Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Mods Editing spells

I'm running into the problem of my edited spells simply not working at all. I'm using the 4 player mod as the basis for my changes, but whenever I edit a spell in SkillData.txt (4player/Stats/Generated/Data/SkillData.txt) the changes simply don't show up at all or the spell's description simply vanishes and the spell becomes unusable.

For example, I changed Vampiric Touch to TargetRadius 15 and DamageType Shadow, but no dice.

Same thing for me

If your mod is set to be dependant on main, it will revert most changes back to default.

You might be succesfull if you copy-paste the spell/skill,
place it at the bottom at that entire section
modify as you see fit and change the name/id
then find a way to place it ingame somewhere your character can find it, idk

Something is either terribly wrong with my machine/setup or terribly wrong with the way that mods from the /stats folder are being loaded now. If it's not just me, the behavior should be reproducable. If you drop in a copy of SkillData.txt in stats/generated/data, all the skills will break. In fact, they break so hard that if you load a mod and then load an unmodded game, the skills will still be broken.

If you edit SkillData down to just one spell (like Projectile_FlareStart), you can then make modifications to that spell and everything will seem to work fine. However if you then add a copy of weapons.txt, everything will once again break.

Here's where it gets strange, if you edit weapon.txt down to just one weapon (I used the fist default), then your skills will break a tiny bit. Edits to Projectile_FlareStart will be lost and instead it will shoot two projectiles. Staff of Magus will cease to work. Magical Poison Dart will get a targeting path like Staff of Magus has, a precasting effect like a powerful witchcraft spell, and it will shoot a ball that does earth damage.

I don't know if these behaviors are consistent across machines, but it seems unlikely this is intended behavior. Up until a few updates ago, you could just drop a copy of SkillData.txt in the right folder and everything worked fine when you changed properties.

Yeah, it seems like there are all sorts of weird issues.

I tried changing Bloodletting and starting a new game, same issue. The spell works, but it works the same as in the base game instead of applying my changes.

Bumping, because I'd really like a solution or workaround.

The main problem is the game is currently setup to ignore mods that override existing content like spells/models/texture/etc. It will just blissfully continue using the default versions. I have found a work around, however its not pretty:

First replace Main.pak and Texture.pak with their extracted contents. In other words extract those pak file contents using Norbyte's Extracting Tool then move them to their appropriate data/mod and data/public folders then remove the original pak files. (NOTE: Do not extract the pak files directly to their folders, its causes errors for some reason, extract them in a separate place then move them manually.)

At that point the edited spell files should work as long as you edited them from the Main Module folders.

Of course this has several major issues, so don't do it unless you REALLY know what you're doing:

• You have to edit the main module version of the files (standalone mods still won't work). As well as could have side effects ranging from losing multiplayer to flat out breaking the game and having to reinstall.
• You have to remove 2 major Pak files (I would recommend moving them to a backup folder rather than flat out deleting them for easy recovery)
• Who knows what kind of issues it could cause with the game's update patches

I would recommend simply making an alt copy of the game to mod up if you plan on doing this. To run an alt copy go to its /shipping folder and click on EoCApp.exe

I personally made an alt copy I've used to make some custom armor skins by using this work around. Sorry, I know its hardly an ideal solution, but if you really want to mod up the game right now its probably the only way to it ATM.

Hm, so do I place the extracted files in the shipping folder?

No, you place them in the data folder like a normal mod.

You just have to extract somewhere else first (like a temp folder). For some reason if you extract them directly to the data folder it has a habit of causing issues. Extracting them in a different folder then manually moving them to the data folder worked for me.

There may be a slightly easier way to do this.

I've noticed that with custom packages you can override files that the the extracted files in the Data/Mods/ and Data/Public/ folder aren't able to, however you'll need to repackage your changes each time you change anything in those two folders.

The technique is the same as here: http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=508810#Post508810
That is, create your Main mod override files, make a .pak from them, copy the .pak file to the Data directory of the game -- not My Documents\Larian\...\Mods! -- and it should theoretically work.

Even after a new game? Or is that where the changes kick in? Like the Speed Mod you have to start a new for it to work, spells the same way, or not or unknown?

EDIT: Aha! Got it to work. Thanks a bunch.

Odd, when I try to repackage a change into a pak file it always becomes 1 kb...

How are you repacking it?

Destination Path: <Mod name>.pak

Package root path: Public/Main/Stats/Generated/Data/SkillData.txt


Compression Mode: Don't compress

Source paths: empty

I think making a video on modding spells and loot tables and repackaging and getting it to work would be better suited to a video.

Mmm that's not really the way its meant to be used

Package root path should point to your game Data directory.
Source paths should point to directories under the Data directory that you want to add to the package.

Okay, let's say that I've extracted the Main.pak file to my desktop for editing, and the edited file is SkillData.txt.

Now then, how would I configure the source path, package root path and destination path? I'm sorry for the question, but it's making my head spin

OK, image and explanation: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32263228/dos/createpkg.png

"Destination package path" is the location of the created .pak file.
"Game data path (Package root path)" is the path of your modded Data directory.
This path *must* be specified, because the created .pak files contain relative references; eg. if you add "D:\Dev\DOS\UnpackedData\Public\Main\Stats\Generated\Data\SkillData.txt" to a .pak file, the packager has no way to know what file name it should write into the .pak file. Should it be SkillData.txt? or Data\SkillData.txt? or perhaps Generated\Data\SkillData.txt? The root path helps it determine this relative path. If the root path is incorrectly specified, the game won't override the original files at all.

"Source Paths" are directories that you want to add to the package.
Let's say that your modded Data directory is at D:\Dev\DOS\UnpackedData, and you've changed the Cleric and Wizard templates at Mods\Main\CharacterCreation\ClassPresets\Cleric.lsx and Mods\Main\CharacterCreation\ClassPresets\Wizard.lsx.
In this case you can either:
- add the D:\Dev\DOS\UnpackedData\Mods\Main\CharacterCreation\ClassPresets directory
- or add the D:\Dev\DOS\UnpackedData\Mods\Main\CharacterCreation\ClassPresets\Cleric.lsx and D:\Dev\DOS\UnpackedData\Mods\Main\CharacterCreation\ClassPresets\Wizard.lsx files separately.

Okay, so is this it? I extracted the original pak to a download folder...:

Destination: D:\Downloads\MyMod.pak
Game Data: D:\Downloads\Public

Source Path: Public/Main/Stats/Generated/Data/SkillData.txt?