Mod: Gameplay Additions

[mg979]

I made some modifications based on Ergo's FixPack for Drakensang, that you can find here:

https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6984

You can download the mod here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tuwshlil1p4tfkm/DrakensangMod2_1b.7z?dl=0

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NOTE: a feature to update your quicksave is included but I wouldn't use it to avoid unexpected results.

This is the readme:

Drakensang, The Dark Eye
Gameplay additions to Ergo's FixPack 1.80
v2.0 by mg979

Credits: Ergo's FixPack for his mod and new graphics. I included them in v2, 
    because of problems that can arise with both mods mixed, I hope it is not
    a problem.
         
Additional credits from Ergo's mod: icons for items by Zalpha, fixed loot table
   (by Qendivardo) from german patch

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                              Installation
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Important: please make a backup of the \export\db folder, just to be safe.

English only supported.

To install/uninstall extract to any directory, edit Install.bat if you want to
set your own paths to the game or the quicksave, or just run Install.bat,
you will be able to choose what you want to install and what not.

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                     Installation Settings Explained
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When you run Install.bat you can choose among different components:

Core: tweaks to talent speeds, items, summons, loot tables, spells, abilities

Reworked Classes: read later in this readme for details. Harder version has
       an additional -1 to AT/PA for most spellcasters.

Difficulty: more VP/AT/PA for enemies. Harder version increases VP for weaker
       orcs, goblins and dragon cultists.
            
Items: former Ergo's FixPack items, but rduced their bonuses in many cases.
       
Darker Dungeons: not installed by default, you can install it if you want.

Running speed: default 1.5x, you can set it also to 1.25x or 1.75x.

You can optionally apply changes to the quicksave too, but I don't recommend it
if you don't know which settings are good for you. It's mostly irreversible.
You can set the path to your quicksave by editing the Install.bat file.

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Summary of new additions:

- new classes: wizard (replaces healing mage), crossbowman (replaces archer),
  Novadi archer (replaces alchemist)
- every class has its individual bonuses/penalties to talents, weapons, spells,
  and even AT/PA/Dodge
- totally reworked special abilities, ranged and throwing weapons
- faster battle spells (to make pure mages viable), other spells changes
- altered loot tables (removed most potions, items that you can craft instead,
  or otherwise too good non-unique loot)
- more valuable non-magic jewelry (rings, chains)
- removed trash from barrels
- restored original Dark Eye spell names when appropriate
- armors, weapons and item tweaks (some new or changed effects)

Kept from Ergo's mod:

- localization fixes
- new items (toned down)
- fixed loot tables
- difficulty tweaks (lower starting attributes, talent values etc)
- improved summons
- some special abilities tweaks (power throw, etc)
- Willpower penalty when testing for wounds: 10 -> 12

Tweaked from Ergo's mod:

- health/astral points regeneration (slower, but it doesn't interefere with item
  bonuses anymore)
- tougher fights (bonuses for both monsters and NPCs, more options)
- running speed (more options)
- faster talent use: expanded (also for lockpicking, traps...)
- lowered general talents too (not only weapons/spells)
- shields variations (different bonus/penalties)
- Fire Elemental Armor

Removed from Ergo's mod:

- universal equipment of fire
- +3 dodge to everyone (now individual for class/race)
- experience bonus and level uncapper
- special abilities costs: replaced with my own variations
- specialist mages: now every class has its individual bonuses/penalties
- some more stuff I can't remember now

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                          Reworked Classes and Races
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Each class has it own set of skill bonuses and penalties. Warrior types receive
additional bonus to VP and ED, spellcasters some more AE. Generally, lots of
penalties to lots of talents: you will have to train them, especially for
classes who are not very confident with them. Before you cuold make any
character (one that you left at your residence) into a master crafter
(alchemist/bowier/smith), now you can simply forget it... Artisan skills (and
many others, actually most talents and even spells) will have huge penalties on
non specialists: a Dwarf will be good at smithing, a thief will not; a Metamage
will be good at casting Skelettarius, a Charlatan will not!

Treat Wounds/Gift: they become important talents, because healing spells are
more difficult to cast (penalties) and take also longer to cast. Remember that
some items give a bonus, so use them.

- Warriors:         -4/-6
- Thorwalians:      -6/-6
- Rogues:           -6/-4
- Dwarves:          -4/-4
- Rangers:           0/0
- Other elves:      -2/-2
- Wizard/Metamage:  -2/-2
- Others:           -4/-4

Each class can also have AT (Attack Value), PA (Parry) or DV (Dodge) bonuses or
penalties, general or applied to specific weapons (and spells). The new logic
is: if you're 'good' at it, probably you won't have penalties (or +1 in rare
cases). Otherwise, you can have big penalties (especially for generic talents
and spells). Generally 2H weapons give penalties, or no bonus on warrior types.
I include an Excel table with all talents and spells values for each class.
PENALTIES ARE ABUNDANT, BONUSES ARE RARE! Both for talents and spells.

v2: the Excel sheet isn't updated yet but it can give you a rough idea.

Bows are much more difficult to train: it was too easy to bring ranged attack to
about 19 (always hits). Consider an average penalty of -3 or -4 for most
characters, archers and elves less, some others more (dwarves, Thorwalians).
Crossbows have different penalties, usually less. I reduced reload time to 1
action for longbow and light crossbow, 3 for heavy crossbow.

Some basic infos:

- Middleman warriors: +1 PA, -1 DV, rather good with most weapons
- Crossbowman starts with Master Crossbow and a light crossbow, that shoots with
  no reload time
- Amazon: +1 PA, good with sabres
- Thorwalian: -2 PA, -2 DV, higher VP, bonus to Willpower, faster ED
  regeneration frequency(4->3). Big on offense, worse on defense and healing.
- Dwarves: +1 AT (mercenaries), good with axes/maces (1h and 2h).
- Rogues: -1 AT, good with fencing weapons, locks & pickpocket
- Battlemage: -2 AT, -2 PA, good at battle spells
- Wizard: -4 AT, -1 PA, +1 DV, AE regeneration, rather good in most spells,
  better with staves
- Charlatan: -2 AT, -2 PA, +1 DV, social skills, very good with fencing weapons.
- Ranger: -2 AT, -1 PA, good with bows, best healer, nature skills
- Spellweaver: -3 AT, -2 PA, AE regeneration
- Elven Fighter: -1 AT, slow AE regeneration
- All elves: rather good with bows, swords, spears, healing talents and spells,
  physically rather weak
- Elementalist: -4 AT, -3 PA, AE regeneration, sabres, good in battle/summoning
  spells, starts with Ignisphaero
- Metamage: -3 AT, -4 PA, AE regeneration, sabres, best in Skelettarius and
  Horriphobus
- Archer: -2 AT, -1 PA, good with bows, better physical stats than ranger but no
  magic, animal lore

Spellcasters have some good starting spells:

- Wizard: Paralysys, Foramen
- Ranger: Helpful Paw
- Spellweaver: Somnigravis (new name for sleep spell, instead of Helpful Paw)
- Elven Fighter: Ice Cold Warrior
- Elementalist: Ignisphaero
- Metamage: Skelettarius and Horriphobus

Some spellcaster have also an increased AE regeneration frequency: standard is
10 instead of 5, with these exceptions:

- Wizard:           7
- Ranger:           9
- Spellweaver:      8
- Elementalist:     8
- Metamage:         9


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                             Special Abilities
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Money cost increased 8x for special abilities, 2x for spells. You shouldn't drown
in ducats anymore, or in XPs.

Offensive/defensive styles reworked. Now they are worth upgrading, especially
for non-fighters characters who have a lower AT/PA:

- I:   100 XP, +1 AT/PA, 2 EP
- II:  200 XP, +2 AT/PA, 2 EP
- III: 400 XP, +4 AT/PA, 3 EP

The biggest change concerns the fact that now most special attacks have to 
succeed their attack roll, while before this was always successful with a 
couple exceptions, so that you could perform a Strike of Wrath having 0 points 
in the weapon talent. Only Rush and Roundhouse are still always successful 
now. To compensate this, I reduced ED costs in many cases, and added other 
benefits.

From requirements, Offensive Style has been removed everywhere, and also AT 
Basis (x), because you could raise that with spells/items and that counted. 
Instead, many attacks have expanded attribute requirements (ST, DE etc) and 
you can't cheat on those. This will make it much more difficult (maybe 
impossible) to master everything. For example, ranged attacks and Stormblade 
require Dexterity, an otherwise rather useless attribute, so they will not be 
for everybody.

Abilities in detail:

                 EP     XP   New Requirements      New Extras

Feint            10    200                         AR 3/4
Lunge            15    350   CO/12 IN/12 AG/13     
Stormblade       20    500   CO/14 DE/12 IN/13     AR/2, PA -2, -spears
Rush             15    100   CO/11 IN/12 AG/11 
Mortal Blow      25    500   CO/14 IN/15           

Mighty Blow      15    200   ST/13                 PA -1
Knock Down       10    200   CO/13 ST/15
Roundhouse       20    350   CO/13 AG/13
Strike of Wrath  30    600   CO/15 CN/14           PA -4

Aimed Shot       8     100   DE/10
Rain of Arrows   12    200   DE/14
Marksman         17    200   DE/12
Master Marksman  25    400   DE/14

Aimed Throw      5     100   DE/10
Rain of Iron     15    200   DE/14
Power Throw      15    200   DE/11 ST/14           Dx3, k.o. 1CR(ST)
Master Throw     25    400   DE/13                 Dx2, -AR, 1W, stun 3CR(CN/2)


Defensive abilities:

- Master Parry: 10 EP, 100 XP, IN13
- Wall of Blades: 400 XP, AG13
- Windmill: 250 XP, AG14, IN14, 2 parries and 2 counterattacks


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                             Item Tweaks
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All leather gloves leave room for arm greaves.
Steel arm/leg greaves can be worn by males too (not dwarves).
Some elven armor is elven only.
Ferdok's robe encumbrance reduced from 2.5 to 1.
Magician's Rapier has a new permanent effect.
Improved hunting/war bolts, hunting arrows (edit from Ergo's)


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                                Spells
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1 combat round = 2 actions (1 attack and 1 parry, or 2 other actions)

Faster spells:

- 1 action: Thunderbolt, Lightning Find You, Light, Foramen
- Attribute spells, Duplicatus, Somnigravis, most battle spells: 3 or 4 -> 2
actions
- Aero Fugo -> 3 actions
- Ignisphaero Fireball -> 4 actions

Slower spells:

- Balsam: 5 actions (Treat Wounds costs now 3 actions)
- Klarum Purum: 7 actions (Treat Gift costs 4 actions)
- Calm Body: 1 -> 4 actions

Spell types:

- Elven only: Hawk Eye, Somnigravis
- Elves can learn them too: Favilludo, Culminatio (full mages, high penalties)

Some spells have been renamed to match the original Dark Eye spells:

Thunderbolt                         ->    Fulminictus
Move Like Lightning                 ->    Axxeleratus Ligthning Fast
Light in the Darkness               ->    Flim Flam Flare
See True and Pure                   ->    Sensibar Empathicus
Psychic Focus                       ->    Psychostabilis
Fastness of Body                    ->    Armatrutz
Fandango of Fireflies               ->    Favilludo Dance of Sparks     
Sleep of a Thousand Sheep           ->    Somnigravis, Deep Sleep        
Ice Cold Warrior                    ->    Ice and Cold, Heart of Warrior
Elfenword Silken Speech             ->    Elfenword Silken Tongue       
Culminatio                          ->    Kulminatio
Eclipsus Shadow Force               ->    Ecliptifactus Shadow Force       


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                              Ranged Combat
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While rethinking ranged combat I made the following considerations.

Ranged weapons have the obvious advantage of not being involved in melee. This 
has both benefits and cons:

- the're safer
- they don't obstruct the movement and the position of melee fighters 
  (sometimes not everybody can engage in melee the same enemy)

But:

- melee fighters will be targeted more often, taking more damage: it's one or 
  two less parries/dodges per round.
- ranged weapons never get strength bonus
- weapons with a reload time risk to waste their turn, if the opponent dies 
  while they're reloading

So I think that in general the cons of the ranged combat compensate enough the 
pros. Especially the last aspect can be very detrimental, so I gave ranged 
combat an overall boost, especially for the weapons that need reloading. I 
also favored crafted weapons, because why would you craft if there isn't a 
benefit. I reworked bows to give them a wider damage range with lower minimums,
the contrary for crossbows.

The 'Master Crossbow' feat says that it reduces loading time by one action, in 
reality it's 2 actions, that is a whole round. A light crossbow needs '4CR' to 
reload, in practice it shoots every 3 rounds, every 2 with the feat (same as 
longbows). I didn't think right that light and heavy crossbows have the same 
reload time, so I increased to 6 the one for heavy ones. So they shoot every 4 
rounds, every 3 with the feat, but they deal great damage.

Since 'reload' can be confusing, I express it in CR (combat rounds). 0 CR 
means shoot every round, 1 CR means every 2 rounds etc.
New reload/damage table is:

                           Damage   Reload
                           
Light crossbow             1D+8      2 CR (1 CR with Master Crossbow)
Light ballista             3D+0      2 CR (1 CR with Master Crossbow)
Cyclope crossbow           2D+12     2 CR (1 CR with Master Crossbow)
                                     
Heavy crossbow             2D+8      3 CR (2 CR with Master Crossbow)
Crafted crossbow           3D+12     3 CR (2 CR with Master Crossbow)
Ballista                   6D+0      3 CR (2 CR with Master Crossbow)
                                     
Short bow                  1D+1      0 CR
Elven bow                  1D+3      0 CR
Improved short bow         1D+4      0 CR
Composite short bow        2D+0      0 CR
Orc composite short bow    2D+1      0 CR
Cyclope bow                1D+7      0 CR
                                     
Long bow                   3D+2      1 CR
Improved long bow          3D+4      1 CR
War bow                    4D+0      1 CR
Crafted long bow           4D+2      1 CR

If you think some reload times are too long, consider that the first shot is 
often 'unprovoked', and you can use master marksman with it... You're then free
to shift to a faster weapon.


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                            Throwing Weapons
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It seemed right to me to boost them a bit, since they are patethic in vanilla 
game. Most damage you get there is 1D+5, Master Throw gives at most x2 damage, 
just a waste of EP and time. Similarly, crafting them would have been a waste 
of materials. I don't want to get them anywhere near other ranged weapons, but 
to give a reason to use them, at least on primarily melee characters, or races 
like Dwarves or Thorwalians that should typically use them.

To compensate the boost, now they weight a lot more. You will also find less in
loot.

* means crafted improved version

                  Damage      Extra      Weight
                  
Th. knife           1D                    0.2  
Th. knife*          1D+1       5% w       0.2  
Th. star            1D         +2 DP      0.1  
Th. dagger          1D+2       +1 DP      0.3  
Th. axe             1D+6                  0.8  
Th. axe*            1D+6       25% w      0.8 
Incisor             1D+8       +3 DP      1.0  

                 EP     XP   New Requirem.    New Extras
                                             
Aimed Throw      5     100   DE/10           
Rain of Iron     15    200   DE/14           
Power Throw      15    200   DE/11 ST/14      Dx3, k.o. 1CR(ST)
Master Throw     20    400   DE/13            Dx2, -AR, 1w, stun 3CR(CN/2)

With the new wounding chance and armor piercing damage, even Rain of Iron 
could be interesting. Power throw (x3 DP) and Master Throw (x2 DP, 1 wound, 
ignores armor, potential stun for 3 rounds) can also be good investments 
considering the moderate EP cost.


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                              Changelog
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

v1.0b    dwarves templates were unassigned
v2       major rework
v2.1     ranged combat, throwing weapons, abilities reworked, updated text,
         removed trash from barrels

[Bijat]

Rly nice stuff! will totaly use this in my next play.

[mg979]

Originally posted by Bijat:

Rly nice stuff! will totaly use this in my next play.

I'm playing the game with it and fixing/balancing a couple of things, tomorrow I'll post a new version.

[Bijat]

Cheerios! playing TRoT now =) and still abit to go ^^

[mg979]

New version is ready

[mg979]

Updated to v2.1 with ranged combat/throwing weapons/abilities reworked, updated text, removed trash from barrels.

[Gold_Masque]

Its nice to see people still playing this game (and River of Time). Personally, its one of my all time favourite RPG's - an underrated gem indeed, one that never got the attention it deserved. Lovely, huge game. I have the retail version, non-steam. I never actually tried Ergos fixpack in my last playthrough but it looked interesting. This looks interesting as well. The only tweak I remember using - and I had to do it on my own - was the to add another member to the party. Mainly in TRoT, and then for storyline reasons. I just might look into this mod, especially since you can choose what components to install. Thank you for keeping the game alive!

[Echilda]

The dropbox link appears dead. Is this still available?

[mg979]

Originally posted by Echilda:

The dropbox link appears dead. Is this still available?

Updated the link

[Echilda]

Many thanks!

[mg979]

Originally posted by Echilda:

Many thanks!

Thanks to you for trying the mod, if you have problems/suggestions please share your thoughts..

There is a problem I can think of, and it relates to stealth quests if you increase the running speed (stealth is broken in that case). In that case you could set the speed back to normal in your quicksave, do the quest, then change the speed again.

[dwig]

I'd like to give this mod a try, but I am having some difficulty with the install.

When I run install.bat it asks me to set the path manually. I have tried several variations on the path to the export file in drakensang, but none are acceptable and the install always aborts.

[dwig]

Hmm, looks like I needed quotes around:

Program Files (x86)

when I entered the path name.

It appears to be working now. Thanks for reposting the link.

[dwig]

Actually, it is not working yet. The sqlite3.exe commands in the install.bat have trouble with the quotation marks in the path. I am at a loss for how to proceed.

[mg979]

Originally posted by Rackhir:

Actually, it is not working yet. The sqlite3.exe commands in the install.bat have trouble with the quotation marks in the path. I am at a loss for how to proceed.

You have to write the path exactly, like:

"G:\games\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Drakensang\"

with a final backslash.

Alternatively, try extracting the content of the archive in your Drakensang folder, it should use current directory instead of reading the registry.

[mg979]

I updated the installation file so that you can set the path to Drakensang in it, as for the quicksave path.