Personal Impossibility Adjustment - Pia

3.3.6 - 2025 jan 1

The Pia is based on original code by Reeron & Trekari : Increased Challenge.
3miLy_raNgeR then modified that code : Difficulty Modifier.
This code is by kevL's.

INSTALLATION
------------
Copy folder 'Pia_kL' to your MyDocuments/Neverwinter Nights 2/override folder.
To uninstall delete the 'Pia_kL' folder from the /override folder.

The Pia can be installed or uninstalled anytime that NwN2 is not running.

And read the ReadMe.txt files in the folders /ai_scripts and /difficulty.


OVERVIEW
--------
The Pia accesses the file Difficulty.2da to increase the challenge or difficulty
of all creatures that are not PC-faction and that slot the default Creature
OnSpawn script 'nw_c2_default9' and/or the default Creature OnHeartbeat script
'nw_c2_default1'.

The Pia overrides those two files in order to execute the script 'pia_oshb'.

Difficulty.2da is a user-editable textfile that controls how tough to make
Monsters and NPCs that have either or both of the two AI-scripts slotted. Note
that if the Module you're playing has those scripts in a .hak file they will
override these files. Also if any Monster or NPC does not have either of those
scripts slotted in their AI-properties they will not be affected; conversely if
a Module or Campaign has customized those scripts without renaming them (or
without placing them in a .hak file) then the Pia's scripts will override their
custom behavior.

Use at your own risk ... the Pia is intended to make global changes.

For those who can script this is the code that needs to be called:

#include "pia_inc"

    // begin kL_PIA
    if (!GetLocalInt(OBJECT_SELF, sDIFSET) && pia_Get2daTrue(Active))
    {
        if (pia_SetPrintProtocol(OBJECT_SELF))
            pia_Print("pia_oshb");

        ExecuteScript(PIA_OSHB, OBJECT_SELF);
    }
    // end kL_PIA


Pia version 3.2+
A second 2da file is included in the spelleffects folder that allows you to
apply any number of caster-related buffs to a creature: Pia_SpellEffects.2da.
Its settings are described after those in Difficulty.2da.


SETTINGS
--------
These are the variables in Difficulty.2da that you should set to your prefered
difficulty. Note that every Module or Campaign that's publicly available tends
to have its own balance. The OC tends to be very easy, while there are 3rd party
Modules and Campaigns that are very hard.

YOU DO NOT WANT TO USE THE SAME Difficulty.2da FOR ALL MODULES AND CAMPAIGNS.

My personal strategy for setting up Difficulty.2da is to zero its relevant
values and start the Module or Campaign with the NwN2 Option pushed to its
hardest difficulty on the slider. Then I make saves, push up the values in
Difficulty.2da, and reload the Module or Campaign repeatedly until I feel that
the challenge is about right.

Note that if the challenge is too high and you spawn an opponent that is
impossible to beat your only recourse is to go back to a previous save and lower
the settings or use a script that just kills the creature outright. Depends ...
a plot could require that you subdue a creature instead of slaying it, eg.

I take next to no responsiblity for what you do in your playthroughs. My
responsibility is merely to make sure that the code works.

The following values do not have a 1:1 relationship with the actual bonuses that
get applied. THE VALUES WILL BE SCALED BY A FACTOR EQUAL TO A CREATURE'S
CHALLENGE RATING (roughly its hitdice) DIVIDED BY 20 and the result is rounded
down.

applied bonus = (2da val * creature's Challenge Rating) / 20

And here they are for Difficulty.2da.

Value col
---------

Active - 1 turns the Pia on, 0 is off.

PrintInfo - Set the value to 0 for quiet operation. A value of 1 displays a lot
of info in chat as the Pia processes any creatures. Note however that this info
often fails to print when the party is entering a Module or area. You'll get a
lot of data about the strengths and weaknesses of Monsters and NPCs, and you'll
know if the Pia is installed correctly. This can help with fine-tuning the
values in Difficulty.2da to your own playstyle and desired challenge. Info will
be sent only to the Leader of the party. A value of 2 prints the info to NwN2's
logfile instead if you have NwN2's logging turned on. The logfile can be found
at
  AppData\Local\Temp\NWN2\LOGS\nwclientLog1.txt
A value of 3 turns on both 1 and 2.

MapAbilities - Use Primary Ability mapping. If set to 1 the Primary Ability
bonus values that you set in Difficulty.2da will be mapped to Primary Ability
bonus 1, Primary Ability bonus 2, Primary Ability bonus 3 ... through Primary
Ability bonus 6. Pia will then rank the creature's Primary Abilities from
highest to lowest where StrBonus is mapped to whatever Ability is determined to
be Primary Ability 1, DexBonus maps to Primary Ability 2, ConBonus maps to
Primary Ability 3 ... and ChaBonus maps to Primary Ability 6. Set MapAbilities
to 0 to turn ability mapping off.

Strictly speaking this means that if you turn Primary Mapping on you should
order or rank the values from highest to lowest in the following order:
Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. The StrBonus
value now becomes the bonus to whatever Primary Ability the Module designer has
set as the creature's highest Primary Ability down through the ranks until the
ChaBonus value becomes the bonus to whatever Primary Ability the designer set as
the creature's lowest Primary Ability. Hence a lich with a high Intelligence
gets its biggest bonus to Intelligence and a Rogue-like creature with a high
Dexterity gets its biggest bonus to Dexterity and so on.

StrBonus to ChaBonus - Primary Ability modifiers. Note that increases to
Strength further increase attack and damage; increases to Constitution further
increase hitpoints and also Fortitude Save; increases to Dexterity increase AB
for creatures with Weapon Finesse wielding light weapons, AC if armor permits,
and Reflex Save; increases to Intelligence increase Save DC of arcane casters;
increases to Wisdom increase Save DC of most divine casters, and Will Save;
increases to Charisma increase Save DC of other casters, including Warlocks,
Bards, and creatures with special abilities.

HpBonusPct - the bonus hitpoints that creatures get as a percentage. 100 doubles
the hitpoints of a creature with 20 CR.

AcBonus - increases dodge armor class.

AttackBonus - increases the attack of Monsters and NPCs.

DamageBonus - increases the damage delivered by Monsters and NPCs.

AttackBonus_nat - increases the attack of natural creature weapons.

DamageBonus_nat - increases the damage delivered by natural creature weapons.

HandEnhance - Weapon and Shield Enhancement Bonus. This affects creatures that
are equipped with weapons (not natural weapons) or shields but only if a
creature has them in its hands when the script runs. It is not a bonus per se;
think of it as the minimum magical enhancement of opponents' weapons or shields.
If the weapon or shield drops when the creature is slain you get the enchanted
item(s).

SaveAdjust - Saving Throw modifier. This either increases a creature's saves or,
if negative, lowers a creature's saves.

SrBonus - increases spell resistance. A fix for broken SR on items (esp.
creature carapices) will be applied regardless of the value chosen. Also note
that the stock engine does not do SR checks properly for persistent Area of
Effect spells.

SrUseHd - 1 to grant a creature spell resistance equal to its hitdice if
greater.

CraftLoot - 1 to enable the Pia's OC-style crafting material drops.

CraftLootPct - the Pia can call a script that generates OC-style crafting drops:
gems, materials, OC essences. The chance to generate loot is equal to a
creature's hitdice plus this value, which can be negative. Try a value of about
10 if you want it on. Note that more than one item can be generated, with each
successive drop having a chance equal to the creature's hitdice.

CdaLoot - the Pia can call cdAulepp's Random Loot Generator:
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/script/cdaulepps-random-loot-g...
0 (default) off; 1 to turn it on if you have it installed. If you want to
configure cd's RLG do it in his scripts; the Pia calls 'fw_random_loot'.

EffectBuffs - 1 enables Pia_SpellEffects.2da (see below); 0 to disable.

PcLevel col
-----------

Any of the "per 20 CR" bonuses can get an extra bonus based on the party
Leader's level. This value has an inverse relationship and does not scale with
the challenge rating of Monsters or NPCs. THE LOWER THE VALUE THE HIGHER THE
BONUS THAT THEY GET and vice versa. It works like this: The value that you set
for PcLevel represents how many levels the PC Leader needs to have before
creatures get an extra +1 bonus. This bonus will be added as-is whether there is
a "per 20 CR" Value or not.

bonus = PcLeader's level / 2da val

For example if PcLevel is set to 1 creatures will get a +1 bonus PER LEVEL of
the party Leader - in other words do not set it to 1 unless you want to scream,
pull your hair out, run away in frustration and get an arrow for 300 pts in the
back of your character. However if set to a value of 6 a 12th level Leader would
generate only +2 bonuses or if set to 5 a 15th level Leader would generate +3
bonuses, etc. The resulting bonus will be rounded down. You should understand
that this is an inverse relationship before using it.

AddRand col
-----------

Any of the "per 20 CR" bonuses can get an extra bonus between 0 and the value
specified (inclusive). This bonus will not be scaled but added as-is whether
there is a "per 20 CR" Value or not.


And for Pia_SpellEffects.2da.

IMPORTANT: It's up to you to figure out a policy and use discretion to set up
buffs. All effects are of permanent duration.

Note: The 3 Feats (SpellPenetration, SpellFocus, Concentration) are special in
that they are not spell effects. Only the CastFactor col is considered for
Feats and they can be applied only to Arcane/Divine casters.

CastFactor col
--------------

The values in this col are treated very similarly to the per20cr values in
Difficulty.2da - they are per20hd in that the level of a buff is calculated by
the following formula:

cast power = (2da val * creature's HitDice) / 20

That is, if you specify "20" the cast power will be equal to the creature's
hitdice; lower or higher values will be calculated appropriately (rounded down).
For a creature to receive a buff from a category the cast power needs to be
equal to or higher than the minimum spell level in that category. For example,
the category "MageArmor" will cast MageArmor if the resulting cast power is
greater than or equal to 1 since MageArmor is a first level spell; but
ImprovedMageArmor will be cast instead if the resulting cast power is greater
than or equal to 3 since ImprovedMageArmor is a 3rd level spell. The spells in
each category are listed in the Description col along with their level - note
that the Innate level is considered per Spells.2da.

If a value of "0" or less is specified, a category is bypassed.

ArcaneStep col
--------------

The values in this col influence the cast power (calculated from CastFactor) if
the creature is determined to be an arcane caster. But unlike the multiplicative
CastFactor value, this value is merely additive: you can straightforwardly shift
the cast power up or down by this value.

ArcanePct col
-------------

The percentage chance that an effect will be applied according to the rules
above. If a value of "0" or less is specified, the category is bypassed.

DivineStep col
--------------

As ArcaneStep but for creatures that are determined to be Divine casters.

DivinePct col
-------------

As ArcanePct but for creatures that are determined to be Divine casters.

MundaneStep col
---------------

As ArcaneStep but for creatures that are *not* casters.

MundanePct col
--------------

As ArcanePct but for creatures that are *not* casters.

Visuals col
-----------

A value of "1" applies the standard spell visuals to a creature if they are
available - not all spells have visuals. A value of "0" will apply the effects
without any visuals.

Dispelable col
--------------

A value of "1" allows the effect to be removed by dispel magic (or if the
creature rests). A value of "0" applies the effect as Supernatural, which means
that the effect can be removed only by scripting.

SpellId col
-----------

Do not change values in the SpellId col unless you know what you're doing. The
SpellId is made available in case you need to resolve conflicts with other
spells per Spells.2da.

Description col
---------------

Lists the Innate spell level(s) of the spell effect per Spells.2da. The cast
power (see CastFactor above) + the Step value (see above) needs to be equal to
or greater than a spell's Innate level before it will be applied.


MISC
----
Tooltags for OC-style crafting:

Smith Hammer - smithhammer
Mortar and Pestle - mortar

eg. console
`
debugmode 1
rs giveitem smithhammer
debugmode 0
`


BACKGROUND
----------
I stand on the shoulders of giants.
You can see far from up here ..

Some background: I became depressed on my first run-through of the Official
Campaign when I realized that basically you can sit on your chair with your arms
folded and win every battle (almost). Later, when I researched how many
subterranean bugs were left in the game (nwn2) by Obsidian (thanks, Atari!) my
eyes lit up excitedly as I found that there are community-built modifications to
enhance the game's difficulty, the best of which I found was 3miLy_raNgeR's
Difficulty Modifier.

To the best of my understanding, however, each has its pros and cons: The
Increased Challenge scales with the initial difficulty of opponents but has set,
very limited enhancements for the monsters; the Difficulty Modifier introduced a
very simple & convenient .2da file (Difficulty.2da) that is only one row and can
be edited quickly in any text or .2da editor. Seriously! But it seems it did not
scale with the difficulty of your enemies. So I carefully went through the
scripting, line by line, and reintroduced proportional scaling based on a 20 CR
creature, as well as tweaking a number of parameters.

The result you have here is the Personal Impossibility Adjustment. I can't
resist letting you know why I came up with the title. It all started on the
second run-through of the OC, soon after I'd entered the Vale of Merdelain (The
Gauntlet, on the final leg to the final battle with Black Garius and the King of
Shadows). Play Testing of the PIA began ..

Now, my playstyle involves micromanaging all Companions (they don't breathe
without my say-so) and, as someone else aptly expressed it, a plethora of
pauses. Since my initial run of NWN2 was so easy battle-wise I took along all
the Companions that I could on the second run - and really, this made things no
easier (it can only get so easy ..). Plus I enjoyed the banter and not having to
run back and forth with a different company, and perhaps missing some cool &
groovy events & items along the way. So with my custom script in place I pump up
the difficulty to roughly 500 per cent.

And make my way through the Gauntlet. When I teleport through the black fog to
the Doom Knights I hit pause and start shaking (my head), I'm not going to win
this fight, I'm not going to win this battle - it's going over and over in my
head. Well, suffice to say that I won .. but four of my twelve companions were
lying face down on the floor shivering in cold sweat and splurting blood. I
never thought I'd be happy to see them get back up with one hitpoint when the
scrap was done (I'd previously attempted, without success, to introduce the SoZ
death-system into the OC + MotB; I may try again .. perhaps with the Makeover
edition). Yet I stubbornly refuse to lessen the difficulty settings.

Then Black Garius summons the Balhog and surrounds me with an energy barrier -
with that big blazing demon right in the middle of my group. And the ranger's
made his life's ambition to chop Qara's head off. And Black Garius keeps
instant-deathing poor Grobnar the minstrel. By now I'm literally shaking from
the adrenaline in my seat! Zhaeve is running around with her Wand of
Resurrection, Casivir can't touch the Balor, and only Khelgar goes toe to toe
while Elanee casts chain-Heals, chain-Stoneskins, and whatever else she can pull
out of her *deleted* on that ornery Dwarf.

It was the only, and I mean only time during NWN or NWN2 when I felt like I was
actually facing the Balrog of Moria from the LotR - you know the one, that
Gandalf and the Fellowship *ran away from* post haste. Both of these battles
took a few hours RT each and unfortunately left me, as a person, shaking and
utterly drained: hence, the Personal Impossibility Adjustment. I have since
backed the settings off greatly, and the default that comes with this download
is roughly 200% (you can't really measure this). Bear in mind that I micromanage
and pause a lot, so you might want to back them off more. Or if you're really
good at optimizing Character builds (which I'm not) .. heck, you decide. They're
only defaults.

IMPORTANT: Learn to make strategic SaveGames! With this modification you can
easily spawn in monsters and enemy NPCs that are impossible to best. Only a
save made prior to the spawn-in can save you, or console commands probably can
also.

Whew. I never realized how much it takes to make something I've taken for
granted public. Let me know how it works .. or not!

Happy Hunting, I have some Nightwalkers, Death Knights, and Vampires Ancient to
run away from .. "aiee, Run away! Run away!!!"