Awesome concept, love fighting insanely overpowered bosses in mods.
Some critiques though - it doesn't seem like you've referenced Vlaakith's DnD 5e statblock at all? I think I'd prefer you to take inspiration from it a little more. And also there HAS to be more immersive (or at least easier) way of summoning her other than downloading a totally separate mod to take a scroll from the tutorial chest.
Paired this with the "Copy Any NPC" mod and it works flawlessly - it's so fun to have a "more balanced" Vlaakith throughout the game as a companion. I know this isn't the intent of the mod, but I thought to just mention it! Additionally, the boss fight is a bit overloaded and too linear right now I think - the biggest issue is that counterspell shuts her down pretty hard, although most of her casts are indeed level 9/6 spell slots so it isn't consistent. I think the best thing could be to add some kind of summon - instead of just frontloading her damage, she could have something like "After attacking, can use X spells as a bonus action" and one of her bonus action spells summons 2/3 generic githyanki or a weakened generic red dragon?
I did consider adding a summon to her, but I though the issue I was running into was she would attack them as well(since she doesn't have a faction herself and is really just "Mad"). I did think of counter spell but thought that you would burn out before she does. As you can see with the friendly summon version she does have other spell that I will eventually get working. I am also open to adding other spells to her list to increase variety, this was just my first stab at what I guessed she might have. I am unaware of the copy mod but will certainly look into it lol. Thanks!
edit: I am looking for the "Copy any NPC" mod but am having trouble finding it :(
Here is the mod I was referencing, there seems to be an updated mod made by another author that is more reliable but this is working just fine for me on Hotfix 20/Patch 6: https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1646
I also see the issue with summons - I don't have much modding experience personally, but a way to get that to work by adding them into a similar faction would be cool! If not, more spell variety would probably make the fight more fun, which is nice to see you working on :)
I think a good start would be to just add a lot of spells that she would likely have in BG3 to her kit or other passive buffs/resources. Here's her Dragon+ sheet: https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/dragon/19/DRA19_LichQueen2.pdf
I also think it would be neat to treat her as an undead - would make it harder to beat her through means like hold person/other cc, while totally not being biased for having it work with Aura of Hate in my own modded campaign
EDIT: I also think some other interesting things to add to the mod would be as follows:
- Demigod form (8th level spell slot) currently feels underwhelming, just adding 12 unstoppable and nothing else. I think reworking this into a 3-turn buff that increases her onhit damage, increases spell save dc, gives her additional actions/reactions/bonus actions and allows her to cast spells using bonus actions, or really any creative mesh of this could be better. There's a lot of base game effects to go off for this (like Spider Queen's Wrath) and maybe it could be conditional (Such as once per battle and only usable when <50% hp, etc.).
- Could give her some kind of freecast passive potentially, keeps in line with her lore. Vlaakith consumes ascended Gith to cast spells for relatively free (Like her using Wish without any kind of drawback), so it could be neat to have this as a feature (Such as for every 3 enemies killed, her next spell consumes no spell slots)
Those are just some base ideas for now, let me know if I'm getting a bit too ambitious with my ideas!
Add on the summon unlocker for spells and abilities and equipment mod for summons and you have your very own litch queen demi-god follower who just wrecks shit. It's awesome and I love it.
Would you ever consider writing an article or filming a video on how you created a mod like this?
I'd like to do something similar but instead of Vlaakith, I'd like to be able to create a Mystra fight in act 3 but I just have no idea where to even start.
I can answer questions if you DM me on here but just a warning since it's your first mod there will be a lot of learning. I am also about to go on vacation so sorry in advance for slow replies If you do DM me.
I recommend watching https://youtu.be/yZDZ5myH8-E?si=VU2eP6BI2uF-dYxa as a primer if you are interested.
if i may make a suggestion: there's a way to cause vlaakith to get so angry with you that she uses her wish spell to tpk the party, resulting in a game over. could you possibly make it so that if you have counterspell, or even add in your own wish spell with a mod, you counter her wish, and then this fight spawns in instead?
Are there any rules for beating her? Or how we approach this before you accept it as a defeat against her. Because I play with level 20 / unlock level curve.
Edit: Also a suggestion. If you want to give her a spawn location for a potential party fight or TPK. When the Githyanki ambush us at Moonrise Towers. You could have her spawn into that area after you beat her "Chosen" similar to Myrkul. Then have her stay there for 10 turns max. Make it so people have to either escape, fight her, or survive for 10 turns until she fully disappears. I think that could bring an interesting challenge.
Sorry for the slow reply, My thoughts on the boss fight were to build it as fighting a true demigod, Which should still be extremely hard for even a party of level 20's. With that being said I know I still need to do some balancing. I have considered a something like you mention in your edit, however I am not sure exactly on how to pursue that. Maybe I could modify a gith that would spawn her on death? The only issue I can think of right now with that is that I would be modifying a "core asset" and that could run into some conflicts with other mods. Worth looking into certainly!
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JumpSome critiques though - it doesn't seem like you've referenced Vlaakith's DnD 5e statblock at all? I think I'd prefer you to take inspiration from it a little more. And also there HAS to be more immersive (or at least easier) way of summoning her other than downloading a totally separate mod to take a scroll from the tutorial chest.
Additionally, the boss fight is a bit overloaded and too linear right now I think - the biggest issue is that counterspell shuts her down pretty hard, although most of her casts are indeed level 9/6 spell slots so it isn't consistent.
I think the best thing could be to add some kind of summon - instead of just frontloading her damage, she could have something like "After attacking, can use X spells as a bonus action" and one of her bonus action spells summons 2/3 generic githyanki or a weakened generic red dragon?
edit: I am looking for the "Copy any NPC" mod but am having trouble finding it :(
I also see the issue with summons - I don't have much modding experience personally, but a way to get that to work by adding them into a similar faction would be cool! If not, more spell variety would probably make the fight more fun, which is nice to see you working on :)
I think a good start would be to just add a lot of spells that she would likely have in BG3 to her kit or other passive buffs/resources. Here's her Dragon+ sheet: https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/dragon/19/DRA19_LichQueen2.pdf
I also think it would be neat to treat her as an undead - would make it harder to beat her through means like hold person/other cc, while totally not being biased for having it work with Aura of Hate in my own modded campaign
EDIT: I also think some other interesting things to add to the mod would be as follows:
- Demigod form (8th level spell slot) currently feels underwhelming, just adding 12 unstoppable and nothing else. I think reworking this into a 3-turn buff that increases her onhit damage, increases spell save dc, gives her additional actions/reactions/bonus actions and allows her to cast spells using bonus actions, or really any creative mesh of this could be better. There's a lot of base game effects to go off for this (like Spider Queen's Wrath) and maybe it could be conditional (Such as once per battle and only usable when <50% hp, etc.).
- Could give her some kind of freecast passive potentially, keeps in line with her lore. Vlaakith consumes ascended Gith to cast spells for relatively free (Like her using Wish without any kind of drawback), so it could be neat to have this as a feature (Such as for every 3 enemies killed, her next spell consumes no spell slots)
Those are just some base ideas for now, let me know if I'm getting a bit too ambitious with my ideas!
I'd like to do something similar but instead of Vlaakith, I'd like to be able to create a Mystra fight in act 3 but I just have no idea where to even start.
I recommend watching https://youtu.be/yZDZ5myH8-E?si=VU2eP6BI2uF-dYxa as a primer if you are interested.
Edit: Also a suggestion. If you want to give her a spawn location for a potential party fight or TPK. When the Githyanki ambush us at Moonrise Towers. You could have her spawn into that area after you beat her "Chosen" similar to Myrkul. Then have her stay there for 10 turns max. Make it so people have to either escape, fight her, or survive for 10 turns until she fully disappears. I think that could bring an interesting challenge.
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