Full Plate And Packing Steel: Mod for BG2, IWD and Tutu

A Gibberlings Three Mod
Author: erik
On the web: Home page and discussion forum

Version 2 - Check for the most recent version
Languages: English
Platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

This mod is one big rework of the armour system of BG2, IWD and Tutu, and a small collection of tweaks, dependent or not.

This mod is designed to work with Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn with or without the Throne of Bhaal expansion pack, and Icewind Dale with or without any of the Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster expansions. Also compatible with EasyTutu SoA and ToB, with or without Tales of the Sword Coast.

Known incompatibilites (main component):

• Refinements' Revised Armors & Shields
• BG2 Tweaks' Allow Thieving and Stealth in Heavy Armor
• IWD Tweaks' Allow Thieving and Stealth in Heavy Armor
• Item Revisions' Heavy Armor Encumbrance
• Item Revisions' Allow Thieving Skills in Armor

Install order:

As close to last as you can manage. After anything adding armours to the game. Definitely after Spell Revisions, Item Revisions, Galactygon's SpellPack Beta 5. See the forum thread for more info.

Windows
The Full Plate And Packing Steel mod is packaged and installed with WeiDU and is distributed as a self-extracting archive. To install, simply double-click the archive and follow the instructions on screen.

Alternatively the files can be extracted from the archive using WinRAR. If properly extracted, you should have a fullplate folder and setup-fullplate.exe in your game folder. To install, simply double-click setup-fullplate.exe and follow the instructions on screen.

Please run setup-fullplate.exe in your game folder to reinstall, uninstall or otherwise change components.

Mac OS X
If the mod was previously installed, uninstall it before extracting the new version.The Full Plate And Packing Steel mod is packaged and installed with WeiDU. To install, simply extract the contents of the mod into your game folder. If properly extracted, you should have a fullplate folder, setup-fullplate, and setup-fullplate.command in your game folder. To install, simply double-click setup-fullplate.command and follow the instructions on screen.

Linux
Extract the contents of the mod to the folder of the game you wish to modify. Download the latest version of WeiDU for Linux from WeiDU.org and copy WeiDU, WeInstall and tolower to somewhere in your path (/usr/local/bin/ or /usr/bin/ , for example). Following that, open a terminal, cd to your game installation directory, run 'tolower' and answer Y to both queries.

You can avoid running the second option (linux.ini) if you've already run it once in the same directory. To save time, the archive is already tolowered, so there's no need to run the first option (lowercasing file names) either if you've extracted only this mod since the last time you lowercased filenames. If you're unsure, running tolower and choosing both options is the safe bet.

Run WeInstall fullplate in your game folder to install the mod. Then run wine bgmain.exe or wine idmain.exe and start playing.

Between You And Harm: Armour System Rework

AD&D's armour system never made sense to me. Characters as agile and sprightly in full plate as in light leather armour. Heavy armour not helping one bit if a goblin happens to hit you in the chest with a bent butterknife. You get hurt just as bad as the random unarmoured commoner.

And in BG2, AC simply isn't effective after a while. Opponents autohit you and you them, because of AC not keeping pace with THAC0 and pluses to hit and whatnot accumulating.

Enter this rework. Light, enchanted armours actually help you dodge and take a bit of the sting out. Heavy, enchanted armours don't help dodging much. But they absorb perhaps half or more of the blow in exchange for slowing you down and fatiguing you. Armour spells and potions are modified to match the systematic changes.

Stealth, thieving and casting in heavy armour is possible, but difficult.

Heavy armour has quite another feel now. Enjoy.

P.S. Do read the updated descriptions. They are informative. See the design notes below if you want full details.

HOW/TOTLM note: The (x amount resisted) feedback text does not seem to be accurate all the time. Strangeness abounds. But it all seems to work correctly.

Field Improvisation

Allows all magical armours and other items of protection to be worn with each other.

Little He Knows Where a Foe May Lurk

Everyone can backstab at x2, thieves/assassins/stalkers do better. Only weapons a single-class thief can use are eligible for backstab, as usual.

erik created this mod. You can find out more about Full Plate And Packing Steel by visiting the Full Plate forum or the project page. Visit the Gibberlings Three Forums for information on this and any other Gibberlings Three mods on which we may be working.

Special thanks to:

• Westley Weimer and the Bigg, for WeiDU
• Avenger, for DLTCEP
• the Bigg and the Refinements team, for inspiration
• Gibberlings Three, for hosting and the friendly atmosphere
• Kulyok, for IWD scripting inspiration
• various Pen & Paper roleplaying games (Aria Roleplaying, Ars Magica, Rolemaster), for inspiration
• Icendoan, first real live bug reporter
• berelinde, Seff - various suggestions

Tools Used in Creation
WeiDU by Westley Weimer and the Bigg
DLTCEP by Avenger

This mod is not affiliated with Bioware, Black Isle or Interplay. Full Plate And Packing Steel is ©2008-2009, erik.

License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported ... essentially, mention me in the readme if you grab anything. Feel free.

• NOTE: Dex penalties can kill you. If dex reaches 0 due to, for example, low dex in the first place, full plate and stone form potion, the character will break his neck dressing for battle.
• Movement penalty and fatigue purely based on weight.
• Spoilers (look here for all the numbers)
• light armour:
  • padded, leather, studded, hide, elven chain, light dragonscale armours
  • enchantment improves ac quickly
  • enchantment removes weapon speed penalties quickly
  • enchantment lowers thieving penalties quickly
  • enchantment improves damage resistance slowly
  • enchantment lowers weight, move penalties and dex penalties (no sudden halving of weight for +1 armours)
  • enchantment improves spell failure slowly
• heavy armour:
  • scale, (adamantine/mithril) chain, splint, banded, plate, field plate, full plate, heavy dragonscale armours
  • enchantment improves ac slowly
  • enchantment removes weapon speed penalties slowly
  • enchantment lowers thieving penalties slowly
  • enchantment improves damage resistance quickly
  • enchantment lowers weight, move penalties and dex penalties (no sudden halving of weight for +1 armours)
  • enchantment improves spell failure slowly

v2 - february 2009

• Changes:
• Updated to WeiDU 210.
• Slowdown - Weapon Speed Factor renamed Initiative and nudged down a little bit.
• Dex penalties scaled down from -6 range to -4 range.
• Fatigue added depending on armor weight. Stock CON fatigue factor tweaked to have a bit more of an effect.
• Compatibility updates:
• The venerable Unfinished Business and Quest Pack mods tested.
• Beyond the Law accounted for.
• BG1 Unfinished Business tested and accounted for. Yay!
• The Stone of Askavar items added.
• Xulaye NPC mod items added.
• Indira mod for Tutu tested.
• Sorcerer's Place Collection ... single item added.
• Cosmetic, backstab-for-everyone: update description of TDD's Elven Forest Warrior kit.
• Compatible with The Grey Clan Episode One.
• Minor fixes for IR v2 compatibility.
• iiItem now adjusted. Special honours: first new armour potion seen in quite a while.

v1 - december 2008

• Padded Armor thieving penalties tweaked to match 2E Player's Handbook.
• Minor fixes to Icewind Dale items.
• Minor fixes to Auril's Bane items.
• Minor description fixes to account for the fixpack/baldurdash game text update.
• Fixed misclassification of Cured Leaf Hauberk from Selune's Armoury.
• Fixed armours included in Kindrek mod.
• Added BG1NPC compatibility. Tested with EasyTutu TOB.
• Updated to WeiDU 209.

beta 5 - december 2008

• First public release!
• more mod items and tuning of descriptions
• DLTC: Glory of Istar support
• EasyTutu support
• Classic Adventures support

beta 4 - closed beta, november 2008

• bugfix: armor no longer overrides natural resistances
• install-time analysis of resistances added by items and effects, creatures adjusted to avoid resistant-to-everything enemies
• added back some ac-bonuses vs weapon types (equal amount for all armor types, just distributed in various ways), to help Icewind Dale adventurers a bit
• beefed up missile protection of heavy armours a bit
• minor descriptionwhacking updates
• tested with still more mods than before
• avoids disturbing other "casting-in-armour" mods
• compatibility added with Spell Revisions and Item Revisions mods
• compatibility added with Galactygon's Spell Pack beta 5

beta 3 - closed beta, november 2008

• caveat: WeiDU pre-209 beta, for proper game engine detection
• bugfix: update scroll descriptions to match spell changes
• bugfix: fix ac for armors with updated base ac 0
• game-specific tweaks (same filename, different spell)
• Icewind Dale, Heart of Winter, Trials of the Luremaster compatibility
• improved SoA compatibility
• added backstabbing-for-everyone component

beta 2 - closed beta, july 2008

• more mod items taken care of
• shields not disabling spells/thieving anymore
• improved descriptionwhacking
• limit each item to max 100% resistance, not only the gametime total

beta 1 - closed beta, late may 2008

• first semi-public version