM damage, no save
[X] Shillelagh - 1d8 bonus damage
[X] Magic Weapon - Exclusive with Elemental Weapon
[X] Elemental Weapon - Exclusive with Magic Weapon
[X] Flesh to Stone - Vanilla
[X] Flesh to Gold - Vanilla
[X] Reckless Attack - Vanilla
[X] Unrelenting Ferocity - d8 cantrip + con, per rage
[X] Magic Awareness - Allies
[X] Divine Intervention - Vanilla
[X] Divine Strike - Vanilla
[X] Blessed Healer - Temp HP (4 per spell level)
[X] Disciple of Life - Temp HP (4 per spell level)
[X] Preserve Life - d12 cantrip
[X] Radiance of the Dawn - d12 cantrip
[X] War Priest - Vanilla
[X] Symbiotic Entity - d4 to d8
[X] Second Wind - d8 cantrip
[X] Patient Defence - Bonus action
[X] Wholeness of Body - d4 cantrip * 3
[X] Shadow Step - Short rest
[X] Divine Smite - 2d8 to 7d8 damage, vanilla
[X] Lay on Hands I - d8 cantrip
[X] Lay on Hands II - d8 cantrip * 2
[X] Healing Radiance - d6 cantrip * 2
[X] Holy Rebuke - 1d4 + CHA, self
[X] Inquisitor's Might - 1d4 + CHA, 2 turns
[X] Sneak Attack - Vanilla
[X] Uncanny Dodge - Vanilla
[X] Heart of the Storm - 4.5 m
[X] Book of Ancient Secrets - Vanilla
[X] Thief of Five Fates - Vanilla
[X] Pact of the Tome - Vanilla
[X] Find Familiar: Scratch - Not ignored
[X] Soul Coin - Vanilla
[X] Hunting Shortbow (Hunter's Mark) - Con, short rest
[X] Sword of Justice (Tyr's Protection) - 10 turns, aura, short rest
[X] Duke Ravengard's Longsword (Commander's Strike) - Short rest
[X] Ravengard's Scourger (Commander's Strike) - Short rest
[X] Duellist's Prerogative (Challenge to Duel) - 10 turns, short rest
[X] Dark Justiciar Half-Plate (Shar's Aegis) - 10 turns, aura, short rest
[X] Grymskull Helm (Hunter's Mark) - Con, short rest
[X] The Deathstalker Mantle (The Shadow Itself) - No cd
[X] Raven Gloves (Summon Quothe the Raven) - Not ignored
[X] Amulet of the Devout (Godswill) - Short rest
[X] Surgeon's Subjugation Amulet - Maneuver
[X] Killer's Sweetheart (Executioner) - Status, 3
[X] Gontr Mael (Bolt of Celestial Light) - 2d6 bonus damage
[X] Rupturing Blade (Searing Blood) - 2d6 bonus damage
[X] Water Myrmidon - Healing Vapours - Effect
[X] Wolf - Exposing Bite - Action
[X] Dryad - Main Hand Attack - 1d8 damage
[X] Dryad - Strengthened Shillelagh - 3d8 bonus damage
[X] Shadow - Shadowblend - Always
I'm looking forward to your 2.0 update. I love rebalance/overhaul mods so for my next playthrough I might do a full playthrough with this and perhaps some of your other mods.
Last gripe I have before I move on. Mage Armor. I like the idea of making it scale with spell casting ability, but I though it would be the spellcasting ability of the caster not the target. It also feels wrong that it no longer works with dex which intuitively feels like you should be able to. I made a sorcerer with 8 dex and with a single cast at level 1 ended up at 18 AC. 20 or more by the time I have 20+ charisma. Feels really powerful, maybe it's just be but I don't think a caster should have heavy armor levels of AC with a single level 1 spell slot. Perhaps 10 + Mod + Dex would be more appropriate?
Edit: 2.0 is technically done. I just need to update the documentation. And I'm glad you like my work :) I'm going for a Vanilla Plus experience.
Anyway I don't know if this is an engine limitation but I wonder if you could make it base 10 + dexterity of the target + spellcasting of the origin. I guess I find it a little shameful that dex is not involved but you could head cannon that the armor despite being very light weight is also very large and bulky making your dexterity not matter.
Ultimately because stats can get crazy easily I'm just concerned about making mages get even 1 or 2 more AC than normal. (Specially if you are making Shield of Faith an aura boosting AC).
Edit: I've added a few changes to 2.0. Barkskin, Mage Armour, Shield of Faith, and Stoneskin are cast on self; Barkskin and Mage Armour don't stack with other sources of AC; Barkskin and Stoneskin are mutually exclusive; Shield of Faith is an aura (as previously noted); and Stoneskin applies to magical and non-magical damage.
But disabling effects, no way. Those have to take place of dealing damage. It's the reason why the Ring of the Arcane Scoundrel is so strong. If you can use both Actions and Bonus Actions to remove enemy turns, it's all you should ever do.
I'm still endorsing you because I like the overall direction, But I'm afraid giving everyone upcasted command on a bonus action just isn't going to fly.
1. It's expected that you're using difficulty mods. The best solution would be a mod that increases the abilities NPCs can use. Maybe something like Enemies Enhanced.
2. NPCs have access to many of the same spells, weapon actions, etc.
3. Command is one turn, it uses a spell slot, and it has a save.
4. There's more options to do damage with your bonus action.
If you can use bane to get slightly worse enemy rolls or command to take an enemy out for a turn, you should always use command, because it's the option that puts you ahead in action economy.
But, most of the other usual suspects in disabling effects seem to still be costing actions so it's not so bad as I made it sound. Maybe you're right and in actual play it's not as big a deal. I'd still take a closer look at how impactful these bonus action disables will be, however.
That said, I do want to do a full playthrough with these changes to finetune things. I'll check out Combat Extender. :)
Because your opponent didn't lose any actions from it, you see? The value of the actions changed, but not the amount or options. That means they can still match or counteract your actions. Being ahead in the action economy is strictly the amount of actions one side has vs the other, because it has a compounding effect on subsequent turns: Disabling a target before it even acts is like it never even existed. That's why disabling effects (or getting a kill) are really in a league of their own.
For what it's worth I'm playing with the mod now and I've reverted the Command changes in my game and it still remains one of my favorite spell options. I'm happy with most of the rest of the changes though.
Suggestion: right now in the mod skills like Guidance or Longstrider can be applied by one caster to all characters - so it should be applied either to all characters at once (may be out of combat only) either 1 instance of the effect per caster (recasting removes the effects from the previous target, more balanced).
Another interesting workaround is allow temp points to stack but each new effect to be applied with 50% reduction. Most likely, it is hard to implement though.
These are the vanilla implementations of the Dark One's Blessing and Heroism effects:
new entry "DARK_ONES_BLESSING"
...
data "StackId" "TEMPORARY_HP"
data "Boosts" "IF(CharismaGreaterThan(9,context.Source)):TemporaryHP(CharismaModifier+ClassLevel(Warlock));IF(not CharismaGreaterThan(9,context.Source)):TemporaryHP(ClassLevel(Warlock))"
...
new entry "HEROISM_TEMP_HP"...
data "StackId" "TEMPORARY_HP"
data "StackPriority" "5"
...
data "Boosts" "TemporaryHP(5)"
...
P.S. It seems I am dropping the game again, not much changed since august. And thanks for the mods, I liked the ones I downloaded.