Wooden ring in arachnid recipe
It doesn't make any sense. Can't you create a new item which can be explainable in a schematic?
No, I couldn't. It's all done with editing what's already in the game. I had to balance the game only by changing what already exists. For 2.0 I should be able to though, because 1) Jaesun released what seems to be a promising tool for creating new prototypes 2) worldeditor to place the new item into the game.
The reason I didn't just use any component was for balancing. You shouldn't be able to get great things early which make all your alternatives pointless. The mere fact that you do spend points for those special items means they out of necessity need to be better than what's available. That then means they need to be available at some point beyond the beginning of the game.
Note that there's still better starter guns you can craft yourself, but the higher tier ones shouldn't be available until at least mid-game (like at Qintarra) to balance the game. So, I made a list of the only items which could work with that. Divided them into what stages of the game they are restricted to, and went from there. They are pretty much all weird items which don't give great options for their own reasons: wine glass, empty vial, full stillwater trap, real stillwater pelt, heartstone, wood ring, some vendigroth items at the end. It's all weird items because regular items can be found all over (or couldn't be used as schematic components), there's nothing to stop someone from getting it at any time.
There's even more to it than that, like some I wanted to make unique creations, so at least 1 component had to be something of which only 1 exists in the game.
Same thing is the problem for schematics too Shadenaut. There's a lot of sharing between cities for shop files, so there was no way to prevent the blacksmith in caladon from having the same schematics as the wheel clan, etc. It's literally divided into urban smith, rural smith, rural alchemist, city alchemist, etc. That's why what's in Tarant is usually what's in Caladon. This is also why schematics which are only found don't face a similar issue: they already require you to get to that area, so there's already a restriction in place.
They give the extra mana, but it doesn't show. Rest for a day and you can see what I mean. It doesn't interfere with the mana that does get displayed from staves too, you get both.
I've seen swords and maces and mystic staff +40 mana, but the only real item still worth wearing is basic mage staff +50 mana.
Battlemages, my friend.
If I remember right, you can still carry extra +mana items and swap them out for free extra mana too. It's Arcanum you know, can't unbreak everything. There's allllways a way.
It doesn't make sense, if you are able to invest points into something, it should work.
Only the very last spells in the school have really high cost, with few exceptions like summoning so that the demon isn't always available super early. If I could change the spell level requirement formula, I would have. But this is the only way to restrict really strong spells. If the choice is between have an unbalanced balance mod with powerful spells available at level 15, or have weak disappointing spells available at level 15, or balance the game by restricting the highest spells through manacost, then it's an easy choice to make.
That's why stun and 3 meta magic spells and stasis are disabled. I have to unbreak this game as much as possible, even if you have to live with 74 good spells instead of 80. If I left stun in, everyone would be asking well why did he keep that so obviously rigged? One is blatantly worse than the other, but neither are perfect.
That is exactly the reason I said it's better to base spell effects on magical aptitude instead
You're breaking your own rule of following Arcanum game logic here. Shapeshifting doesn't increase with MA, so mine don't. It's important to keep in mind why most spells that are low level are MA dependent: it's really easy to get high MA really fast. Which means by your preference a caster could easily blow everything away around level 20 no problem, if they tried at all, which is too close to regular Arcanum spell casting for my tastes (as in horribly unbalanced). This is also why the highest level damage spells are usually not MA dependent.
Speaking of which, instead of creating Meditation spell, you could as might just let player rest anywhere.
I think the only file that deals with anything like this is the one which prevents teleporting from/to certain areas. (Void, Isle of Despair)
I am crap at math, but even I can do that somewhat. Your lightning bolt does 17.5 dmg on average.
Firstly, you're criticism is that a single caster might not be able to bring down every boss. That is not a bug, that is a feature. Some bosses do have lower hp, like 1000-1500 which can be burnt through much easier by a really powerful high level (45-50) pure damage wizard.
Secondly, you are tragically mistaken here on the power of casters in the game. You must keep in mind, I have played this mod a lot myself, I know the different playstyles can all do just fine for anyone who makes a reasonable effort.
Lightning bolt is actually MA based so it goes up to 25 every time at 100 MA. A level ~48 gnome/elf wizard can easily have ~330-350 mana with 0 extra points into fatigue. That's including at least a few points into charisma, full 20 dex, 2 in melee, 3 in persuasion, and 20 spells of their choice to get a guaranteed 100 MA. Not the most hardcore wizard.
With specialization, that mana is effectively doubled in this pure-damage simulation (because if you're going to try to down a boss with one wizard, you'd better specialize in a good damage dealing school). This means with lightning bolt only, you've got 1750 damage output. Electrical damage mind you, which is usually favored in resists. That's a lot of castings though, about 70 (14-15 rounds). Even with the least efficient damage from lightning, disintegrate spell, you're looking at 9 casts (2 rounds), and 1125 average damage.
That's all without any extra points into fatigue, with some points in charisma, melee, and persuasion. It would only take ~5-8 extra character points spent instead on fatigue to break 400 FT, allowing for the full 2000 damage from lightning bolt.
Throw in 80 mana from arcane robes and another 80 from arcane staff and you're golden. That's just extra though. Tulla is a great place for finding (stealing) those items if you really need the extra punch.
Also:
100 turns or more on boss
Only 20 speed per turn is 5 casts per turn, which would be 20 turns not 100. And you can push speed closer to 30 on a caster pretty easy from 20 dex + enchanted boots bought at any magic shop (few thousand gold though).
Its almost like I thought this whole thing out.
Maybe give me a bit more credit. You'd be surprised how many of your other unaddressed complaints are even simpler misunderstandings. Might be the bad at math thing. Wouldn't hurt to read the readme, maybe some documentation too.
But changing monster AI to make monsters do more interesting attacks? Now there's a good legitimate complaint. Wish I could help us there. I'm hoping with maybe some new special scripts, maybe some tricks in the world editor I can pull it off in 2.0. That one's been on the list for a while, trust me. I'm pretty sure that's something you guys can look forward to.