ShadowDragyn

I know it must be possible to access those abilities; the mod "Combat Tweaks" messes with them. I can't ask the guy how he did it directly though, since I think I already tried sending the creator a message about something else a while ago and he hasn't responded, so there wouldn't be much point in sending another about this.

I'm working on a mod that overhauls spells, and I'd like to be able to mess with the Power of Blood spells as well. The problem is, I don't know where to find the 2DA that includes them (they're not in the regular ABI_base). Does anyone know how/where to find them?

Ha, this thread is oooold. I decided a while back to create a new specialization entirely instead of tweaking the Arcane Warrior. It's a hand-to-hand fighter now, and it's going to blend melee and magic perfectly, especially since you don't have to worry at all about weapon redraws.

I'm still working on it. I still can't figure out how to get Lockpicking to work right and may actually be forced to drop that aspect. I'm also planning on pulling back on the skills a bit and only adding two or three new ones total. The mod is going to be doing a few more things outside the scope of what I had originally planned as well; I'm making heavy changes to the way most spells work, reducing the range on many to force you closer to the fray, as well as adding casting times to many more spells (almost exclusively affecting the crowd-control spells, and usually with reduced cost or sometimes cooldown in compensation), which will balance spells in a much more interesting way than many other methods that have been used. I'm also working on combining warriors and rogues into a single class, so that the original class choice distinguishes only between mages and non-mages, which will give the non-mages (which I'm calling "Fighters") the same number and variety of abilities as mages, as well as setting their overall power-level closer to that of a mage (which is being toned down a little as well by the reduced range and increased casting time). Finally, I'm adding new abilities from the warrior to the dog, as well as allowing him to choose the skills Survival, Stealth, Combat Specialization and Combat Tactics. It's basically something of an overhaul of abilities in general now, making drastic changes to a few aspects that I feel are in great need of it. I've actually come pretty far with it already, but I'm still stuck on the lockpicking...

-Edit- Ugh, sorry... I totally misunderstood the question. I can't help...

I'd like to know the answer to this as well. Not only was I also unable to figure out how this is done by looking at any of the spell scripts or ABI_base.2da, but in ABI_base you actually have to define whether an ability is passive, active or toggled; it should be impossible to have an ability that is both passive and toggled. My guess is that the jackasses set up a core gameplay script somewhere to change the strength requirement to magic if you possess Combat Magic. The same script that says you need strength to equip a weapon or armor. From what I've found, I believe this is the same way they got Blood Magic to convert all mana use to health. I wanted to do something similar as well, and I'd be fine with having it only work when the ability is on if only I could figure out what sort of code was used.

Okay, first, you'll need to read this: http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/i..._Spell_Tutorial That should show you how to convert 2DA files to GDA, among other very important things. Then, you need to open up ABI_base, and find the abilities you want to give to the Dog. Copy the desired ability's line, and give it a new unused ID number. Look at this page to get familiar with what each section of the ability's line is used for: http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/ABI_base One thing you'll have to do with every ability is go to the prereqability section. Change it to 4034 for each first-tier ability, which will make it a Dog ability by requiring the innate Dog Hidden Ability for it to appear in a character's talent list. Then for each higher-tier ability in that same line of 4, give it the ID of the last one in the line, causing each higher-tier ability to require the one before it (this ID chain is what's necessary to make them appear in the same line). For editing GDA files, I recommend the program GDApp, which can be found on the official DA:O social site's project download section.

I had actually thought about something like what you said with the armor skills. The idea was to have it reduce your fatigue by like 2.5% per point, allowing you to use heavier armor or a larger number of maintained abilities with a reduced penalty. I could use some ideas for other skills to make. I hated the idea of Rogues getting more skills than others, but Rogues also have far more skills available to them which fit their theme and role. So, I need to come up with more Mage/Warrior focused skills. I've already got Meditation and that armor one (unnamed), but I still need two or three more.

Okay, I could really use some help here. I decided to make Lockpicking a skill as well, but as most of you know Rogues have an innate ability to pick locks, and Lockpicking simply improves that. I looked it up, and supposedly everything relating to how Lockpicking works can be found inside of the scripts Core_h.nss and Placeable_h.nss. Looking inside of those scripts, Core_h handles how the skill improves your chances, and only runs if you're a Rogue. I changed that so it would only run if you have the first Lockpicking skill (ABILITY_SKILL_LOCKPICKING_1). I then opened Placeable_h, which seems to handle how a locked object reacts when you activate it. It had some lines that would only run if you were a Rogue. I changed that to require the first Lockpicking skill, just like in Core_h. But when I go in-game, Rogues are still the only ones capable of opening locks. Same lock, same number of skill points in Lockpicking, same Cunning, and the non-Rogue gets the "insufficient skill" message while the Rogue opens it successfully. Here are the scripts, I only changed the lines referencing ABILITY_TALENT_HIDDEN_ROGUE near the start: Core_h before float GetDisableDeviceLevel(object oCreature) { float fPlayerScore = 0.0f; if (HasAbility(oCreature, ABILITY_TALENT_HIDDEN_ROGUE)) { fPlayerScore = GetAttributeModifier(oCreature, PROPERTY_ATTRIBUTE_INTELLIGENCE); #ifdef DEBUG Log_Trace(LOG_CHANNEL_SYSTEMS_PLACEABLES, GetCurrentScriptName(), "Intelligence Modifier = " + ToString(fPlayerScore)); #endif int nSkillLevel = 0; if (HasAbility(oCreature, ABILITY_SKILL_LOCKPICKING_4)) { nSkillLevel = 4; } else if (HasAbility(oCreature, ABILITY_SKILL_LOCKPICKING_3)) { nSkillLevel = 3; } else if (HasAbility(oCreature, ABILITY_SKILL_LOCKPICKING_2)) { nSkillLevel = 2; } else if (HasAbility(oCreature, ABILITY_SKILL_LOCKPICKING_1)) { nSkillLevel = 1; } fPlayerScore += (10.0f * nSkillLevel); #ifdef DEBUG Log_Trace(LOG_CHANNEL_SYSTEMS_PLACEABLES, GetCurrentScriptName(), "With Skill = " + ToString(fPlayerScore)); #endif } return fPlayerScore; } Core_h after float GetDisableDeviceLevel(object oCreature) { float fPlayerScore = 0.0f; if (HasAbility(oCreature, ABILITY_SKILL_LOCKPICKING_1)) { fPlayerScore = GetAttributeModifier(oCreature, PROPERTY_ATTRIBUTE_INTELLIGENCE); #ifdef DEBUG Log_Trace(LOG_CHANNEL_SYSTEMS_PLACEABLES, GetCurrentScriptName(), "Intelligence Modifier = " + ToString(fPlayerScore)); #endif int nSkillLevel = 0; if (HasAbility(oCreature, ABILITY_SKILL_LOCKPICKING_4)) { nSkillLevel = 4; } else if (HasAbility(oCreature, ABILITY_SKILL_LOCKPICKING_3)) { nSkillLevel = 3; } else if (HasAbility(oCreature, ABILITY_SKILL_LOCKPICKING_2)) { nSkillLevel = 2; } else if (HasAbility(oCreature, ABILITY_SKILL_LOCKPICKING_1)) { nSkillLevel = 1; } fPlayerScore += (10.0f * nSkillLevel); #ifdef DEBUG Log_Trace(LOG_CHANNEL_SYSTEMS_PLACEABLES, GetCurrentScriptName(), "With Skill = " + ToString(fPlayerScore)); #endif } return fPlayerScore; } Placeable_h before // If still locked and key not required then rogues can attempt to pick lock. if (!nActionResult && !bKeyRequired && HasAbility(oUser, ABILITY_TALENT_HIDDEN_ROGUE)) { // player score float fPlayerScore = GetDisableDeviceLevel(oUser); float fTargetScore = IntToFloat(nLockLevel); Log_Trace(LOG_CHANNEL_SYSTEMS_PLACEABLES, GetCurrentScriptName(), "nLockLevel = " + ToString(nLockLevel)); Log_Trace(LOG_CHANNEL_SYSTEMS_PLACEABLES, GetCurrentScriptName(), "Final Value = " + ToString(fPlayerScore)); nActionResult = (fPlayerScore >= fTargetScore); } } if (nActionResult) { // Success UI_DisplayMessage(OBJECT_SELF, (bUsedKey ? UI_MESSAGE_UNLOCKED_BY_KEY : UI_MESSAGE_UNLOCKED)); PlaySound(OBJECT_SELF, GetM2DAString(TABLE_PLACEABLE_TYPES, "PickLockSuccess", GetAppearanceType(OBJECT_SELF))); Placeable_h after // If still locked and key not required then rogues can attempt to pick lock. if (!nActionResult && !bKeyRequired && HasAbility(oUser, ABILITY_SKILL_LOCKPICKING_1)) { // player score float fPlayerScore = GetDisableDeviceLevel(oUser); float fTargetScore = IntToFloat(nLockLevel); Log_Trace(LOG_CHANNEL_SYSTEMS_PLACEABLES, GetCurrentScriptName(), "nLockLevel = " + ToString(nLockLevel)); Log_Trace(LOG_CHANNEL_SYSTEMS_PLACEABLES, GetCurrentScriptName(), "Final Value = " + ToString(fPlayerScore)); nActionResult = (fPlayerScore >= fTargetScore); } } if (nActionResult) { // Success UI_DisplayMessage(OBJECT_SELF, (bUsedKey ? UI_MESSAGE_UNLOCKED_BY_KEY : UI_MESSAGE_UNLOCKED)); PlaySound(OBJECT_SELF, GetM2DAString(TABLE_PLACEABLE_TYPES, "PickLockSuccess", GetAppearanceType(OBJECT_SELF))); Now in regards to the issue with editing the Strings, I've made another step forward. You can find the ID numbers for strings in ABI_Base.2DA. Now though, after opening the string I still cannot figure out how to alter it.

No problem, I had thought of that exact thing last night after making this post. I'll be making both stealth and lockpicking skills, and doubling the number of skills everyone gets to (level/1.5), meaning something like skill>skill>no skill>skill>skill>no skill. So that non-rogues, and especially mages, would have more thematically fitting skills to spend those extra points on, I've been tossing around the idea of adding a new skill, Meditation Training, which would increase stamina/mana regeneration, a little mental resistance, and possibly a tiny bit of spellpower at tier 4.

I'm working on this mod that turns Stealth into a skill rather than a Rogue talent, as well as granting Warriors and Mages a skill every other level just like Rogues so they can afford that and other skills. It's basically done so far, but I need to edit the description strings for the stealth skills so they no longer call you a Rogue. The problem is, I don't know where to find them in the toolset. Does anyone know how to find and edit existing strings?

Hey, good news! I went ahead and did this myself; it was as easy as I thought it would be. It works fine as far as I can tell. All I have to do now is change the description string in the toolset so it no longer calls you a Rogue. Speaking of which, does anyone know how to edit an existing String? I can't find them in the toolset.

Stealth definitely seems to me like something every class should have access to, and changing it from an ability to a skill should be a very easy thing to do. Unless I've missed something, it should be as easy as changing a few numbers inside a 2DA file. If no one else wants to, I could just do it myself if someone could point me in the right direction of what to change and where. It may also be necessary to allow Mage and Warrior skills to progress just as quickly as rogues, if anyone knows how to do that (why are they different in the first place?).

I'd thought about that, but I have no idea where to find the files.

The file names don't have extensions like that. The one I'm trying to use, for example, is called "t1_mue_bk3.tnt".

That's like 2 rogue talents in one, really balanced. Thanks for the sarcasm :rolleyes: Anyway, the extra flanking angle means very little to a non-rogue, since you can't backstab. AW's have lower attack than rogues also since their primary attribute only grants 0.25 attack per point instead of 0.5, meaning the stronger flanking just sets them closer to normal. The other ability you're thinking of is universal to all dual-wielders, Momentum. That ability is also tier 3, and grants 10% more speed than that one. On top of that, the Dual Wielding style is innately stronger than two-handed weapons, and the first tier ability Dual Striking for Warriors or the innate backstabbing for rogues leaves no comparison. If you want some numbers, average high-end dual-wield weapons deal 18.75 base DPS (0.375*40*0.85+6/1), increased to 37.5 (18.75*2) backstabbing or Dual Striking. A high-end two-handed weapon deals 17.4 base DPS (0.625*40*1.1+16/2.5) increased to 21.75 by Alacrity (0.625*40*1.1+16/2). Comparing Momentum and Alacrity, it would be; Dual-Wield - 26.8, Two-Handed - 21.75. Add backstabbing for a rogue or Dual Striking, and it's 53.6 DPS for Dual-Wielding. And that's assuming two-handed weapons strike once every 2.5 seconds. I haven't been able to find hard math on that, and had to count it myself in-game. It honestly seemed closer to 3.0 and that's a real possibility, but 2.5 gave far more balanced numbers and I'm giving the creators the benefit of the doubt in assuming they're sane. That's just raw damage, also. On top of all that the daggers have roughly +2 armor penetration and twice as much base critical chance (although the crit is negated by both backstab and dual striking).

Guess I should update this with some of the progress I've been making on the official forums. I'm now going to have them use two-handed swords, and the attack skills will (if I can get it to work) cause a magic effect to surround your weapon during it, like with enchantments or weapon spells. Here's what I have so far now for the base 4 spells, but it's still unfinished; Combat Magic: +Attack now (Spellpower*0.5), and Damage now based on (Spellpower*2) instead of Magic. Fatigue reduced to 20%, but Upkeep is still 50. Now reduces Spellpower granted per point of Magic to 0.5. +Health (Spellpower*5), +Physical Resistance (Spellpower*1), and +1 Mana Regeneration. Alacrity: (added to Combat Magic) +20% Attack Speed, and increased Flanking angle (equal to Combat Movement). Ethereal Shroud: (Added to Combat Magic) Unflankable, 20% Dodge. I've found out that the devs' intention was to have characters switch in and out of Combat Magic to use spells, which is really dumb. Their original idea was to block you from being able to cast altogether while it was up, but that didn't work out apparently so they went with the hardcore Fatigue instead. I've chosen to have spells be weakened while in Combat Magic instead of allowing you to cast much fewer (which practically forced the overpowered tactic of stacking maintains, on top of being incredibly dull). The Arcane Warrior spells scale twice as fast to compensate, making them functionally normal. So, Combat Magic now turns you into a real demon physically with significantly weakened spells for utility. You don't hit as often as a real melee character (which fits, since you don't have the same skill), but the great flanking bonus grants a serious bonus to attack if someone else has your target's attention, and the attack skills utilizing the two-handed sword provide a bit of knockdown to reduce their ability to dodge if they're in your face, and you also have the option of taking hexes and such to help as well.

Somehow it didn't occur to me to ask before, but does anyone know if it really is possible to have weapon skills require a single-handed weapon with no shield? I found this quote in reference to passive abilities on the Abilities section of the official wiki which seems to suggest otherwise, assuming attack skills are assigned to weapon types in the same way: "Additionally, the bonuses of an ability can be made conditional on the character's current 'wield mode' (2-handed, dual, weapon & shield, or universal) through the conditional integer field on the passive_abilities worksheet. "

I'm working on a mod right now that will completely overhaul the Arcane Warrior specialization. The current form of the Arcane Warrior is both unbalanced and boring; most people seem to just throw on as many maintains as possible and auto-attack their way into bad-a**ery. Not only is it too easy to abuse maintains as it is, but the lack of attack talents is both very boring and encourages such a playstyle. So, the goal of this mod is not only to tone the spec down, but to make it a lot more interesting. With that in mind, I would like advice on the development of this mod. How it could be more balanced, how it could be more fun, or how it could be better molded into a solid theme. I have the outline of the mod nearly finished now (all except the final attack and the attack names), so here it is for criticism and advice. The numbers in brackets are the formulas for determining the final value, and the numbers after the brackets are the expected final values at a mid-high level (50 Magic) Branch One Combat Magic: Instead of +Attack, now adds ((Magic-10)*0.25)10 Physical Resistance and ((Magic-10)*2.5)100 Health. Upkeep increased to 100, Fatigue reduced to 25%. Alacrity: (added to Combat Magic) +25% Attack Speed, +1 Mana Regeneration, -20% Damage dealt (Weapon Damage+Attribute Modifier)30-50>24-40. Mana Sheathe: (Added to Combat Magic) Adds Spirit Damage to attacks (Spellpower*0.4)16. Additionally, if your attack fails to hit your Spellpower is added to Attack to see if the Spirit Damage still connects. Ethereal Shroud: (Added to Combat Magic) Unflankable, 20% Dodge. The second branch is the new attack skills, which use a new weapon style: a single blade with no shield. Branch Two (Require Combat Magic to be active, and have a very high chance to hit) (Left Punch or Shield Bash animation): (11 Dexterity, Combat Spec 1, 20 Mana, 15 sec reset) Deals (5+(Magic*0.25))15 Physical damage, and (100+Spellpower*0.25)35 Spirit damage. Additionally, the target will be knocked back unless they pass a physical resistance check. Lieutenant+ Enemies will instead be knocked down. (Kick animation): (18 Dexterity, Combat Spec 2, 15 Mana, 8 sec reset) Deals (5+(Magic*0.5))25 Physical damage, and (100+Spellpower*0.2)28 Spirit damage. If flanking the target, they will be knocked down unless they pass a physical resistance check. AoE Attack: (25 Dexterity, Combat Spec 3, 30 Mana, 12 sec reset) Deals normal weapon damage to surrounding enemies (including Mana Sheathe). (Shield Pummel animation?): (32 Dexterity, Combat Spec 4, 25 Mana, 10 sec reset) So overall, the Arcane Warrior is supposed to be a mix of offense and defense with good utility, as well as the ability to effectively stand in the center of a large crowd to get the most out of spells. Combat Magic replaces Strength, and now also partially replaces Constitution so you can spend those points elsewhere while maintaining good defense. This was necessary, because I've removed the attack bonuses entirely, making Dexterity much more important. Because I've made Dexterity necessary for all Attack/Defense bonuses to make it more valuable, and I still want them to be exceptional at hitting and evading, I've given them similar benefits independent of those stats; Mana Sheathe benefits chance to hit by making it nearly impossible to completely miss, granting partial misses instead, and Ethereal Shroud grants a percent-based chance to dodge when Defense fails (just like Evasion). As you can see with Alacrity, the attack speed boost seems mostly pointless if it also reduces damage by a nearly equal amount, but this fixes an aesthetic issue in which single-blade attacks are normal painfully slow. Mana Sheathe is also unaffected by the damage loss, making it a greater percentage of total damage dealt. Finally, changing Combat Magic's penalty to focus more on occupied mana than fatigue allows it to still hinder spell-casting, but now will also hinder stacking maintains which it previously did very little of. On top of that, since mana recovery makes up a greater percent compared to what you have and lose now on top of having less total mana, it benefits the use of many cheaper spells rather than fewer costlier ones, like the AW attack abilities. With the attacks, I tried to focus more on low-cost, lower effect since Combat Magic puts a big damper on mana usage. I also tried to give them a theme of disrupting the target to make it easier to cast spells in close range. Also, the fact that the first two attacks deal damage irrelevant of the equipped weapon not only seems fairly spell-like, but it also helps the fact that Alacrity's damage reduction would otherwise gimp the attacks until you could get Mana Sheathe.

I'm working on a new character's face through the toolset by replacing a preset with it, and for some reason I can't give my male character black eyeliner. I get it to work fine in the toolset, but once I load the face in-game the eyeliner is not there; everything else is completely fine. I've tried using different textures with different levels of opacity, and I've tried removing the dual face material blending. None of that has made a difference. Anyone know what could be going wrong?

Wow. Not to hijack the thread, but is that whole script for just one spell? I've been working on a mod to change the AW abilities as well, but most of them are original and would require new scripts. Some don't even have similar counterparts that I could use as a guide... I can't imagine how I could possibly go through all of that with each one, with how little knowledge I have of this game's scripting :pinch: Please tell me that's not as convoluted as it looks. As for your question, with my knowledge of just general scripting, it sounds like the ability isn't activating the script properly. My guess would be what Angryman basically said, if I understood him correctly; there's probably an invalid path somewhere linking the spell to the script.

That's great, thank you. Once I finish laying out what all of the abilities will be I'll try that out :D

I'm working on an Arcane Warrior overhaul mod, and since you cannot see the attack value for mages, I would like to change Combat Magic to make the character use Spellpower+50 to determine chance to hit instead of Attack. Does anyone know if this is possible, and how I would go about doing it? If it's not possible to make the hit chance actually mechanically function that way, I would think it should at least be possible to always make the character's invisible Attack value equal to Spellpower+50, but I don't know if that would get screwed up by +Attack from spells and items and such; I've never scripted for this game before, only Oblivion.

I need to know now how to open existing scripts in the toolset so I can copy and alter them for other talents (I'm not skilled enough yet with this game's scripting language to make them from scratch). The official wiki has failed me in this again :glare: I can only find explanations on how to make new scripts.

I don't think you do convert them the other way. Someone on the official forums directed me to a mod on there called GDApp which can be used to open and edit GDAs in much the same way as any spreadsheet program. As far as I can tell you don't even need a spreadsheet program for this once you have that. Just convert it into a GDA then open and edit it.