I mean, to be fair, this person didn't say it was bad or they disliked the modder. They just said 2 words, indicating it was unbalanced and probably a cheat mod. You made it personal.
Honestly, I appreciate this kind of feedback. A lot mods break the balance of the game and a lot of additions to DnD are considered more powerful than the "vanilla" stuff but, at the same time, there is some distinction between DnD modules designed to be, "somewhat balanced" and modules which are just straight up broken and feel like cheating.
Obviously we want to expand the number of spells and obviously this is cheating but we still want it to be within the realm of balanced and not feel like cheating (even if it is ). We are essentially the DM of our own single player experience, and so we need to understand that a little bit or smudging the rules or extra help is not going to ruin the game, but anything too powerful absolutely will.
Healing specifically is hard to balance, because health is the mechanic which forces non-spellcasters to need to rest, and if health is too easy to restore, it really breaks the game because you can have these super long days that just go on and on.
Long story short, your comment was completely uncalled for. This feedback is useful and we appreciate it. It helps to educate other modders about whether or not they think a spell is going to break their game balance before they commit to adding it to the load order.
Now you run along and stop trying to pick fights in comment sections.
Anyway, I find these feats to be less powerful compared to what you can achieve with a well built spellcaster, while they make non-mage classes somewhat competitive. In 5e there is a huge disparity between makes and fighters (less so in BG3 because of the abundance of magic weapons and the fact that it stops at level 12).
It's probably intended more for a level 20 campaign.
If they think the feat is unbalanced, they should see what it was like in 2E getting randomly selected by the DM to manifest this power.... obviously the whole campaign (which went on for 6 months playing at least weekly for 10+ hrs) centered around this, but it was a complete surprise too all of us (he didn't say a word to us beforehand what was going to happen nor who it was going to happen to). My powers started to manifest, similar to the books, and when we realized what was going-on, all hell broke loose for the remainder of the 5 months. Hilariously, I hadn't read the books yet when it happened so I was completely caught off-guard and it made role playing it easy (I think that's partially why he picked me).
Not to make it sad, but Travis (the DM), RIP.... you are missed and I wish I could have played BG3 with you. You were lost to us, too soon.
I would change chosen of mystra spells to be more usable, right know cantrip is one time per rest, I would also increase the usages of the other spells or let you use spell slots with them.
That's a decision that was made kind of in lore, since Mystra doesn't want you to use those abilities often. The trait should also give unlimited lv 1 slots, but that seemed a little bit too OP.
Also the feat is extremely strong, with immunity to all poisons, sleep and resistance to all magic types.
Honestly, I feel like the chosen of mystra options should be changed to once per long rest instead of short rest, besides the silver fire spell, considering it's coded as a cantrip. It seems out of place for it to be once per long rest in comparison to the other parts that are much more powerful.
Is anyone else having an issue with Spellfire Blast not doing appropriate damage? When using any level of Spellfire blast, the damage breakdown looks like this:
Ex: Spellfire Blast III (19 int, +4 Spellcasting Ability Modifier) Successful hit for 0 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4) 4 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4) 0 Fire damage (Damage roll: 0) Successful hit for 0 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4) 4 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4) 0 Fire damage (Damage roll: 0) Successful hit for 0 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4) 4 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4) 0 Fire damage (Damage roll: 0) Target took no damage.
I looked in the Spell_Projectile data file and the damage string looks like this: data "SpellSuccess" "DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4),Fire,Magical)" I'm assuming each successful hit is supposed to roll 1d4+Spellcasting Ability Modifier Force damage and 1d4 Fire damage according to the code.
Yeah I asked a question that had a similar problem, at the time I thought it was just shadowheart getting wierd extra damage, but after playing some more its pretty clear that the damage calculates inconsistently. Still haven't found any kind of fix for it, but I like the mod enough to use it anyways, so oh well.
I agree the blast damage is not calculating correctly, though the Spell Smite damage seems to be. That the smite takes both an action and a bonus action is a bit steep though.
@Zabkel, @WardenJ Sorry for the late response, been busy with other mods. :)
I applied a fix for it. data "SpellSuccess" "DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4),Fire,Magical)"
It increases the damage by 1-2 and it works like it should! I don't think there are any LevelMapValues for a basic 1d4, was probably a general oversight by the developer, but the D6Cantrip LevelMapValues work like a charm.
Extract to your favorite location, then open up the .exe in the folder. Once you do, head over to BG3MM and right click Spellfire > Open in file explorer. Drag the Spellfire.pak into the blue square of the Multitool to unpack it. At the top of the multitool, you'll see Shortcuts > Unpacked Mods. Click. Open Spellfire > Public > Spellfire > Stats > Generated > Data > Edit Spell_Projectile with your notepad CTRL+F "Projectile_Spellfire_Blast" Look down. Under data "SpellSuccess"You'll see "DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4),Fire,Magical)" Change to "DealDamage(LevelMapValue(D6Cantrip)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(D6Cantrip),Fire,Magical)"
Also edit the data "TooltipDamageList" You'll see "DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4),Fire,Magical)" Change to "DealDamage(LevelMapValue(D6Cantrip)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(D6Cantrip),Fire,Magical)" This will make the tooltip reflect the damage.
Save your work. Go back to the original unpacked folder. Drag the entire folder into the Multitool blue square. It will pack the folder into a .zip. Open the .zip, extract to desktop, move into BG3MM. Save load order, export load order, COMPLETE.
this is gonna be a weird question, but considering the Spellfire Blast has some relation to the night piercer cantrip, at least based on whats written in the Spell_projectile.txt, would this be extra powerful for shadowheart? the only reason I ask, as I can't find anything written in it, is because whenever Shart uses it for me, across multiple different files, with equal stats and exact same equipment as any other character, she gets double damage while using the Spellfire Blast spell! i very seriously doubt this has anything to do with your mod, and is in actuality some strange side effect of my other mods, but I am just asking as a way to eliminate all possibilities, either way, Love the mod! Thank you for your work!
the beam animation is taken from there as it's exactly what I needed. It's very similar to other vanilla spells but I decided to ask the author if I could use that to make it more distinctive (and I also changed the prepare spell animation to make it the same as all the other spellfire ones).
That being said, Shadowheart is either a Selune or a Shar cleric. Spellfire is something related to Mystra, so it's not really fitting for it to be related to Shadowheart in any particular way.
Instead, I made the Chosen of Mystra half of the mod specifically for Gale.
Oh? No ability to drain magic items for a charge? Maybe per 100 GP per base cost of an item? Can't let just Gale know the pain of destroying magic for power.
44 comments
Honestly, I appreciate this kind of feedback. A lot mods break the balance of the game and a lot of additions to DnD are considered more powerful than the "vanilla" stuff but, at the same time, there is some distinction between DnD modules designed to be, "somewhat balanced" and modules which are just straight up broken and feel like cheating.
Obviously we want to expand the number of spells and obviously this is cheating but we still want it to be within the realm of balanced and not feel like cheating (even if it is ). We are essentially the DM of our own single player experience, and so we need to understand that a little bit or smudging the rules or extra help is not going to ruin the game, but anything too powerful absolutely will.
Healing specifically is hard to balance, because health is the mechanic which forces non-spellcasters to need to rest, and if health is too easy to restore, it really breaks the game because you can have these super long days that just go on and on.
Long story short, your comment was completely uncalled for. This feedback is useful and we appreciate it. It helps to educate other modders about whether or not they think a spell is going to break their game balance before they commit to adding it to the load order.
Now you run along and stop trying to pick fights in comment sections.
Anyway, I find these feats to be less powerful compared to what you can achieve with a well built spellcaster, while they make non-mage classes somewhat competitive. In 5e there is a huge disparity between makes and fighters (less so in BG3 because of the abundance of magic weapons and the fact that it stops at level 12).
It's probably intended more for a level 20 campaign.
Not to make it sad, but Travis (the DM), RIP.... you are missed and I wish I could have played BG3 with you. You were lost to us, too soon.
The trait should also give unlimited lv 1 slots, but that seemed a little bit too OP.
Also the feat is extremely strong, with immunity to all poisons, sleep and resistance to all magic types.
When using any level of Spellfire blast, the damage breakdown looks like this:
Ex: Spellfire Blast III (19 int, +4 Spellcasting Ability Modifier)
Successful hit for 0 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4)
4 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4)
0 Fire damage (Damage roll: 0)
Successful hit for 0 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4)
4 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4)
0 Fire damage (Damage roll: 0)
Successful hit for 0 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4)
4 Force damage (Damage roll: 0+Spellcasting Ability Modifier = 4)
0 Fire damage (Damage roll: 0)
Target took no damage.
I looked in the Spell_Projectile data file and the damage string looks like this:
data "SpellSuccess" "DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4),Fire,Magical)"I'm assuming each successful hit is supposed to roll 1d4+Spellcasting Ability Modifier Force damage and 1d4 Fire damage according to the code.
I applied a fix for it.
data "SpellSuccess" "DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4),Fire,Magical)"
changed to
data "SpellSuccess" "DealDamage(LevelMapValue(D6Cantrip)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(D6Cantrip),Fire,Magical)"
It increases the damage by 1-2 and it works like it should! I don't think there are any LevelMapValues for a basic 1d4, was probably a general oversight by the developer, but the D6Cantrip LevelMapValues work like a charm.
I must admit to not having any clue how to make the changes you note or even begin to edit a .pak file. :/
Any chance you could briefly explain what to use and how to do it?
Head over to BG3 Multitool, download the bg3-modders-multitool.zip.
Extract to your favorite location, then open up the .exe in the folder.
Once you do, head over to BG3MM and right click Spellfire > Open in file explorer.
Drag the Spellfire.pak into the blue square of the Multitool to unpack it.
At the top of the multitool, you'll see Shortcuts > Unpacked Mods. Click.
Open Spellfire > Public > Spellfire > Stats > Generated > Data > Edit Spell_Projectile with your notepad
CTRL+F "Projectile_Spellfire_Blast"
Look down.
Under
data "SpellSuccess"You'll see"DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4),Fire,Magical)"
Change to"DealDamage(LevelMapValue(D6Cantrip)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(D6Cantrip),Fire,Magical)"
Also edit the
data "TooltipDamageList"
You'll see"DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(1d4),Fire,Magical)"
Change to"DealDamage(LevelMapValue(D6Cantrip)+SpellCastingAbilityModifier,Force,Magical);DealDamage(LevelMapValue(D6Cantrip),Fire,Magical)"
This will make the tooltip reflect the damage.Save your work. Go back to the original unpacked folder. Drag the entire folder into the Multitool blue square.
It will pack the folder into a .zip. Open the .zip, extract to desktop, move into BG3MM. Save load order, export load order, COMPLETE.
Gale is now properly endowed according to my own head canon, using this -plus- Yoseph's Enweaved Feat (and some other things)...
Thanks!
That being said, Shadowheart is either a Selune or a Shar cleric. Spellfire is something related to Mystra, so it's not really fitting for it to be related to Shadowheart in any particular way.
Instead, I made the Chosen of Mystra half of the mod specifically for Gale.