1 items
About this mod
Implements downcasting: The ability to cast higher level spells using a lower level spell slot for less damage. Rebalanced these spells to scale better at lower levels, also rebalanced the spells among themselves so no spell becomes obsolete when upcasted to higher level spell slots.
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DOWNCASTING
You can now downcast spells, meaning you can now cast weaker versions of higher level spells using lower level spell slots. This allows for more tactical gameplay and gives you the ability to save your higher level spell slots when you need them. Want to cast fireball on a group of weak goblins but don't want to spend a level 3 spell slot? Now you can! launch a downcasted fireball and take advantage of that AOE!
BALANCING
You can now downcast spells, meaning you can now cast weaker versions of higher level spells using lower level spell slots. This allows for more tactical gameplay and gives you the ability to save your higher level spell slots when you need them. Want to cast fireball on a group of weak goblins but don't want to spend a level 3 spell slot? Now you can! launch a downcasted fireball and take advantage of that AOE!
BALANCING
This will be the more contentious part of the mod, especially for the purists out there who play TT. I've completely revamped the spells that I added the ability to downcast. Reason being the upcasting values sometimes don't scale well when downcasting (imo they don't scale well when upcasted but hey). With this mod, all spells now scale alongside each other. For example, when you get Shatter at level 3 you're going to have an AOE spell that deals 3d8 damage in a circle with 3m radius, once you hit level 5, you get fireball that deals 8d6 in a circle with 4m radius. An upcasted shatter will only deal 4d8 (18 avg) but a fireball deals 8d6 (28 avg) in a bigger radius, it even deals more damage than a lot of single target spells despite being aoe e.g. Chrome Orb Thunder 5d8 (22.5). This bothered me a lot and so I rebalanced these damaging spells first to scale well with downcasting and 2nd just to balance them around each other. Now you should be getting approximately the same value between two different damaging spells when both are cast at the same level spell slot.
THE CURRENT ISSUES
The game apparently doesn't allow downcasting natively so I had to cheat a bit. It won't allow me to create weaker variants of these spells and just put costs at a lower spell slot. Without boring you with unnecessarily complicated stuff, basically I had to make the base level of these spells all level 1 that are upcastable. You will still need to reach the required level to learn this spell as apparently the game has spell lists that determine which specific spells can be learned by which class at a particular class level BUT the tooltip will show level 1 instead of level 3 for fireball for example. Also since these spells are technically seen by the game as level 1 now, wizards can technically learn every spell in the game at level 1 provided they have a scroll BUT will still be only able to cast the level 1 version of these spells since they will only have level 1 spell slots.
THE CHANGES
CANTRIPSTHE CURRENT ISSUES
The game apparently doesn't allow downcasting natively so I had to cheat a bit. It won't allow me to create weaker variants of these spells and just put costs at a lower spell slot. Without boring you with unnecessarily complicated stuff, basically I had to make the base level of these spells all level 1 that are upcastable. You will still need to reach the required level to learn this spell as apparently the game has spell lists that determine which specific spells can be learned by which class at a particular class level BUT the tooltip will show level 1 instead of level 3 for fireball for example. Also since these spells are technically seen by the game as level 1 now, wizards can technically learn every spell in the game at level 1 provided they have a scroll BUT will still be only able to cast the level 1 version of these spells since they will only have level 1 spell slots.
THE CHANGES
Just straight buffs to the cantrips with bigger buffs to some which I think deserve it. e.g. shocking grasp because it's melee and sacred flame because it only does damage and relies on saving throw instead of attack roll.
Acid Splash1d6 to 1d10
Chill Touch1d8 to 1d12
Eldritch Blast1d10 to 2d6
Firebolt1d10 to 2d6
Poison Spray1d12 to 3d4
Produce Flame1d8 to 1d10
Ray of Frost1d8 to 1d12
Sacred Flame1d8 to 2d6
Shocking Grasp1d8 to 3d4
Thorn Whip1d6 to 1d10
Viscious Mockery1d4 to 1d8
LEVEL 1 SPELLS
Armor of Agathysdamage and temp HP from 5 each plus 5 per level to 8 each plus 4 per level. This change will make it scale better with the other spells, also it will be stronger at early levels but slightly weaker at later levels.
Arms of Hadarfrom 2d6 + 1d6 per level to 2d10 + 1d10 per level. Arms of Hadar has a very decent effect of not allowing reactions, but the AOE is relatively small and requires you to be in melee range to risk your hide to cast it. It deserves to deal more damage.
Burning Handsfrom 3d6 + 1d6 per level to 2d12 + 1d12 per level. Same reasoning with Arms of Hadar, requires you to be very close to your opponent and has a relatively small aoe, really needs a buff to be relevant at higher levels.
Chromatic Orbfrom 3d8 thunder, 2d8 others + 1d8 per level to 2d12 thunder, 2d10 others + 1d12 per level for thunder and + 1d10 for others. This will be weaker than other single target spells but what it gives up in power, it makes up for in versatility. I've envisioned this spell to be the tactical weakness seeker spell.
Dissonant Whispersfrom 3d6 + 1d6 per level to 2d10 + 1d10 per level. It stays mostly the same but changed the damage dice to make it scale better at later levels. It's a long range single target spell with a great effect in frighten.
Guiding Boltfrom 4d6 + 1d6 per level to 2d12 + 1d12 per level. A very slight barely noticeable nerf to guiding bolt at level 1, but increases the power gained per level to still be relevant at late game when upcasted.
Hellish Rebukefrom 2d10 + 1d10 per level to 2d12+1d12 per level. Just a slight buff
Ice Knifefrom 1d10 pierce, 2d6 cold + 1d6 cold per level to 2d6 pierce, 1d10 cold + 1d10 cold per level. I made this change so I can put 1d10 cold improvement per level for the spell to scale to late game
Inflict Woundsfrom 3d10 + 1d10 per level to 4d8 + 2d8 per level. Everything about this spell is bad, it's melee, it's single target, and has no effect. It deserves to deal massive damage.
Magic Missilefrom 3 missiles doing 1d4+1 each adding more missiles per level to 2 missiles doing 2d4 each, damage increasing 1d4 per missile per level. This might be a contentious point. You see magic missile would be fine in itself if the progression was 2 missiles then add 1 missile per level, but the problem is empowered evocation (wizard level 11) adds your INT modifier to every single missile. This makes magic missile deal roughly double damage which is beyond overpowered and breaks the whole point of balancing this spell. So I decided to just let it have 2 missiles where the damage of each missile increases per level. (OPTIONAL FILE enables 2d4 damage per missile increasing in # of missiles per level for those who want to abuse empowered evocation )
Ray of Sicknessfrom 2d8 + 1d8 per level to 2d10 + 1d10 per level. Slight buff, it's only single target, but has a decent effect in poison.
Thunderwaveno changes, I didn't buff it like I did the other AOE spells simply because knockback is insanely good in this game
Witchbolt
LEVEL 2 SPELLS(+/- indicates downcasting)
Aidfrom 5hp + 5hp per level to 9hp +/- 3hp per level. Scaling purposes
Cloud of Daggersfrom 4d4 + 2d4 per level to 3d8 +1d8 per level. Slight buff to this area denial spell. Relatively small area so increased damage a bit, but not to the level of other aoe spells.
Flaming Spherefrom 2d6 + 1d6 per level to 3d4 +/- 1d4 per level. Just adjusted the scaling a bit, should still be the same at level 2 but less powerful at higher levels. The sphere has an aura and a ram attack separate from the player, so nerfed a bit at higher levels.
Heat MetalI'm not doing this one because there are so many conditions inside the data files that my head hurt just trying to find everything.
Melf's Acid Arrowfrom 4d4+2d4 + 1d4+1d4 per level to 4d6+2d6 +/- 1d6+1d6 per level. Seriously, this spell is so bad, there was no reason of using this. Damage was weak, it's single target, and almost half the damage was delayed. So if you're using this to kill, enemy might still survive til the end of their turn and smack you before it dies, major damage buff, but nothing too crazy.
Moonbeamfrom 2d10 + 1d10 per level to 3d8 +/- 1d8 per level. It's basically cloud of daggers but smaller aoe but with the ability to move it. Should deal the same damage as CoD
Prayer of Healingjust added a downcast
Scorching Rayfrom 3 rays 2d6 each + 1 ray per level to 2 rays 3d6 each +/- 1d6 damage per ray per level. Basically the same treatment as magic missile. There will also be an optional file to revert this if you want it to do insane damage when used with empowered evocation OR elemental affinity from red dragon sorcerer since that also applies CHA mod to each ray. (OPTIONAL FILE keeps original behavior and adds downcast to fire only 2 rays at level 1)
Shatterfrom 3d8 + 1d8 per level to 3d10 +/- 1d10 per level. Buffed this to make it deal the same damage as a fireball with the same spell slot.
LEVEL 3 SPELLS(This is where most of the stupidly overpowered spells are)
Call lightning
Fireballfrom 8d6 + 1d6 per level to 4d10 +/- 1d10 per level. You all expected this nerf to come. Huge damage and huge area? Come on, it will now deal the same damage as shatter at the same spell level. It will regain it's power at higher spell slots though since it now scales 1d10 per level.
Glyph of WardingI can't find the stupid files that contained the actual glyphs that dealt the damage. Might implement in the future if I do find them. Come on, we don't have tools yet, I'm opening these files one by one using notepad, cut me some slack.
Lightning Boltfrom 8d6 + 1d6 per level to 4d10 +/- 1d10 per level. Basically the same as fireball, so same treatment.
Spirit Guardians
Vampiric Touchfrom 3d6 + 1d6 per level to 4d8 +/- 1d8 per level. Straight buff here. It's melee, it's a concentration spell, both horrible features, it should deal way more damage than 3d6.
Blightfrom 8d8 + 1d8 per level to 10d6+5 + 2d6+1 per level. It doesn't really do anything besides being a short range damage spell, it doesn't even work on constructs and undead so I gave it a small damage buff.
Ice Stormfrom 2d8(bludgeon)+4d6(cold) + 1d8(bludgeon) per level to 1d8(bludgeon)+4d8(cold) +/- 1d8(cold) per level. I decided to scale this with cold damage per level, and I did it this way for a smooth transition to the downcasted version. Should deal slightly less damage than the new fireball since this spell gives you an ice surface and covers a massive area.
Phantasmal Killerfrom 4d10 + 1d10 per level to 5d8 +/- 1d8 per level. Pretty balanced spell imo, I just tweaked the scaling to proper damage when downcasted.
Wall of Firefrom 5d8 + 1d8 per level to 5d6 +/- 1d6 per level. This was the premier area denial spell in the base game. Compared to cloud of daggers, wall of fire had a larger aoe, more control of the aoe, had higher base damage, and inflicts burning for even more damage. This is a no brainer nerf.
LEVEL 5 SPELLS
Cloudkillfrom 5d8 + 1d8 per level to 6d6 + 1d6 per level. Moveable area of denial spell. Same base damage as wall of fire but will deal less as it doesn't inflict extra DoT. (I could not find the entries for the surface effect, so I could not provide downcasting for this spell, I only rebalanced it for level 5 and 6)
Cone of Coldfrom 8d8 +1d8 per level to 6d10 +/- 1d10 per level. AOE ice spell, nothing fancy, should deal the same damage as fireball/lightning bolt.
Flame Strikefrom 5d6(fire)+5d6(radiant) + 1d6(fire)+1d6(radiant) per level to 6d4(fire)+6d6(radiant) +/- 1d4(fire)+1d6(radiant). Just made small adjustments to the scaling for smooth transition to downcasting. Will deal ever so slightly more damage than the other aoe spells since it's a relatively small aoe.
Insect Plaguefrom 4d10 + 1d10 per level to 6d6 +/- 1d6 per level. This is pretty much the same as cloudkill, just not moveable.
LEVEL 6 SPELLS
I'm considering not doing this because level 6 spells have no upcasting so I don't really have a template on how to implement downcasting. It would require me to make everything from scratch which would make it very difficult for someone with my modding skills (I've only started modding this game for less than a week). You can just roleplay that the level 6 spells are too powerful by nature and can't be downcasted. :) In the future I might implement downcasting for the damaging level 6 spells, but I also want to do a couple of playthroughs first. Thanks guys!
WITH REGARDS TO REQUESTS AND BUG REPORTS
Please report to me any bugs you get so I can start fixing them ASAP. I will entertain requests and create optional files if said request is reasonable and in the spirit of balance. DO NOT REQUEST UNREASONABLE AND OVERPOWERED STUFF.
COMPATIBILITY WITH 5e SPELLS
If you load this mod after 5e spells you should be able to keep all the spells added by 5e spells but any vanilla spells that my mod and 5e spells both touch (e.g. Chromatic Orb) will favor my mod.
INSTALLATION
BG3 Mod Manager
CURRENT OPTIONAL FILES ARE
Please report to me any bugs you get so I can start fixing them ASAP. I will entertain requests and create optional files if said request is reasonable and in the spirit of balance. DO NOT REQUEST UNREASONABLE AND OVERPOWERED STUFF.
COMPATIBILITY WITH 5e SPELLS
If you load this mod after 5e spells you should be able to keep all the spells added by 5e spells but any vanilla spells that my mod and 5e spells both touch (e.g. Chromatic Orb) will favor my mod.
INSTALLATION
BG3 Mod Manager
CURRENT OPTIONAL FILES ARE
Scorching Ray and Magic Missile Revert
Wet Nerf
