Mod Components
- Main: all fixes and tweaks
- Compatibility Patches for Combat Tweaks (by Dennis Lee)
- Optional: standalone Racial Attribute Bonus for Qunari, Animals, Golems
- Optional: other options for Stone Roar / Stone Will

I. Bug Fixes:



- The following (known) vanilla issues have been fixed:

• Quake: doesn't knock back like description says (there actually is a "Knocked back" string assigned to this talent's effect, except that this effect either doesn't exist or just fails to apply for some reason). Doesn't stun like NPC golems' Quake does either.
  

• Stoneheart tree:
  

- Hostility increase effect is not implemented.

- Stone Roar: doesn't really do what its description says it does. Seems to force the target to move to random spots and do nothing until it is attacked.


• Rock Mastery tree:
  

- Hostility decrease effect is not implemented.

- Effect stacking after area transition.

- Hurl Rock: description erroneously says it increases party ranged crit chance.

- Rock Barrage: doesn't work due to animation bug (has faulty Transition animation, leading to the casting being canceled halfway).

• Stone Aura: effect stacking after area transition.
  

II. Tweaks:

- The main purpose of the tweaks is to make every tree more effective at what it is meant to do.

- Attribute scores are factored in more frequently to make attribute investments pay off more dynamically. This also makes the effectiveness of the talents less static and more dependent on level - an attempt to prevent them from being too OP early game or too underwhelming late game. (One issue with Shale's talents is that they require no prerequisite level or attribute score.)

- Please see screenshots for ingame descriptions, and the text file Technical Details included in the archive for more, well, technical details (formulas and such) on each talent.

1. Biggest Tweak:

- This modification needs an entire subsection for itself: this mod replaces Stone Roar with a new talent, Stone Will, and this talent requires recompilation of RULES_CORE to be fully implemented. The talent needs to be "registered" into the functions that handle applying effects and immunity checks in header scripts, then RULES_CORE needs to be recompiled for these modifications to actually take effect. The codes inside RULES_CORE are untouched.

- Stone Will (20s): Instantly removes all movement speed modifiers, grants "damage shield" effect, bonus physical/mental resistance, and immunity to Knockdown, Knockback, and Slip. Incurs -20% movement speed penalty but also grants immunity to all incoming movement speed modifiers, friendly and hostile alike. The immunity to Knockdown, Knockback, and Slip is the only reason why RULES_CORE has to be there. Immunities to status effects in most cases can't be implemented in the script of the ability.

• How the "damage shield" effect works: there is a Damage_Shield_Strength value which is the amount by which all incoming damage is reduced. Then there is a Damage_Shield_Points value which is the maximum amount of damage that can possibly be absorbed. Once this maximum capacity is reached, the damage shield effect will go away. This effect is used by Carapace and Guardian's Shield in Awakening.
  



• In Stone Will's case: for 20s, all incoming damage is reduced by 0.6 * (Constitution - 10). The total amount of damage that can be absorbed is 40 + 3.5 * (Constitution - 10). This capacity means if there are a lot of enemies hitting you at the same time, the shield will collapse (much) quicker. The immunities granted by the talent will be there for 20s, but the damage shield effect may go away sooner. All effects will be removed immediately if Stoneheart is deactivated.
  

• There's actually a bug in vanilla code for this effect. When the damage taken does not exceed damage reduction, this damage is supposed to be subtracted from your Shield_Points total, but the code sets the damage to 0 before subtracting it (set to 0 because this damage is nullified). This results in the shield capacity never going down at all, as long as damage taken does not exceed damage reduction. This bug doesn't really affect the game as there isn't any source of this effect in the game, except Carapace and Guardian's Shield, but these abilities don't seem to be intended to impose a capacity on the effect. This mod fixes this (also requires recompilation of RULES_CORE to fix).
  

- WHY this change? If you have ever let Shale go melee against a High Dragon or the Broodmother, you know that Shale will get knocked down and knocked back and stunned like there's no tomorrow. Now, when a character is knocked down by a dragon, they are usually also knocked away out of reach of said dragon. Shale, on the other hand, simply falls down in place, and becomes punching bag. The fact is that, there is almost nothing Shale can do against these enemies, except hanging back throwing rocks. Or might as well turn on Stone Aura and actually be paralyzed and be more useful that way. It is true that Shale is immune to grab attacks, and this is very useful against High Dragons, it still doesn't change the fact that Shale will spend most of the fight being a punching bag. It's just not exactly fun to watch. Typical Sword/Shield or Two-Handed characters are also punching bags but at least these punching bags can punch back frequently while being punched.

- For a GOLEM made of stone, Shale is too flimsy even when compared against a Two-Handed fighter equipped with decent gear, let alone against a proper Sword/Shield tank (even without Champion specialization). Shale lacks the kind of tool similar to Shield Wall and Indomitable to be an effective (and fun) tank, even though she has one talent tree dedicated to DEFENSE (supposedly).

- Because RULES_CORE is a core script, recompiling and including it reduces the compatibility of the mod. So, I provide two other options with this mod, both of which do not need RULES_CORE:

• Option 1: regular Stone Roar. This gives Stone Roar back to Shale. This works like what is stated in vanilla description. It clears the target enemy's threat table, but leaves Shale's threat intact. All enemies of that enemy will have their threat reduced to 1 (as perceived by that enemy) but Shale will have intact threat PLUS 40 added by the talent. This also clears the target-switching timer of the target, meaning it is allowed to switch target immediately. It might choose to stay on its current target, however, if that target is at low HP (50% chance against 20% HP, 90% chance against 10% HP - this is vanilla behavior implemented by threat-handling codes). A highly effective single-target Taunt.
  

• Option 2: alternate version for Stone Will. Only difference is, instead of Knockback, this version gives immunity to Stun. Basically a short-term Indomitable. This is achieved by giving Shale the "Sturdy" trait for the duration. This trait is given to certain enemies in the game, and its only purpose is to negate all Knockdown, Stun, and Slip effects. This trait is removed when the duration expires, or if Stoneheart is deactivated. This is "optional" because I want this talent to be somewhat more unique than an Indomitable clone, even though immunity to stun is very handy. FYI: High Dragons' knockdowns/knockbacks do not allow resistance checks.
  

- These two options do NOT require RULES_CORE, so if you choose one of these options, you can delete the file RULES_CORE in the mod's folder in override after installing the .DAZIP. These options are in case you don't want to have a RULES_CORE lying around in your override, and/or want to avoid (potential) conflicts.

- Nothing "game-breaking" will happen if you delete RULES_CORE while using the default Stone Will installed by STR. The immunity to knockdown, knockback, slip from Stone Will will simply not work, despite the talent description, and that would be it (actually, this can be considered "game-breaking", depending on your perspective).

2. Other Tweaks (not a comprehensive list):

- All four modal talents now have autodraw flag set to 0, so they don't require Shale to take combat stance to activate. Makes switching mode much quicker when not in combat. Same treatment for Rock Barrage to ensure sync between VFX and animation when cast out of combat. You probably won't be casting it outside combat often, but still.

- Slam: now has a brief stun (physical check vs. STR) right after knockback, enabling it to interrupt grab attacks (if target fails the check).

- Quake: now makes enemies slip and slows them very briefly. Broodmother and High Dragons can't be slowed by this. Not that it matters, but still.

- Killing Blow: reworked. No longer consumes 100% stamina. Gains +10 armor penetration, deals 150% crit damage. Deals increasing damage to low HP target if its HP is below 50%: crit damage is multiplied by (1 + 0.15 / (HP %)). This multiplier is capped at 2 vs. bosses (at 15% HP), and at 4 vs. non-bosses (at 5% HP). Unresistable knockdown/knockback.

- Stoneheart tree in general is heavily buffed, so that Shale can be a better tank in this mode. The physical resistance bonuses (none in vanilla) are to give her at least some resistance to cc's in general. Magnitudes of all talents' effects scale with CON. Tree now has some "defensive" elements to it, as vanilla description claims. Bellow and Regenerating Burst also have decent impact threat to help keep enemies on Shale.

- Stoneheart mode now has a persistent "taunt aura" that increases Shale's threat toward all enemies within 10m by 10 (increased to 20 with Stone Will or Stone Roar) each pulse. This is a lite Taunt that goes off every 4.05s (pretty much Air of Insolence). This effect helps retain the "increased hostility" element. Only active in combat and, naturally, only works on enemies. I added a "sound burst" VFX similar to Taunt's but tinted blue when this mode is activated to indicate the taunt effect. No persistent VFX cause that'll get annoying; the aura is there, but invisible.

- Regenerating Burst:

• Vanilla version is almost/utterly useless in many situations, yet has ridiculous cooldown and cost and a 3.5s cast time. FYI: when a creature is stunned, all incoming stuns applied to that creature within the next 15s will have duration reduced to 1/4. This means the duplicated stuns from Bellow and Regenerating Burst just reduce each other's effectiveness (this is not counting stuns from a dozen other sources yet), and the stun is basically THE point of using these talents. At 60 STR this talent does SIXTY points of damage.
  

• With this mod, this talent deals 3 * (Constitution - 10) damage (min 1 max 200). Knocks enemies down (knockback if immune to knockdown, physical check vs. CON). Still stuns (mental check vs. CON). Radius increased from 6m to 8m. Reduced cooldown and cost. Gives HP regen and stamina regen with magnitudes scaling with CON. The regen is also stronger if Shale's HP/stamina is below 50%. Basically: +1 HP regen for every 10% HP below 50%, and +0.5 stamina regen for every 10% stamina below 50% (regen in combat ticks every 2s). Formulas are in shl_regenerate_burst.NSS and the Technical Details file.
  

- Rock Mastery: tweaked aura effects. Please see the screenshot for more details. Aim speed bonus is reduced; the -2s aim speed is excessive in most cases except when you need to counter the Haste/Swift Salve bug. Also an excuse to add other buffs.

• Aura now has conditional bonuses: after Rock Barrage is learned, party members get +10 attack and +6 damage when using ranged weapons, and if they are within 3m of Shale, they also get +20 missile deflection.
  

- Hurl Rock: damage now varies based on distance from each target to impact center, up to 150% base value at center. Knockdown only within 3m of center. Distance is 3-dimensional so there is a height component. Should fare better than vanilla, damage-wise, as long as targets are not near the edge of impact circle. FYI: the boulder projectile has a StaticCollisions flag of 1, meaning it can collide with ground (or static objects) and explode prematurely when you, say, throw it from a high elevation to a lower one (so it's not like a Fireball, for example).

- Earthen Grasp: Duration changed to 0.12 * (Willpower - 10)s + rank-adjusted 6s. The Willpower portion is not affected by rank or difficulty. Now also slows, incurring -35% move speed and +30% attack animation duration (translates into a ~23% attack speed decrease), if the paralysis fails.

- Rock Barrage: the concept of this ability doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You throw some rocks into the air and create a boulder shower of 20 (exploding) boulders, in a 10m radius, with constant AoE slow, and lasts TWENTY seconds (you have to throw something to ~1600ft up in the air for it to take 20s to fall back to ground). How does this even work indoor?? (The problem is, the idea behind this talent is simply "Shale tosses some rocks into the air". No portal gun, no Force.) Against groups of mobs, this talent has rather inconsistent performance, but against big, low-mobility enemies (i.e. High Dragons) it can be too good. This is the only talent I did not exactly try to "improve" (though I'm unsure if this tweak indeed makes it worse than vanilla; you'll have to find out yourself).

• This mod reduces the AoE radius to ~6.5m. Creates a total of 5 rocks plus 1 for every 10 STR beyond 10, up to total of 10 rocks at 60 STR. FYI: there are 8 rocks in the VFX during the toss animation. Delay interval reduced to 0.4s-0.6s, so total duration is 2s-4.5s depending on number of rocks. Each rock has an impact radius of 1.2m. Creatures hit are knocked down or knocked back (creatures immune to knockdown cannot be knocked back by this). High Dragons (and Archdemon) take only 30% damage... Slightly reduced cooldown and cost so it doesn't feel as punishing when the result is not very good.
  

• Now here's the amusing part: because of the way the random locations are selected for the rocks to fall down, the real boundary of the AoE is actually a 9m x 9m square with its center being the targeted point. So the farthest possible spots are the corners, which are ~6.4m from the center. The VFX that shows up when you activate the talent will be a 6.5m circle - this circle circumscribes the aforementioned square (not precisely, but close enough). What all this means, anyway, is that, there are portions of the VFX circle (near the edge) that are completely safe from the barrage. These portions are fairly small due to the individual AoE of each rock, but they are there. To cover all these portions, the impact radius of each rock would have to be ~2m, which is way too big.
  

• Also, the VFX of rocks crashing down might suggest there are a lot more rocks falling down than there actually are. It's just how the VFX looks.
  

• This is also how the Archdemon's Spirit Smite works. I just select the locations much more randomly. The center of the circle is always hit first, then random locations are selected around it. My advice is, you should never expect fantastic results when using this talent, to avoid being disappointed. If you want to know how exactly this one works, feel free to check out the .NSS code (there's a bit of trig going on in there, by the way).
  

- Stone Aura: changed to mostly a defensive aura. Radius is reduced, but increases with tree progression (max is still smaller than vanilla). Please see screenshots for more details. Shale gets a fairly high physical resistance bonus for concept reason (literally becomes a rock). This bonus doesn't really matter because the Paralyze effect has the second highest animation priority, only behind Death, meaning Shale cannot be knocked down or knocked back or be affected by any animation interruption (Shale is immune to Grabbed and Overwhelmed by default). Stun can still be applied, but it can't interrupt the aura which is a modal effect.

• Aura now also has conditional bonuses: after Supernatural Resilience is learned, party members get some extra buff points when within 4m of Shale. These extra points are doubled within 2m.
  

III. Installation:

- Download the .RAR in Main Files. Included are the main component (.DAZIP) and all optional contents.

1. Main Component: Shale Talents Reworked.DAZIP

- Because the default version of STR includes RULES_CORE, this creates conflicts with mods that also involve this file. This mod provides Compatibility Patches for Dennis Lee's Combat Tweaks (CT) and ThundR's Deadly Strike Fix for CT. For the patches, instead of recompiling vanilla RULES_CORE, I recompiled the RULES_CORE codes from CT and ThundR's fix, to register Stone Will's immunities into those files. This modification specifically targets Stone Will from this mod, and so will only have any effect when this talent is actually used. These patches include changes in CT's last update 3.23.

• First, install the .DAZIP with DAModder or DAO-Modmanager. DAUpdater should work too.
  

• If you don't have Combat Tweaks, nothing else needs to be done. You're good to go.
  

1a - If you have CT WITHOUT ThundR's Deadly Strike Fix:

• Open the folder CT Compatibility Patch.
  

• Copy all files from folder "01a - denl_combattweaks" to CT's folder, which should be "denl_combattweaks", in your override folder. Overwrite everything. The included player_core.NCS fixes CT's Deadly Strike bug.
  

• Copy all files from folder "02 - Shale Talents Reworked" to the folder Shale Talents Reworked created by this mod in override. Overwrite everything.
  

• Now REMOVE RULES_CORE.NCS from the folder Shale Talents Reworked in override. You can have only ONE RULES_CORE in override, which will be the one you just copied to CT's folder. Having more than one in override means only one will be used by the game and that might not be the right one.
  

1b - If you have CT AND ThundR's Deadly Strike Fix:

• Open the folder CT Compatibility Patch.
  

• Copy all files from folder "01b - ThundR DS Fix Patch" to CT's folder, which should be "denl_combattweaks", in your override folder. Overwrite everything.
  



• Copy all files from folder "02 - Shale Talents Reworked" to the folder Shale Talents Reworked created by this mod in override. Overwrite everything.
  

• Again, REMOVE RULES_CORE in the folder Shale Talents Reworked created by this mod from override.
  

NOTES:

• You can find more details about interaction between this mod and CT and what the compatibility patches do exactly in the ReadMe-MAIN file (attached in DOCS tab here), as well as other ReadMe's in the subfolders.
  

• When you install the compatibility patch(es), the only required file is RULES_CORE.NCS. The other files (item_single_target.NCS and player_core.NCS) are only to fix certain bugs in CT, and have nothing to do with compatibility. More details about these bugs are in ReadMe-MAIN.
  

*** Update *** If you have both Combat Tweaks and Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack, and need a player_core to fix CT's Deadly Strike bug, I have uploaded a compatibility patch under Optional Files. The player_core from this patch fixes CT's Deadly Strike bug and also contains Qwinn's fix for followers' selection soundset bug (more details on QUDAO's page). Normally, player_core from CT will override player_core from Qwinn's.

• I mostly balanced this mod for vanilla game, rather than game with CT installed. There's a pretty big difference there.
  

2. Optional: Racial Attribute Bonus (standalone)

- To install, copy the folder "Optional - Racial Attribute Bonus" (or the file race_ab.GDA inside) to your override folder. This component doesn't require the main one.

- This tweak adds bonus attribute points to Qunari, Animals, and Golems. Why? Because Sten, Dog, and Shale are not of playable races, so they don't receive the 4 bonus points that every other party member gets (or any NPC of a playable race). If you have ever wondered how come Sten seems to have rather low stat point total when he joins you, this is why.

• Qunari: +2 STR +1 DEX +1 CON
  

• Animals: +1 STR +2 DEX +1 CON
  

• Golems: +3 STR +3 CON (6 points cause they're GOLEMS). Seriously though, because Shale CAN'T specialize like everyone else, which means she actually misses out on all specialization bonuses. Whether she can make up for this with her unique kit or not is an entirely different matter. (You can say the same thing about Dog - feel free to use GDApp to edit the file race_ab.GDA however you like.)
  

- These boosts are mostly meant for Sten, Dog, and Shale, but ALL NPC's of these races in the game will get these points. (Meaning those Mabari in Redcliffe Castle will be a tad nastier than they already are.)

3. Optional: Regular Stone Roar and Stone Will alternate version for Shale

- To install, copy the file abi_shl.GDA from the option you want and replace the existing abi_shl.GDA in the mod's folder in override.


IV. Uninstallation:

• Main component: uninstall with DAModder/DAO-Modmanager. Delete the folder "Shale Talents Reworked" from override if it's still there.
  

• Racial Attribute Bonus: delete the folder/file from override.
  

V. Compatibility:

- Aside from recompiling RULES_CORE, this mod modifies the following vanilla GDA data:

• abi_.GDA: all entries for Shale's talents are modified.
  

• VFX_.GDA: two entries in the VFX table are modified. One is Bellow's "sound burst" VFX, modified to get better sync with cast animation, and the other is Rock Mastery's aura VFX, modified to make the green color slightly brighter. These changes have no gameplay effect.
  

• persistent_.GDA: the entry for Rock Barrage is modified, reducing VFX radius from 10 to 6.5.
  

• anim_.GDA: the entry for Rock Barrage's animation is modified, fixing the incorrect transition animation ID.
  

- The default version of this mod recompiles RULES_CORE to fully implement Shale's new Stone Will talent. As such, it will conflict with mods that also involve RULES_CORE. You can avoid this conflict by using one of the two alternatives for Stone Will.

- The Racial Attribute Bonus tweak has a slight conflict with the Qunari Attributes tweak from Dain's Fixes. Both tweaks give bonus points to Qunari, but distribute the points differently. Dain's tweak gives +3 STR +1 CON. If you have both tweaks at the same time, Animals and Golems will be fine, but for Qunari, only one tweak will apply (whichever loaded last when the game launches).


VI. Known Issues:

- None so far.


VII. Other Notes:

- Please make sure you read the ReadMe files included in the archive. I know I repeat myself a fair bit in those ReadMe's, but I wanted to make sure all the important details stand out, there is no confusion, and that you can always find the information you need easily.

- The Technical Details text file included with the mod lists all formulas I used in the scripts. In case you wonder how exactly something works or is calculated, you can find more information in this file (as well as in the .NSS files).

- I tried to aim for overall balance with this mod, based on the experience I have from having played through this game seven times - six on Nightmare, one with Combat Tweaks. However, I have not made a full playthrough with this mod myself. This means I can't tell you just how "well-balanced" it really is. Sometimes I would use a late-game save on a custom difficulty in which enemies are overall quite stronger than in vanilla game, for testing purpose, and this could have messed with my sense of balance somewhat. What this means is, you might find Shale too overpowered in some situations, unless you're also playing on some ultra hard mode. On the other hand, I don't really "nerf" anything (much) compared to vanilla, so even on the off chance that you feel underpowered, it shouldn't be worse than vanilla. In general though, Shale's kit should be much stronger than vanilla.

- If you have Combat Tweaks, this mod takes advantage of Combat Tweaks' threatdata.GDA, and assigns threat data to Shale's talents by appending a small threatdata table to CT's. Also by taking advantage of CT's threat modifier mechanic, Stoneheart will have a threat modifier of 25%, meaning all threat generated by Shale will be increased by 25% when that mode is active.

- Some customization options: after installing this mod, if you want to restore a specific talent to vanilla version, use GDApp to open and edit the file abi_shl.GDA. The easiest way to do this is to give a "fake" ID to the talent, by adding a 0 at the end of its ID. Then, change its "guitype" to 12 or some negative number so it won't show up in the game (12 is the hidden GUI used mostly by class passives). All of Shale's talents use GUI 116. With GDApp, you can also edit all other GDA's included in this mod. Some more details in ReadMe-MAIN (attached in DOCS tab).

- I tested all talents thoroughly to make sure everything works exactly as they are supposed to, but it's not impossible that one or two bugs have slipped through. Please report any bug or oversight you run into.

- I would appreciate feedback on balance and how this mod works out for you in general. Simply post a comment after you've made a solid playthrough with Shale in the party.


VIII. Credits:

• BioWare/EA. The game, its resources, and the Toolset are their properties.
  

• Dennis Lee's Combat Tweaks and ThundR's Deadly Strike Fix for Combat Tweaks. Codes from CT and ThundR's fix were used to build merged scripts used in the compatibility patches.
  

• Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack. The compatibility patch for Combat Tweak and Qwinn's Fixpack used files from Qwinn's Fixpack (courtesy of Qwinn).