A Wish: Making Rare (Yellow) Armor and Weapons Practical

[Hooyaah 2,816]

There are very seldom rare armor and weapons to be found in the game, either as drops or offered by merchants, that are practical for use. When shopping for "yellow" armor there are so many modifiers that appear in the offerings that pretty much ruin their usefulness. Some modifiers that are useless include the following: Absorption of Warding Energy (Opponent), Pacifism, Attack Value, Sword Weapons, Critical Hits, Chance to Reflect: Close Combat, Damage of Enraged Players, and Life leeched Per Hit. The High Elf is not an effective melee fighter so many of those modifiers mentioned will not be of benefit. @Flix, is there a way to make a Mod that would correct this? I am aware that it would be labor intensive to make such a modification if it were even possible. If I knew what to change in blueprint.txt I would make the changes myself and regularly find and use yellow armor and weapons. It's a shame that it's so much easier to find and employ unique armor sets and weapons than it is to find or purchase rare equipment. With the right modifiers, yellow items are practically as useful as many of the unique pieces.

[Flix 5,116]

Not only possible, but done in Enhanced Edition.

Absorption of Warding Energy (Opponent) - set to 99.9% in EE, allows for banishing energy shields with a single hit. Only a small number of opponents use energy shields, so if it's going to take up a modifier slot it should be useful.

Pacifism - all references to this skill are completely removed.  Same for Selling Price.

Chance to Reflect: Close Combat - this is useful for any character.

Attack Value, Sword Weapons, Critical Hits, Damage of Enraged Players, and Life leeched Per Hit - what items are these appearing on?  If Sword Weapons is appearing on a non-sword weapon this would be a bug.  The others should unquestionably appear on melee and ranged weapons.  It's questionable whether they would useful for magic staves, if the High Elf is using them simply for their bonuses and never attacking with it.  However keep in mind there are 6 other characters besides the High Elf. Many players can and do use their weapons as weapons, and not just as bonus receptacles.  So before I completely cut item bonuses for all 7 classes, I need to know what item types these modifiers are appearing on that are inappropriate because they are fundamentally useful for any weapon user.

[Hooyaah 2,816]

I haven't been using Enhanced Edition as I had perceived, perhaps incorrectly, that it made some changes to the Combat Arts that might seem to me, too much less vanilla. I am playing with the Community Patch 160 only. To answer your question, I have noticed that a boost to Attack Value appears on the yellow High Elf Armor randomly (not helpful for a spell caster) as does Chance For Critical Hits and I believe, Damage of Enraged Players and Life Leeched per hit. Because, when I observed such modifiers on this armor, I didn't purchase or retain it, I will need make notes going forward to provide more details.

EDIT

Below is a list of mostly non-viable Item Modifiers that appear regularly on Yellow High Elf Armor:

Skills and Attributes that I wouldn't recommend for a spell caster: Offensive Skills, Riding, Sword Weapons,* Combat Reflexes,* Speed Lore*, Damage Lore,* Pole Arms,* Ranged Weapons, Divine Devotion, Alchemy, Dexterity,* and Strength.*

* May benefit the hybrid Combat Art of Delphic Arcania's Cobalt Strike   

                                                                                                                                                                              

There is at least one Modifier that I believe does not benefit a spell caster:

Duration of Potion Effects (Alchemy)

There are numerous other Item Modifiers that may also benefit the Delphic Arcania Combat Art, Cobalt Strike but not a pure skill caster: Attack Value +x, Attack Value +x%, Chance For Deep Wounds, Chance That Opponents Cannot Evade Attacks, Chance to Disregard Armor, Damage of Enraged Players, Life leeched Per Hit, Opponent's Chance to Reflect Melee Damage. Chance to Inflict Deadly Wounds.

[Flix 5,116]

1 hour ago, Hooyaah said:

I haven't been using Enhanced Edition as I had perceived, perhaps incorrectly, that it made some changes to the Combat Arts that might seem to me, too much less vanilla. I am playing with the Community Patch 160 only.

That's a fair analysis and I won't try to force the mod on anybody.  Though the High Elf is barely touched. All I did was power up the Fire Demon, increase Cascading Shroud's duration, and improve the modifications for Cobalt Strike's chain reaction mods.

EE is where I place all fixes and gameplay changes, so it's the only context I have for processing mod requests.

[Hooyaah 2,816]

After your explanation of it, I will likely try out your Enhanced Edition using the GME. Will that adversely affect an already created character? I have tried to edit my post above with some more detailed information. I hope that it helps. If I could just modify blueprint.txt myself and remove the entries that I don't like for my yellow armor I would attempt it but it's tough, for alas, they are all numbered, not written.

[Hooyaah 2,816]

@Flix If you could tell me what lines were changed in the scripts of the Unclothed Female Characters Mod I could make it compatible with Enhanced Edition. I think that I would like to try it out. Q: Will E.E. adversely affect previously created characters?

[Flix 5,116]

 

9 minutes ago, Hooyaah said:

@Flix If you could tell me what lines were changed in the scripts of the Unclothed Female Characters Mod I could make it compatible with Enhanced Edition. I think that I would like to try it out. Q: Will E.E. adversely affect previously created characters?

The modifiers on random normal/magic/rare items would be re-rolled.  However this would also happen with the other method you suggested, that is editing the undesirable bonuses out of blueprint.txt.  So there's no painless way to "clean up" the modifiers without re-rolling all randomized bonuses on a character's items.

There's always a chance of some weird quest behavior for currently ongoing quests, that's why a new difficulty at least is recommended when installing EE.

 

If you want to re-create the unclothed mod, the only script involved is creatureinfo.txt.  In that script, I removed the "fallback" equipment from the characters.  The altered textures do the rest of the work.

Search for the following three entries in creatureinfo.txt:

• type         = 1,
• type         = 2,
• type         = 5,

Each entry has a line titled "eq_fallback".  You want to clear out the itemtype numbers from within the brackets.

So for example 

eq_fallback = { 4358, 4359 }, 

becomes

eq_fallback = { },