EMS is an Enhanced Magic System for NWN, which fixes literally hundreds of bugs in the BW scripts, and also moves a lot of spells closer to PHB. It is the only complete system with correct behavior for Dispels, AOEs, SR, etc, and is also PW-friendly. This is a 'drop-in' HAK, with notes for builders who want to integrate it with their worlds, and works with SOU/HOTU/CEP though none of them are actually required.
Thanks to Savant, author of the superb Aielund trilogy; and the admins and players of the Dreu Noctem PW; for their help with testing and balancing the system during its development.
As of v1.02 (23 Dec 04) the zip contains two files: hak/EMS.HAK docs/EMS_Changes.TXT and should be expanded into your NWN dir with pathnames on.
There's also an EMS_FAKE.HAK file included to turn off EMS in SP play if you don't want it: just rename the real EMS HAK to something, and EMS_FAKE.HAK to EMS.HAK.
I found that I like the most of changed made by EMS when playing Aielund Saga modules. So now I am trying to use this .hak in other mods. For texting, I have added EMS.hak to 2 character builder modules, +Novice to Epic Character Maker CEP23 Edition.mod and Pretty Good Char Creator v43. Now, ability buff spells such as Bull's Strength and Aura of glory are not working. They seem to end instantly. I am not sure what is happening as those spells were working when playng Aielund Saga. Any thought?
The EMS_Changes.txt says
>Mage Armour
>Per PHB, +4 is all to ArmourAC
>Becomes +20 and R/L after L21 to act as a replacement for EpicMA, if caster
>meets the prereqs (C9's and 26+ SC) and is casting it on themselves.
Now my Sorcerer 21/Paladin 3/Arcane Archer 9 with Spellcraft skill rank of 31 is casting Mage Armor on himself but the AC bonus is still +4. Have you done some additional change?
Namely, now I am trying to figure out how Arcane Archer's Imbue Arrow was changed. The text suggests that the damage and the DC are both changed but ..... how?
After posting (you always notice these things after posting) -- after posting I decided to check around in the actual HAK file (EMS.hak) and searching there I discovered a comment inserted among the code:
" // no party damage from AOEs - the AI is just too crap
// and FF can COMPLETELY break the game by sending entire factions hostile, including plot chars"
So I guess that's that.
Too bad they that little factoid wasn't explicitly mentioned up-front in the "official" EMS documentation rather than being buried it in the script there. That way, I wouldn't have been beating my brains out trying to figure what the heck was going wrong.
I am playing the Aielund saga on "very difficult" and am in Act III, when I noticed that area-of-effect spells (AoE spells) such as Ice Storm and Flame Strike are not damaging party members. (I am playing as a cleric so I did not have a lot of opportunity to notice this, being as many of the cleric AoE damage spells only target enemies, and I haven't used Ice Storm or Flame Strike all that much because of the usefulness of other spells like Hammer of the Gods and Call Lightning [Air Domain].)
I recall an earlier instance (one of the earlier Aielund modules) where I definitely observed that Flame Strike caused the appropriate fire damage on a henchman, as it should. But as of Act III the "indiscriminate damage" AoE's no longer work correctly.
I don't know if this is a problem with the Aielund module or with the EMS, or a conflict arising between the two.
I do not think it is by design, as I searched through the documentation and could see nothing indicating that AoE's would no longer affect friendlies on higher difficulty levels. I also scanned the message boards and saw nothing indicating this as intentional.
After replacing the EMS.hak file with the EMS_FAKE.hak file as supplied here, I loaded up the game to the latest progress, and the AoE spells work as they should -- Ice Storm and the like cause damage to ALL creatures, including the spell caster and henchmen.
To test it further, I also replaced the EMS.hak that came with Aielund with this one here (they had slightly different sizes so I thought maybe different versions) but it didn't matter -- either way, the AoE spells didn't affect party members, and only got fixed when using the fake "placeholder" version of the hak.
It's a pretty big deal not to have the AoE spells carrying the shortcomings as well as the strengths -- not having Fireball or Earthquake damage party members is at best some nasty "cheese," at worst it totally throws off the balance and kills the fun.
I have also posted a similar message on the page for Aielund Saga Act III.
Great job on the balancing of spells. After playing the Aielund series with an arcane Caster and appreciating the improvements, I decided I would never want to play a module without EMS again and placed the EMS files in my \override folder :)
One humble request though:
Could you remove the terrible visual effects of spells like Barkskin/Stoneskin/Greater Stoneskin/Shadowshield? A character who looks like a statue or a tree after casting an essential defensive spell is just a terrible "feature" of NWN :( And the visuals don't even make sense, since if the Character actually turned into stone or bark after casting these Spells, he would hardly be able to move...
(These visual changes have been made in "Texture Based Spell Changes", but of course, this interfers with EMS...)
Would be really awesome if you could do something about that!
Regards
Posted by andrew910730 at 2010-07-17 18:03:45 Voted 9.75 on 07/17/10
hmmm... just checked my wizard 35/rogue 3 would have 70% physical immunity with premonition...
Posted by andrew910730 at 2010-07-17 02:58:24 Voted 9.75 on 07/17/10
I have used this hak as an overide for a long time but never got across to vote for it. It has improved my playing experience so much that I refuse to play without it any more. I even deleted PRC from all my modules because it was changing the spells back to bioware behaviour.
With EMS, most spells are actually useful (unlike bioware prob 2 or 3 useful per level). I no longer have to feel cheap for using IGMS or Metil Acid Sheath because other spells actually work at high level. The change to bioware's stupid tenser transformation and shapechange was great.
A minor complain would be from the non-casters' point of view: wizard/soccerer are probably too strong. At level 37, my wizard from aielund saga has AC74 (and energy drain + bigby5 can lower the enemy fighter's AB by at least 20...) + 50% concealment + something% physical immunity + DC46(DC56+ if you put energy drain into the formula) flesh to stone and do 400 damage per round (2 empowered maximised ice storm). Isn't this a bit too powerful? Not to mention he can have near fighter melee ability with tenser transformation...
My favourite spells from EMS: black blade of disaster (so great from level 17 - early 30s), energy drain, tenser transformation, improved invisibility
Hello. I am currently playing the Saga of Aielund and have found that my Bard now cannot cast spells of 4th level without a charisma of 18(+4), cannot cast spells of 5th level without a charisma of 20(+5), or spells of 6th level without a charisma of 22(+6).
I think this must be coming from the enhanced magic system.
Is it a bug, or was it intended because the author thought bards were too strong?
I am using the version of EMS that is packaged with the latest Aielund.
Spell sequencers do not appear to work. The sequencer can be cleared and used, but no spells are stored.
I built a tiny module with a standard one-spell sequencer robe, used a new character in it. He was able to store Mage Armor in the robe and cast it using the robe's sequencer.
Then I added EMS. I can cast Mage Armor on the robe (radial menu starting on the robe object), and the spell is spent, but not stored in the robe. Using the sequencer gives the message "No spells stored".
Hmm. Seems the forum didn't like my angle brackets. The above should read: just unzip the ems20071222_hak.zip file and put the resulting ems.hak file to the NWN/hak/ directory, where NWN is the directory you installed the Neverwinter Nights game into.
Latex Santa - to answer your question: just unzip the ems20071222_hak.zip file and put the resulting ems.hak file to the /hak/ directory, where is the directory you installed nwn into.
However, if I recall correctly, the more up-to date beta version of ems.hak is already included in some of the latest Aielund hakpaks. You should probably use that one.
Just please, can anyone tell me HOW IN THE HELLS can I expand hak/EMS.HAK and docs/EMS_Changes.TXT into my NWN directory with pathnames on?? It's like half-Chinese Half-Latin to me :(
well the reason you can't take extra turning in blackguard is extra turning is exclusive to paladin and cleric. says so on the feat description in game. not like extra turning is needed as the number of turns you get is CHA mod + level based...essentially.. its a wasted feat anyway.. i wouldn't cry over it. _________________________ jml's list of community addons/overrides, etc. Link
So, I've made some progress on a 1.69 patch - should have it done in a week or two, depending on free time.
Virtually nothing in 1.69 actually fixed anything: e.g. BW *finally* updated the CoT feat tables to allow TWF as a bonus feat, like EMS did FOUR YEARS AGO; but STILL failed to update the BG feat tables, so BG's still can't take Extra Turning.
re Horses, the problem there is also 2DAs - the EMS ones need to be updated to add the Mount Actions stuff, for *PCs* (which is what I'm wading through right now). For *NPCs*, I don't actually see any reason they won't already work, provided they're "permanently" mounted, because it's just a Tail setting in the toolset. Still, it needs to be updated anyway, so...
--
Gruftlord: Blade Thirst advances at exactly the same rate as GMW: +1 every FOUR levels, not 3, so it's +5 at level 20, and thus yes, +3 at level 12 is correct. It's a single spell, so the duration is the same for the Keen aspect as it is for the Enhancement, which is T/L.
If PolySelf:Zombie DOESN'T get Undead Immunities, BioWare have screwed up (shock!) and I'll add it to the list of Stuff To Fix.
No clue what's going with Extend Spell on your Ranger. You certainly SHOULDN'T be getting it, and EMS doesn't change the Ranger *class* at all (much tho I'd like to). But yeah - there's definitely something going on: I just tried leveling up a new Ranger via the console in CH1, and was given Disarm for free at level 3. I'd suggest asking Savant if he changed them - it's not an EMS thing.
I hate to sound like an idiot...but where is this EMS_Guide.txt? I'm only finding an EMS_Changes.txt
Posted by Gruftlord at 2008-12-22 18:56:43 Voted 10.00 on 12/22/08
*quote*
and i came up with a few suggestions.
*unquote*
make that 'questions' not 'suggestions'
*humble smile* :)
Posted by Gruftlord at 2008-12-22 18:53:41 Voted 10.00 on 12/22/08
*tunes into the cheering*
Hi arQon
i really like the changes, you made to the BW spells and other scripts.
i just took a closer look at the ranger changes, because of the upcoming 1.69 update of EMS/aielund, and i came up with a few suggestions.
i'm not 100% sure, but how does the bladethirst spell really work (you only included the NCS files, so i couldn't take a closer look)? i got the impression, that the spell doesn't advance as fast as the real GMW (my lvl 12 ranger got a +3 enhancement, it changed to +5 later. didn't check for breakpoints yet). what is the duration, is it the same for the enhancement and the keen property?
also: you mentioned, that you improved the shapechange spell. what about the zombie-polymorph-shape? i think that could use some undead immunities, making it a really nice spell.
btw: the rangers in aielund saga get 'extend spell' for free at lvl 7. is this an EMS thing, or an Aielund thing? i found the entry in the .2das, that leads to where the bonus feats are listed. however, since i'm still a beginner in those toolset/scripting things (it took me 2 hours to find out what NCS files are, and why i couldn't take a closer look at all those scriptchanges ;)), i can't find the CLC_BFEAT_Ranger file (if i got that name right). any chance you could help me?
Greetings
Stefan
P.S.: i would have sent an email, if you allowed it. there you have it: massive post in your comments section ;P
Posted by Savant at 2008-12-10 03:37:23 Voted 10.00
*Continues cheering for arQon and his awesome "skillz". :D
Posted by Savant at 2008-11-03 20:28:40 Voted 10.00
:(
Well, if anyone can make it work, it's you :)
I've been playing through parts of Aielund that I've updated with horses, and some of the battles just look fantastic. Knights on horses just *works*, you know? :D
Posted by Savant at 2008-10-26 23:08:37 Voted 10.00
Yes arQon, please give me my crap and pointless horses!
Seriously, if it's too much work don't worry about it, I'll just take EMS out. You see, horses have a 'coolness' factor to them that you're not taking into account :P
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