Mod questions (Yomi and indies)

[MaxWilson]

I'm considering two mods for my "HouseRules.dm" file. I'm curious whether anyone has implemented anything like this, i.e. was it possible and was it fun? Will it work the way I think?

1.) Yomi's demon's have ghost-forms which are cool, but reputedly don't do much to enhance survivability. (They're ethereal but Prot 0, and still banishable.) I'm considering modding the ethereal forms of all Yomi units to have very low Morale (probably 4-6) and increased MR. The idea is that demons which are forced into ethereal form flee to fight another day. Will this work the way I think? I don't have a lot of experience with Yomi but I like the ghost form thematically and would like to make it useful.

2.) Some people have complained about the weakness of the indie grimoire, i.e. fire mages casting useless little Fire Flies. Since the grimoire is hardwired to certain spells, you can't mod it directly. However, it should be possible to mod Fire Flies to be identical to e.g. Fireball, and Fireball to be identical to Fire Flies. This should only affect indie mages and magic items which are also hardwired to certain spells. Will this work the way I think? And, is there a resource available which lists all the spells in the indie grimoire?

-Max

[Sombre]

1) Units don't rout individually, they rout as squads. So lower morale would make the entire squad more likely to run away, that's for sure.

2) I don't believe the AI is hardwired to cast fire flies, it just likes to cast it. If you make a great modded spell that's powerful and cheap the AI will go overboard with that too.

[NTJedi]

Sombre said:
If you make a great modded spell that's powerful and cheap the AI will go overboard with that too.

That's true with battlefield spells yet unfortunately not the same for ritual spells such as summoning spells. The AI will blindly summon cave drakes for 8 earth gems despite having access to mechanical men or enliven statues.

[Aezeal]

NTJedi... no offence but you are obviously a nub who thinks he knows better than the AI.

Who would EVER want to cast mechanical men or enliven statues when you have great looking summons like Cave Drakes in your repetoire.

/ me tries to banish the nub
VADE RETRO SATANA

[MaxWilson]

Sombre said:
1) Units don't rout individually, they rout as squads. So lower morale would make the entire squad more likely to run away, that's for sure.

2) I don't believe the AI is hardwired to cast fire flies, it just likes to cast it. If you make a great modded spell that's powerful and cheap the AI will go overboard with that too.

I know routing happens as squads, so I expect you'd probably have to use smaller squads--once half the squad is ethereal (and maybe a couple are dead) the whole squad routs. I'd probably have to tweak the actual morale value so the routing doesn't happen too soon, assuming that the idea (a #secondshape with a different morale number) would even work at all.

KO has indicated that the indie grimoire is in fact hardwired to certain spells, which is why some awesome indy casters use tiny little spells. If you make Bond Grinding a D1/fat 10 spell, the indies still won't use it.

-Max

[Zentar]

MaxWilson said:
I'm considering two mods for my "HouseRules.dm" file. I'm curious whether anyone has implemented anything like this, i.e. was it possible and was it fun? Will it work the way I think?
1.) Yomi's demon's have ghost-forms which are cool, but reputedly don't do much to enhance survivability. (They're ethereal but Prot 0, and still banishable.) I'm considering modding the ethereal forms of all Yomi units to have very low Morale (probably 4-6) and increased MR. The idea is that demons which are forced into ethereal form flee to fight another day. Will this work the way I think? I don't have a lot of experience with Yomi but I like the ghost form thematically and would like to make it useful.
2.) Some people have complained about the weakness of the indie grimoire, i.e. fire mages casting useless little Fire Flies. Since the grimoire is hardwired to certain spells, you can't mod it directly. However, it should be possible to mod Fire Flies to be identical to e.g. Fireball, and Fireball to be identical to Fire Flies. This should only affect indie mages and magic items which are also hardwired to certain spells. Will this work the way I think? And, is there a resource available which lists all the spells in the indie grimoire?
-Max

1.) I don't know enough about game mechanics to help here.
2.) Fire Flies is fire 1 spell, and FireBall is fire 2 spell. Are you suggesting to make both of them Fire 1? I wish I could offer a better approach, but I don't like this one because it suggests a spell school level change.

[Endoperez]

The suggestion is about making the current Fireball identical to current Fire Flies, and vice versa. The only noticeable difference would be that indy mages can cast the spell that used-to-be-Fire-Flies-but-is-now-Fireball instead of the other spell, which is now Fire Flies.

[Saulot]

MaxWilson said:
I'd probably have to tweak the actual morale value so the routing doesn't happen too soon, assuming that the idea (a #secondshape with a different morale number) would even work at all.

It would work fine.

MaxWilson said:
KO has indicated that the indie grimoire is in fact hardwired to certain spells, which is why some awesome indy casters use tiny little spells. If you make Bond Grinding a D1/fat 10 spell, the indies still won't use it.

Yes, it's a specific list they use.

As for your second suggestion, it should also be doable. Remember when writing Fireball up, that it has a nextspell effect.