Name: Flash's Creatures Rescale
Version: 1.01b
Date: 2010-07-05
Category: Gameplay Effects and Changes
Author: Andrzej 'Flash' Kwiatkowski

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Requirements:
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Improved Atmosphere mod by SpaceAlex: http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=577
FCR uses IA area files so these are required parts of IA mod

2.1 IA Areas

(...)

Requirements: Animations, Scripts, Dialogs & Stages & Cutscenes.

This is pretty much the core of IA mod. Everything else is optional.

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Description:
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The purpouse of this mod is to put some logic into Dragon Age creature rank system. Have you ever wondered why a human commander is as strong and resistant as a high dragon? Why a simple peasant or merchant is lieutenant rank just because he gives a quest? Why mighty and ferocious hurlocks are critter rank or one-hit-kill enemies? This mod will fix every logic error and make the game consistent in rank choices basing on game's lore. Additionally you can choose from variety optional tweaks which increase game's difficulty and fix Climax battles in Redcliffe and Denerim where you face a one-hit-kill darkspawn army.

FCR includes tweaks of Stone Prisoner, Wardens Keep and Return to Ostagar DLCs.

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Details:
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Vanilla Dragon Age features simple rank system:

* Critter
* Normal
* Lieutenant (Elite)
* Boss
* Elite Boss

The problem is that whole game is filled with illogical, insconsistent to the lore rank settings.

Examples:
- According to the lore a single abomination is capable of slaughtering entire village, yet with few exceptions abominations are ranked 'normal' or 'elite' like some simple human bandits.
- An aging noble - arl Howe is 'boss' ranked, while templars and knights who dedicate their life to hone their fighting skills are 'normal' ranked.
- A skilled warrior - ser Cauthrien is 'elite boss'. A human is not an equivalent of a greater demon or mature dragon, no matter how skilled she is.

Problems like these are everywhere and concern much more than half NPCs and creatures in the game.

Changes:
1. Ranks
This mod utilize unused 'weak normal' rank plus 5 vanilla ranks to properly scale enemies. Ranks are NOT assigned by creature's importancy or noble status. Being an arl, teyrn, king or queen doesn't mean that such person is an excellent fighter. Ranks are assigned by creature's species and proficiency in combat.

Mod fix ranks of around 6874 creatures in 217 areas.
All 6 ranks are color coded in game.
Ranks descriptions*:
Easy - consists of basic animals and humans who may know how to hold a weapon but they have no training in using it.
Normal - consists of simple human soldiers and city guards, dangerous wildlife like bears, giant spiders and weakest demon incarnations like lesser rage demons, skeletons and walking corpses.
Hard - consist of profesional veteran combatants who spend most of their life fighting or training, basic darkspawn, powerful or tainted animals, average demons and their embodiments and more.
Elite - consists of heroes, most skilled fighters and mages, powerful darkspawn like alphas, emissaries, simple ogres, dangerous demons and their embodiments and more.
Boss - most powerful creatures in Ferelden like dragons, ancient darkspawns, greater demons and their embodiments.
Elite Boss - consists of creatures which alone pose a threat to the world like high dragons, greater pride demons and their embodiments.

* for detailed list of creatures per rank please check images or just CLICK HERE

Because Elite rank serves as a mini-boss and consists of human bosses, XP gain from kills is slightly increased.
Additionally chance for special finisher animations has been increased to 100% for Elite and Boss ranks.


2. Difficulty (optional)
FCR also offers various ways to increase difficulty:
* APR_base_FCR.gda - removes enemy max level cap,
* difficulty_FCR.gda - reduces healing efficiency to 25% on nightmare difficulty; your tank won't be invincible anymore with 2 healers in party so now you actually have to use your brain,
* packages_base_FCR.gda - enemy levels per skill ratio set to 1 (was 1.8 to 6),
* autoscale_FCR_*.gda - rebalance of enemy stats (full comparison on attached IMAGE)
It's advised to play Origins or even Lothering without difficulty tweaks.

In Very Hard difficulty tweak, One-Hit-Kill rank settings are the same as Hard rank settings. This means that during the Climax battles in Redcliffe and Denerim you'll face an actuall darkspawn army instead of one-hit-kill weaklings.

3. HP decrease (optional)
Did you see Sacred Ashes trailer? That's some impressive and dynamic combat isn't it? How about making the game more similar to this trailer?
This set of tweaks decrease starting HP of each class to 50, 45 and 40, and HP per level to 4, 3, 2 for warrior, rogue and mage respectively. This applies both to your party and enemy classes.
These changes make the combat more dynamic and realistic. You won't have to hit enemies dozens of times with your epic weapons and mighty spells to kill them. Same goes to your party.

4. Potion cooldown (optional)
This is a further decrease of healing potency apart from difficulty changes. Potions cooldown is increased to 30 seconds to turn off "god mode" which potions are.

5. Steal cooldown (optional)
Just a little bonus for thieves. Vanilla 10 seconds cooldown results in nothing else but a waste of player's time.
Cooldown reduced to 1 second.

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Compatibility:
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FCR is compatible with Improved Atmosphere, Combat Tweaks, Advanced Tactics and most if not all other popular mods. Every mod that doesn't change the same files, most importantly area files will be compatible.

FCR includes tweaks of Stone Prisoner, Wardens Keep and Return to Ostagar DLCs.

Mod can be installed and active while playing Awakening but it won't change ranks in expansion.

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Installation:
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1. Unpack mod's archive and put zFCR folder in "...\My Documents\Bioware\packages\override" directory.
2. Explore zFCR folder and keep or remove optional tweaks.
Optional:
3. Choose difficulty by deleting unwanted folders in "...\My Documents\Bioware\packages\override\zFCR\2. Difficulty" directory.
4. If you have Combat Tweaks installed copy ABI_zCT.gda file from "...\zFCR\3. HP decrease\compatibility" directory to "...\zFCR\3. HP decrease". If you don't have Combat Tweaks delete compatibility folder

Keep in mind that rank tweaks will only work in unvisited locations. Once you visit particular location its data is stored in savegame and mod won't alter that data.

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Un-Installation:
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Just delete zFCR folder from "...\My Documents\Bioware\packages\override" directory.

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Known Issues:
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None. Mod was thoroughly playtested.

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History:
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2010-07-02 - Version 1.00
2010-07-04 - Version 1.01
* added support to Return to Ostagar
2010-07-04 - Version 1.01a
* added missing files
2010-07-05 - Version 1.01b
* a little fix to compatibility with IA's Bodies stay feature

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Contact:
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E-mail: [email protected]

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Credits:
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Thanks to Bioware for creating Dragon Age: Origins.
Thanks to InsanitySorrow for his ReadMe Generator this file is based on.
Thanks to SpaceAlex for allowing me to include his area files in my mod.

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Tools Used:
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Dragon Age Tool Set
Dragon Age ReadMe Generator
NWN GFFEditor

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Licensing/Legal:
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You may use this as you wish but you must credit me for my work.
Please do not re-host this file without my explicit permission.