questions about modding a spell
 

so, lets reference Call of the Wild here. When cast, it spawns a werewolf leader and a bunch of wolfs in a foreign province, more wolfs if the province is a forest.
I would like to make something similar and/or alter the spell. What i really like would to see the actual spellentry, how would i go about seeing how this spell actually works inside a .dm file ?

Would it be possible to alter the spell to have spawn more than one werewolf leader ? Would it be possible to make it spawn normal werewolves among the stock wolves ?

Is there some kind of list where each spells actual .dm content is visible ?

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

Ragnarok-X
Easily done, this can be reproduced by a farsummon (wolves) with a commander farsummon nextspell (werewolf).

This effect can't be copied right now - I tried before. :( You could alter the spell itself with #selectspell, though.

Have you tried the spell list db?
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43000

Burnsaber pointed me to it, and it's been a *great* help!

Yes and yes. This would actually require at least 2-3 different linked (by nextspell) spell entries though.

The closest thing, that I know of, is the spell list db. Another method is looking at the user-created spells in community mods. Although, all of my original spells were made purely from scratch using the modding.pdf - so that's perfectly viable too, just not as expansive. I think the cleanest method is making spells from scratch using the spell list db as a reference.

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

Could you please post an example of the "nextspell" entry you mentioned ? I wasnt able to find anything about it in the dm's i searched in. I get the theory i guess. Using that entry, a new spell will be chained after the original.

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

There are plenty of examples in the CPCS mod.

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

Ragnarok-X

Gregstrom is absolutely right about CPCS, great examples in there.


I modified this from one of mine:

#newspell
#name "farsummon something else"
#descr "companion to farsummon something"
#school -1 - spell cannot researched
#researchlevel 0 - no research required to cast
#path 0 6 - nature path
#pathlevel 0 1 - N1 required
#damage XXX - input monster ID
#effect 10037 - farsummon
#nreff 1 - summons 1 something else
#end

#newspell
#name "Summon Something"
#descr "Farsummons something."
#school X - enter variable for school, conjuration is 0
#researchlevel X - enter level of spell, I use 0 for testing
#path 0 6 - nature path
#pathlevel 0 1 - N1 required
#damage XXX - input monster ID
#effect 10037 - farsummon
#fatiguecost 0 - add 100 for each gem you want the spell to cost
#nextspell "farsummon something else"
#nreff 20 - summons 20 somethings
#end


The nextspell must come first, or else the primary spell can't find it. This is pretty similar to what you're going for. Of course you'll want to adjust the researchlevel, path, pathlevel, etc., to your desired taste.

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

thanks a lot.

whats CPCS short for ?

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

Cross Path Combat Spells

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

When looking over this, do you think it would work out as intended ?

#newspell
#name "Call of the Wild tier 2"
#descr "Call of the Wild tier 2"
#school -1 - spell cannot researched
#researchlevel 0 - no research required to cast
#path 0 3 - nature path
#pathlevel 0 1 - N1 required
#damage 633 - input monster ID
#effect 10037 - farsummon
#nreff 10 - summons x something else
#end

#selectspell 445
#nextspell "Call of the Wild tier 2"
#pathlevel 0 3
#end



intended effect: spawn 1 leader, the stock wolf pack and 10 more werewolves among the stock wolves.

edit: doesnt work out that well. It spawns the 10 werewolves, but it as well spawns a total of 2 werewolf commanders ?

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

Looks about right. Some notes:

With selectspell, you can use the spell name in parentheses. This is much faster than looking up the spell ID.
EX: #selectspell "Call of the Wild"

You have to close any #newXXX or #selectXXX tag with a #end tag.
EX:
#selectspell 455
#nextspell "Call of the Wild tier 2"
#end

In my experience, when you farsummon like this, the game automatically changes one of the summoned creatures into a commander - this means it would summon an additional 9 werewolves and 1 werewolf commander. Though this may be an erroneous conclusion.

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

Wondering about pathlevel in the chained spell. Are the magic requirements even checked ? Could you in theory create one spell with a base effect at lvl 1, add 9 more chains, each with one level higher requirements and make a "true" self-scaling spell ?

i.e. call of the wild lvl 1 calls 10 wolfs. tier 2 to 9 (all new spells chaining into each other down the road) add 5 wolfs each, but require nature 2 - 10. Would the game check the caster lvl for exact effect or would it run all 10 spells anyway ?

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

I think #nextspells don't check for requirements. Even if they did, you could get the effect you describe more easily by adding 5000 to the #nreff value, surely?

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

Entirely correct, again, Gregstrom. #path and #pathlevel values are not checked. #researchlevel is a required tag, but it's value isn't checked either. #school is best set at -1, but it isn't necessary - as long as you don't include the tag at all. #fatiguecost value also isn't checked (at least, for rituals - I haven't tested battle spells for this).

#damage, #effect and #nreff values are checked - but if you made the primary spell a farsummon and the nextspell an independent farsummon, they don't happen at the same time, effect order is maintained.

I don't know if #spec or #restriceted values are checked - haven't tested that possibility; it's likely they aren't.

That is, indeed, a better method anyway.

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

Okay i will try to stop asking these questions, but how exactly does this

"
Even if they did, you could get the effect you describe more easily by adding 5000 to the #nreff value, surely?
"

to power up work ?

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

"9.19 #nreff <nbr of effects>
Sets the number of effects for this spell. For
summoning spells this determines how many
creates are summoned. Add 1000 to this value to
give more powerful casters more effects."

Actually, you need to add 1000. I am not sure if higher thousands (ie 5000) give larger effect.

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

perhaps the first number is the modifer. By using 1010, you would get 10 creatures and 1 more for each level you are higher. By using 5010, you would get 10 and 5 for each level you are higher.

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

#15 is confirmed by me :p

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

One thing to note though is that effects that scale with caster level don't work on #nextspells. I'm not even entirely sure if penetration bonuses from level or items count on #nextspell effects.

Re: questions about modding a spell
 

Oh, thats a major bummer. Did anyone ever suggest to include scaling effects on nextspells to the developer ? Just now i had this really cool Call of the Wild add that calls 25 wolfs + 3 per level and nextspell 12 werewolves + 2 per level but apparently it will only add in stock wolfs now.