[Mod Release] Sorcery

[Zarathustra_the]

So my sorcery mod has found its way to release on the workshop.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=356382558



This version requires the current beta, and all going well should successfully work with the coming expansion pack. Many of the decisions work using targeted decisions to directly effect the chosen target. Balance suggests are welcomed.


Currently, rather than using my mana engine I wrote for this mod, it uses the characters health stat and deducts from your health to cast your magic.


The immortality trait uses an independent cleanup event that should fire periodically to remove infirmities and ensure your characters health stat is not less than 400. Use the immortality decision to ensure you can always wield your magic.

Please note the mod is currently obscenely unbalanced in how you acquire the sorcery trait. The decision which gives you the trait will be replaced with the new patch as I intend to integrate the learning of sorcery into the focuses, either as a separate sorcery focus, or as a hidden bonus for scholarship.

Spell suggestions and comments are welcome. Only incompatibilities that are obvious are things which change diseases.txt or combat_tactics.txt but this mod should still work even if you need to replace those files.

Have fun playing with the mere mortals.

View attachment Sorcery.zip
Updated offline version to newest beta. Now using an ambition rather than a focus till focuses work.

 

[thadian]

Sub

Fav

Rate.

Thank You!

 

[Bj0rn]

This seems very interesting! Gonna check it out.

 

[ngppgn]

I'd like to advice to use an ambition instead of a focus for sorcery, so tthat the mod is playable without the DLC. Also, can you tell us more about this "mana engine"?

 

[Zarathustra_the]

The mana engine uses a variable that is increased every month to a maximum of 50 to power your spells. Unlike other forms of mana systems this was designed to be invisible, I wanted to tie it into a negative system of effects where using mana had a chance to deform your body, adding traits like club foot or dwarf or imbecile every time you used a spell. Any spell you lacked the mana to cast would not appear within the decisions menu. I removed this engine and instead implemented a system of using the health stat instead. This allows for the negative effects of your sorcery to directly affect your ability to recover from injury. Furthermore, it is now possible to essentially kill yourself from using to much magic. That said, the sorcerer trait itself adds 80 health to your character, which should also help simulate how magic can be said to prolong the physical prime of its wielder, this assists you in shrugging of ailments.

The sacrifice decision that you can execute on prisoners kills them and gives you 5 additional health points. Some magic spells use an inordinate amount of health to cast, the curse of death to try and offset its ridiculously broken potential requires you to spend the equivalent of 4 normal characters health points to kill a single person. Many spells however are not balanced under this system yet, a thing I am looking at changing.


On the topic of the dlc, even if I integrate the mod into the coming DLC I will also include a decision that lets you acquire the Sorcerer trait without using the focus, for much the same reason that I have left in a decision to simply give you 50 health, I see no point in not allowing people to cheat if they want to. Furthermore, once the DLC launches I will be looking to working out better ways to give certain traits, most likely, I will remove the ability of the healing spell to add genius and attractive, and instead add a new spell which enhances your characteristics or your targets. I will likely also add a mechanism whereby you can select a wizard in your court and ask them to heal your character of an ailment, in this way, I can make your character capable of suffering from incapability while still possessing a way to remove it, other than the obviously broken method where the healing spell does not check to see if you are incapable.

As I have said numerous times, the current iteration is very badly balanced, but most of these flaws are things that I am indeed aware of and intending to add some mitigation so that those who want a touch of the divine while still being very human can have everything that they desire.

 

[thadian]

Is this adapted from Elder Kings by chance? Sounds pretty familiar.

 

[Zarathustra_the]

Nope, if anything, it was adopted from Askarles Valyrian Magic Submod for AGOT but that was many many many iterations ago. I ended up entirely recoding my magic engine a number of times because of bugs.

I am considering doing a number of more generic debuffs in the coming days, as well as a magic shield system that should enable you to confer a temporary protection on a target from magic for a cost.

 

[Bj0rn]

Does this have any Master-Apprentice system inside it? That would be fantastic. Like... a person can only be a mage if he is either called by decision or trained from childhood by a mage. Would it also be possible to make something like a "Trained by [Tutor's name]" trait, like the Bloodline mod does with Dynasty names? That would be epic and would permit us to actually see a master-apprentice lineage easily (maybe it appears after a few years of tuition). I don't know any modding, so just asking if it is possible and would be interesting lol

 

[NightAvail]

Sounds pretty cool! A master-apprentice system could be cool in terms of making it a way to pass on your abilities and possibly titles... That way you can sorta reincarnate as your apprentice (kinda like Dragon Age's Flemeth). I thought about experimenting with that idea in my mod but I haven't got around to it yet. The apprentice would also have to either be a family member or their dynasty would have to change to your dynasty I believe.

(edit)
Seems like something similar is already in place. Very neat!

 

[Zarathustra_the]

Have updated the workshop version with a number of changes to balance and function. Including using a event chain to determine your attribute to be increased rather than 5 separate decisions. Tried to remove some of the more blantantly cheating elements of the mod that were not optional (the Born_of_magic decision now should not give you almost every positive trait there is.)

 

[Zarathustra_the]

In the next version of this I am going to be introducing 4 schools of magic. These schools will be alchemy, herbalism, War Magic, and mental magic. Each of these four schools of magic will each give access to 4 spells and you will be required to master these schools one after the other. When you have mastered all four schools you will be able to declare yourself the Sorcerer and gain a unified trait that confers all the bonuses of the individual schools. Also intended is that the Sorcerer will have access to even more spells.

I need more suggestions though of what to add now I am beginning to run out of ideas of things to add. I am considering adding some spells to summon large numbers of event troops for the Sorcerer, or perhaps a 5th school of magic, necromancy/conjuring.

 

[dartnet]

I have allot of ideas.

First of all all Female Sorcerers should have the character flags, special_chancellor, special_marshal, special_spymaster, special_spiritual, and special_treasurer.
Count Dukham: "Why is lady Willerbroug leading the army?"
King William: "I don't know. But there is something enchanting about her don't you think? I might make her my Chancellor after the war."

There should be a Summon Chancellor, Spy, Treasurer, and Debutant spell just like the summon General one.

"Gift of Fertility" +100% Fertility. Need a kid? Have a troublesome Gavelkind neighbor? Give you, your mate, or your enemy the gift allot of kids.

Strike Barren -100% Fertility. Have that pesky Duke whose land you'll inherit of only he has no heirs? Well try this on for size.

I have allot more in mind. I will post more tonight.

 

[Bj0rn]

In the next version of this I am going to be introducing 4 schools of magic. These schools will be alchemy, herbalism, War Magic, and mental magic. Each of these four schools of magic will each give access to 4 spells and you will be required to master these schools one after the other. When you have mastered all four schools you will be able to declare yourself the Sorcerer and gain a unified trait that confers all the bonuses of the individual schools. Also intended is that the Sorcerer will have access to even more spells.

I need more suggestions though of what to add now I am beginning to run out of ideas of things to add. I am considering adding some spells to summon large numbers of event troops for the Sorcerer, or perhaps a 5th school of magic, necromancy/conjuring.

Familiars would be nice, being able to choose an animal guardian. Conjuration would be nice as well.

One idea regarding mind control magic:

You could make a "Possession" spell. It would trigger the console cheat that makes you play another character (the controlled one) and your own character would become incapacitated while you control the other character. It would be interesting

 

[Zarathustra_the]

Unfortunately you cannot use console commands in script. otherwise some really intriguing ideas.

 

[dartnet]

Love the Mod. This is well on the way to being my favorite mod so far.

Here is some feedback on the new update and some suggestions.

Boost Health - Get rid of it. It's silly, and unbalancing.

Reincarnation - Drop the random negative traits. Because 15% of kicking the bucket and having to be Possessed already, while being dropped in to a kids body and having to likely wait a few years to reach the age of 16 is nasty enough with out having a 30% chance of Incapable, Infirm, or Imbecile (or worse yet all 3) added in to the mix.

Magic Kill, Broken Mind and Body, Whispers of Damned, Mind Control, Possession, Sorcerous Plague, Heal Others, - All should have filters that target others and not you.

Summon General, Foresight, Transmute, Precognition - All should have filters that allow them to target you not others.

Ritual of Mind and Body - When used it should set a character flag that allows it to be used once per body.

Sorcery Teach - Bring it back! Call it Bestow Sorcery and set the ai_target_filter to Court.

OK I got to run but I will throw out some more ideas later.

 

[Zarathustra_the]

Thanks for the reminders Dartnet, I was originally having a bunch of issues with potential scopes so I had removed many of them to stop crashing and blank event popups. I will be looking into a way to teach sorcery, and I am seriously considering reintroducing my mana system which I had written back when I was first writing the basis of this mod into the current version.

 

[dartnet]

Thanks for the reminders Dartnet, I was originally having a bunch of issues with potential scopes so I had removed many of them to stop crashing and blank event popups. I will be looking into a way to teach sorcery, and I am seriously considering reintroducing my mana system which I had written back when I was first writing the basis of this mod into the current version.

Your welcome.

The health system works great no need to change it. The one big issues is that you can affect the full map with most spells and it makes things very easy. If you set the ai_target_filter to Court for most spells will calm down most of the craziness.

You know what would be cool. Adding the ability to summon mythical critters like djinn, mummy's, giants, fey, and amazons to serve in your court. Another cool thing would be to curse your enemies and turn them in to were-wolfs, and vampires.

Another cool spell would be one that adds the character flags, special_chancellor, special_marshal, special_spymaster, special_spiritual, and special_treasurer to a female member of your court.

Maybe one time spells that awaken very special characters. Like Arthur for British Sorcerers, or Ramses III for those that dwell in Egypt.

 

[Zarathustra_the]

I am actually thinking about limiting the range of spells to the locality of the caster. So you can still go and control that king on the other side of the map, but to do so you need to go and walk there... I might also look towards making lesser spell casters available in the next update, not full sorcerers though. What I am thinking is you can elect to teach any courtier a particular spell school, this then gives them access to a limited amount of spells. What I will then enable is a for you to cast their magic at the location they are at, so you want to unleash a plague on Constantinople, you can train a herbalist, then send him with a retinue to Constantinople and have him unleash the black death. At this point I am wondering how you would get the appropriate target information, but I have some ideas. This request for sorcery would only be available to a character liege lord.

 

[Bj0rn]

Is it compatible with WoL DLC? I'm using it now and don't have the decision to become a Sorcerer.

 

[Zarathustra_the]

It requires WoL. In the focus menu, you will see a straight line between theology and your portrait. Click that line for the Sorcery focus. I cannot make a round circle appear for some reason unfortunately. I have yet to find the correct instance in the gfx file.