Arcanum New Arcanum Mod: Professor Bowtie's Arcanum Complete

[Spanky McGuire]

Hi, all. I’ve posted this on r/arcanum, but I thought I'd share it here, too. I’d like to introduce a new mod for this old game, one that I feel provides significant improvements and refinement that should have appeared in the initial release. This is “Professor Bowtie’s Arcanum Complete,” and I’d love your feedback. Please feel free to share your thoughts about this mod.


Here is the download link and two videos introducing the mod, with the same information below:


https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15UGHHIhIT8_NnTucKejG24unUyFyC57h?usp=sharing







About the Mod—



This mod builds on the work of modders like Drog and others by contributing a close examination the original game design that, admittedly, was quite haphazard. In other words, I’ve spent several hundred hours tinkering with the game’s mes and proto files, manipulating the game’s logic to address the vast majority of the game’s issues. My desire has been to honor and embolden the spirit of the game by avoiding drastic changes while also realizing that there are many elements that simply must be reworked from as close to the ground up as one can get without Hex editing the game’s programming. I’ve included a long description of all changes below.


Disclaimer—

This is a first release, beta version of the mod, and I need help finding bugs and assessing the mod’s difficulty before considering it complete. I sincerely hope you’ll try the mod and provide me feedback about any problems or bugs. Please also let me know if there is something else you’d like to see in a future version of the mod, what you love now, or what may have been a misstep in the mod. Your kind feedback is greatly appreciated!


About Me—

I’m an English professor currently working in China. I’ve been reinstalling and replaying Arcanum for 20+ years, and I know the game front to back, so this mod has been a long time coming. This mod is dedicated to my sister, another longtime Arcanum fan. If you like the mod, I encourage you to make a donation to my favorite charity, Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women https://www.csvanw.org/donate.



Professor Bowtie’s Arcanum Complete Version 1.0




Features at a Glance—

· Combat is slower, more interesting, and longer, making real time viable and fun.

· All weapons have been updated to create balance, with tech getting a big boost.

· The PC, followers, and all NPCs have higher health and fatigue but lower speed. More fatigue means many more spells being cast by NPCs, as they were not casting spells before because fatigue was too low.

· STR is capped at 19 to eliminate the crazy STR damage bonus that broke melee. Speed should be capped at 25.

· Bows no longer fire like machine guns.

· Many new spells! Spells have been rearranged, edited, or replaced to create variety and balance.

· All merchants have been modified to create specialization and limit purchasing high-end equipment.

· All monsters and encounters have had their stats and equipment tweaked and spells added to make combat more interesting and difficult.

· Magick is much weaker at first but dominates later, if the player invests in Stress (Fatigue) and a variety of spells.

· Melee weapons are still good but should not(?) dominate without aid from spells or schematics.

· Alignment rewards have been changed a little to make goodness a little more difficult to maintain.

· Mages can now ride trains/metro via the Dampen Magick spell.

· The game should not be too difficult, but it now requires care and planning otherwise irrequisite to the original game. Difficulty level matters, and all stats are important—except Beauty!





More about Combat Fixes—

· Real time combat is now (mostly) comfortable due to reduced speed! You can enjoy the entire game in real time.

· Encumbrance is very meaningful now because speed is capped and reduced.

· Guns are much stronger and dominate early but should(?) taper later.

· Minimum STR requirements have been reconsidered to prohibit powerful equipment.

· Armor has been edited in such a way that the game will be difficult if a player is not mindful to wear good gloves, boots, and a helmet.

· Damage Resistance is very important and requires coordination of equipment.

· Molochean Hand and Bounty Hunter encounters have much better equipment and may use spells/grenades. Be careful.

· Bows should(?) behave normally in real time instead of firing like machine guns.

· Poison is more of a bastard.


More about Weapon Changes—

· All equipment has been edited to balance combat, with tech receiving a large bonus.

· In general, weapons no longer receive huge Magick bonuses to damage. This is to neuter the overpowered melee-mage combo.

· Most weapons no longer do stress (fatigue) damage, unless hexed.

· The changes to damage values are enormous but too exhaustive to list here.

· Weapon speed has been edited as follows:


Fastest (18-24 Speed) - Daggers

Faster (15-23 Speed) - Pistols, Longswords

Medium (12-14 Speed) - Spells, Great Swords, Axes, Maces, Bows, Thrown

Slow (9-11 Speed) - Unarmed, Slow Axes, Slow Maces, Big Guns






More about Spellcasting—

· More than a dozen spells have been added to replace useless spells!

· Mana costs, art, and effects have been adjusted.

· Some spells (new and old) have very high cost, making them unusable before a higher level.

· All spells have their Willpower requirement increased to limit early power gaming.

· Monsters and NPCs should make more spell saves now.

· Fatigue is now called “Stress,” which is a measure of your general mental well-being. Weapons no longer do stress (fatigue) damage. This does not apply to Hexed weapons. Undead and demons do “Stress” damage.

· Fatigue potions are less common and effective; it is important to plan your spells carefully and rest occasionally!

· Powerful undead and demons deal stress (fatigue) damage on account of their traumatic natures.

· Raising one’s stress threshold (putting points in fatigue) and Heal Rate (Constitution) is now extremely important for mages.

· Solo mages may not be viable until later in the game.


More about Commerce—

· Most weapons, armor, rings, necklaces, and scrolls have had their monetary values reduced to make it harder to gather wealth.

· All merchants have had their inventories adjusted so that each kind of merchant is somewhat specialized.

· High-end Magick items are generally unavailable for purchase and must be found instead.

· The Elven Trader in Ashbury, however, now sells rare and powerful items.

· Fatigue potions are typically only sold at Magick shops.

· Dark Magick shops sell more evil stuff, particularly scrolls.

· Magick shops do not sell jewelry or scrolls outside of White Necromancy.

· Gypsies sell scrolls, jewelry, and stat-boosting potions, but nothing else.





Some Remaining Bugs and Quirks—


Like I said, the mod is still in Beta. In other words, there are probably many bugs that I need your help identifying and fixing! Please let me know if you think the mod is too hard, imbalanced, etc. I have play-tested a mage until mid-game, but I did not dive into tech or late game. Here are a few issues worth mentioning—


· This mod should work with all version of the game, but I have only tested in with the GOG version! The installation process may be different with other versions.


· Changes to merchant inventory do not take effect the first time you shop at each store. Each shop must be refreshed (by sleeping one day outside) in order for the changes to take effect.


· There are many “unique” items for which there are no protos to edit, such as Torian Kel’s sword, most cursed items, etc. I cannot change these items, so they will appear somewhat anomalous to the rest of the game’s equipment.


· I have not edited the monetary values of consumables, gems, etc, but I can, if necessary.


· Scrolls may act strangely, and some spells may cause a crash in certain environments. Please let me know if this is the case.


· Spell Resistances should work, but some enemies don’t seem to apply their spell resistance checks in some cases. Undead will not save against Holy Fire, for example. I don’t know why.


· Some monsters may be too tough now. Please let me know.


· The master quests for each spell college may be impossible now because many spells are missing. I can probably fix this by adding specific scrolls into the game. I haven’t bothered with this yet.


· Unarmed striking still does a little stress (fatigue) damage because this cannot be changed without hex editing. This is a pain in the ass.


· Backstab is still broken. This cannot be fixed without hex editing or capping Backstab, making the master quest for it impossible. This is also a pain in the ass.


· Due to my having raised the base HP for NPCs, there was an awesome bug where all of the dead people at the crash site were still dead but nonetheless standing up! Very creepy and funny. I fixed this but, but an issue persists with at least one crash victim and the corpse in Schuyler’s basement! I’m too tired to fix this now.


· Disperse Magick has a hilarious side effect now that it can remove Polymorph. Cast it on the PC or an NPC to see what I mean.


· In the future, I would like to edit the stats of unique monsters like the Temporal Crusher. This involves using the World Editor, and that isn’t fun. Please let me know what else you would like to see.






Updated Spell List—




Conveyance

· Unlocking Cantrip (no significant change)

· Disarm (Resisted by Strength)

· Spatial Distortion (Cool art change)

· Egress (this is “exiting,” otherwise only accessible via scroll)

· Teleportation (no significant change; cost makes spell difficult to cast before around level 20)


Divination

· See Contents (no significant change)

· Read Aura (no significant change; Sense Alignment removed because this spell does the same thing)

· Perspicacity (increases trap spotting by 8 and perception by 4)

· Divine Magick (no significant change)

· Precognition (greatly increases crit hit chance, dodge, and gambling)


Air

· Gust of Wind (area of effect Unseen Force; chance to knockdown; resisted by Strength)

· Lightning (this is Bolt of Lightning; resisted by Dexterity)

· Vitality of Air (Constitution +4; will not stack with other elemental boost spells)

· Beckon Tempest (summons a Tempest)

· Body of Air (increases AC, Speed, Electrical Resistance, and Prowling; damage reduced to zero)


Earth

· Wall of Stone (minor art change)

· Stone Throw (resisting by Dexterity)

· Strength of Earth (Strength +4; will not stack with other elemental boost spells)

· Beckon Rock Sprite (summons a Rock Sprite)

· Body of Stone (reduces speed; increases fire, poison, and damage resistance)


Fire

· Wall of Fire (no significant change)

· Fireflash (resisted by Dexterity)

· Agility of Fire (Dexterity +4; will not stack with other elemental boost spells)

· Beckon Flameshade (summons a Flameshade)

· Body of Fire (greatly increases fire and electrical resistance; attacks with fire damage)


Water

· Call Fog (radius greatly increased)

· Squall of Ice (damages and causes creatures to fall down; resisted by Dexterity)

· Purity of Water (Willpower +4; will not stack with other elemental boost spells)

· Beckon Djinn (summons a Djinn)

· Body of Water (increases AC and DR; greatly increases poison resistance)


Force

· Hold Portal (this is Magelock)

· Flux (temporarily increases target’s magickal aptitude)

· Wall of Force (no significant change)

· Shield of Protection (DR +30; ER +90)

· Disintegrate (resisted by Constitution)





Mental

· Charm (no significant change)

· Stun (mana cost makes spell a bit more prohibitive)

· Presence (Charisma +4)

· Traumatize (decreases IQ and WP of nearby enemies and causes stun & weapon drop; resisted by Willpower)

· Dominate Will (no significant change)


Meta

· Disperse Magick (now removes Polymorph; hilarious side effect)

· Dampen Magick (temporarily decreases target’s magick aptitude)

· Bonds of Magick (no significant change)

· Magick Obscura (caster becomes nearly invulnerable but cannot move or attack; spells cost less)

· Reflection Shield (no significant change)


Morph

· Hardened Hands (no significant change)

· Ogre Skin (greatly increases damage, electrical, and poison resistance)

· Shrink (no significant change)

· Flesh to Stone (spell now lasts as long as maintained)

· Polymorph (transformation is now permanent. Can be dispelled with “Disperse Magick.”)




Nature

· Charm Beast (resisted by Willpower)

· Entangle (resisted by Strength)

· Control Beast (resisted by Willpower)

· Tranquility (greatly increases caster’s fatigue healing but decreases speed and combat abilities)

· Wild Form (transforms caster into a Werewolf, increasing Strength, Constitutions, Max HP, Melee, and Speed. Caster drops his weapon.)


Necromantic Black

· Conjure Spirit (no significant change)

· Traverse the Dead (works as Sanctuary: target protected from undead)

· Corpse Fire (Harms nearby enemies while healing the caster)

· Control Undead (mind controls target undead; resisted by Willpower)

· Reanimate (this is Create Undead; no significant change)


Necromantic White

· Minor Healing (cost and benefit adjusted)

· Halt Poison (cost and benefit adjusted)

· Holy Fire (Burns and turns undead; resisted by constitution)

· Major Healing (cost and benefit adjusted)

· Resurrect (no significant change; cost is prohibitive)


Phantasm

· Illuminate (no significant change)

· Flash (blinds all creatures in a target radius; resisted by Constitution)

· Vanity’s Veil (Beauty +4)

· Blur (This is Blur Sight; massive increase to AC, prowling, pick pocket, and backstab)

· Invisibility (no significant change; cost makes spell difficult before level 20)


Summoning

· Wisp (summons a Wisp)

· Dragon Spawn (summons a dragaron)

· Familiar (no significant change; cost is very prohibitive)

· Guardian (summons a baleful hound)

· Hellgate (no significant change; cost should be prohibitive before level 20)


Temporal

· Hasten (slightly reduced speed benefit; capped at 25)

· Congeal Time (slightly reduced speed penalty)

· Quicken Wits (Intelligence +4)

· Halt Time (freezes all surrounding enemies for a short while)

· Tempus Fugit (cost now more prohibitive)

 

[Bester]

Fix the assassination quest of Caladon's king. I just did it two days ago, and I did it as a perfect sneaking mission, but then the entire Caladon became hostile. Even rabbits attacked me on sight. This is the stupidest thing in the game that no modder should overlook.

I can't try your mod now, I'm in the middle of a playthrough. Maybe in 10 years.

 

[Bester]

Wait...

Everyone has their HP doubled and Fatigue tripled to allow real time combat last longer

I guess it fucks up the TB mode, then? You made the game unplayable..?



Also, it looks like NPCs are slowed down when out of combat, too. Everyone walks weird.

 

[Spanky McGuire]

No. Turn-based still works fine. What gave you that idea?

 

[TwoEdge]

Nice to see such an overhaul, especially the spell selection. I have no time to test this in the foreseeable future, but I second Bester's concerns that the mod improves real-time mode at the cost of turn-based, not a good tradeoff as real-time is for trash mob clearing in Arcanum and the running animations outside of combat feel very sluggish if the videos are any indication. Maybe offering a version of the mod without the slowdown is in good order. I also don't understand the changes to fatigue: is it still in the game? Was it only renamed? If so, why? Stress is too anachronistic to use in the context of the game's universe.

When I have the time I'll come back and post more constructive feedback, thanks for the offering, nonetheless. Arcanum needs more love.

 

[Spanky McGuire]

Nice to see such an overhaul, especially the spell selection. I have no time to test this in the foreseeable future, but I second Bester's concerns that the mod improves real-time mode at the cost of turn-based, not a good tradeoff as real-time is for trash mob clearing in Arcanum. I also don't understand the changes to fatigue: is it still in the game? Was it only renamed? If so, why? Stress is too anachronistic to use in the context of the game's universe.

When I have the time I'll come back and post more constructive feedback, thanks for the offering, nonetheless. Arcanum needs more love.

Thanks, man, for your constructive feedback. Fatigue works differently now in that it is no longer reduced by being hit in melee, a feature that frustrated thoughtful spellcasting. In this way, Fatigue now acts more like Mana does on most other RPGs, and so I figure "Fatigue" isn't a good name for it anymore, because that word suggests physical well-being, whereas "Stress" is a mental condition. It's a semantic change to reflect a mechanical change meant to favor thoughtful spellcasting.

Regarding turn-based--it should work just fine in this version, though battles will be much longer. I'm not sure why one might think turn-based is now broken.

 

[Konjad]

Thanks, but it seems to be aimed solely at people who want to play in real-time, and I'd never do that. In general, I think Arcanum is good only with turn-based combat and it was clearly developed for such.

 

[Spanky McGuire]

Hi, all. Here is an example of turn based combat in this mod. It works fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh6ayVHeL2M

 

[Spanky McGuire]

HP doubled and Fatigue tripled

Oh look, hp bloat
And codexers are brofisting this abomination of mod...

Y'all are an elite and insular bunch, aren't you? If spell damage and casting cost has been increased commensurate with HP, is that bloating?

 

[Poseidon00]

Props for making an Arcanum mod.

I haven't even beaten vanilla Arcanum yet and there are so many changes I probably won't try it out just yet.

But it's cool that things like this are still made.

Didn't realize pumping STR was so broken, I should do that.

 

[Spanky McGuire]

Props for making an Arcanum mod.

I haven't even beaten vanilla Arcanum yet and there are so many changes I probably won't try it out just yet.

But it's cool that things like this are still made.

Didn't realize pumping STR was so broken, I should do that.

Thank you. Congrats to you for still having the vanilla game to playthrough! Yeah, the STR 20 bonus is pretty absurd but fun.

 

[JarlFrank]

Wait...

Everyone has their HP doubled and Fatigue tripled to allow real time combat last longer

I guess it fucks up the TB mode, then? You made the game unplayable..?



Also, it looks like NPCs are slowed down when out of combat, too. Everyone walks weird.

Yeah one thing I love about Arcanum is how its combat isn't bloated, nobody has massive HP pools that take ages to whittle down, so this is a negative change.

Killed my interest in trying out the mod.

 

[Spanky McGuire]

Wait...

Everyone has their HP doubled and Fatigue tripled to allow real time combat last longer

I guess it fucks up the TB mode, then? You made the game unplayable..?



Also, it looks like NPCs are slowed down when out of combat, too. Everyone walks weird.

Yeah one thing I love about Arcanum is how its combat isn't bloated, nobody has massive HP pools that take ages to whittle down, so this is a negative change.

Killed my interest in trying out the mod.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[JarlFrank]

I'm also not fond of removing fatigue loss through being hit in combat. Some weapons (especially staffs) are geared towards doing more fatigue damage than physical damage, exhausting an enemy - especially a spellcaster - that way was a valid tactic.
It also helped regulate player spellcasting somewhat by making fatigue a much more precious resource than regular mana in most RPG. Running out is actually dangerous and not just a mild inconvenience.

 

[Spanky McGuire]

I'm also not fond of removing fatigue loss through being hit in combat. Some weapons (especially staffs) are geared towards doing more fatigue damage than physical damage, exhausting an enemy - especially a spellcaster - that way was a valid tactic.
It also helped regulate player spellcasting somewhat by making fatigue a much more precious resource than regular mana in most RPG. Running out is actually dangerous and not just a mild inconvenience.

Well, those are interesting points, thanks. I would suggest that fatigue is actually more precious in this mod because fatigue potions are a bit harder to come by, so a spellcaster has to be more careful with their spells. I don't remember exhausting an enemy's fatigue as being a very valid tactic past, say, level 10 in the original game. Combat simply went too quickly to bother with anything other than bashing an enemy until they died. In this version there is, at least, one spell (traumatize) that directly saps fatigue, so that tactic is more of an option now.

 

[Diggfinger]

If someone makes TB combat feel smooth and relaxing like Fallout I'll give them money

 

[Darth Canoli]

And here i thought it'd be a new content mod, just another re-balance mod like trillions of Beamdog wannabees.

More damage and then more HP is just retarded.
Also, all this to "balance" RT combat tells me you have no business modding Arcanum, what happened, you're tired of making kama-sutra mods for DAO?

 

[TwoEdge]

Installed the mod and played around in the first area. Not much to report so far, but Virgil was not attacking at all in TB, only healing when needed. Otherwise, he just stood there getting hit. In real-time he functioned as usual. Also, the sluggish feeling I got from the preview videos was dispelled, speed is fine, and real-time seems workable. I did notice that even unskilled, naked, and not paying too much attention to what was going on around me, I never got stunned once, which indicates that the fatigue rework is substantial, although I need time to evaluate if I like the end result.

 

[jackofshadows]

And here i thought it'd be a new content mod, just another re-balance mod like trillions of Beamdog wannabees.

This.

Codexers (let alone some less random players who somehow decided to give Arcanum a try) can bitch and moan about the game's combat all day long but the fact is - it's alright. It's more than playable. If you're a fucking weirdo like me a man of taste it's even enjoyable. But then you beat the game once, twice, maybe more, try various builds... and you realize that the game isn't exactly about that, isn't it? So Arcanum doesn't need a kewl re-balance overhaul mode which will make it right. It doesn't need anything if you ask me outside of few fixes here and there (like Vendigroth theme isn't playing where it should in the latest official patch, unfortunately). What it really needs is a complete new module which doesn't suck shit but to the best of my knowledge it hasn't been created yet.

 

[Abu Antar]

'Sup Drog?

 

[ExposedBrainMatter]

· Guns are much stronger and dominate early but should(?) taper later.

Hopefully this means they went from mostly useless to good and stay good enough late game.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Hopefully this means they went from mostly useless to good and stay good enough late game.

I mostly played Arcanum with guns, rarely with a focus on magic (like MC + 2 wizard followers) and sometimes with melee char.
Guns fare quite well in TB mode, i rarely use RT, of course, you need high crafting skills, barter and make a shit ton of money + hunt down schematics.

Melee builds are extremely painful against golems and there's a lot of them.
Magic requires a lot of fatigue so the easier and most enjoyable runs were always with gunners parties, i also did a Dalton (4 Gunners) run which i stopped before crossing the mountains but i don't like it very much there.

Aside from Teleport, Magic got nothing on guns.

Of course, if you decide to cheese the game by going harm + stockpiling fatigue potions, be my guest, is it that fun though?

The fact that not a single arcanum modder modded out of the game this abominable system blows my mind.
Either all arcanum modders are retarded or you can't mod this abomination out without access to source code.
There is no 3 option here.

I believe it was one of the features planned for the next UAP release before Drog went awol...

 

[Bester]

The fact that not a single arcanum modder modded out of the game this abominable system blows my mind.

 

[TwoEdge]

Drog's latest patch does this also.

 

[gerey]

Y'all are an elite and insular bunch, aren't you?

Bantz come with the territory.

But if I were you I'd take the criticism people here are giving to heart because:

1. People here have been obsessing over cRPGs more than it is reasonably healthy;
2. They're actually going to be honest with you, instead of sucking your dick like the faggots from reddit.

While I likely won't have time to actually test out the mod and share my shit opinions on the matter, kudos to you for the effort put into this - hopefully you can stop being a sexpat long enough to give some more attention to the turn-based option too.

 

[ExposedBrainMatter]

Hopefully this means they went from mostly useless to good and stay good enough late game.

I mostly played Arcanum with guns, rarely with a focus on magic (like MC + 2 wizard followers) and sometimes with melee char.
Guns fare quite well in TB mode, i rarely use RT, of course, you need high crafting skills, barter and make a shit ton of money + hunt down schematics.

That's all late game stuff which is why guns suck.