Bladesinger 'Armored Caster'

I'm finding that equipping Bladesingers that have the 'Armored Caster' class ability (Greater Spellsong in pnp) with any light armor that has greater than 10% ASF results in them getting hit with ASF. It seems as if there's a script running twice; I get one line that correctly shows 0%asf, then another duplicate line immediately follows it that seems to be adding a flat consistent amount of ASF after the initial value is subtracted; i.e. mithral shirt (10%asf) results in 0%asf, stud leather (15% asf) results in 5% asf, mithral chainmail (20%asf) results in 10% asf, etc. As is, the ability is functioning more like a flat 10% reduction of asf rather than being able to cast in any light armor without asf.

I removed the Battlecaster feat as an option from the class list of feats, since 1. Bladesingers per canon do not wear medium armor and 2. they specificly lose their abilites when wearing anything heavier than light armor, but I wouldn't think simply editing the featlist 2da would effect whatever script handles 'armored caster' ability?

I wasn't sure whether this was a bug or another odd 'feature' of the mod like the ASF when switching weapons.

What is the actual question? Because you are describing normal game behavior. If you equip a new piece of armor and you are already wearing armor then you get two ASF reports (the outgoing piece as you are now naked and the new piece with your current ASF). My script fires .4 to 2.4 seconds later to further adjust the ASF (often beating the OEI code that reports the ASF). It works fine and there is no bug.

ithildur wrote:... equipping Bladesingers that have the 'Armored Caster' class ability (Greater Spellsong in pnp) with any light armor that has greater than 10% ... hit with ASF...

... As is, the ability is functioning more like a flat 10% reduction of asf rather than being able to cast in any light armor without asf.

So this is in fact how it's intended, in spite of the ability description? Mithral breastplate (15% asf), mithral chain mail ('elven chain'' 20% asf), stud leather (15% asf), chain shirt (20% asf) are all light armor, and should have no asf with the ability, but that's not what's happening.

What's odd is the second adjustment/line displayed apparently is adding back 5%-10% to the asf, which shows as zero in the first line/reporting.

That *IS* exactly what is happening for me. If it's light armor, it's ASF is reduced correctly. There is no flat ASF reduction value, it's looked up dynamically from the actual item.

I tested it last night and every armor I tried (light and medium) was correctly handled. Mithril and non-mithril. Are you sure whatever module you are testing supports my content/is hooked up correctly?

Edit: I still don't think you get why there are two messages either. Unequip your chest armor first and THEN equip the new piece. One at a time so that you can see each message on it's own.

Kaedrin wrote:That *IS* exactly what is happening for me. If it's light armor, it's ASF is reduced correctly. There is no flat ASF reduction value, it's looked up dynamically from the actual item.

I tested it last night and every armor I tried (light and medium) was correctly handled. Mithril and non-mithril. Are you sure whatever module you are testing supports my content/is hooked up correctly?

Edit: I still don't think you get why there are two messages either. Unequip your chest armor first and THEN equip the new piece. One at a time so that you can see each message on it's own.

Yes, I took a peak at the script; looks like armorrules.2da is being accessed for asf % info. Regardless, apparently somehow something's adding asf back. I'm also seeing that past versions of this ability reflect that you (or whoever originally worked on this) did not take into account light armor with asf higher than 15%, possibly due to legacy scripts from nwn1 where there was no light armor with asf higher than 15%. The pertinent section of the code seems to have been commented out so it shouldn't be relevant, but it's interesting to note regardless.

Obviously I have to unequip before equipping the new piece... >.> Most people I know put their pants on one leg at a time too.

I'm running the OC, with a few override mods for appearances, GUI, etc. I removed all other overrides that have scripts; your PrC pack is the only thing running with scripts.

Thanks for the... help. I'll just live with the 10%reduction for now; it's better than nothing. I'll experiment with assigning bard's armored casting ability to the bladesinger, and I'm definitely keeping battlecaster far, far away from this PrC.

Right, I figured out what it's doing. The script apparently checks the first suit of light armor that you put on, derives the asf value of that armor, then from then on it constantly assigns that value as the value to be reduced for any light armor that you wear subsequently. So if the first suit of light armor you happen to don after getting the armored caster ability is say, chain shirt or mithral chain mail (20%, highest asf for light armor in the game), you're good and fine; any subsequent light armor you put on will get -20%asf which will mean zero asf.

However, if you happen to don, say, leather armor or mithral chain shirt (10%asf) after gaining the ability, the script will only reduce asf by 10% for EVERY light armor you don subsequently. ie stud leather/mithral breastplate will give you 5% asf, chain shirt/mithral chain mail 10%, etc. I'd imagine if the first suit you donned after gaining the ability was padded armor, from then on you're locked in at only 5% reduction.

So the 'solution' is to make sure the first suit of light armor you put on after getting the ability at lvl 6 of bladesinger is something with 20% asf; after that you're fine, every light armor will get -20% which is what's needed for the ability to function correctly.

Perhaps this could be noted in the documentation for the class until a fix can be found.

It sounds like the equip/unequip scripts are not firing for you. Are you sure you don't have a conflict? I'd suggest trying this problem with NO overrides except for mine.

Every time you equip or unequip anything, the bladesinger armored caster scripts fire and strip any previous value and apply the new ASF based on what is in your chest slot. Order doesn't matter. I confirmed it was working with 3 characters, 9 light armors, and 2 modules (OC and a tester). It works correctly for me in every case on both my dev machine and my tester laptop. GUI mods *can* change what scripts are fired.

The ability to get the armorrules row was only added in 1.23 which is why it had the flat value commented out.

Well it definitely is a script firing incorrectly. After starting out successfully with equipping 20% asf armor and getting the full -20% reduction, I changed armor temporarily at some point to a 15% armor. After a while I then found the elven chain (20%) and donned that, and now am showing 5% asf. It seems at some point the script kicked in and adjusted to the 15% armor, then locked that in as the default reduction for Armored Caster once again, resulting in leaving 20%asf armor with a net 5% asf. I've tried everything I can think of to try and get the script to fire again: resting, transitioning to another area, save/reloading, swapping out various items, etc. Nothing works.

I've tried taking out everything other than your mod from the override; doesn't help at all. At this point I'm going to live with 5% asf and hope that at some point the script will retrieve the correct asf info and apply it once again.

Ok... Armored Caster keeps having issues intermittently. I've had spells fizzle on me at the worst times especially after transitioning to new areas. The worst was the fights at the end of the OC where you transition into a new area, a cutscene/dialog happens right away without a break, and you immediately jump into combat after that. After seeing spells fizzle time and time again I started to hit the pause button as soon as I enter a new area, and check the character sheet; sure enough about 25% of the time Armored Caster isn't kicking in and asf 20% is showing up. I have to unequip the armor, and re-equip it to get the script to fire, which is rather annoying to do every time I go through an AT, but at times like the above when you can't unequip/equip armor because combat is starting right away, it's downright infuriating.

I'm going to test this with clean override (aside from the PrC pack) and various modules just to see if it's the OC that's causing problems, but so far I'm having these issues regardless of whether my override is clean or not with the OC; I'm wondering if when things get busy/lots of scripted stuff is happening all at once like the big fights at the end is somehow contributing to the armored caster script being skipped.