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About this mod
This mod can be considered a "light" gameplay overhaul as it doesn't fundamentally change the gameplay mechanics, but still makes enough major changes to be considered more than just gameplay enhancements. Its main purpose is to make the gameplay feel more realistic and lore friendly where preperation is key.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
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Translations
- Russian
- Polish
- Japanese
- Changelogs
OVERVIEW
This mod can be considered a "light" gameplay overhaul as it doesn't fundamentally change the gameplay mechanics, but still makes enough major changes to be considered more than just gameplay enhancements. Its main purpose is to make the gameplay feel more realistic and lore friendly where preparation is key. After all, a witcher with no potions is half a witcher. It also attempts to stretch out the levelling elements across both expansions and overhauls the skill system, so you're not wasting skill points after level 30 just to unlock the later skill tiers in the other trees. The changes are of course subjective but I think they make the minute to minute gameplay more interesting.
!!! PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS MOD DOES NOT WORK WITH NEW GAME PLUS !!!
!!! Considering that the NEXT GEN VERSION has FCR3 inbuilt - it almost certainly isn't compatible with Redux. Please see the stickied post for more info !!!
PLEASE HAVE A READ OF THE FAQ AT THE BOTTOM OF THE MOD DESCRIPTION BEFORE REPORTING ANY ISSUES
The main changes can be summarised as follows:
Combat: Adrenaline is a much more important factor in this tree and can now lead to some very powerful abilities. To balance, it is significantly harder to generate and much easier to lose. A character who invests no points in this tree will find it difficult to generate 3 Adrenaline Points.
Signs: The scaling of sign damage and effects with sign intensity has been modified and some skills have been re-worked/overhauled in light of this. Without investing points into this tree, you will likely find signs to be less useful than in vanilla. Conversely, investing points into this tree will give you very powerful signs. Signs can also now be "supercharged", mostly through the "Supercharged Yrden" skill, though a Decoction can also provide this ability. A supercharged sign has bonus effects on top of it's regular effect.
Alchemy: Toxicity has been re-worked significantly to be more in line with the Witcher 2. You can no longer get really high levels of toxicity and just chug potions. You have to tactically and carefully decide which potion to take and when. Considering this, potions on the whole are a lot more powerful and useful. Decoctions have been entirely overhauled and now have both a positive and a negative effect.
Monsters: Stats have been re-worked on most monsters to give an elevated challenge compared to Vanilla. Abilities and Resistances have also been changed on a number of enemies for immersive purposes (i.e. ghouls now poison enemies and fire elementals can't be hurt by fire).
Vampires: As per Witcher Lore, Vampires are now a lot more dangerous. Moon Dust Bombs are now mandatory in dealing with them and you will need to concentrate and prepare for every fight with a vampire. This is especially true of the vampires in the Blood and Wine Expansion who now have a new ability called "Elder Focus". This works a lot like Adrenaline does for Geralt. See below for more details.
Human Enemies: Human enemies are no longer damage sponges but now also inflict a lot more damage. This polarises combat with humans, meaning things can go wrong with the simplest mistake. Human are easier to kill, but there is less room for error. A configurable module called Adaptive Human Intelligence is also introduced, where human opponents in a group will become better fighters as they observe how their allies are being killed. For example, as you kill humans, the surviving ones will become more defensive and more likely to parry your attacks.
Skill System: All skills now only have 1 level so each time Geralt spends a skill point it has a tangible effect on the gameplay. Most skills have also been modified and some have been completely overhauled. Flood of Anger (now called Wolven Storm), for example, is no longer sign related, and instead puts Geralt into a battle frenzy mode where each melee attack is an automatic finisher. Very powerful, but also difficult to activate.
There is also:
A new "progressive" sign damage scaling system where a number of monsters now have weaknesses to specific types of magic. Can be turned off in the mod menu.
A new "fatigue" system where Geralt becomes weaker when he gets stunned or overuses Quen. Can also be turned off.
An improved "damage over time" resistance system.
Some minor changes which I believe just improve the general experience/immersion in the game.
This mod is exclusively for normal "New Game". It will not work with NG+.
REDUX BASICS
Watch your Fatigue and Drain! Fatigue generates when you overuse Quen and will hinder Geralt's damage output and stamina regeneration. Quen is still a very effective sign, but needs to be used correctly. Quen should be used when you are fighting enemies that can do a large amount of damage to you quickly, and not just for every fight. Later on in the game you will be able to craft alchemy items that can mitigate the effects of fatigue. Drain is caused by critical effects such as Hypnosis or attacks from wraiths and lowers Geralt's Sign Intensity each time it is applied.
Parry and Counter against human enemies! Parrying and countering human enemies will debuff them, making them easier to kill. Also, when a human is parrying your attacks, move on to a different target instead of constantly hitting the same enemy. The more you are parried, the more your enemies are able to adapt to your fighting style. Dodging is still useful, but if you dodge too much, human enemies will increase their speed to compensate.
Don't forget about alchemy! Even if you have invested no points in the tree, alchemy is still an integral part of the gameplay. Potions are now much more powerful and could be the difference between winning/losing a fight. Oils can double your damage and lower the enemies' damage resistances. Bombs will stop vampires from regenerating health and can knock flying monsters out of the air permanently.
Choose your skills wisely! There's only 1 level per skill now and you get less skill points, so make sure you build your character wisely. Think about what skills would play well off of each other. Combat skills are all about scoring critical hits and using Adrenaline to activate very powerful abilities. Sign skills are all about debilitating opponents through critical effects and hindering their ability to fight back. Alchemy skills are all about buffing your stats and debuffing your enemies, allowing Geralt to survive attacks that would kill other builds.
Explore and find those Places of Power! Places of Power are integral in developing Geralt's abilities and unlocking the later skill tiers, so don't forget about them. They will show up on the map when unlocked by notice boards so you know exactly where they are.
Unlock Ultimate Skills! Each Skill tree now has something akin to the penultimate skills in the Witcher 2 skill paths.
RECOMMENDED COMPLEMENTARY MODS
If the below mods didn't already exist, I would likely build something similar into Redux. Therefore, you can consider them as being part of the envisioned design for this mod.
Friendly Meditation - makes meditating much more visually appealing and also changes how potions and decoctions expire during meditation. The Redux changes to potion/decoctions were built with this in mind.
Speed Force - changes the speed of most enemies in the game to be more realistic. I was going to build something similar, but this mod does it perfectly so I don't need to.
Preparations - makes meditation and alchemy much more meaningful. Synergizes well with how alchemy is much more important with Redux. It is also highly configurable.
Friendly Meditation and Speed Force will auto-merge with Redux. For Preparations, I suggest download the Preparations Patch optional file and following the ReadMe instructions within, as some manual merging is required.
DESCRIPTIVE LEVELS (CONFIGURABLE)
A small but effective change which hides all enemy levels and instead replaces them with a descriptive word to give you a general idea of how strong the enemy is. The goal here is to make the world feel less levelled and to give a narrative friendly reason as to why a level 5 Ghoul is so much weaker than a level 25 one. Configurable in the mod menu.
It works by looking at the level bracket of the monster and its type. For example, a level 5 Drowner would be described as "starving", where as a level 30 Drowner would be described as "ferocious". A different set of words is used between the monster types - so Necrophages will have a different list of words to Hybrids. There are some exceptions, where monsters may be considered part of another group since the words sound better.
This does not effect The Wild Hunt, their minions or any bosses or contract monsters. Basically, if the monster has a "boss health bar" at the top of the screen, no descriptor will be used.
The word used is solely based on levels for monsters. However, for humans, its a combination of their level and their fighting skills. Hence, its common to see a group of human enemies where humans have different descriptors to each other, where as for monsters a group will all likely have the same descriptor.
Note that this does not change any gameplay or statistics, its purely cosmetic. See the attached images for in-game examples and a spreadsheet of all the words. Currently supported in English, Russian (thanks to user iCake), Polish (thanks to user damian11880) and French (thanks to user ArchiTEK).
GENERAL CHANGES
Thresholds for toxicity showing on Geralt's face have been increased from <25%/<50%/<75%/75%+ to <45%/<65%/<85%/85%+
Vitality damage from Toxicity increased from 0.5%/per sec to 2.5%/per sec [Configurable].
Witcher Senses Enhancement originally part of the Metamorphosis Mutation [Blood and Wine] is available from the start [configurable].
The Cat potion can be toggled on and off by using the a nominated key [can be customised - see installation instructions below] when not in combat. It will also automatically turn on if you are entering combat in a dark place [configurable]
Arbitrary huge stat bonuses/penalties based on level differences removed. Inability to parry or perform critical hits or effects against enemies that are a much higher level than you has been removed.
Followers do more damage, especially Sorceresses.
If their level is lower, bosses will scale to Geralt's level. Specifically, this is only the following enemies:
Degradation rate for both weapons and armor is now configurable as a percentage of the vanilla rate.
Grindstone and Armorer table bonuses now last for 30 minutes instead of just 15 (real time).
The Svarog runestone has been redesigned. Instead of armor penetration, it now provides a chance to break an enemies' parry. This means Geralt's attack goes through even when the enemy is blocking.
Items that had "armor piercing" as a stat now have "chance to break parry" instead.
Almost all silver swords have been removed as loot from random containers and merchants. Silver swords are rare, and should not be appearing as random loot. They will need to be crafted, given as a reward for a quest or found in a specific "set" container. Toussaint, due to its fairy tale nature, is exempt from this.
Player is able to configure how notices boards reveal POIs. The choices are as question marks (vanilla), places of power only or reveal all.
Food now heals more Vitality but over a significantly longer period of time (5 minutes real-time).
Drinks now increase Stamina Regeneration but over a significantly longer period of time (5 minutes real-time).
Increased Ciri's Attack Power by 50%-120% during her gameplay segments.
There is no longer a delay between throwing bombs (buff usually provided by the vanilla Grandmaster Wolf Gear 6/6 bonus).
Can turn on subtitles just for Trolls in the narrative mod menu. May need to load a previous save if you play around with this and the general subtitles option. Still a work in progress, doesn't work perfectly.
QUEST LEVEL CHANGES
The following changes have been made to quest levels to better reflect changes this mod introduces to gameplay elements:
Notice Boards [Configurable]
Contract quests will now only display when Geralt is close enough to the level of the contract. The default value is 5, but this can be changed to anything between 0 and 50. Setting it to 50 basically emulates vanilla as there is no quest 50 levels higher than Geralt in the game. The quests will always display if Geralt is equal to or greater than the level of the contract. The reason I implemented this is because I never liked how you could pick up high level quests early but then couldn't/wouldn't do them until a hundred hours later. It was very immersion breaking to think of the poor peasant quest giver just sitting there and waiting weeks or months.
Note that the solution for this is quite hacky, so its likely some quests have been missed. Please let me know if you find any.
REDUX LEVEL SCALING [Configurable]
A form of level scaling has been introduced, separated by areas, that is configurable within the mod menu, under the "Narrative" section. The problem with the vanilla enemy scaling option is that it just scales everyone to Geralt's level, undercutting any sense of progression. With redux level scaling, you instead configure a "maximum" number that enemies will scale. This means their level will either be increased by the number you've provided or they will go up to Geralt's level, whatever happens first. You can also provide different numbers for all the different areas in the game. This gives the following advantages:
The default values for Redux are as follows. They were built on the idea of a "near completionist" playthrough, where you only move to the next area once you've completed all the quests around your level in the current area:
Redux level scaling does not affect contract monsters or bosses. Any monster with a "boss" health bar is excluded. These monsters have all been rebalanced by hand, so I didn't want the level scaling touching them.
GEAR CHANGES
The following gear has been modified to make it more meaningful. The following weapons have had their stats modified to make them feel like actual rewards when they are received. Some have also had their level set to 1 so they will always be able to be equipped:
Viper Armor (Hearts of Stone) has also been modified to have more utility but be slightly less protective compared to vanilla. The armor ratings have been dropped to be at the mastercrafted witcher gear level, but the following buffs have been added:
Grandmaster Set Bonuses
Armor set bonuses for Grandmaster gear can now be activated from superior quality and higher. This is to allow for more playtime with their game mechanics. To balance, lower quality gear provides less "set bonus points" per item. Hence, you still can't activate the 6/6 bonus unless you're wearing full grandmaster gear. The set bonus points are as follows:
An armor set bonus has also been added to the Viper Gear (Hearts of Stone).
Quest Rewards
The following changes have been made to quest rewards:
Total Armor Rebalance
This module rebalances all the armor in the game to be more reflective of the changes introduced by Redux. Big thank you to DonProtein for designing this module.
Changes can be summarised as follows:
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
Consumables (food/drink) cannot be used during combat [configurable].
Sprinting/Jumping outside of combat costs no Stamina [configurable].
Cannot equip, switch, upgrade or dye gear during combat [configurable].
Geralt can parry arrows from the start - no skill required. To balance, arrows deal triple damage [configurable]
Both Geralt and human enemies can no longer parry or block attacks if they have 0 stamina.
Shielded enemies will drop their shield if attacked when only 10% of their stamina is left (or less).
Geralt's base attack power at the start of the game has been increased while the attack power increases he receives in the first 10 levels or so has been decreased. Ultimately, you still get the same net gain of attack power. This was done to smooth out the difficulty and Geralt's progression at the start of the game.
Adrenaline generates 65% slower through melee attacks and drains much quicker when hit or combat is over [configurable]. Finishers generate 0.1 Adrenaline Points.
The duration of the base "Bleeding" effect has been decreased from 10 seconds to 5 seconds. The damage, however, has been increased from 0.8 to 2% of Vitality.
Damage from horseback can be customised in the mod menu for both the player and enemies.
Lowered the global damage reduction value of the "Ice Armor" ability from 50% to 25%. With the below changes to damage resistance and oils, this ability needed to be nerfed otherwise it made fighting Ice Trolls extremely tedious.
Wild Hunt "frost" armor now provides them with very high armor ratings. This armor can be melted off using Igni, or penetrated using attacks that ignore Armor - such as Strong Attacks and shock damage.
Added "Elemental Armor" ability to the following monster variants:
Added a maximum cap of 50% for Geralt's resistances towards the following damage types [configurable]:
Place of Power Sign Intensity boost increased from 20% to 75%.
The stamina delay after casting Quen (basic version) has been increased from 0.5 seconds to 2 seconds.
Sign Intensity scaling has been re-worked. In general, damage/effects from signs scale in a linear fashion, with +250% (so, 350% in total) Sign Intensity giving you the max chance to apply effects in most cases. Specifically, from +0% to +250% Sign Intensity:
Axii's stun effect has been slightly re-worked. In the vanilla version, once you had stunned/turned a human opponent, there was a relatively high chance of performing an instant finisher kill. This was overpowered, so now an attack against a stunned/turned opponent is an automatic critical hit instead.
Shock damage (Quen and Yrden) sign intensity is increased when it is raining or storming by 25%/50%, respectively.
The Quen shield (both basic and alternate) is stronger during storms.
Quen no longer removes the Burning or Bleeding critical effect but still provides immunity to them.
Aard Sweep (Alternate Aard) removes the burning effect from Geralt.
Knockdown duration against enemies decreased by 50%.
White Raffard's Decoction removes Bleeding from Geralt.
During rain/storms, burn chance is lowered by 10/20%, respectively.
During rain/storms, burn damage is increased by 10/20%, respectively.
Base potion overdose threshold has been increased from 75% to 85%.
Hitting a flying monster with a damage dealing bomb will do +50% damage.
Holding parry after quick throwing the Samum bomb will protect Geralt from the blindness effect if he is in range.
Damage reduction to specters in their spectral form reduced further from 90% to 99%.
Sorceresses and Mages are completely immune to Poison.
Progressive Sign Damage Scaling (Configurable)
One issue that I've noticed is that monsters that are "susceptible" to signs in the bestiary aren't actually susceptible to their "offensive" attributes in any meaningful way. In the best case scenario they simply have zero or negative resistance to the special effects but don't actually receive any extra damage. Hence, I've created a multi-tier bracket system for fire and shock damage based on sign intensity. Note that this only applies if the following conditions are met:
A Geralt with +350% SI and a base damage of 700, would therefore do the full extra 200%, and do a massive 2100 damage with each hit. In other words, the damage bonus from increasing your Sign Intensity from +300% to +350% is the same as increasing it from from +100% to +299%. This means that even getting small percentage boosts when you're in the higher SI numbers is worth it, giving Sign Builds a good reason to drink those Petri Philtres..
New Enemy Abilities [Configurable]
A number of new abilities have been added to make enemies more dangerous but keeping within the lore of the Witcher world. They are as follows:
Regen Multipliers have also been added to the mod menu for Vampires, Fiends\Chorts, Werewolves, Berserkers and Large Flying monsters. They are set to 1 for all presets, because Redux already has inbuilt regen modifiers for monsters (see Monster section below). However, I've added multipliers as well which act on top of these existing modifiers so you can customise it to how you see fit.
DAMAGE OVER TIME RESISTANCES
DoT resistances were added to the game with the Hearts of Stone expansion, but were not implemented retroactively to the base game. I've now applied some. For example, if a monster has a 70% DoT resistance to poison, only 30% of the DoT every second will affect the monster.
Fatigue Critical Effect (Configurable)
Fatigue is a debuff that only affects Geralt and has the following effects:
You will know Geralt is fatigued when the HUD displays an icon with two hands bound by rope.
Drain Critical Effect (Configurable)
Drain is a debuff that is applied to Geralt and lowers his Sign Intensity with each application. It can be applied the following ways:
You can partially protect yourself from Drain by protecting yourself from the primary effects that cause it. For example, using a Superior Cat Potion gives you immunity to hypnosis which, by extension, gives you protection from Drain caused by hypnosis. Standing inside a Yrden glyph will also protect Geralt from Drain that is caused by either attacks or the blindness effect.
There is no way to remove Drain in battle, so Sign builds need to be very careful with the above foes. It automatically gets removed at the end of every combat scenario.
Burning Critical Effect (Scorched Passive Ability)
The burning critical effect was far too overpowered, both in the Vanilla game and the earlier versions of this mod, so the following changes have been made:
This ability can stack up to 3 times for each enemy.
Overall, burning is still extremely effective against certain monsters, such as drowners/water hags and most Hybrids due to their feathers. For example, a full sign build could probably still kill a Griffin with one or two blasts of Igni. However, other monsters have had their resistances increased so that burning can be used as an effective initial debuff but will not solely win the fight for you.
Poison Critical Effect (Detoxify Passive Ability)
The poison critical effect now does a higher percentage of damage to the enemy's health. However, to balance, most monsters will become resistant to poison as it is applied. Specifically, most monsters have been given a "Detoxify" ability which means that each time the poison critical effect is applied, the monster gains a 25% DoT resistance to Poison. This means the effect has diminishing returns within a single fight.
Bleeding Critical Effect (Coagulate Passive Ability)
Bleeding no longer applies a DoT effect to the enemy's maximum health, rather it is their current health. So, it is more effective the earlier it is used. Many large monsters have also been given a "Coagulate" ability, which means they gain a 50% resistance to bleeding after it has been applied once.
Respite and Fortitude
Large flying monsters, such as Griffins, Basilisks, Forktails and Wyverns, will all now regen health while they fly. Hence, to defeat them, it is important to make sure they stay on the ground. This can be done by quickly attacking them as they take off, as per vanilla, or by blocking their ability to fly at all.
To block the ability, you need to first lower their Forititude to 0. Every flying monsters has a different level of fortitude, based on its level and type. For example Archgriffins have the highest fortitude of all flying monsters. Fortitude can be lowered in two ways:
SKILL CHANGES
The skill system has been majorly re-worked. For one, all skills now only have one level, instead of the usual 3 or 5. This was done to make levelling have greater impact and be less incremental. Each time you receive and use a skill point it should actually have a visible effect on how your Geralt plays. To balance this, skill points are only awarded every 2/3 levels. Specifically, the changes are as follows:
Below are the specific skill changes. Some have been re-named from vanilla. In case you don't want to read them all, I've color coded them as follows:
Red = Skill completely re-designed/overhauled
Orange = Skill had a design change
Green = Skill buffed/debuffed
White = Same as vanilla version
COMBAT SKILLS
Fast Attack
SIGN SKILLS
Aard
ALCHEMY SKILLS
Brewing
GENERAL SKILLS
ALCHEMY ITEM CHANGES
Potions/Bombs/Decoctions/Oils have been changed to be more useful. I found that some of the decoctions especially were far too situational and unclear in their effect (what exactly IS cloudy weather?), so I've updated the stats on most of them and overhauled a few.
POTIONS
In general, potions are a lot more useful - especially the upgraded versions - but also more toxic. This means strategic potion usage is essential.
Black Blood
BOMBS
In most cases, bomb damage has been buffed, but ammo count lowered for the basic bombs. Hence, upgrading the bombs and investing in bomb skills will give you a lethal ranged build.
Dancing Star
DECOCTION OVERHAUL
The decoction system has been entirely overhauled in version 4.0 of the mod, with a lot of inspiration taken from the potions in The Witcher 2 that had both a positive and a negative effect.
All Decoctions have had their toxicity offset lowered from 70 to 60.
Each Decoction now has 3 effects:
This opens up whole new gameplay elements using Decoctions, where they are very powerful, but usually have a balanced trade off.
15 new decoctions and mutagens have been added, based on 1 monster from the Hearts of Stone expansion and 14 from Blood and Wine. Recipes for these decoctions can be found all over the world, but you can't get the required mutagens until you start playing the expansions. The foundation of this change is Karpfenfrosch's fantastic Additional Alchemy mod (thanks to DonProtein for the idea). However, many changes were made to align it to the Redux gameplay pillars.
Katakan Decoction
NEW DECOCTIONS
Kikimore Decoction
OILS
Monster Oil (all oils except Beast and Hanged Man's Venom) Attack Power bonus has been increased from 10%/25%/50% to 25%/50%/100%. Enhanced/Superior monster oils now also lower the enemy's physical resistance by 10%/20%, respectively. This means applying oils is now a lot more important. To balance, they can no longer be applied during combat [configurable], so proper preparation is key.
ALCHEMY CRAFTING CHANGES
Since all the alchemy items are a lot more powerful now, the superior versions of them are also more difficult to craft. Three new alchemy items have been added to the game:
These alchemy items cannot be crafted in the game and can only be acquired from Gremist on Skellige as part of the "Practicum in Advanced Alchemy" quest and bought from him afterwards. Note that White Gull is still an important component as it is needed to craft the advanced alchemy bases such as rebis. Note that these alchemy items are very expensive. Alchemists in Toussaint [Blood and Wine] will also sell these ingredients.
Big thank you to FrangoestoOz for designing new icons for the new alchemy ingredients.
The following changes have also been made to crafting:
The amount of herbs cultivated in Corvo Bianco's garden [Blood and Wine] has been increased from 1 to 2.
MONSTER CHANGES
A few tweaks have been made to monster statistics as per below to improve overall balance. Also, most monsters that are encountered solo (so not in groups) have had their damage resistance increased. This is to balance the change to enhanced/superior oils which now lower targeted monster's damage resistance. One thing to note is that, as per witcher lore, vampires are now drastically stronger than vanilla. Fighting a vampire around your level is always a challenge, fighting a vampire well above your level is likely suicide. For people who find this too difficult, Monster Regen can be set to near vanilla leaves in the mod menu.
BASE CHANGES
These are changes to the base stats of the monsters. This means all monsters of this type are affected. Vitality is red health, Essence is silver health. Note that the expansion versions of monster types are changes on top of their base game counterparts.
INDIVIDUAL CHANGES
These are changes made to individual monsters, usually specific contract or side quest monsters. Note that the monsters listed here will have the below changes on top of any "base changes" of their monster type described above.
HUMAN ENEMY CHANGES
Human enemy statistics have been modified significantly. Fighting humans should be quick - it will either go your way or it won't. Where as monsters come in many varieties, a human is a human. One may be more skilled than another, but a good (or lucky) sword hit will bring them down. Despite Geralt's mutations, those who recall how the books end know that this includes him. So, my goal for modifying human combat was as follows:
Adaptive Human Intelligence (AHI) (CONFIGURABLE)
This module was made to make human enemies smarter. As they fight you, they will learn Geralt's combat maneuvers and will become more capable warriors as the fight progresses. Specifically, buffs are applied:
When enemies parry Geralt's attacks, the specific buffs that are applied are as follows:
Furthermore, when an enemy manages to strike or dodge Geralt, they and their allies gain some Adrenaline. This lowers the stamina cost of parrying, countering and dodging.
These buffs are not applied to any enemies affected by critical effects such as stun, stagger or knockdown.
These enemies are also fairly likely to inflict bleeding on each strike.
It is also possible to debuff the enemies through effective fighting. Specifically, the following will partially remove these buffs:
Furthermore, each time Geralt dodges an attack, the enemy will compensate for this by picking up their speed. However, in doing so, they focus less on defense and open themselves up to extra damage. This buff/debuff can be removed by either:
Lastly, the following now permanently disorient human enemies, meaning any AHI buffs are removed and prevented for being reapplied:
I've found that this makes the combat with humans more engaging, as you'll find they become more dangerous as they realise Geralt is not someone to be trifled with. It also makes parrying a more viable option than just dodging. Furthermore, it discourages consistently attacking the same opponent until they lower their guard. In Vanilla, you would simply spam attack against a single opponent until he was dead. Doing so now may be helpful in the short run, but each time the enemy parries you, the group ends up getting smarter. Hence, switching opponents between attacks becomes more tempting, despite being more risky.
AHI is available in 3 different modes, as described below:
RUNEWORD CHANGES [HEARTS OF STONE]
I've left most of the runeword stuff alone, with just the following changes:
MUTATION CHANGES [BLOOD AND WINE]
The mutation system is cool but, for the most part, severely overpowered. Hence, I've made some changes to give them buffs/nerfs where needed and bring them in line with the new skill point system.
BLOOD AND WINE VAMPIRES (CONFIGURABLE)
Due to the close proximity to the elder vampire, the vampires of Toussaint have special mutations that their cousins from the North lack. Specifically, this translates to an ability called "Elder Focus" which makes the Vampires of Toussaint extremely dangerous. However, like all powerful abilities, it also opens them up to some very specific weaknesses. This ability is only used by following vampire variants:
This ability allows vampires to generate Adrenaline like Geralt. However, unlike Geralt, vampires generate it not by delivering blows, but rather by receiving them. The following attacks will generate adrenaline for enemy vampires:
This goes up to a maximum of 100% Adrenaline.
Adrenaline has the following effects on the vampire:
Hence, the more Adrenaline a vampire has, the more dangerous they become, but also the more damage they are able to receive. Furthermore, Superior Black Blood potions have an extremely corrosive and reactive effect with vampire adrenaline. If a vampire who has adrenaline attacks a Geralt who has the potion in his blood, it will have devastating effects on the Vampire's biology. The exact effect is dependant on the vampire (see below for more details). It will also deplete the Vampire of all of their Adrenaline. This has the following effects:
This change opens up a whole new gameplay dynamic in dealing with vampires in Blood and Wine and makes the gameplay a lot more interesting (in my opinion).
VAMPIRE TACTICS
Below are details on these vampires and their new powers and how Black Blood affects Adrenaline. I've covered the "Tactics" part so it isn't immediately visible in case people want to figure it out on their own. If you want to see it, just highlight it.
Key:
Red = Vampire strengths
Green = Vampire weaknesses
Black = Effects of Superior Black Blood
Vampiresses [Bruxa & Alps]
+Extremely high regen powers that cannot be stopped by using Moon Dust Bombs.
+Immune to frost.
+Near immunity to fire and shock damage and burning.
+Extremely fast and only get faster as their Adrenaline increases.
+Able to easily inflict knockdown and fatigue Geralt.
+Extremely high parry, evade and counter scores.
+Invisibility.
-Comparatively low damage. However, this will increase with their Adrenaline.
-Medium damage resistances.
-Very low health.
-No critical hit resistances.
-No bleeding or poisoning resistances.
Black Blood applies the following debuffs. The more adrenaline that is lost, the higher the debuff. The debuff can be applied multiple times:
Do note that as they regenerate Adrenaline, it will counteract these debuffs and eventually remove them entirely. Bruxa also have a bite attack that if performed on a Geralt with Black Blood will permanently stop their regen abilities.
TACTICS: One's first instinct may be to drink Black Blood at the beginning of the fight. This will work, the problem is that each hit you land will also generate Adrenaline for the vampire and counteract the black blood debuffs. Hence, this tactic is only advised if you're very good at dodging the Bruxa's attacks and won't get hit.
The key here is to fight them for as long as possible without using Black Blood and getting just one or two hits in where possible. Yes, this means they get faster and stronger as they build Adrenaline. However, drinking a Black Blood at the right moment will then apply so many debuffs that the vampire will be greatly weakened and Geralt can close in for a quick kill. Moon Dust is also helpful here to put a damper on their invisibility so they are easier to keep track of.
Fleders/Protofleders
+Very High Damage Output that only increases with their Adrenaline.
+High physical resistances.
+Significant resistance to critical hits.
+Significant resistance to frost magic.
+Can easily fatigue Geralt.
-Comparatively low regen powers.
-Regen powers that can be stopped by Moon Dust Bombs.
-A very high weakness to fire.
-No critical effect resistances.
Black Blood reacts very violently with the Adrenaline in Fleder blood, dealing a large amount of damage to the Fleder. The higher the Fleder's adrenaline, the more the reflected damage back is multiplied. If its high enough, it can even kill the Fleder outright.
TACTICS: Fleders are the easiest of the new vampire breeds to deal with. The biggest issue is that they deal large amounts of damage and have a high physical resistance. If you have a lot of skills/alchemy items that can lower resistance, then it is completely possible to deal with them the conventional way. Throw a moon dust bomb and wittle them down.
Alternatively, if you feel like you can handle the extra damage (Superior Full Moon helps) and speed (Yrden to slow them down), then allowing them to build adrenaline for a time will allow you to deal a very large amount of damage back using Black Blood. Just ensure you throw a Moon Dust bomb beforehand to ensure they don't start regenerating.
Garkains
+Extremely high level of health.
+Extremely high physical damage resistances.
+Significant resistance to frost magic.
+Moderately high damage output that will increase with their Adrenaline.
+Moderate regen powers.
+Can easily fatigue Geralt.
-Regen powers than can be stopped my Moon Dust Bombs.
-High weakness to fire.
-No critical effect resistances.
-No critical hit resistances.
Black Blood is highly poisonous to Garkains that have adrenaline in their blood. The higher the amount of Adrenaline that is lost, the longer the poison effect lasts.
TACTICS: The biggest issue with Garkains is their extremely high health and resistances. Although fighting them conventionally is possible, it will take a lot of time and will require a build that is able to deal very high amounts of damage.
Alternatively, if you're able to withstand fighting them at full strength for a short time, A black blood potion will then poison them and lower their damage resistances signficantly, making them go down quicker.
Dettlaff - Vampire Form
+High Health Regen (1500 Health/per second) that can't be stopped by Moon Dust Bombs.
+Very High Health.
+High Attack Power that increases as he generates Adrenaline.
+Very high speed which increases as he generates Adrenaline.
+Life Drain Ability - Each attack he lands heals 5% of his MAX Health.
+Immunity to frost and poison.
+High resistances to knock-down/stagger and bleeding.
+Low Resistances to burning and shock damage.
+Immune to regular critical hits.
-Countering him will temporarily put him in a weakened state.
-Moon Dust Bombs will temporarily put him in a weakened state.
-Significant weakness to fire damage.
Black Blood applies the following debuffs. The debuff is higher the more Adrenaline that is lost. It can be applied multiple times:
Note that as he regenerates Adrenaline, it will counteract the Black Blood Debuffs and eventually remove it completely.
TACTICS: Dettlaff was already really tough in the vanilla game and now he's even tougher. His biggest advantage is his health regen, which you will need to counteract before you can start dealing damage. This can be done in two ways:
Countering his jump attack will pause his regen for 8 seconds.
Black Blood and him losing adrenaline will decrease his regen powers.
The key is to weaken him with a counter, get a number of hits in and then back off. You want to get his adrenaline relatively high so when you drink the Black Blood you take his regen abilities down. Don't worry if you lose the first fight with him, you're not expected to win. It is just to give you an idea of how he fights so you're ready the next time.
Vanilla bug: During the first fight against Dettlaff, a cutscene is supposed to trigger if he gets close to killing you. This is a bit buggy and sometimes won't happen and instead you will get a game over screen.
Dettlaff - Monster/Bat Form
+Extremely High Health
+Moderate Health Regen (5% per second)
+High Damage output (especially the bat swarm attack) that increases with his Adrenaline
+High Physical Damage Resistance
+Immunity to Frost
+Immunity to the Archgriffin Decoction
+High Resistances to bleeding
+High DoT Resistances
+Will remove the effects of Black Blood with each hit. If Geralt doesn't have black blood in his system, will remove Moon Dust instead, there by restarting his regen.
+Easily Fatigues Geralt
-Massive weakness to fire
-Regen can be stopped by Moon Dust Bombs
-No Critical Hit resistances
-Low shock damage resistances
As this is Dettlaff's most powerful form, Black Blood has limited effect here. It doesn't even block his Adrenaline Generation. This means he can't be stopped from increasing his speed and damage. You need to make sure every hit you land is doing large amounts of damage. However, Black Blood is still important as if he hits you without it active, he will restart his regen - making him virtually impossible to beat.
TACTICS: This is an extremely tough battle. Superior Full Moon is almost mandatory to survive. It is very important to avoid his Bat Swarm attack as it could be an instant kill. The best advantage you can have is to throw a bomb at him during the short pause he does as he dives towards you. This will give you a decent window to do as much damage as possible to him. Also, keep in mind that each strike he lands will remove Black Blood from your system, so you need to keep some toxicity spare in case this happens.
Dettlaff - Nightmare Forms
The nightmare blob things are interesting because unlike other enemies in the game, they don't actually have a working health bar. In Vanilla, all the Dettlaff clones that attack you in the nightmare phase require 5 hits to kill. It doesn't matter how much damage you do, if it is a strong or fast attack or a sign (though there is a cooldown on the signs so you can't just spam them).
I've made substantial changes to this phase, largely dependent on the difficulty chosen. Hidden text below goes into detail for those who want to see. For those who want to be surprised, here are some high level tips that don't give too much away:
TACTICS:
The following is common across all the difficulty levels:
Sword and Story and below:
Blood and Broken Bones:
Death March:
DIFFICULTY
I would say the mod makes the game somewhat more difficult than vanilla. If you prepare properly before entering a fight, you should be fine. The only exception are vampires, they have intentionally been made to be a lot more difficult. Ultimately, whatever difficulty level you were comfortable with for vanilla should be fine here as well if you don't mind a slightly elevated challenge.
The game was built with Death March difficulty in mind with the "Gwynbleidd" gameplay preset in the mod menu.
INSTALLATION (FRESH NEW GAME)
INSTALLATION (VANILLA SAVE)
Follow all the installation instructions for Fresh New Game, and then also do the following:
Before you start, you will need the following:
To make a vanilla save work, do the following steps in the exact order specified:
Your vanilla save should now function as a proper Redux Save. However, there is only so much testing I can do, so let me know if you run into any issues.
UNINSTALLATION
FAQ
I'm getting the following error during installation:
Error [modredux]game\types.ws(52): Enum 'EAreaName' already defined.
Error [modredux]game\types.ws(68): Enum 'EDlcAreaName' already defined.
This is a version issue, please ensure you're using v1.31 NOT v1.32 of the game. Also, if you're not using the GOTY version you will need the unification/community patch.
If you're using the GOG version, don't download the v1.32 patch. It's bad and stops most mods from working.
If you're using the Steam version of the game, it will automatically update you to v1.32. Use the following mod to patch the game back to v1.31 if the unification/community patch alone doesn't fix things:
https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3374?tab=files
If you still keep getting the error, you can try the following:
Open Types.ws with an editor and comment out line 52 to line 128 (at the beginning of line 52 type "/*" at the end of line 128 type "*/")
You will need to do this in both the modRedux and modReduxDL folders. Then re-run Script Merger.
The skill system still has more than one level per skill and some of the changes don't seem to be working (i.e Places of Power are not unlocking skills, game is freezing up sometimes during slowdown segments...).
This either means you have attempted to load a vanilla or non-Redux save with this mod without following the vanilla specific installation instructions above or are running multiple mods and haven't merged them correctly. If you're running multiple mods, please use Script Merger to ensure they're all able to function together. You may also need to play around with the load order.
Werewolves/Vampires regenerate health way too fast! They're impossible!
This is by design. Vampires especially are not beatable without Moon Dust Bombs, which stops their regeneration. Note that, unlike the superior version, the basic and enhanced versions have a limited duration, so you need to keep a mental note of how long the enemy has been under Moon Dust and throw another bomb to ensure regen doesn't restart. Devil's Puffballs are also very useful in counteracting the regen. If you find this game mechanic to be too difficult, you can change Monster Regen stats back to vanilla levels in the mod menu.
I'm currently playing the mod on an earlier version. Can I update to the latest version and still continue with my save?
Yes, saves are compatible across different versions of the mod.
Does the mod work on the next-gen version of Witcher 3 (v4.0)?
No, and there are no immediate plans to convert it. See the stickied post for details.
This mod can be considered a "light" gameplay overhaul as it doesn't fundamentally change the gameplay mechanics, but still makes enough major changes to be considered more than just gameplay enhancements. Its main purpose is to make the gameplay feel more realistic and lore friendly where preparation is key. After all, a witcher with no potions is half a witcher. It also attempts to stretch out the levelling elements across both expansions and overhauls the skill system, so you're not wasting skill points after level 30 just to unlock the later skill tiers in the other trees. The changes are of course subjective but I think they make the minute to minute gameplay more interesting.
!!! PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS MOD DOES NOT WORK WITH NEW GAME PLUS !!!
!!! Considering that the NEXT GEN VERSION has FCR3 inbuilt - it almost certainly isn't compatible with Redux. Please see the stickied post for more info !!!
PLEASE HAVE A READ OF THE FAQ AT THE BOTTOM OF THE MOD DESCRIPTION BEFORE REPORTING ANY ISSUES
The main changes can be summarised as follows:
Combat: Adrenaline is a much more important factor in this tree and can now lead to some very powerful abilities. To balance, it is significantly harder to generate and much easier to lose. A character who invests no points in this tree will find it difficult to generate 3 Adrenaline Points.
Signs: The scaling of sign damage and effects with sign intensity has been modified and some skills have been re-worked/overhauled in light of this. Without investing points into this tree, you will likely find signs to be less useful than in vanilla. Conversely, investing points into this tree will give you very powerful signs. Signs can also now be "supercharged", mostly through the "Supercharged Yrden" skill, though a Decoction can also provide this ability. A supercharged sign has bonus effects on top of it's regular effect.
Alchemy: Toxicity has been re-worked significantly to be more in line with the Witcher 2. You can no longer get really high levels of toxicity and just chug potions. You have to tactically and carefully decide which potion to take and when. Considering this, potions on the whole are a lot more powerful and useful. Decoctions have been entirely overhauled and now have both a positive and a negative effect.
Monsters: Stats have been re-worked on most monsters to give an elevated challenge compared to Vanilla. Abilities and Resistances have also been changed on a number of enemies for immersive purposes (i.e. ghouls now poison enemies and fire elementals can't be hurt by fire).
Vampires: As per Witcher Lore, Vampires are now a lot more dangerous. Moon Dust Bombs are now mandatory in dealing with them and you will need to concentrate and prepare for every fight with a vampire. This is especially true of the vampires in the Blood and Wine Expansion who now have a new ability called "Elder Focus". This works a lot like Adrenaline does for Geralt. See below for more details.
Human Enemies: Human enemies are no longer damage sponges but now also inflict a lot more damage. This polarises combat with humans, meaning things can go wrong with the simplest mistake. Human are easier to kill, but there is less room for error. A configurable module called Adaptive Human Intelligence is also introduced, where human opponents in a group will become better fighters as they observe how their allies are being killed. For example, as you kill humans, the surviving ones will become more defensive and more likely to parry your attacks.
Skill System: All skills now only have 1 level so each time Geralt spends a skill point it has a tangible effect on the gameplay. Most skills have also been modified and some have been completely overhauled. Flood of Anger (now called Wolven Storm), for example, is no longer sign related, and instead puts Geralt into a battle frenzy mode where each melee attack is an automatic finisher. Very powerful, but also difficult to activate.
There is also:
A new "progressive" sign damage scaling system where a number of monsters now have weaknesses to specific types of magic. Can be turned off in the mod menu.
A new "fatigue" system where Geralt becomes weaker when he gets stunned or overuses Quen. Can also be turned off.
An improved "damage over time" resistance system.
Some minor changes which I believe just improve the general experience/immersion in the game.
This mod is exclusively for normal "New Game". It will not work with NG+.
REDUX BASICS
Watch your Fatigue and Drain! Fatigue generates when you overuse Quen and will hinder Geralt's damage output and stamina regeneration. Quen is still a very effective sign, but needs to be used correctly. Quen should be used when you are fighting enemies that can do a large amount of damage to you quickly, and not just for every fight. Later on in the game you will be able to craft alchemy items that can mitigate the effects of fatigue. Drain is caused by critical effects such as Hypnosis or attacks from wraiths and lowers Geralt's Sign Intensity each time it is applied.
Parry and Counter against human enemies! Parrying and countering human enemies will debuff them, making them easier to kill. Also, when a human is parrying your attacks, move on to a different target instead of constantly hitting the same enemy. The more you are parried, the more your enemies are able to adapt to your fighting style. Dodging is still useful, but if you dodge too much, human enemies will increase their speed to compensate.
Don't forget about alchemy! Even if you have invested no points in the tree, alchemy is still an integral part of the gameplay. Potions are now much more powerful and could be the difference between winning/losing a fight. Oils can double your damage and lower the enemies' damage resistances. Bombs will stop vampires from regenerating health and can knock flying monsters out of the air permanently.
Choose your skills wisely! There's only 1 level per skill now and you get less skill points, so make sure you build your character wisely. Think about what skills would play well off of each other. Combat skills are all about scoring critical hits and using Adrenaline to activate very powerful abilities. Sign skills are all about debilitating opponents through critical effects and hindering their ability to fight back. Alchemy skills are all about buffing your stats and debuffing your enemies, allowing Geralt to survive attacks that would kill other builds.
Explore and find those Places of Power! Places of Power are integral in developing Geralt's abilities and unlocking the later skill tiers, so don't forget about them. They will show up on the map when unlocked by notice boards so you know exactly where they are.
Unlock Ultimate Skills! Each Skill tree now has something akin to the penultimate skills in the Witcher 2 skill paths.
- Combat: Wolven Storm (previously Flood of Anger) will put Geralt into a battle trance mode where every attack is an instant finisher!
- Signs: Supercharged Glyphs will allow Geralt to supercharge his other signs to devastating effect!
- Alchemy: Intoxication (previously Side Effects) will put Geralt into a berserk mode when his health is low, greatly increasing his speed and damage!
RECOMMENDED COMPLEMENTARY MODS
If the below mods didn't already exist, I would likely build something similar into Redux. Therefore, you can consider them as being part of the envisioned design for this mod.
Friendly Meditation - makes meditating much more visually appealing and also changes how potions and decoctions expire during meditation. The Redux changes to potion/decoctions were built with this in mind.
Speed Force - changes the speed of most enemies in the game to be more realistic. I was going to build something similar, but this mod does it perfectly so I don't need to.
Preparations - makes meditation and alchemy much more meaningful. Synergizes well with how alchemy is much more important with Redux. It is also highly configurable.
Friendly Meditation and Speed Force will auto-merge with Redux. For Preparations, I suggest download the Preparations Patch optional file and following the ReadMe instructions within, as some manual merging is required.
DESCRIPTIVE LEVELS (CONFIGURABLE)
A small but effective change which hides all enemy levels and instead replaces them with a descriptive word to give you a general idea of how strong the enemy is. The goal here is to make the world feel less levelled and to give a narrative friendly reason as to why a level 5 Ghoul is so much weaker than a level 25 one. Configurable in the mod menu.
It works by looking at the level bracket of the monster and its type. For example, a level 5 Drowner would be described as "starving", where as a level 30 Drowner would be described as "ferocious". A different set of words is used between the monster types - so Necrophages will have a different list of words to Hybrids. There are some exceptions, where monsters may be considered part of another group since the words sound better.
This does not effect The Wild Hunt, their minions or any bosses or contract monsters. Basically, if the monster has a "boss health bar" at the top of the screen, no descriptor will be used.
The word used is solely based on levels for monsters. However, for humans, its a combination of their level and their fighting skills. Hence, its common to see a group of human enemies where humans have different descriptors to each other, where as for monsters a group will all likely have the same descriptor.
Note that this does not change any gameplay or statistics, its purely cosmetic. See the attached images for in-game examples and a spreadsheet of all the words. Currently supported in English, Russian (thanks to user iCake), Polish (thanks to user damian11880) and French (thanks to user ArchiTEK).
GENERAL CHANGES
Thresholds for toxicity showing on Geralt's face have been increased from <25%/<50%/<75%/75%+ to <45%/<65%/<85%/85%+
Vitality damage from Toxicity increased from 0.5%/per sec to 2.5%/per sec [Configurable].
Witcher Senses Enhancement originally part of the Metamorphosis Mutation [Blood and Wine] is available from the start [configurable].
The Cat potion can be toggled on and off by using the a nominated key [can be customised - see installation instructions below] when not in combat. It will also automatically turn on if you are entering combat in a dark place [configurable]
Arbitrary huge stat bonuses/penalties based on level differences removed. Inability to parry or perform critical hits or effects against enemies that are a much higher level than you has been removed.
Followers do more damage, especially Sorceresses.
If their level is lower, bosses will scale to Geralt's level. Specifically, this is only the following enemies:
- The Whispering Hillock Tree
- Imerlith
- Caranthir
- Eredin
- The Toad Prince [Hearts of Stone]
- Dettlaff [Blood and Wine]
Degradation rate for both weapons and armor is now configurable as a percentage of the vanilla rate.
Grindstone and Armorer table bonuses now last for 30 minutes instead of just 15 (real time).
The Svarog runestone has been redesigned. Instead of armor penetration, it now provides a chance to break an enemies' parry. This means Geralt's attack goes through even when the enemy is blocking.
Items that had "armor piercing" as a stat now have "chance to break parry" instead.
Almost all silver swords have been removed as loot from random containers and merchants. Silver swords are rare, and should not be appearing as random loot. They will need to be crafted, given as a reward for a quest or found in a specific "set" container. Toussaint, due to its fairy tale nature, is exempt from this.
Player is able to configure how notices boards reveal POIs. The choices are as question marks (vanilla), places of power only or reveal all.
Food now heals more Vitality but over a significantly longer period of time (5 minutes real-time).
Drinks now increase Stamina Regeneration but over a significantly longer period of time (5 minutes real-time).
Increased Ciri's Attack Power by 50%-120% during her gameplay segments.
There is no longer a delay between throwing bombs (buff usually provided by the vanilla Grandmaster Wolf Gear 6/6 bonus).
Can turn on subtitles just for Trolls in the narrative mod menu. May need to load a previous save if you play around with this and the general subtitles option. Still a work in progress, doesn't work perfectly.
QUEST LEVEL CHANGES
The following changes have been made to quest levels to better reflect changes this mod introduces to gameplay elements:
- Contract: Shrieker 8->10: Tough contract, level didn't even really feel right in Vanilla.
- Cabaret 14->20: Not due to anything in this quest but rather because of the quest that directly follows it. Changed the level here to maintain story pacing between the quests.
- Contract: Mysterious Tracks 20->21: Contact monster is tough.
- Carnal Sins 16->23: Mini-boss of this quest is A LOT tougher with this mod - one of the toughest fights in the game.
- Destination: Skellige 16->18: To encourage players to go later.
- Cave of Dreams 14->17: Both the ghost enemies and the vision of Eredin are quite tough.
- Nameless 14->18: Changed to better reflect the strength of the mini-boss.
- In Wolf's Clothing 15->19: Changed to better reflect the strength of the mini-boss.
- Phantom of Eldberg 17->21: Summoned wraiths are tougher.
- The Last Wish 17->19: Mini-boss is tougher.
- Lord of Undvik 17->23: Boss enemy is tougher.
- Possession 17->23: Changed to match previous quest as they are somewhat related.
- Woodland Spirit 22->25: Mini-boss here is a lot tougher.
- Of Swords and Dumplings 24->15: This quest can easily be completed at lowers levels due to how the mod changes human combat. Reward has also been streamlined to fit a mid-level character (see below).
Notice Boards [Configurable]
Contract quests will now only display when Geralt is close enough to the level of the contract. The default value is 5, but this can be changed to anything between 0 and 50. Setting it to 50 basically emulates vanilla as there is no quest 50 levels higher than Geralt in the game. The quests will always display if Geralt is equal to or greater than the level of the contract. The reason I implemented this is because I never liked how you could pick up high level quests early but then couldn't/wouldn't do them until a hundred hours later. It was very immersion breaking to think of the poor peasant quest giver just sitting there and waiting weeks or months.
Note that the solution for this is quite hacky, so its likely some quests have been missed. Please let me know if you find any.
REDUX LEVEL SCALING [Configurable]
A form of level scaling has been introduced, separated by areas, that is configurable within the mod menu, under the "Narrative" section. The problem with the vanilla enemy scaling option is that it just scales everyone to Geralt's level, undercutting any sense of progression. With redux level scaling, you instead configure a "maximum" number that enemies will scale. This means their level will either be increased by the number you've provided or they will go up to Geralt's level, whatever happens first. You can also provide different numbers for all the different areas in the game. This gives the following advantages:
- Since you provide a maximum number, you still have the sense of the Geralt getting stronger than the monsters inhabiting the world.
- Separating it by area keeps the game's narrative consistency intact. Skellige should be more dangerous than Velen and Novigrad and once you go back, ghouls shouldn't suddenly be level 30 where earlier they were level 3.
- Gives you finer control of gameplay progression.
The default values for Redux are as follows. They were built on the idea of a "near completionist" playthrough, where you only move to the next area once you've completed all the quests around your level in the current area:
- Velen: 0
- Novigrad (includes surrounding areas): 3
- Skellige: 5
- Kaer Morhen: 4
- Isle of Mists: 4
- Toussaint: 3
Redux level scaling does not affect contract monsters or bosses. Any monster with a "boss" health bar is excluded. These monsters have all been rebalanced by hand, so I didn't want the level scaling touching them.
GEAR CHANGES
The following gear has been modified to make it more meaningful. The following weapons have had their stats modified to make them feel like actual rewards when they are received. Some have also had their level set to 1 so they will always be able to be equipped:
- Starting Steel Sword (Optional) - The starting steel sword has been replaced with Caerme (Witcher 2 endgame weapon), and its stats have been set to roughly a level 7-8 weapon so Geralt doesn't feel like a Novice Witcher during the Prologue.
- Starting Silver Sword (Optional) - The starting silver sword has been replaced with Addan Deith (Witcher 2 endgame weapon), and its stats have been set to roughly a level 7-8 weapon so Geralt doesn't feel like a Novice Witcher during the Prologue.
- Blade from the Bits - steel sword given to Geralt by Hattori upon completing the quest "Swords and Dumplings". It now rivals the Basic Witcher Gear steel swords.
- Fate - silver sword given to Geralt by Crache during "King's Gambit". It now rivals the Enhanced Witcher Gear silver swords.
- Winter's Blade - steel sword given to Geralt by Crache when getting allies for Kaer Morhen. It now rivals the Superior Witcher Gear steel swords.
- Aerondight [Blood and Wine] no longer loses durability, due to its magical nature. Charge damage boost lowered from 10% to 5%.
- Alzur [Redux] - New craftable level 43 steel sword. Upgrades Iris. Will summon Alzur's Thunder when charged, which will hit all enemies in the area with a chain lightning attack. This attack does shock damage and destroys shields. The crafting diagram can be bought from the Oferi merchant near the Runewright.
- Superior Wolf Jacket [DLC] no longer requires a master armorer (pretty sure this was a bug/oversight).
- Mastercrafted Wolf Boots, Gloves and Trousers [DLC] now require a master armorer (pretty sure this was a bug/oversight).
- Grandmaster Wolf gear [Blood and Wine] now requires the Mastercrafted Wolf gear to craft.
- Grandmaster Wolf gear [Blood and Wine] 3/6 bonus changed to the vanilla version of the Fixative skill - blade oils don't wear off.
- Grandmaster Wolf gear [Blood and Wine] 6/6 bonus changed to "unequipped skills still provide their secondary bonuses (Adrenaline Generation, Stamina Regeneration, Potion Duration)".
- Grandmaster Griffin Gear [Blood and Wine] 6/6 Sign Intensity bonus lowered from 100% to 50% and 20% damage reduction removed.
- Grandmaster Bear Gear [Blood and Wine] 3/6 Free Quen Shield won't fatigue Geralt when it breaks.
- Grandmaster Bear Gear [Blood and Wine] 6/6 Quen Damage boost lowered from 200% to 150%.
- Grandmaster Feline Gear [Blood and Wine] 3/6 Damage Bonus decreased from 10% to 7% per item.
- Grandmaster Feline Gear [Blood and Wine] 6/6 Damage Boost lowered from 50% to 25%. Stun Duration increased from 3 seconds to 7 seconds.
- Manticore gear [Blood and Wine] has been changed to a light armor.
- Grandmaster Gear [Blood and Wine] utility attributes (attack power, sign intensity, adrenaline gain etc...) have been slightly increased.
Viper Armor (Hearts of Stone) has also been modified to have more utility but be slightly less protective compared to vanilla. The armor ratings have been dropped to be at the mastercrafted witcher gear level, but the following buffs have been added:
- Armor: Increases sign intensity by 25%.
- Trousers: Increases maximum toxicity by 10 points.
- Boots: Increases maximum toxicity by 5 points.
- Gauntlets: Increases maximum toxicity by 5 points.
Grandmaster Set Bonuses
Armor set bonuses for Grandmaster gear can now be activated from superior quality and higher. This is to allow for more playtime with their game mechanics. To balance, lower quality gear provides less "set bonus points" per item. Hence, you still can't activate the 6/6 bonus unless you're wearing full grandmaster gear. The set bonus points are as follows:
- Superior: 0.5 points
- Mastecrafted: 0.75 points
- Grandmaster: 1 point
An armor set bonus has also been added to the Viper Gear (Hearts of Stone).
- 3/4: When a foe strikes Geralt, they take 3% poison damage each second for a duration based on the number of bonus set points. Each point is 2 seconds.
Quest Rewards
The following changes have been made to quest rewards:
- Princess in Distress: Will get Basic Moon Dust formulae if you haven't picked it up already. This is due to its importance in dealing with Vampires and Werewolves.
- Forefather's Eve: Will get Enhanced Moon Dust formulae if you haven't picked it up already. This is due to its importance in dealing with Vampires and Werewolves.
- Carnal Sins: Will get Superior Moon Dust formulae if you haven't picked it up already. This is due to its importance in dealing with Vampires and Werewolves.
- Practicum in Advanced Alchemy: Will get some Black Gull, Black Powder and Dragon Blood which are all required ingredients to craft most superior potions, bombs and oils. You also get access to buy more of these ingredients from Gremist.
- Ugly Baby & Blood on the Battlefield: Increased the amount of Crowns given by the Emperor from 2000 to 10000 (So, you'll get 5000 when you see him during Ugly Baby and 5000 if you accept the reward when/if you take Ciri to him).
- (Hearts of Stone) Whatsoever a Man Soweth: Will get the schematic for crafting Alzur along with Iris.
Total Armor Rebalance
This module rebalances all the armor in the game to be more reflective of the changes introduced by Redux. Big thank you to DonProtein for designing this module.
Changes can be summarised as follows:
- Due to Redux adding a 50% resistance cap to all armor [configurable], this value is now treated as the highest value 4 armor pieces can achieve, instead of some armor having a total greater than this, but it just being capped at 50%.
- Witcher items provide better protection against monster damage. Heavy (Ursine), Medium (Griffin, Viper, Wolf) and Light (Feline, Manticore) provide 50/35/25% monster damage resistance at their grandmaster levels, respectively. On the other hand, slashing/piercing/bludgeoning resistances are lower.
- Non-witcher gear provides higher slashing/piercing/bludgeoning resistances, but lower monster damage resistances.
- Minor re-balance to starting gear (including jacket upgrade). Stats slightly lowered but minor sign intensity and adrenaline gain added.
- Some vanilla bug fixes where some armors had incorrect stats (ie. heavy armor increasing stamina regeneration).
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
Consumables (food/drink) cannot be used during combat [configurable].
Sprinting/Jumping outside of combat costs no Stamina [configurable].
Cannot equip, switch, upgrade or dye gear during combat [configurable].
Geralt can parry arrows from the start - no skill required. To balance, arrows deal triple damage [configurable]
Both Geralt and human enemies can no longer parry or block attacks if they have 0 stamina.
Shielded enemies will drop their shield if attacked when only 10% of their stamina is left (or less).
Geralt's base attack power at the start of the game has been increased while the attack power increases he receives in the first 10 levels or so has been decreased. Ultimately, you still get the same net gain of attack power. This was done to smooth out the difficulty and Geralt's progression at the start of the game.
Adrenaline generates 65% slower through melee attacks and drains much quicker when hit or combat is over [configurable]. Finishers generate 0.1 Adrenaline Points.
The duration of the base "Bleeding" effect has been decreased from 10 seconds to 5 seconds. The damage, however, has been increased from 0.8 to 2% of Vitality.
Damage from horseback can be customised in the mod menu for both the player and enemies.
Lowered the global damage reduction value of the "Ice Armor" ability from 50% to 25%. With the below changes to damage resistance and oils, this ability needed to be nerfed otherwise it made fighting Ice Trolls extremely tedious.
Wild Hunt "frost" armor now provides them with very high armor ratings. This armor can be melted off using Igni, or penetrated using attacks that ignore Armor - such as Strong Attacks and shock damage.
Added "Elemental Armor" ability to the following monster variants:
- Golems
- Gargoyles
- Earth Elementals
- Fire Elementals
- Leshens
- Spriggans [Blood and Wine]
- Increases damage resistance by 20%
- Massively increases Armor values to the point where the enemies are immune to fast attacks.
- Shock Damage (so Yrden and Quen) ignores Armor values.
- Strong Attacks ignore Armor values.
- Dimeritium Bombs disable this ability while the monster is in the Dimeritium cloud.
Added a maximum cap of 50% for Geralt's resistances towards the following damage types [configurable]:
- Slashing
- Piercing
- Bludgeoning
- Rending (monster damage)
- Elemental (magical damage)
Place of Power Sign Intensity boost increased from 20% to 75%.
The stamina delay after casting Quen (basic version) has been increased from 0.5 seconds to 2 seconds.
Sign Intensity scaling has been re-worked. In general, damage/effects from signs scale in a linear fashion, with +250% (so, 350% in total) Sign Intensity giving you the max chance to apply effects in most cases. Specifically, from +0% to +250% Sign Intensity:
- Aard knockdown effect scales from approximately 8% to 100% chance (no cap). This is lower than vanilla.
- Basic Igni burn effect scales from approximately 0% to 75% chance (capped at 100%). This is significantly lower than vanilla.
- Alternate Igni burn effect scales from approximately 30% to 200% chance (capped at 100%). This is about vanilla level.
- Igni Damage scales from approximately 120 to 575 damage (no cap). This is slightly higher than Vanilla
- Yrden slowdown effect scales from approximately 20% to 50% (capped). This is a slightly larger range than Vanilla.
- Yrden damage is the same as vanilla.
- Quen is the same as vanilla.
- Axii is the same as vanilla.
Axii's stun effect has been slightly re-worked. In the vanilla version, once you had stunned/turned a human opponent, there was a relatively high chance of performing an instant finisher kill. This was overpowered, so now an attack against a stunned/turned opponent is an automatic critical hit instead.
Shock damage (Quen and Yrden) sign intensity is increased when it is raining or storming by 25%/50%, respectively.
The Quen shield (both basic and alternate) is stronger during storms.
Quen no longer removes the Burning or Bleeding critical effect but still provides immunity to them.
Aard Sweep (Alternate Aard) removes the burning effect from Geralt.
Knockdown duration against enemies decreased by 50%.
White Raffard's Decoction removes Bleeding from Geralt.
During rain/storms, burn chance is lowered by 10/20%, respectively.
During rain/storms, burn damage is increased by 10/20%, respectively.
Base potion overdose threshold has been increased from 75% to 85%.
Hitting a flying monster with a damage dealing bomb will do +50% damage.
Holding parry after quick throwing the Samum bomb will protect Geralt from the blindness effect if he is in range.
Damage reduction to specters in their spectral form reduced further from 90% to 99%.
Sorceresses and Mages are completely immune to Poison.
Progressive Sign Damage Scaling (Configurable)
One issue that I've noticed is that monsters that are "susceptible" to signs in the bestiary aren't actually susceptible to their "offensive" attributes in any meaningful way. In the best case scenario they simply have zero or negative resistance to the special effects but don't actually receive any extra damage. Hence, I've created a multi-tier bracket system for fire and shock damage based on sign intensity. Note that this only applies if the following conditions are met:
- Geralt has more than +100% Sign Intensity.
- Monster is susceptible to either Igni (fire) or Yrden/Quen (shock) in the bestiary. Note that I've also given Elementals a significant weakness to shock, despite them not having such a weakness specified in the bestiary.
- Tier 1: +100% - +199%, damage weight = 20%
- Tier 2: +200% - +299%, damage weight = 30%
- Tier 3: +300% - +349%, damage weight = 50%
A Geralt with +350% SI and a base damage of 700, would therefore do the full extra 200%, and do a massive 2100 damage with each hit. In other words, the damage bonus from increasing your Sign Intensity from +300% to +350% is the same as increasing it from from +100% to +299%. This means that even getting small percentage boosts when you're in the higher SI numbers is worth it, giving Sign Builds a good reason to drink those Petri Philtres..
New Enemy Abilities [Configurable]
A number of new abilities have been added to make enemies more dangerous but keeping within the lore of the Witcher world. They are as follows:
- Adaptive Human Intelligence: Makes human enemies smarter as they fight you. See the "Adapative Human Intelligence" section below for further details.
- Wolven Rage: Increases the damage and speed of enemies as their health drops below a certain threshold. Applied to werewolves, ulfhedinn and wolves with silver health.
- Berserker Rage: Increases the damage, resistances and regen of Berserkers when their health drops below a certain threshold.
- Respite: Large flying monsters will regen health at 5% per second while flying.
- Fortitude: Large flying monsters have been given a new stat called "Fortitude". When this is brought to 0, they can longer fly. See the "Fortitude" section below for more details.
- Vampiric Drain: A "life leech" ability that heals the attacker when they make a melee attack. Can be mitigated through the combined use of Moon Dust bombs, the Blackblood potion and the Yrden Sign. Applied to all vampires.
- Elder Focus: The ability for enemies to generate Adrenaline and increase their strength and speed. Only applied to the vampires in Blood and Wine. See the "Blood and Wine Vampires" section below for details.
- Coagulate (Passive): Increases monster's bleeding resistance once it has been applied once. Added to most large monsters.
- Detoxify (Passive): Poison has diminishing returns the more its applied against a monster, with the monster becoming resistant to it over time. Added to most large monsters.
- Scorched (Passive): Monsters become more resistance to burning and fire damage the more burning effects are applied to them. Added to most large monsters.
Regen Multipliers have also been added to the mod menu for Vampires, Fiends\Chorts, Werewolves, Berserkers and Large Flying monsters. They are set to 1 for all presets, because Redux already has inbuilt regen modifiers for monsters (see Monster section below). However, I've added multipliers as well which act on top of these existing modifiers so you can customise it to how you see fit.
DAMAGE OVER TIME RESISTANCES
DoT resistances were added to the game with the Hearts of Stone expansion, but were not implemented retroactively to the base game. I've now applied some. For example, if a monster has a 70% DoT resistance to poison, only 30% of the DoT every second will affect the monster.
Fatigue Critical Effect (Configurable)
Fatigue is a debuff that only affects Geralt and has the following effects:
- Delays Stamina Regeneration.
- Increases Geralt's recovery time for stagger and knockdown effects.
- Lowers Geralt's melee damage.
- Lowers Adrenaline Generation.
- Each time Geralt's Quen (basic version) breaks (this excludes the first Quen cast).
- Each time Geralt is staggered/knocked down.
- 5% Adrenaline Generation decrease. 10% damage decrease with melee attacks. 20% higher recovery time from applied stagger/knockdown effects, 100% longer delay in regenerating stamina.
- 10% Adrenaline Generation decrease. 20% damage decrease with melee attacks. 40% higher recovery time from applied stagger/knockdown effects, 200% longer delay in regenerating stamina.
- 20% Adrenaline Generation decrease. 40% damage decrease with melee attacks. 80% higher recovery time from applied stagger/knockdown effects, 400% longer delay in regenerating stamina.
- 40% Adrenaline Generation decrease. 80% damage decrease with melee attacks. 160% higher recovery time from applied stagger/knockdown effects, 800% longer delay in regenerating stamina.
You will know Geralt is fatigued when the HUD displays an icon with two hands bound by rope.
Drain Critical Effect (Configurable)
Drain is a debuff that is applied to Geralt and lowers his Sign Intensity with each application. It can be applied the following ways:
- Melee Attacks from Harpies, Erynias or Foglets (-10% per hit)
- Any attack from a Specter (-20% per hit)
- Some special monsters such as the Djinn and the Hym (-20% per hit)
- The "Supercharged Glyphs" ability in the Yrden tree (-20% per cast)
- The Blindness Critical Effect (-40%)
- Summoning Alzur's Thunder (-40%)
- The Hypnosis Critical Effect (-100%)
You can partially protect yourself from Drain by protecting yourself from the primary effects that cause it. For example, using a Superior Cat Potion gives you immunity to hypnosis which, by extension, gives you protection from Drain caused by hypnosis. Standing inside a Yrden glyph will also protect Geralt from Drain that is caused by either attacks or the blindness effect.
There is no way to remove Drain in battle, so Sign builds need to be very careful with the above foes. It automatically gets removed at the end of every combat scenario.
Burning Critical Effect (Scorched Passive Ability)
The burning critical effect was far too overpowered, both in the Vanilla game and the earlier versions of this mod, so the following changes have been made:
- DoT burning resistances have been added to a number of monsters and buffed on already existing monsters.
- When an enemy is burning, critical hit damage against them is increased by 100%. This gives combat/sign hybrid builds a good incentive to interrupt an enemy's burning animation instead of just letting it play out.
- Most monsters have been given a "Burning Resistance" ability that is applied each time they are successfully burned.
- +30% burning DoT resistance.
- +20% burning resistance.
- +10% fire damage resistance.
- The "fear" effect from burning (where the enemy just stands there and panics) can no longer be applied. Although the burning effect can still be applied afterwards, the enemy will still attack and not be stunned.
This ability can stack up to 3 times for each enemy.
Overall, burning is still extremely effective against certain monsters, such as drowners/water hags and most Hybrids due to their feathers. For example, a full sign build could probably still kill a Griffin with one or two blasts of Igni. However, other monsters have had their resistances increased so that burning can be used as an effective initial debuff but will not solely win the fight for you.
Poison Critical Effect (Detoxify Passive Ability)
The poison critical effect now does a higher percentage of damage to the enemy's health. However, to balance, most monsters will become resistant to poison as it is applied. Specifically, most monsters have been given a "Detoxify" ability which means that each time the poison critical effect is applied, the monster gains a 25% DoT resistance to Poison. This means the effect has diminishing returns within a single fight.
Bleeding Critical Effect (Coagulate Passive Ability)
Bleeding no longer applies a DoT effect to the enemy's maximum health, rather it is their current health. So, it is more effective the earlier it is used. Many large monsters have also been given a "Coagulate" ability, which means they gain a 50% resistance to bleeding after it has been applied once.
Respite and Fortitude
Large flying monsters, such as Griffins, Basilisks, Forktails and Wyverns, will all now regen health while they fly. Hence, to defeat them, it is important to make sure they stay on the ground. This can be done by quickly attacking them as they take off, as per vanilla, or by blocking their ability to fly at all.
To block the ability, you need to first lower their Forititude to 0. Every flying monsters has a different level of fortitude, based on its level and type. For example Archgriffins have the highest fortitude of all flying monsters. Fortitude can be lowered in two ways:
- Temporarily using Yrden glyphs. The monster will have its fortitude lowered while in the glyph - the amount dependent on Geralt's Sign Intensity.
- Permanently by hitting them with a bomb while they are in mid-air. The amount of fortitude lost is dependent on the bomb used (Grapeshot and Dancing Star are most effective), the level of the bomb and whether Geralt has skills such as Heavy Artillery or Pyrotechnics equipped. The Basilisk Decoction also provides a bonus.
SKILL CHANGES
The skill system has been majorly re-worked. For one, all skills now only have one level, instead of the usual 3 or 5. This was done to make levelling have greater impact and be less incremental. Each time you receive and use a skill point it should actually have a visible effect on how your Geralt plays. To balance this, skill points are only awarded every 2/3 levels. Specifically, the changes are as follows:
- 1 Skill Point granted every 2 levels until level 14 (2-14), then every 3 levels until level 50 (17-50). After Level 50, no more skill points are given. This gives you a maximum of 19 skill points from levelling alone.
- Skill Tiers 2,3 & 4 are no longer unlocked by spending skill points in the relevant tree, but rather by finding Places of Power. This encourages exploration and allows for a lot more mixing and matching between skills. You no longer have to commit to one tree to unlock the best abilities.
- Each tier requires 6 places of power to be unlocked (so, tier 4 skills require 18 places of power to be found in total). After 18 have been found, any new places of power from then on will grant skill points as per vanilla. Tier 1 is unlocked at the beginning of the game.
- Hence, including the expansions, you're looking at a maximum of about 32 skill points at level 50 if you find all the places of power and eat the magic acorn. For comparison, each tree has 20 points in it with the change described above.
- Based on the locations of the places of power, and assuming you play the game in the normal order (Velen->Novigrad->Skellige), the earliest you can unlock each tier is as follows: Tier 2 - White Orchard, Tier 3 - Novigrad, Tier 4 - Skellige.
- Skill slots unlock every 2 levels until level 13 (1-13), then every 3 levels until level 28 (16-28)
- Mutagen Slots unlock at Levels 1,7,13,22
- Most skills have been upgraded to their strongest version (i.e the level 3 or 5 version) with some minor exceptions. Some skills have been completely re-designed.
- Each skill in each relevant tree grants +5% Adrenaline Generation, +2.5/s Stamina Regeneration and +20% Potion Duration, respectively.
Below are the specific skill changes. Some have been re-named from vanilla. In case you don't want to read them all, I've color coded them as follows:
Red = Skill completely re-designed/overhauled
Orange = Skill had a design change
Green = Skill buffed/debuffed
White = Same as vanilla version
COMBAT SKILLS
Fast Attack
- Muscle Memory - +25% Attack Power with fast attacks
- Precise Blows - Critical Hit Chance +10%, Critical Hit Damage +50%. Minor nerf.
- Whirl - Spinning attack that strikes all foes in the surrounding area. Consumes stamina and stops Adrenaline Generation. This skill no longer uses Adrenaline as its harder to generate now and isn't worth giving up the generated points for.
- Flashcut - A 10% chance per Adrenaline Point that a fast attack will cause a bleeding effect that damages 2% of the enemy's MAX Vitality/Essence per second for 10 seconds. The original Crippling Strikes was far too under powered with its low base value bleeding damage effect.
- Strength Training - +25% Attack Power with strong attacks
- Crushing Blows - Critical Hit Chance +10%, Critical Hit Damage +50%. Minor nerf.
- Rend - Deals additional damage in proportion to the Stamina consumed. A fully charged strike will lower the target's damage resistance by 25% and is an automatic critical hit. Adrenaline Points will multiply with this value and lower DR even further. I wanted to lower the effectiveness of spamming this ability, but make it very powerful if a player can pull of the entire animation. With 3 AP and a fully charged strike, Rend will ignore all the target's damage resistance. If it pushes the target's DR into the negatives, this will then even further increase the damage done.
- Pierce - Reduces enemy damage resistance by 10% per Adrenaline Point.
- Zeal - Deflecting an arrow generates 0.5 Adrenaline Points. 7 second cooldown. Geralt can parry arrows without a skill because he's a witcher, and deflecting arrows back at the attacker is just silly.
- Fleet Footed - An attack after a successful dodge is an automatic critical hit. Dodging is already too easy, making the original version of this skill of limited use. Instead, good dodging is now rewarded with extra damage.
- Counterattack - A successful counterattack has a 15% chance per Adrenaline Point of activating an instant finisher. This skill felt a bit under powered, so I changed it to make combat with humans a bit more interesting.
- Deadly Precision - When at least 1 Adrenaline Point is available, parrying arrows, countering and will-timed dodging increase your chance of performing an instant kill. The chance bonus is lost once Geralt is successfully attacked. Modified this to make it more related to the Defense tree that it belongs to.
- Lightning Reflexes - Time is slowed by an additional 45% while aiming the crossbow
- Cold Blood - Killing an enemy generates 1 Adrenaline Point. Changed this to give the crossbow a bit more tactical use in generating Adrenaline. It now needs to be timed perfectly so it kills the opponent, but the reward is 1 whole Adrenaline Point.
- Anatomical Knowledge - +25% Crossbow Critical Hit Chance.
- Crippling Shot - Crossbow critical hits disable monster special abilities for 25 seconds.
- Resolve - Adrenaline Point loss upon taking damage is lowered by 50%. Nerfed as full reduction is too useful for a tier 1 skill.
- Undying - When Vitality reaches 0, Adrenaline Points will be consumed to heal the player. The original of this was far too overpowered. Now, you must have Adrenaline for the skill to be used at all and only 30% Vitality is healed per Adrenaline Point. 30 second cooldown between uses.
- Razor Focus - Instantly gain 1 Adrenaline Point when entering combat. Slightly de-buffed.
- Wolven Storm - 3 Adrenaline Points (if available) and all stamina are consumed for Geralt to enter a "battle trance" mode. In this mode, time is slowed down for a duration based on how many enemies he is facing. Each successful melee attack is an automatic finisher. If the enemy is immune to finishers, double damage is dealt instead. The original version of this ability made no sense to me as it is one of the last abilities in the combat tree but is sign related. Instead, if you manage to get 3 Adrenaline Points (not an easy feat), you are rewarded by going into a quite lore specific "battle frenzy" mode where Geralt deals some real damage.
SIGN SKILLS
Aard
- Far-Reaching Aard - Increases Aard's range by 3 yards
- Aard Sweep - Aard strikes all opponents in a certain radius. Cannot inflict knockdown. Removed knockdown effect as it made base Aard redundant.
- Aard Intensity - Increases Aard Sign Intensity by 50%. Buffed to be more useful.
- Shockwave - Aard now deals 50 stamina damage and stops enemy stamina regeneration for 3 seconds. Original was far too under powered and it never made sense for Aard to start dealing damage, Igni does a much better job of that. Note that Aard Sweep only deals 25 points of stamina damage.
- Supercharged Aard - now also blinds and disorients opponents for a duration based on Sign Intensity.
- Supercharged Shockwave - Stamina delay is increased by 200%.
- Scorch - Damage dealt by Igni also permanently lowers enemy damage resistance. Effect scales with Sign intensity up to maximum of 15%. Armor is basically a useless stat in the game, so changed this to affect damage resistance instead.
- Firestream - Emits a continuous stream of fire that damages enemies and can destroy monster nests. Significantly higher chance of causing burning. Slight damage buff compared to Vanilla.
- Igni Intensity - Increases Igni Sign Intensity by 50%. Buffed to be more useful
- Pyromaniac - Igni deals +100% more damage. Sign Intensity already adequately controls your chance of causing burning, so changed this to give you more damage.
- Supercharged Igni - Ignores enemy burn resistance.
- Supercharged Pyromaniac - +50% further damage boost (so +150% in total)
- Sustained Glyphs - Increases Sign duration by 10 seconds. Number of alternative mode charges: 9. Number of standard mode traps: 2.
- Magic Trap - Damages (shock) and slows enemies within a 14-yard radius. Destroys projectiles passing through this area
- Yrden Intensity - Increases Yrden Sign intensity by 50%. Buffed to be more useful
- Supercharged Glyphs - Casting any other sign while standing in a Yrden glyph will consume the glyph and supercharge the sign - amplifying its effects. Activating the ability costs 1 Adrenaline Point. If an Adrenaline Point is not available, will inflict Drain on Geralt instead. The amplification here is two fold. It amplifies the base sign and the fourth-tier skill if Geralt has it equipped.
- Exploding Shield - Quen shield pushes opponents back and deals damage when it breaks, with a chance for knock-down. Now deals shock damage instead of physical damage. Damage also significantly increased.
- Active Shield - Creates an active shield. Maintaining it and blocking attacks drains Stamina. Damage absorbed by the shield restores player Vitality. The strength of the shield no longer gets weaker as stamina is drained. However, the amount of stamina you have when hit controls how much of the damage heals Geralt's Vitality. Overall, the shield is generally weaker than in Vanilla but, if timed correctly, will heal Geralt. It shouldn't be used against enemies that hit hard, but rather against group enemies to provide secondary healing in a tight spot.
- Quen Intensity - Increases Quen Sign intensity by 50%. Buffed to be more useful
- Quen Discharge - Reflects 30% absorbed damage back to the attacker. Slightly buffed.
- Supercharged Quen - Upon breaking, time slows down for a duration based on Geralt's Sign Intensity.
- Supercharged Quen Discharge - Will instantly kill and dismember weakened enemies.
- Delusion - Target does not move towards Geralt while he is casting Axii. Increases the effectiveness of Axii in dialogues. Reduces Axii casting time.
- Puppet - Targeted enemy briefly becomes an ally and deals 50% more damage. Minor nerf.
- Axii Intensity - Increases Axii Sign intensity by 50%. Buffed to be more useful
- Domination - Two opponents can be influenced by Axii at the same time. Vanilla bug where this skill wouldn't reliably work has been resolved.
- Supercharged Axii - Duration increased by 100%.
- Supercharged Domination - If an enemy under an supercharged axii dies, the effect transfers to all enemies in range.
ALCHEMY SKILLS
Brewing
- Heightened Tolerance - Increases potion overdose threshold by 15%.
- Refreshment - Each potion dose imbibed heals 25% of maximum Vitality.
- Delayed Recovery - Potion effects don't wear off until potion Toxicity falls to 80% of the maximum level. Minor nerf.
- Intoxication - When toxicity is above 0 and Vitality is below 50%, each active potion increases attack power, sign intensity, damage resistance and attack speed by 10%/10%/5%/4%, respectively. There is an upper limit of 10 potions. I never liked Side Effects due to its random nature. Instead, once Geralt's toxicity is high and his health is low, he will go into a Berserk mode where his damage and speed is greatly enhanced.
- Poisoned Blades - Oils applied to blades lower the enemy's resistances to bleeding, burning and poison up to an upper limit of 50%. The higher the level of oil used, the greater the effect. Changed this to give alchemy hybrid builds more utility in the alchemy tree. Can use this skill to lower enemy critical effect defenses and then take advantage of this using signs, bombs or sword attacks.
- Protective Coating - Adds 20% protection against attacks from the monster type the oil targets. Minor nerf.
- Tallowed - Lowers damage resistance by +10% for monsters the oil targets. The original ability wasn't really all that useful for a third tier skill and was too much of a "convenience skill"
- Hunter Instinct - Critical hit damage is increased by 0.25% for each points of Toxicity. Adrenaline increases this bonus further. Wanted to make this skill useful to both combat/alchemy hybrid builds and pure alchemy builds, instead of just the latter.
- Steady Aim - Time is slowed a further 45% while aiming bombs.
- Pyrotechnics - Bombs that inflict damage now deal +50% more damage. The original effect here was severely under powered with the constant base value increase, so I changed it so damage-dealing bombs are more lethal.
- Efficiency - Increases the maximum number of bombs in each slot by 3. Minor nerf.
- Cluster Bombs - Upon detonation bombs separate into 4 explosive fragments. Minor nerf.
- Acquired Tolerance - Every known alchemy formula increases maximum Toxicity by 0.4. This effectively changes the way potions are handled as chugging potions is now not possible.
- Tissue Transmutation - Mutagens provide extra secondary bonuses based on color. The greater the mutagen, the greater the bonus. Specific buffs applied are: Lesser Red = +10% Bleeding Resistance, +2% Damage Resistance. Lesser Blue = +10% Burning Resistances, +5% Fire Resistance. Lesser Green = +10% Poison Resistance, +3 Maximum Toxicity. Normal and greater mutagens multiply these values by 2 and 3, respectively.
- Synergy - Increases primary bonus for mutagen placed in mutagen slot by 50%. Doesn't affect secondary bonuses from "Tissue Transmutation".
- Adaptation - Removes the negative effects of all Decoctions. See Decoction overhaul below.
- Frenzy - If potion Toxicity is above 0, time automatically slows when an enemy is about to perform a counterattack.
- Endure Pain - Increases maximum Vitality by 50% when Toxicity exceeds the safe threshold.
- Fast Metabolism - Toxicity drops 1 point per second faster. Significantly nerfed as it was far too overpowered.
- Killing Spree - Each time a foe is killed, critical hit chance is increased by 0.5% for each point of toxicity.
GENERAL SKILLS
- Survival Instinct: Buffed Vitality boost to 1000
- Advanced Pyrotechnics: Buffed bomb Adrenaline Generation to 0.2 points
- Metabolic Control: Lowered Toxicity gain to 25 points
- Strong Back: Increased inventory weight bonus to 100
- Cat School Techniques: Lowered critical damage boost from 25%/per item to 10%/per item. Critical Hits are too easy to get, so this skill was way overpowered. It was also a lot more powerful than its griffin and bear counterparts.
- Battle Frenzy: Critical hit chance buffed from 8% to 15% per Adrenaline Point.
- Rage Management: Now drains Adrenaline relative to the stamina cost of the sign.
- Adrenaline Burst: Adrenaline generation buffed from 5% to 10%.
- Attack is the Best Defense: Lowered Adrenaline boosts to: Parry 0.1, Dodge 0.2, Counter 0.3. Removed Roll. Increased cooldown from 5 to 10 seconds.
ALCHEMY ITEM CHANGES
Potions/Bombs/Decoctions/Oils have been changed to be more useful. I found that some of the decoctions especially were far too situational and unclear in their effect (what exactly IS cloudy weather?), so I've updated the stats on most of them and overhauled a few.
POTIONS
In general, potions are a lot more useful - especially the upgraded versions - but also more toxic. This means strategic potion usage is essential.
Black Blood
- Basic: Increased damage returned from 15% to 30%. Toxicity increased from 15 to 30. Duration increased from 30 to 45 seconds.
- Enhanced: Increased damage returned from 20% to 60%. Toxicity increased from 15 to 30. Duration increased from 45 to 60 seconds.
- Superior: Increased damaged returned from 30% to 100%. Toxicity increased from 15 to 40. Duration increased from 60 to 90 seconds. Removed bleed effect when enemies are nearby.
- Basic: Duration decreased from 15 to 10 seconds. Slow-mo duration on kill decreased from 3 seconds to 2 seconds. When active, Geralt will automatically deflect arrows and bolts.
- Enhanced: Duration decreased from 20 to 15 seconds. When active, Geralt will automatically deflect arrows and bolts.
- Superior: Slightly increased the slow motion effect. Duration decreased from 30 to 20 seconds. Slow-mo duration on kill increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds. When active, Geralt will automatically deflect arrows and bolts. Stamina will not be depleted if Geralt has 3 Adrenaline Points, regardless of whether the blizzard slow motion effect is currently active (this is how it was before it was patched out).
- Basic: Duration increased from 60 to 180 seconds. Ammo increased from 3 to 4.
- Enhanced: Duration increased from 120 to 300 seconds. Ammo increased from 4 to 6.
- Superior: Duration increased from 180 to 540 seconds. Ammo increased from 5 to 8.
- Basic: Increased the Vitality boost from 300 to 1000. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30.
- Enhanced: Increased the Vitality boost from 650 to 3000. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30.
- Superior: Increased the Vitality boost from 1000 to 6000. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30. Changed superior effect to increasing bleeding, burning and poison resistances by 15%.
- Basic: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25
- Enhanced: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25.
- Superior: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25. Duration increased from 180 to 210 seconds. Nerfed heal effect to only heal Vitality at 50% of poison damage.
- Basic: Increased the adrenaline gain boost from 15% to 20%. Toxicity increased from 20 to 35.
- Enhanced: Increased the adrenaline gain boost from 15% to 30%. Toxicity increased from 20 to 35. Duration decreased from 60 to 45 seconds.
- Superior: Increased the adrenaline gain boost from 15% to 60%. Toxicity increased from 20 to 40. Duration decreased from 90 to 60 seconds.
- Basic: Increased the sign intensity bonus from 15% to 30%. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30. Duration increased from 30 to 45 seconds.
- Enhanced: Increased the sign intensity bonus from 20% to 50%. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30. Duration increased from 60 to 90 seconds.
- Superior: Increased the sign intensity bonus from 25% to 80%. Toxicity increased from 25 to 40. Duration increased from 90 to 120 seconds. 100% chance of sign special effect removed as it was far too powerful and basically makes upgrading your sign intensity useless. Added +25% chance to all sign special effects instead.
- Basic: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25. Duration increased from 20 to 30 seconds.
- Enhanced: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25. Duration increased from 20 to 30 seconds.
- Superior: Increased vitality regen from 80/s to 90/s. Toxicity increased from 20 to 25. Duration increased from 20 to 30 seconds. Also removes the effects of fatigue and prevents it from generating.
- Basic: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25.
- Enhanced: Toxicity increased from 20 to 25.
- Superior: Increased the Stamina Regen boost from 10 to 15. Toxicity increased from 20 to 25.
- Basic: Toxicity increased from 25 to 30.
- Enhanced: Attack Power boost increased from 30% to 45%. Toxicity increased from 25 to 30.
- Superior: Attack Power boost increased from 35% to 80%. Toxicity increased from 25 to 40. Storm effect removed, reliable +10% critical chance added.
- Toxicity increased from 10 to 15.
- Toxicity decreased from 30 to 1. This potion is not toxic to normal humans, so it shouldn't be toxic to Geralt.
- Does not count as a potion for the purposes of the alchemy skill "Intoxication".
BOMBS
In most cases, bomb damage has been buffed, but ammo count lowered for the basic bombs. Hence, upgrading the bombs and investing in bomb skills will give you a lethal ranged build.
Dancing Star
- Basic: Damage increased from 100 to 150. Ammo count lowered from 2 to 1.
- Enhanced: Damage increased from 100 to 250.
- Superior: Damage increased from 100 to 500. Ammo count increased from 4 to 5.
- Basic: Base damage decreased from 100 to 50. Ammo count lowered from 2 to 1.
- Enhanced: Base damage decreased from 100 to 50. Poison damage per second increased from 1.6% to 3%. Poison Cloud Linger Duration lowered from 30 seconds to 10 seconds.
- Superior: Base damage decreased from 100 to 50. Ammo count increased from 4 to 5. Poison damage per second increased from 1.6% to 4%. Poison Cloud Linger Duration lowered from 30 seconds to 10 seconds.
- Basic: Damage increased from 300 to 400.
- Enhanced: Damage increased from 400 to 500.
- Superior: Damage increased from 400 to 800. Explosion damage increased from 20 to 80.
- Basic: Blocks Gargoyle "Jump" attack, Leshen "Wolf Summon" and "Elemental Armor".
- Enhanced: Blocks Gargoyle "Jump" attack, Leshen "Wolf Summon" and "Elemental Armor".
- Superior: Blocks Gargoyle "Jump" attack, Leshen "Wolf Summon" and "Elemental Armor". Increased ammo count from 4 to 5. No longer blocks magic for a while after the cloud has disappeared (this was buggy). Instead, it rapidly increases Geralt's Sign Intensity while he is in the cloud. This bonus lasts for a few seconds once outside the cloud.
- Basic: Decreased physical damage from 350 to 200. Increased silver damage from 350 to 400. Lowered ammo count from 2 to 1.
- Enhanced: Decreased physical damage from 600 to 300. Increased silver damage from 600 to 800. Decreased ammo count from 3 to 2.
- Superior: Increased silver damage from 600 to 1800. Decreased ammo count from 4 to 3. Damage ignores 25% of damage resistance.
- Enhanced: Increased ammo count from 3 to 4.
- Superior: Increased ammo count from 4 to 6.
- Basic: Increased duration from 20 to 30 seconds.
- Enhanced: Increased duration from 40 to 45 seconds. Increased ammo count from 3 to 4.
- Superior: Increased ammo count from 4 to 6.
DECOCTION OVERHAUL
The decoction system has been entirely overhauled in version 4.0 of the mod, with a lot of inspiration taken from the potions in The Witcher 2 that had both a positive and a negative effect.
All Decoctions have had their toxicity offset lowered from 70 to 60.
Each Decoction now has 3 effects:
- A base positive effect: Unlocked by crafting the decoction.
- A negative effect: Unlocked by crafting the decoction. Can only be removed by equipping the Adaptation skill.
- An enhanced effect: Can only be unlocked through the Metamorphosis Mutation [Blood and Wine]
This opens up whole new gameplay elements using Decoctions, where they are very powerful, but usually have a balanced trade off.
15 new decoctions and mutagens have been added, based on 1 monster from the Hearts of Stone expansion and 14 from Blood and Wine. Recipes for these decoctions can be found all over the world, but you can't get the required mutagens until you start playing the expansions. The foundation of this change is Karpfenfrosch's fantastic Additional Alchemy mod (thanks to DonProtein for the idea). However, many changes were made to align it to the Redux gameplay pillars.
Katakan Decoction
- Critical hit chance increased by 25%.
- While active, the fatigue critical effect is significantly more debilitating.
- Critical hit chance doubled.
- Lighter armor and less inventory weight increases damage resistance up to 25%.
- Fast attack damage reduced by 25%.
- Damage reduction bonus doubled.
- Each active potion reduces the stamina cost of signs by 10% up to a maximum of 50%.
- While active, the poison critical effect is significantly more debilitating.
- Maximum increased to 100%.
- 1 Adrenaline Point and all stamina are consumed to damage 10% of the enemy's MAX Vitality, after normal damage calculations are done.
- While active, cannot activate critical hits.
- No longer drains Stamina.
- Attack power increased by 100% when Vitality is at maximum.
- Damage decreased by 25% when Vitality is not at maximum.
- Duration doubled.
- Each foe killed increases Vitality by 100 until the decoction wears off.
- Only active between dusk and dawn.
- Duration doubled.
- Doing damage to enemies heals 15% of the damage as Vitality
- While active, cannot heal through conventional means.
- Vitality regeneration doubled.
- Provides immunity to the stagger effect and reduces knockdown effects to stagger. Removes Fatigue and stops it from generating.
- While active, the bleeding critical effect is significantly more debilitating.
- Duration doubled.
- Can use 2 Adrenaline Points to upgrade a sign to its full power on the next cast.
- While active, cannot cast the Yrden sign.
- Cost reduced to 1 Adrenaline Point.
- Damage taken increases Toxicity before depleting Vitality.
- While active, cannot instant heal.
- Toxicity increase halved.
- Critical hit damage increased by 50% when attacking from behind.
- Critical hit damage reduced by 50% when not attacking from behind.
- Critical hit damage bonus doubled.
- Vitality will regenerate in and outside of combat.
- While active, cannot cast the Axii sign.
- Duration doubled.
- Each foe killed increases Sign Intensity by 1% until the decoction wears off.
- Only active between dawn and dusk.
- Duration doubled.
- Attack power will increase over the course of a fight by 4% up to a maximum of 120%.
- Critical hit chance reduced by 25%.
- Attack power increases at double the rate.
- Adrenaline is generated 50% faster.
- Bonus is lost once successullfy attacked
- Generation bonus is doubled.
- Encumbrance increased by 100.
- While active, cannot cast the Aard sign.
- Duration doubled.
- Chaining fast and strong attacks increases Sign Intensity by 10%, up to 100%, until the next sign cast.
- Chaining attacks also reduces damage resistance by 5%, up to 50%.
- Rate of Sign Intensity increase doubled.
- Upon entering combat, attack speed is increased by 30% for 7s.
- Strong attack damage is reduced by 25%.
- Duration increased to 14s.
- When damage is taken equal to 1/3 of Vitality, a Quen shield will be generated at no cost.
- While active, cannot parry attacks (can still counter with good timing).
- Activation threshold lowered to 1/6 Vitality.
- Most enemies cannot parry your strong attacks. Geralt can parry and counter heavy attacks from enemies at the cost of stamina. Countering heavy attacks will disarm enemies.
- Attack speed is reduced by 15%.
- Parrying and countering heavy attacks no longer costs stamina.
- Draining stamina in combat will heal Vitality.
- While active, the stagger critical effect is significantly more debilitating.
- Vitality regeneration rate is doubled.
- Draining stamina in combat will increase Stamina regeneration for the remainder of the fight (up to a maximum of 75/s).
- While active, the drain critical effect is significantly more debilitating.
- Duration doubled.
- Bombs now deal +120% damage.
- While active, potions are 50% more toxic.
- Bombs now deal +240% damage.
- Adrenaline generates faster when Vitality is at or below 50%.
- Adrenaline can't generate when Vitality is above 50%.
- Adrenaline generation rate is doubled.
- Damage output increases as Vitality decreases.
- Sign Intensity decreases as Vitality decreases.
- Damage bonus is doubled.
- Yrden trap size is increased by 25%.
- While active, cannot cast the Igni sign.
- Yrden trap size is increased by 50%.
- Countering enemies increases damage resistance by 8%, up to an upper limit of 24%, for the remainder of the fight.
- Dodging and Rolling drains Stamina.
- Upper limit doubled.
- Damage output and resistance against wraiths is increased.
- While active, cannot cast the Quen sign.
- Damage dealt doubled and damage taken halved.
NEW DECOCTIONS
Kikimore Decoction
- Geralt’s maximum Toxicity is increased by 2 with each foe killed. This increase lasts until the Decoction wears off.
- While active, damage from Toxicity overdose is doubled.
- Duration doubled.
- When 1 or more Adrenaline Points are available, alternate signs have a bonus effect. See the in-game tooltip for details.
- While active, the hypnosis and blindness effects are significantly more debilitating.
- An Adrenaline Point is no longer required to activate the bonus effects.
- Potion duration increased by 100%.
- Can only have 2 potions active at a time.
- Duration doubled.
- Once per combat scenario, when Vitality drops below 20%, all stamina and adrenaline will be consumed to enter a battle trance for 5 seconds. While in this mode, time slows down and all successful attacks are instant finishers. If the enemy is immune to a finisher, double damage is dealt instead. The battle trance is lost if damage is taken.
- Once the battle trance is over, 2 stacks of Fatigue are inflicted.
- Activation threshold is 40% Vitality.
- Striking bleeding enemies restores a portion of the bleed effect as Vitality.
- The bleed effect is removed from the enemy upon restoring Vitality.
- Vitality drain doubled.
- Taking damage staggers the opponent and has a chance of inflicting bleeding or poison.
- Toxicity drops 50% slower.
- Chance of applying both critical effects at once.
- The Drain critical effect increases Sign Intensity instead of decreasing it.
- While active, cannot supercharge any signs.
- Duration doubled.
- 3 Adrenaline Points (if available) are consumed to cast a supercharged sign with increased Sign Intensity.
- Stamina Regeneration delay increased by 50% after casting a sign.
- Cost to activate is now 2 Adrenaline Points.
- Each point of Adrenaline increases Stamina regeneration.
- Duration of potions halved.
- Stamina Regeneration rate doubled.
- From dusk until dawn, each Adrenaline Point provides bonuses to vitality regeneration and critical effect resistances.
- While active, maximum Vitality is reduced by 50%. From dawn until dusk, Adrenaline cannot be generated.
- When Adrenaline Points are at their maximum, the following further bonuses are added: Increased Attack Speed, Aard is at full power, including all skill bonuses, and Critical Effect Immunity.
- Upon entering combat, a random Alchemy skill is unlocked.
- Toxicity increases upon taking damage.
- Instead of a skill, a random Alchemy skill tree is unlocked.
- Counterattacks cause shielded enemies to drop their shield. Each successful counterattack increases critical hit chance and damage (up to an upper limit of 100%) for the remainder of the fight.
- Bonuses are lost when successfully attacked.
- Bonus increases are doubled.
- While standing in a Yrden glyph, Attack Power, Sign Intensity, Damage Resistance and Attack Speed are increased by 30/30/15/12%, respectively.
- Yrden glyphs no longer slow down enemies.
- The effect lasts outside the Yrden glyph for a few seconds.
- Each dismemberment increases Attack Power (up to an upper limit of 100%) for the remainder of the fight.
- Attack Power bonus is lost when successfully attacked.
- Dismemberment explosions can break the upper limit.
- Killing a foe increases Sign Intensity or Vitality, depending on the time of day. This bonus remains for the remainder of the fight. Sign Intensity is increased during the day, Vitality during the night.
- Each bonus can only be applied up to 5 times in one combat scenario.
- Both bonuses are applied at all times of the day.
OILS
Monster Oil (all oils except Beast and Hanged Man's Venom) Attack Power bonus has been increased from 10%/25%/50% to 25%/50%/100%. Enhanced/Superior monster oils now also lower the enemy's physical resistance by 10%/20%, respectively. This means applying oils is now a lot more important. To balance, they can no longer be applied during combat [configurable], so proper preparation is key.
ALCHEMY CRAFTING CHANGES
Since all the alchemy items are a lot more powerful now, the superior versions of them are also more difficult to craft. Three new alchemy items have been added to the game:
- Black Gull: Replaces White Gull as a crafting component for all superior potions.
- Dragon Blood: Required to craft all superior oils (excluding Hanged Man's Venom and Beast)
- Black Powder: Required to craft all superior bombs.
These alchemy items cannot be crafted in the game and can only be acquired from Gremist on Skellige as part of the "Practicum in Advanced Alchemy" quest and bought from him afterwards. Note that White Gull is still an important component as it is needed to craft the advanced alchemy bases such as rebis. Note that these alchemy items are very expensive. Alchemists in Toussaint [Blood and Wine] will also sell these ingredients.
Big thank you to FrangoestoOz for designing new icons for the new alchemy ingredients.
The following changes have also been made to crafting:
- Monster Feathers dismantle into Feathers (2).
- Tawny Owl ingredients have been moved around, so the basic and enhanced version no longer need arachas venom to craft, but the superior version does.
The amount of herbs cultivated in Corvo Bianco's garden [Blood and Wine] has been increased from 1 to 2.
MONSTER CHANGES
A few tweaks have been made to monster statistics as per below to improve overall balance. Also, most monsters that are encountered solo (so not in groups) have had their damage resistance increased. This is to balance the change to enhanced/superior oils which now lower targeted monster's damage resistance. One thing to note is that, as per witcher lore, vampires are now drastically stronger than vanilla. Fighting a vampire around your level is always a challenge, fighting a vampire well above your level is likely suicide. For people who find this too difficult, Monster Regen can be set to near vanilla leaves in the mod menu.
BASE CHANGES
These are changes to the base stats of the monsters. This means all monsters of this type are affected. Vitality is red health, Essence is silver health. Note that the expansion versions of monster types are changes on top of their base game counterparts.
- Wolves/Dogs: -20-30% Vitality.
- Black/Grizzly Bears: +30% Attack Power.
- White Bears: +60% Attack Power, +30% Vitality.
- Berserkers: +90% Attack Power, +60% Essence. Moon Dust bombs won't stop regen.
- Drowners/Water Hags: Increased Resistance to burning. However, if burning is initiated, burning damage is higher.
- Ghouls: Now also deal a small amount of poison damage and have immunity to Poison.
- Wraiths: +20% Attack Power.
- Noonwraiths/Nightwraiths/Plague Maidens: +15% Attack Power.
- Griffins: +15% Essence, +10% Attack Power.
- Archgriffins: +300% Essence, +150% Attack Power. Increased chance to dodge fast and strong attacks.
- Sirens: +30% Attack Power.
- Wyverns: +30% Essence, +50% Attack Power.
- Forktails: +30% Essence, +60% Attack Power. Increased chance of dodging light and heavy attacks.
- Cockatrice: +40% Essence, +40% Attack Power.
- Basilisks: +50% Essence, +80% Attack Power.
- Arachas: +90% Essence, +100% Attack Power. Added more physical damage since they did a lot of poison damage but this is easy to counter with Golden Oriole.
- Rock/Ice Trolls: +30% Essence.
- Cyclops: +100% Essence, +90% Attack Power.
- Ice Giants: +100% Essence, +90% Attack Power.
- Fiends: +40% Essence, +60% Attack Power. Essence regen ability at 0.2% of max Essence per second. Moon Dust bombs won't stop regen.
- Chorts: +50% Essence, +40% Attack Power. Essence regen ability at 0.5% of max Essence per second. Moon Dust bombs won't stop regen.
- Leshen: +90% Essence, +80% Attack Power. Root attack now scales with level and does a lot more damage.
- Ancient Leshen: +150% Essence, +80% Attack Power. Root attack now scales with level and does a lot more damage.
- Hyms: +90% Essence, +80% Attack Power. Immunity to Poison.
- Summoned Leshen Wolves: +30% Essence, +60% Attack Power.
- Golems/Elementals: +50% Essence, +70% Attack Power.
- Gargoyles: +50% Essence, +40% Attack Power.
- Ifryts: +80% Essence, +80% Attack Power.
- Dopplers: +40% Attack Power.
- Werewolves: +60% Essence, +70% Attack Power. Changed "essence regen" ability to be 2% of max Essence instead of base value. Increased chance of dodging light attacks.
- Ulfhedinn: +100% Essence, +80% Attack Power. Changed "essence regen" ability to be 5% of max Essence instead of base value. Increased chance of dodging light attacks.
- Ekimmara: +50% Essence, +60% Attack Power. Essence regen ability at 10% of max Essence per second. This means that they will regenerate essence faster than you can bring it down if you don't bring a Moon Dust bomb. Increased chance of dodging light attacks.
- Katakans: +150% Essence, +150% Attack Power. Essence regen ability at 15% of max Essence per second. Increased chance of dodging light attacks. Good luck.
- Higher Vampires/Large Katakans [Carnal Sins Quest]: +250% Essence, +210% Attack Power. Essence regen ability at 20% of max Essence per second. Increased chance of dodging light attacks. Seriously, good luck. (NB: Despite being a base change there is only one type of this monster in-game).
- Wild Hunt Hounds: Immunity to frost.
- The Wild Hunt: +50% Essence, +70% Attack Power, increased Poison and Burning resistances. Added immunity to regular critical hits.
- Nekkers [Hearts of Stone]: -50% Essence, +80% Attack Power.
- Wraiths [Hearts of Stone]: -70% Essence, +30% Attack Power.
- Wolves [Hearts of Stone]: -70% Essence, +30% Attack Power.
- Boars [Hearts of Stone]: -35% Vitality, +50% Attack Power.
- Bears [Hearts of Stone]: -25% Vitality, +50% Attack Power.
- Drowners [Hearts of Stone]: -60% Essence, +50% Attack Power.
- Ghouls [Hearts of Stone]: -20% Essence, +30% Attack Power.
- Wyverns [Hearts of Stone]: -30% Essence.
- Arachnamorphs [Hearts of Stone]: -10% Essence, +40% Attack Power. Added weakness to shock damage.
- Large Arachnamorphs [Hearts of Stone]: +30% Essence, +50% Attack Power. Added weakness to shock damage.
- Olgierd's Ghost Relatives [Hearts of Stone]: +100% Essence, +50% Attack Power. Slightly increased physical resistances.
- Oxenfurt Witch Hunters [Hearts of Stone]: -30% Essence, +40% Attack Power. Increased burning/posioning/bleeding DoT resistances. Increased chance of countering, dodging and parrying attacks.
- Knight Giants (Golyat) [Blood and Wine]: +40% Attack Power.
- Shaelmaars [Blood and Wine]: +40% Essence, +80% Attack Power. (Death March Only: +130% Essence, +100% Attack Power, increasing physical, burning ands burning DoT resistances, added "coagulate" passive ability. When they "burrow in" and reign rocks from above, they will heal 5% Essence per second for 8 seconds. This regen cannot be stopped using Moon Dust bombs.
- Banshees [Blood and Wine]: +40% Essence, +50% Attack Power.
- Fleders [Blood and Wine]: +160% Attack Power, increased physical, frost and burning resistances. Essence Regen at 5% of MAX Essence. Able to generate Elder Adrenaline. See below for more details.
- Garkains [Blood and Wine]: +500% Essence, +90% Attack Power, increased physical, frost and burning resistances. Essence Regen at 15% of MAX Essence. Able to generate Vampire Adrenaline. See "Blood and Wine Vampires" for more details.
- Alps [Blood and Wine]: -75% Essence, -70% Attack Power, increased fire, frost, shock and burning resistances. Essence Regen at 25% of MAX Essence. Able to generate Vampire Adrenaline. See "Blood and Wine Vampires" for more details.
- Bruxae [Blood and Wine]: -70% Essence, -70% Attack Power, increased fire, frost, shock, bleeding and burning resistances. Essence Regen at 33% of MAX Essence. Able to generate Vampire Adrenaline. See "Blood and Wine Vampires" for more details.
- Endregas [Blood and Wine]: +70% Attack Power.
- Panthers [Blood and Wine]: +25% Attack Power.
- Giant Centipedes [Blood and WIne]: +30% Essence, +30% Attack Power, increased physical, fire, burning and bleeding resistances. Removed minor shock resistance and added weakness to shock. Added resistance to burning DoT effect.
- Archespores [Blood and Wine]: +50% Essence, +50% Attack Power, increased physical and bleeding resistances. Added weakness to fire.
- Barghests [Blood and Wine]: +30% Essence, +100% Attack Power. Added immunity to poison and bleeding.
- Kikimore Worker [Blood and Wine]: +20% Attack power.
- Kikimore Warrior [Blood and Wine]: +20% Essence, +30% Attack Power.
- Wights [Blood and Wine]: Slightly increased physical resistances.
- Slyzards [Blood and Wine]: +30% Essence, +30% Attack Power. Increased physical and fire damage resistances. Added immunity to burning. Added weakness to shock.
- Spriggans [Blood and Wine]: +150% Essence, +110% Attack Power. Increased physical, bleeding and frost resistances. Lowered burning resistance and added weakness to fire. Added immunity to poison.
INDIVIDUAL CHANGES
These are changes made to individual monsters, usually specific contract or side quest monsters. Note that the monsters listed here will have the below changes on top of any "base changes" of their monster type described above.
- Werewolf [Ciri's Story: King of Wolves Quest]: -60% Essence. Significantly lowered essence regen ability as Ciri has no moon dust bombs so otherwise Werewolf is too difficult to beat.
- Werewolf [Wild At Heart Quest]: -80% Essence, -60% Attack Power. Re-balanced due to werewolves being buffed significantly and this being an early game quest.
- Werewolf [Whispering Hillock Quest]: -60% Essence, -70% Attack Power, -50% Essence Regen. Re-balanced due to werewolves being buffed significantly and this being an early game quest.
- Shrieker [Cockatrice Contract]: -40% Essence, -40% Attack Power. Debuffs applied to even out the buffs given to Cockatrices in general. For some reason, the Shrieker was already given a massive Essence boost in vanilla, despite being an early game monster hunt.
- Nithral [Wild Hunt minion in "Wandering in the Dark" Quest]: +150% Essence, +100% Attack Power. Re-balanced as Kiera does more damage now.
- Keira Metz [Hostile Version in the "Advancement for Learning" Quest]: -40% Vitality, +80% Attack Power, +80% Spellpower. Sorceresses are very dangerous, one hit from Keira should basically kill you.
- Crookback Bog Fiend ["Return to Crookbag Bog" Quest]: -30% Essence. Lowered essence regen ability.
- The White Lady [Noonwraith Contract]: +30% Essence, +40% Attack Power.
- Therazane (Earth Elemental) [Contract: Doors Slamming Shut]: +30% Essence, +20% Attack Power.
- Sarasti (Ekimmara) [The Mystery of the Byways Murders Quest]: +100% Essence, +110% Attack Power.
- Abaya (Water Hag) [Muire D'yaeblen Contract]: +30% Essence, +40% Attack Power
- Kernun (Leshen) [Contract: Lord of the Wood Quest]: +20% Attack Power.
- Wraiths [Phantom of Eldberg Quest]: +30% Essence, +40% Attack Power.
- Lord of Undvik (Ice Giant): +140% Essence, +50% Attack Power. Increased Poison Resistance.
- Hym [Possession Quest]: +40% Essence, +40% Attack Power.
- Melusine (Siren/Ehkidna) [Contract: Here Comes the Groom Quest]: +300% Essence.
- Morkvarg (Werewolf) [In Wolf's Clothing Quest]: +150% Essence, +120% Attack Power. Essence Regen ability at 5% of max Essence. Increased chance of dodging fast attacks.
- Hagubman (Nekker Warrior) [Contract: Strange Beast]: +40% Attack Power.
- Gael (Katakan) [Contract: The Oxenfurt Drunk]: +80% Essence, +40% Attack Power. Important Note: During the first phase of this fight, you're not able to use bombs for whatever reason, they're blocked by the quest. This makes the fight impossible since you can't get the Katakan's health down due to its really high regeneration rate. To get past this issue, I had to unlock all bomb throws that are blocked by quests. This may have unintended consequences.
- Frysdal Dragon (Forktail) [Contract: The Dragon of Frysdal Quest]: +40% Attack Power.
- Morkvudd (Fiend) [Contract: Missing Son Quest]: +40% Essence, +60% Attack Power. Increased essence regen to 0.8% per second. +30% Bleeding DoT resistance.
- Gatekeeper (Sylvan) [Bald Mountain Quest]: +300% Essence, +100% Attack Power.
- Imlerith: +120% Essence. Immune to frost magic. Very high DoT resistances to poisoning and bleeding.
- Wild Hunt Ghosts [The Sunstone Quest]: +40% Attack Power.
- Caranthir: +240% Essence, +70% Attack Power. Immune to frost magic and poisoning. Very high resistance to regular critical hits. Increased DoT resistance to bleeding.
- Eredin: +260% Essence, +100% Attack Power. Immune to frost magic and poisoning. Very high resistance to regular critical hits. Increased DoT resistance to bleeding.
- Toad Prince [Hearts of Stone]: +30% Attack Power, Added High Resistance to fire damage and causing burning. However, if caught alight, burning damage is higher. Removed 88% critical hit damage reduction. If a critical hit is struck, will do full damage. Slightly lowered chance of scoring regular critical hit.
- Caretaker [Hearts of Stone]: +50% Essence, +70% Attack Power. Slightly increased physical resistances. Removed 80% critical hit damage reduction. Added high resistance to regular critical hits. Removed minuscule and pointless slight weakness to fire damage. Added weakness to shock. Significantly increased the amount of Essence his shovel heals on "Blood and Broken Bones" and "Death March" difficulties.
- Iris [Hearts of Stone]: +60% Essence, +90% Attack Power. Removed random weakness to fire and burning that isn't present on any other nightwraiths in the game. Added shock weakness. Increased essence regen ability on "Death March" difficulty. Removed 70% critical hit damage reduction. Added significant resistance to regular critical hits. Lowered the amount of time you have before Iris is sucked into a painting and completely rejuvenated on "Blood and Broken Bones" and "Death March" difficulties.
- Golyat (Giant) [Blood and Wine] (Death March Only): +100% Essence, +50% Attack Power, added passive "coagulate" ability.
- Innkeep's Daughter (Bruxa) [Blood and Wine - The Beast of Toussaint Quest]: -70% Essence, -30% Attack Power. Bruxae are very difficult with the new "Elder Adrenaline" gameplay changes, so removed most of the buffs given to this "quest bruxa".
- Tournament Shaeelmaar [Blood and Wine - The Beast of Toussaint Quest]: -40% Attack Power, -60% Essence, removed extra burning resistance as added some to all Shaelmaars.
- Hermit [Blood and Wine - There Can Be Only One Quest]: +120% Vitality, +30% Attack Power, +20% Spell Power.
- Tesha Mutna Monsters [Blood and Wine - La Cage au Fou Quest]: +60% Essence, +70% Attack Power on "Blood and Broken Bones" difficulty and below. +120% Essence, +110% Attack Power on "Death March" difficulty. Good luck.
- Daphne [Blood and Wine - Tree Lady]: +80% Essence, +60% Attack Power.
- Silver Basilisk [Blood and Wine]: +60% Attack Power. Removed resistance to DoT Burning and added weakness to fire. It's made clear in the conversations that the beast is very weak to fire.
- Statue Mages [Blood and Wine - Extreme Cosplay]: -30% Attack Power so you don't die as soon as combat begins.
- Maximus (Ghost Knight) [Blood and Wine]: +170% Essence.
- Vampire Horde [Blood and Wine - Night of the Long Fangs Quest]: Removed extra damage/essence given to vampires in this quest. They're tough enough alredy with the general changes made to Vampires with this mod.
- Fairytale Witch [Blood and Wine - Lands of A Thousand Fables]: +50% Essence, +80% Attack Power. Increased physical, fire, burning and burning DoT resistances. Increased chance of dodging projectiles and strong attacks.
- Fairytale Bear [Blood and Wine - Lands of A Thousand Fables]: +150% Essence, +50% Attack Power.
- Fairytale Wolves [Blood and Wine - Lands of A Thousand Fables]: +40% Attack Power.
- Fairytale Pixies [Blood and Wine - Lands of A Thousand Fables]: +30% Essence, +100% Attack Power. Added immunity to burning, bleeding, poison and frost.
- Fairytale Werewolf [Blood and Wine - Lands of A Thousand Fables]: +100% Essence, +150% Attack Power. Decreased resistance to burning DoT. Added resistance to burning.
- Fairytale Giant [Blood and Wine - Lands of A Thousand Fables]: +280% Essence, +120% Attack Power. Added substantial shock resistance.
- Dettlaff: Vampire Form [Blood and Wine]: +300% Essence, +70% Attack Power, increased bleeding, burning and fire damage resistances. Immunity to frost and poison. Essence Regen at constant 1500 per second. Immune to regular critical hits. Able to generate Vampire Adrenaline. See "Blood and Wine Vampires" for more details.
- Dettlaff: Monster/Bat Form [Blood and Wine]: +560% Essence. Added physical, bleeding and poison resistances. Added DoT resistances to burning, bleeding and poison. Added immunity to frost. Essence Regen at 5% of Max Essence per second. Added massive weakness to fire. Immune to the Archgriffin Decoction. Able to generate Vampire Adrenaline. See "Blood and Wine Vampires" for more details. May God have mercy on your soul.
- Dettlaff: Nightmare Forms [Blood and Wine]: +30% Attack Power. Health dependant on difficulty. Increased chance of dodging strong attacks. See "Blood and Wine Vampires" for more details.
HUMAN ENEMY CHANGES
Human enemy statistics have been modified significantly. Fighting humans should be quick - it will either go your way or it won't. Where as monsters come in many varieties, a human is a human. One may be more skilled than another, but a good (or lucky) sword hit will bring them down. Despite Geralt's mutations, those who recall how the books end know that this includes him. So, my goal for modifying human combat was as follows:
- Make it less about statistics and more about player skill
- A hit from a sword should be more lethal, both against enemies and yourself
- More immersive/realistic - a peasant with a small blackjack should not be parrying Geralt nor surviving 5 hits from Geralt's steel sword, despite his level.
- Vitality for human enemies decreased by about 50% across the board - including the amount of extra Vitality each level brings.
- Attack Power of human enemies increased by about 50% across the board, including the amount each extra level brings.
- Range of abilities/skills modified across human enemy ranks. For example, random thugs/peasants you meet in Velen are now a lot more useless at blocking Geralt's attacks, as it should be. Conversely, soldiers and elite fighters are now more likely to learn and adapt to Geralt. Compared to vanilla, you will likely find human enemies to be easier in the early game, and harder in the late game.
- How difficult a human enemy is is more based on their gear than stats now. A general rule of thumb, the more armored a human enemy looks, the more trouble they likely are.
- Poison DoT resistances increased for human enemies across the board. This was done so a whole room of enemies couldn't be cleared by Devil's Puffball. From an lore perspective, I explain this as humans having naturally evolved poison immunity and witcher poisons being designed to kill monsters more so that humans.
- Critical hits are significantly more difficult to get against human enemies. For the highly skilled opponents, its completely impossible without the use of a skill, bomb or sign like Fleet Footed, Samum or Axii.
- Rosa var Attre: -50% Vitality
- Order of the Wild Rose Knights [Hearts of Stone]: -30% Vitality, +40% Attack Power, increased chance of parrying, dodging and countering. For some reason, all the human enemies in HoS were turned into damage sponges. I've instead turned them into more capable fighters.
- Oferi Soldiers [Hearts of Stone]: -10% Vitality, +50% Attack Power.
- Oferi Mage [Hearts of Stone]: -30% Vitality. -25% Attack Power. Significantly higher resistance to frost magic (Northern Wind Bombs). Removed 50% critical hit damage reduction.
- Olgierd [Hearts of Stone]: -30% Vitality, +50% Attack Power. Significantly lowered resistances. Removed 85% critical hit damage reduction. Added immunity to regular critical hits.
- Loth Halfbreed [Blood and Wine - Hansa Boss]: +200% Vitality, increased burning DoT resistance. I wanted to increase his combat skills but for some reason the game won't let me. Once you disarm him of his shield, he becomes a cake walk, no matter how i mess with his stats.
- The Big Knight [Blood and Wine - Capture the Castle Quest]: +300% Vitality, +60% Attack Power.
Adaptive Human Intelligence (AHI) (CONFIGURABLE)
This module was made to make human enemies smarter. As they fight you, they will learn Geralt's combat maneuvers and will become more capable warriors as the fight progresses. Specifically, buffs are applied:
- Each time an enemy parries Geralt's sword strike.
- Any allies of the enemy that parried Geralt's attack also have buffs applied, though to a lesser extent.
- Each time an enemy is killed, the remaining humans will become more defensive.
When enemies parry Geralt's attacks, the specific buffs that are applied are as follows:
- Increased chance to parry Geralt's attacks
- Decreased chance to lower their guard
- Decreased chance to stand and taunt Geralt
- Increased chance to dodge fast and strong attacks
- Increased chance to counter Geralt
Furthermore, when an enemy manages to strike or dodge Geralt, they and their allies gain some Adrenaline. This lowers the stamina cost of parrying, countering and dodging.
These buffs are not applied to any enemies affected by critical effects such as stun, stagger or knockdown.
These enemies are also fairly likely to inflict bleeding on each strike.
It is also possible to debuff the enemies through effective fighting. Specifically, the following will partially remove these buffs:
- Parrying enemy attacks.
- Countering enemy attacks. This will debuff the enemy more than just parrying.
- Using Axii to stun enemies. The magnitude of the debuff effect here is based on Geralt's Sign Intensity.
Furthermore, each time Geralt dodges an attack, the enemy will compensate for this by picking up their speed. However, in doing so, they focus less on defense and open themselves up to extra damage. This buff/debuff can be removed by either:
- Successfully countering the enemy
- Using Axii on the enemy
Lastly, the following now permanently disorient human enemies, meaning any AHI buffs are removed and prevented for being reapplied:
- Samum Bombs.
- Supercharged Aard.
I've found that this makes the combat with humans more engaging, as you'll find they become more dangerous as they realise Geralt is not someone to be trifled with. It also makes parrying a more viable option than just dodging. Furthermore, it discourages consistently attacking the same opponent until they lower their guard. In Vanilla, you would simply spam attack against a single opponent until he was dead. Doing so now may be helpful in the short run, but each time the enemy parries you, the group ends up getting smarter. Hence, switching opponents between attacks becomes more tempting, despite being more risky.
AHI is available in 3 different modes, as described below:
- Lore Focused: In this mode, Axii and countering remove AHI entirely instead of just debuffing it. Enemies also don't gain adrenaline upon hitting or dodging Geralt. This is for players who are more interested in sticking to the lore where Geralt is a lot stronger than bandits prowling the woods.
- Balanced: The default option and as described above. This is for players who want a good balance between lore and engaging gameplay.
- Gameplay Focused: In this mode, the blindness effect from Samum and Supercharged Aard only debuff AHI instead of removing it completely. AHI Buffs build at double the rate. Parrying does not debuff AHI, only countering and Axii do. Enemies gain a small amount of adrenaline when parrying Geralt's attacks. This is for players who are less focused on lore and want combat with humans to be more difficult.
RUNEWORD CHANGES [HEARTS OF STONE]
I've left most of the runeword stuff alone, with just the following changes:
- Deflection: Deflects arrows back at the attacker.
- Preservation: Name changed to Augmentation. Will now apply the armorer table and grindstone bonuses each time combat is initiated and then remove them afterwards. This works around the vanilla bug where certain cutscenes would remove the buffs and players would have to find another table/grindstone to reapply them.
- Elation: Fatal blows always generate 0.15 Adrenaline Points.
- Retribution: Gives a 15% chance per Adrenaline Point that all incoming damage is blocked and reflected back at the attacker.
- Severance: Whirl now uses Adrenaline as well as Stamina, but is also able to generate Adrenaline if used properly. The goal is to deal damage quicker and therefore generate Adrenaline faster than you are losing Adrenaline - turning this into a "high risk, high reward" attack. Rend will now damage a percentage of the enemy's MAX health, with the number being dependant on the amount of stamina and Adrenaline Points consumed. It is also now a level 3 runeword.
- Replenishment: Is now a level 2 runeword.
MUTATION CHANGES [BLOOD AND WINE]
The mutation system is cool but, for the most part, severely overpowered. Hence, I've made some changes to give them buffs/nerfs where needed and bring them in line with the new skill point system.
- Deadly Counter: Costs 0 Skill Points. Finisher trigger increased from 25% to 50%.
- Magic Sensibilities: Costs 0 Skill Points. Significantly nerfed both the chance of a sign critical hit activating and the damage it does.
- Toxic Blood: Costs 0 Skill Points. Lowered damage dealt per point of Toxicity from 1.5% to 0.6%.
- Bloodbath: Costs 1 Skill Point. Attack Power bonus increased to 10%. Max Cap decreased to 200%.
- Piercing Cold: Costs 1 Skill Point. Freeze chance now scales with sign intensity and multiplies with the amount of Adrenaline Points you have. Removed the extra damage.
- Euphoria: Costs 1 Skill Point. Decreased bonus from 0.75% to 0.5% per toxicity points.
- Adrenaline Rush: Costs 1 Skill Point. Increased duration to 45 seconds. Decreased attack power bonus to 25%. Increased debuff cap to 80%.
- Cat Eyes: Costs 1 Skill Point.
- Conductors of Magic: Costs 1 Skill Point.
- Mutated Skin: Costs 1 Skill Point. Lowered damage reduction per Adrenaline Point from 15% to 10%.
- Second Life: Costs 2 Skill Points. Decreased cooldown to 90 seconds.
- Metamorphosis: Costs 2 Skill Points. Completely re-designed - First Decoction drank has no toxicity cost and either a significantly increased effect or duration (see Decoction Overhaul for details, can also be found in game in the decoction descriptions/tooltips).
BLOOD AND WINE VAMPIRES (CONFIGURABLE)
Due to the close proximity to the elder vampire, the vampires of Toussaint have special mutations that their cousins from the North lack. Specifically, this translates to an ability called "Elder Focus" which makes the Vampires of Toussaint extremely dangerous. However, like all powerful abilities, it also opens them up to some very specific weaknesses. This ability is only used by following vampire variants:
- Fleders/Protofleders
- Garkains
- Bruxa/Alps
- Dettlaff
This ability allows vampires to generate Adrenaline like Geralt. However, unlike Geralt, vampires generate it not by delivering blows, but rather by receiving them. The following attacks will generate adrenaline for enemy vampires:
- Fast Attacks/Offensive Signs (excluding Yrden): +2% Adrenaline.
- Strong Attacks: +5% Adrenaline.
- Rend: +10% Adrenaline.
This goes up to a maximum of 100% Adrenaline.
Adrenaline has the following effects on the vampire:
- Increases Damage Ouput.
- Increases Speed.
- Decreases Damage Resistance.
Hence, the more Adrenaline a vampire has, the more dangerous they become, but also the more damage they are able to receive. Furthermore, Superior Black Blood potions have an extremely corrosive and reactive effect with vampire adrenaline. If a vampire who has adrenaline attacks a Geralt who has the potion in his blood, it will have devastating effects on the Vampire's biology. The exact effect is dependant on the vampire (see below for more details). It will also deplete the Vampire of all of their Adrenaline. This has the following effects:
- Returns the Vampire's damage output to their base value.
- Returns the Vampire's speed to their base value.
- The Loss in Damage Resistance will persist and does not return to its base value.
- As some of the vampire Adrenaline has gotten into Geralt's blood, it will partially increase Geralt's Adrenaline.
This change opens up a whole new gameplay dynamic in dealing with vampires in Blood and Wine and makes the gameplay a lot more interesting (in my opinion).
VAMPIRE TACTICS
Below are details on these vampires and their new powers and how Black Blood affects Adrenaline. I've covered the "Tactics" part so it isn't immediately visible in case people want to figure it out on their own. If you want to see it, just highlight it.
Key:
Red = Vampire strengths
Green = Vampire weaknesses
Black = Effects of Superior Black Blood
Vampiresses [Bruxa & Alps]
+Extremely high regen powers that cannot be stopped by using Moon Dust Bombs.
+Immune to frost.
+Near immunity to fire and shock damage and burning.
+Extremely fast and only get faster as their Adrenaline increases.
+Able to easily inflict knockdown and fatigue Geralt.
+Extremely high parry, evade and counter scores.
+Invisibility.
-Comparatively low damage. However, this will increase with their Adrenaline.
-Medium damage resistances.
-Very low health.
-No critical hit resistances.
-No bleeding or poisoning resistances.
Black Blood applies the following debuffs. The more adrenaline that is lost, the higher the debuff. The debuff can be applied multiple times:
- Lowers parry, evade and counter scores.
- Lowers bleeding , poison, knockdown and burning resistances.
- Lowers fire and shock damage resistances.
- Lowers Regen powers.
Do note that as they regenerate Adrenaline, it will counteract these debuffs and eventually remove them entirely. Bruxa also have a bite attack that if performed on a Geralt with Black Blood will permanently stop their regen abilities.
TACTICS: One's first instinct may be to drink Black Blood at the beginning of the fight. This will work, the problem is that each hit you land will also generate Adrenaline for the vampire and counteract the black blood debuffs. Hence, this tactic is only advised if you're very good at dodging the Bruxa's attacks and won't get hit.
The key here is to fight them for as long as possible without using Black Blood and getting just one or two hits in where possible. Yes, this means they get faster and stronger as they build Adrenaline. However, drinking a Black Blood at the right moment will then apply so many debuffs that the vampire will be greatly weakened and Geralt can close in for a quick kill. Moon Dust is also helpful here to put a damper on their invisibility so they are easier to keep track of.
Fleders/Protofleders
+Very High Damage Output that only increases with their Adrenaline.
+High physical resistances.
+Significant resistance to critical hits.
+Significant resistance to frost magic.
+Can easily fatigue Geralt.
-Comparatively low regen powers.
-Regen powers that can be stopped by Moon Dust Bombs.
-A very high weakness to fire.
-No critical effect resistances.
Black Blood reacts very violently with the Adrenaline in Fleder blood, dealing a large amount of damage to the Fleder. The higher the Fleder's adrenaline, the more the reflected damage back is multiplied. If its high enough, it can even kill the Fleder outright.
TACTICS: Fleders are the easiest of the new vampire breeds to deal with. The biggest issue is that they deal large amounts of damage and have a high physical resistance. If you have a lot of skills/alchemy items that can lower resistance, then it is completely possible to deal with them the conventional way. Throw a moon dust bomb and wittle them down.
Alternatively, if you feel like you can handle the extra damage (Superior Full Moon helps) and speed (Yrden to slow them down), then allowing them to build adrenaline for a time will allow you to deal a very large amount of damage back using Black Blood. Just ensure you throw a Moon Dust bomb beforehand to ensure they don't start regenerating.
Garkains
+Extremely high level of health.
+Extremely high physical damage resistances.
+Significant resistance to frost magic.
+Moderately high damage output that will increase with their Adrenaline.
+Moderate regen powers.
+Can easily fatigue Geralt.
-Regen powers than can be stopped my Moon Dust Bombs.
-High weakness to fire.
-No critical effect resistances.
-No critical hit resistances.
Black Blood is highly poisonous to Garkains that have adrenaline in their blood. The higher the amount of Adrenaline that is lost, the longer the poison effect lasts.
TACTICS: The biggest issue with Garkains is their extremely high health and resistances. Although fighting them conventionally is possible, it will take a lot of time and will require a build that is able to deal very high amounts of damage.
Alternatively, if you're able to withstand fighting them at full strength for a short time, A black blood potion will then poison them and lower their damage resistances signficantly, making them go down quicker.
Dettlaff - Vampire Form
+High Health Regen (1500 Health/per second) that can't be stopped by Moon Dust Bombs.
+Very High Health.
+High Attack Power that increases as he generates Adrenaline.
+Very high speed which increases as he generates Adrenaline.
+Life Drain Ability - Each attack he lands heals 5% of his MAX Health.
+Immunity to frost and poison.
+High resistances to knock-down/stagger and bleeding.
+Low Resistances to burning and shock damage.
+Immune to regular critical hits.
-Countering him will temporarily put him in a weakened state.
-Moon Dust Bombs will temporarily put him in a weakened state.
-Significant weakness to fire damage.
Black Blood applies the following debuffs. The debuff is higher the more Adrenaline that is lost. It can be applied multiple times:
- Lowers Regen Powers.
- Blocks his Life Drain Ability.
Note that as he regenerates Adrenaline, it will counteract the Black Blood Debuffs and eventually remove it completely.
TACTICS: Dettlaff was already really tough in the vanilla game and now he's even tougher. His biggest advantage is his health regen, which you will need to counteract before you can start dealing damage. This can be done in two ways:
Countering his jump attack will pause his regen for 8 seconds.
Black Blood and him losing adrenaline will decrease his regen powers.
The key is to weaken him with a counter, get a number of hits in and then back off. You want to get his adrenaline relatively high so when you drink the Black Blood you take his regen abilities down. Don't worry if you lose the first fight with him, you're not expected to win. It is just to give you an idea of how he fights so you're ready the next time.
Vanilla bug: During the first fight against Dettlaff, a cutscene is supposed to trigger if he gets close to killing you. This is a bit buggy and sometimes won't happen and instead you will get a game over screen.
Dettlaff - Monster/Bat Form
+Extremely High Health
+Moderate Health Regen (5% per second)
+High Damage output (especially the bat swarm attack) that increases with his Adrenaline
+High Physical Damage Resistance
+Immunity to Frost
+Immunity to the Archgriffin Decoction
+High Resistances to bleeding
+High DoT Resistances
+Will remove the effects of Black Blood with each hit. If Geralt doesn't have black blood in his system, will remove Moon Dust instead, there by restarting his regen.
+Easily Fatigues Geralt
-Massive weakness to fire
-Regen can be stopped by Moon Dust Bombs
-No Critical Hit resistances
-Low shock damage resistances
As this is Dettlaff's most powerful form, Black Blood has limited effect here. It doesn't even block his Adrenaline Generation. This means he can't be stopped from increasing his speed and damage. You need to make sure every hit you land is doing large amounts of damage. However, Black Blood is still important as if he hits you without it active, he will restart his regen - making him virtually impossible to beat.
TACTICS: This is an extremely tough battle. Superior Full Moon is almost mandatory to survive. It is very important to avoid his Bat Swarm attack as it could be an instant kill. The best advantage you can have is to throw a bomb at him during the short pause he does as he dives towards you. This will give you a decent window to do as much damage as possible to him. Also, keep in mind that each strike he lands will remove Black Blood from your system, so you need to keep some toxicity spare in case this happens.
Dettlaff - Nightmare Forms
The nightmare blob things are interesting because unlike other enemies in the game, they don't actually have a working health bar. In Vanilla, all the Dettlaff clones that attack you in the nightmare phase require 5 hits to kill. It doesn't matter how much damage you do, if it is a strong or fast attack or a sign (though there is a cooldown on the signs so you can't just spam them).
I've made substantial changes to this phase, largely dependent on the difficulty chosen. Hidden text below goes into detail for those who want to see. For those who want to be surprised, here are some high level tips that don't give too much away:
- The pumping organic sacks that feed the nightmare have self regenerating properties. A certain sign will stop this process...
- Be wary of the nightmare creature attacking you. It will heal itself if it lands hits on you. Make sure your blood is poisoned and you've weakened it using silver splinters...
- The nightmare creature will enter a blood rage when the organic sacks are destroyed, substantially increasing its own speed. The only way to stop this is to throw the creature off balance with perfect timing...
TACTICS:
The following is common across all the difficulty levels:
- Organic sacks require 10 hits to destroy.
- The most effective attack is Rend, followed by strong attacks and then fast attacks/signs.
- Countering the nightmare creature will remove any speed buffs and slow it down by 30% for 5 seconds.
Sword and Story and below:
- Organic Sacks will heal 1 hit every 15 seconds. Yrden traps will prevent this.
- Nightmare creatures require 4 hits to destroy.
- Getting hit will restore the nightmare creature's health by 25%. Black Blood and Moon Dust will weaken this ability.
Blood and Broken Bones:
- Organic Sacks will heal 1 hit every 8 seconds. Yrden traps will prevent this.
- Nightmare creatures require 8 hits to destroy.
- Getting hit will restore the nightmare creature's health by 50%. Black Blood and Moon Dust will weaken this ability.
- Destroying an organic sack will increase the speed of the Nightmare creature by 20%.
Death March:
- Organic Sacks will heal 1 hit every 4 seconds. Yrden traps will prevent this.
- Nightmare creatures require 12 hits to destroy.
- Getting hit will restore the nightmare creature to full health. Black Blood and Moon Dust will weaken this ability.
- Destroying an organic sack will increase the speed of the Nightmare creature by 40%.
- Nightmare creatures will get 10% faster every 5 seconds.
DIFFICULTY
I would say the mod makes the game somewhat more difficult than vanilla. If you prepare properly before entering a fight, you should be fine. The only exception are vampires, they have intentionally been made to be a lot more difficult. Ultimately, whatever difficulty level you were comfortable with for vanilla should be fine here as well if you don't mind a slightly elevated challenge.
The game was built with Death March difficulty in mind with the "Gwynbleidd" gameplay preset in the mod menu.
INSTALLATION (FRESH NEW GAME)
- Extract the contents of the main file into your Witcher 3 installation directory. There should now be a "modRedux" and "modReduxDL" folders in your "mods" folder. The config .xml file will be in a config subfolder in the "bin" folder.
- If you're running any other mods, you'll almost definitely need to run ScriptMerger to resolve conflicts.
- If you get conflicts with files within the "modReduxDL" folder and don't have interest in using the Descriptive Levels module, you can freely delete the modReduxDL folder.
- To get the "Toggle Cat" enhancement working, you'll need to either replace your input.settings file (usually under C:/Users/[User]/Documents/The Witcher 3) with the one I've attached or add the input lines yourself. If you replace it, you're going to get all my personalised settings, which you probably don't want, so I suggest adding it manually yourself. All you need to do is add the line "IK_F=(Action=ToggleCat)" under headings "Boat", "BoatPassenger", "Diving", "Exploration", "Horse" and "Swimming". Note that you don't have to use F (my parry key), you can use any key you wish. If you're not using keyboard and mouse, you'll need to change the controller settings. I haven't looked into that, but it shouldn't be too difficult.
- Chances are this mod is not compatible with any other gameplay overhaul mods.
- Once again, this mod does not work with NG+. Follow the further instructions below if you are using an existing vanilla save.
INSTALLATION (VANILLA SAVE)
Follow all the installation instructions for Fresh New Game, and then also do the following:
Before you start, you will need the following:
- A vanilla save from v1.31+ of the game where you have not unlocked the Blood and WIne Mutation System.
- Version 2.3+ of the Redux mod.
- Knowledge of how many Places of Power you have visited and drawn from.
- Knowledge of how many skill points you should have at your current level + 1 based on Redux's levelling system. There is an image attached that shows you what your total skill points should be at each level.
- Access to the Debug Console.
To make a vanilla save work, do the following steps in the exact order specified:
- Remove all skills and mutagens.
- Drink a Clearance Potion to return all points to the pool. If you don't have one, you can add one by running additem('Clearing Potion', 1) in the debug console.
- Open up Debug Console, type rebuildskilltree() and press Enter. Your skills should now all have only one level.
- Open up the Debug Console, type levelfix() and press Enter. You now may notice that you have a negative number of experience points. Don't worry, we'll solve that in a second.
- Open up the Debug Console, type levelup() and press Enter. Levelling up should fix your experience issue, as well as unlock any skill slots you should have unlocked for your level. If levelling up gave you a skill point, run removeskillpoints(1) to remove the point so the math we do later is easier.
- Open up Debug Console, type addskillpoints(x) where X is the number of skill points you should have up to this point with Redux. For example, a level 6 should have 3 skill points. A level 19 should have 8.
- Open up Debug Console, type addshrinepoints(x) where X is the number of places of power you have drawn from. Once this is done, you should see yourself getting closer or having unlocked the later skill tiers. Note that if you have found over 18 places of power, only run addshrinepoints(18). Any places of power you've found after 18 you should add as skill points. For example, if you've found 20 places of power, you'd run addshrinepoints(18) and then addskillpoints(2)
Your vanilla save should now function as a proper Redux Save. However, there is only so much testing I can do, so let me know if you run into any issues.
UNINSTALLATION
- Delete the modRedux and modReduxDL folders from your Mods folder, and delete the config file from your bin folder.
- If you're planning to start a new save, you're done - mod has been removed.
- However, if you want to continue using the same save file, you'll need to turn it back into a vanilla save file. To do this, download the ClearDevelop mod and use it through the console to reset your save file.
FAQ
I'm getting the following error during installation:
Error [modredux]game\types.ws(52): Enum 'EAreaName' already defined.
Error [modredux]game\types.ws(68): Enum 'EDlcAreaName' already defined.
This is a version issue, please ensure you're using v1.31 NOT v1.32 of the game. Also, if you're not using the GOTY version you will need the unification/community patch.
If you're using the GOG version, don't download the v1.32 patch. It's bad and stops most mods from working.
If you're using the Steam version of the game, it will automatically update you to v1.32. Use the following mod to patch the game back to v1.31 if the unification/community patch alone doesn't fix things:
https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3374?tab=files
If you still keep getting the error, you can try the following:
Open Types.ws with an editor and comment out line 52 to line 128 (at the beginning of line 52 type "/*" at the end of line 128 type "*/")
You will need to do this in both the modRedux and modReduxDL folders. Then re-run Script Merger.
The skill system still has more than one level per skill and some of the changes don't seem to be working (i.e Places of Power are not unlocking skills, game is freezing up sometimes during slowdown segments...).
This either means you have attempted to load a vanilla or non-Redux save with this mod without following the vanilla specific installation instructions above or are running multiple mods and haven't merged them correctly. If you're running multiple mods, please use Script Merger to ensure they're all able to function together. You may also need to play around with the load order.
Werewolves/Vampires regenerate health way too fast! They're impossible!
This is by design. Vampires especially are not beatable without Moon Dust Bombs, which stops their regeneration. Note that, unlike the superior version, the basic and enhanced versions have a limited duration, so you need to keep a mental note of how long the enemy has been under Moon Dust and throw another bomb to ensure regen doesn't restart. Devil's Puffballs are also very useful in counteracting the regen. If you find this game mechanic to be too difficult, you can change Monster Regen stats back to vanilla levels in the mod menu.
I'm currently playing the mod on an earlier version. Can I update to the latest version and still continue with my save?
Yes, saves are compatible across different versions of the mod.
Does the mod work on the next-gen version of Witcher 3 (v4.0)?
No, and there are no immediate plans to convert it. See the stickied post for details.