I've been having a lot of discussions with a woman named Lilura lately -- she has an excellent blog (found here: http://lilura1.blogspot.com/ ) where she's been featuring several things NWN related. That includes a seven part recapping of HotU, a *34* part recounting of The Aielund Saga, and now a recapping of the original campaign. Her intention is to also feature more community modules in an effort to showcase them to people and help attract new players to the community (basically, make NWN look interesting even at this point -- which, of course, it is).

She's also aware of the fact that I'm working on improving Aielund (fixing some bugs, cleaning up some typos, making some tweaks to a few sections of the campaign) and has seen some of my other work and thus made an interesting proposal. She started off by saying and suggested that maybe I work on a similar overhaul for HotU. I admit I've never played BG so I have no knowledge of the former...and the thought of playing through DA:O a second made me want to gouge my eyes out -- though it's possible that extensive overhauls managed to fix many of the issues it had (particularly in regards to combat). Because let's face it: Bioware may generally be good at story and setting, but it's usually sucked at mechanics and combat.

Along those lines, the official Bioware campaigns can basically be beaten by a strength based wizard (as I'm sure we all know). And no, I'm not talking about Webshaman's Melee Mage build ( [url=http://home.comcast.net/~worldofgreyhawk/builds/data/build301814.html]http://home.comcast.net/~worldofgreyhawk/builds/data/build301814.html[/url] ). The idea therefore would be to ramp up the difficulty of the campaign and make the boss fights...well, actually proper boss fights. Stuff that would be done might include...

- beef up the power of mobs in general (some need less tweaking than others but most stuff is made of tissue paper and can't hit the broad side of a barn).
- make the boss fights more engaging (and difficult) with actual unique mechanics.
- tweak some particularly...problematic...spells (IGMS, Harm, and (Mass) Heal would be three prime examples).
- tone down some gear (like, probably only be able to enchant weapons to +6 in Chapter 2 and +8 in Chapter 3, for example -- exact values are certainly open to debate but that would be the general idea)
- alter a few mechanics -- ranged characters generally suck in NWN by default and HotU doesn't do it any favors with the forge and things like the Black Pearl. Would be open to suggestions about many other things along these lines.
- possibly do some things like allow any companion from Chapter 1 to be able to be brought into Chapter 2 and beyond and/or allow a party of 4-5 rather than 3.
- Allow user customization at the start regarding things like difficulty, romances, etc (which was directly mentioned as being inspired by Sanctum of the Archmage)
- Add in graphic improvements such as Project Q to give it a graphics facelift

At this point just passing along ideas that have been suggested to me without necessarily endorsing any quite yet while I consider them.

But you get the drift. The idea would be to make a replacement for the default HotU for people interested in better combat. And I'll state up front that my goal would not be to make a replacement that everyone thinks is perfect -- merely a replacement that everyone thinks is a significant improvement over the default. Aka, you might love 80% of what I do and hate the other 20%. While I'm sorry to hear that, someone else will love the 20% that you hate but themselves hate another 15%. Etc. Can't please everyone.

So, is this something that people would be interested in? I'd be perfectly fine not doing it (I have plenty of other projects on my plate)...but HotU is generally held in high regard as the best of the official campaigns and considered a good campaign in general compared to other RPGs. And it may help get new people interested more in NWN or revive the interest of former community members. Which is a goal all of us share.

Well... I've played HotU twice and found it well hard enough.
So I wouldn't be interested in a mod making it harder.

Guess there might be a call for this, but.. it wouldn't be for a huge audience.

But, wouldn't it make more sense to revamp SoU?
Given how that's not nearly as well thought of, there'd be much more room for improvement?
That has good roots for a game.. but is.. a bit bland somehow.

Like maybe add horses so you can gallop and lance all those buggers in early chapters.
(which wouldn't make any sense in HotU as it's all in a dungeon stuff)

If you change the resistances and special abilities from the creatures you are breaking the D&D entries for said creatures (more than they are already in NWN). I'm not going to say they are balanced but as they are based in the D&D3.0, players expects certain things from each type of creature.

Of course, you can do smart thing with their current capacities, by example Sandai from BG Throne of Bhaal, she uses 6 simulacrums (or special spells that create copies of her) for fighting you together swarm of his drow elite warriors (Actually, her level scare me since a single squirrel was able to resist my paladin spells).

Another alternative are powerful items that protect against critical, sneak attacks or given immunity to fire to frost giants and things like that, they are 100% valid to be carried by almost any creature, and elitle soldiers such as epic creatures are good candidate for carrying one or more. But, if you take that approach please, put warnings (a NPC saying that the demon has special protection, or the properties of the drow's armor under the matriarch order), drop the item for the PC be able to use it or sell it or that the item got destroyed and lost all his power (a simple description saying "Once the powerful armor of Mephistoles, now is only a dark shadow of it")

The spells, at least there are problem with the NWN implementation /(By example that not one take more than a full round to be cast), they have been tested in paper by years now, I don't see too much reason to tweaking them. But you can bring P&P favorites to NWN. OR by example, changing the antimagic zone in the campaign.

Make more balanced the items in the NWN1 seem ok, there should not be items with the power of casting epic spells by themselves.

Fair enough. By the same token, people who play the Mass Effect series on Hardcore/Insanity or the Dragon Age series on Hard/Nightmare were falling asleep during it. That's not an insult aimed at you, simply pointing out that difficulty is relative. And, of course, it would also be trying to improve some other things like graphics and AI. Possibly, but then you're also going into far more effort/work and changing the story/setting rather than just the mechanics. Given how terribly implemented horses are in NWN, that would be one of the last things I'd want to do, sorry. Changing their AB/damage/AC/HP wouldn't be breaking the DnD entires -- the important part about a fire elemental isn't that it has 10 AB rather than 7 AB...it's that it's immune to fire and weak to cold. Do you think that a cleric being able to heal 400+ HP with a single cast of Heal over 20 times a day makes sense? I mean, there's a reason it was nerfed in 3.5.

Yep, you are right here, but is as well very hard to "calibrate". By example Dragon Age origin especial mod for adding extra difficult (Can't remember the name now). Was so good that was impossible to use it in the low levels (authors original warning).
For NWN the amount of class and PrC can generate "weak" characters for you extra spicy hard setting taking away the experience. By example, I was testing an wizard/Cleric in SoU and HoTU and had a hell in the last one due I didn't reach the 9th spells (But his social skills were amazing), still is a good experience. Well, if you increases their HD (Which in turn increase their stats) is part of the normal process in any D&D setting, heh you can even give PC classes levels to an unique fire elemental. Of course you can say "to the Hell to D&D" and make the things to your pleasure, but the campaigns are made for be a D&D experience in Toril world. I personally will not play a mod that changes that feeling.
Original material such as Daggerfall is another history, I didn't remember that was not limited to max of 20 of caster level in the NWN1. But then again, as I said, Heal spell is a good candidate for be modified as has issues with his implementation on NWN1.
Though not sure what you mean by "over 20 times a day"

To be fair, you could still play the original HotU if you wanted to play an intelligence based fighter. I'm just finding myself thinking it's not worth catering to those people at the expense of people playing the game as intended, y'know? We may have very different interpretations of "D&D experience in Toril" but to me that means the types of monsters, their general abilities (illithids = mind powers, beholders = antimagic and rays, etc), characters, and setting. Whether that beholder has an antimagic cone it shoots, an anti magic bolt it uses, or an antimagic zone it creates on the ground makes little difference to me. Still a beholder! What other spells do you think have issues with implementation in NWN? I mean, IGMS doesn't even exist in P&P as far as I can tell.

And by "over 20 times a day" I mean a cleric can easily prepare 10+ Heal spells and 10+ Mass Heal spells, for a total of 20+ full heals per day. That is a LOT of healing.

A lot of areas in HotU can be cleared easily just by walking in with stoneskin, extended acid sheath and extended elemental shield and letting the local monsters kill themselves. The fact that greater stoneskin or premonition are overkill until you reach chapter 3 is kinda sad. Throw in other defensive spells as appropriate, and you can basically strut around like an immortal. Ironically, the Valsharess uses this very combo but ends up as a comically weak boss since she's rendered utterly impotent if her prebuffs are dispelled. I'd agree a lot of the "generic mobs" in HotU are pretty pathetic. Some of them can be dangerous at the very beginning due to your lack of equipment, but that will sort itself out by the time you reach the 2nd level of Undermountain. One of the big problem is how many monsters waste their time using mind-affecting powers. Everyone and their dog has immunity to it at these levels.

That said, don't go overboard with the difficulty of regular mooks; save the big guns for the boss fights ;-) I'm all for making the boss fights more interesting. The Sabal fight is the only memorable one in the entire game, and that's more because it's the only one with any sense of build-up whatsoever. Most come down to "here be bad guy, go stick him/her with sharp pointy things until fall down". Absolutely; the game's not going to be hard for a Wizard/Sorcerer so long as the likes of Time Stop and IGMS are on the table. That said, IGMS can be partially alleviated by creating encounters where it's harder to get a "clean shot" so that all your missiles can hit the boss.

Haste is another effect worth consideration. It's an ubiquitous and incredibly powerful effect, and taking it away would have a very noticable difficulty increase across the board. Getting closer to its 3.5 incarnation (no increase to spellcasting speed, cannot be obtained passively from items) is a definite option. This is an important one. HotU becomes a lot harder for non-spellcasters if you take away their obscenely overpowered custom-built weapons. Toning those down will go a long way towards bringing up the difficulty. Archery in general wasn't very good in 3.0/3.5 to begin with, and it got even worse in the transition to real-time combat in NWN. Not sure what's the right course of action there, but I support the sentiment. Bringing the chapter 1 companions into later chapters would do wonders to help the incredibly constrained roster, more than doubling it. I'm ambivilent towards max party size; I rarely use more than one henchman in HotU as it stands. Makes sense, especially since not everyone is going to be a fan of higher difficulty. NWN is one of those games where the power gap between an optimized and un-optimized character is truly outrageous.

Overall, it sounds like a pretty good framework.

The Stoneskin line of spells poses a particular problem: you only have so many spells per day but healing potions/healing kits are cheap and plentiful. To the point where you're better off having another Lesser Spell Breach, Imp Invis, Ice Storm, or ILMS than a Stoneskin. Or IGMS compared to a Greater Stoneskin. Etc.

I'm not sure of a good way to change that.

Drastically reducing the healing available and/or drastically raising the price of healing would encourage more Stoneskin use. It also makes Clerics/Druids even more overpowered.

Simply making mobs hit harder but have less AB (so that fighters/rogues/etc avoid most attacks but mages get smacked around and thus need Stoneskin to protect against burst) is an option.

Changing the effect of Stoneskin/Greater Stoneskin/Premonition to be something like a permanent 3/+20, 6/+20, and 10/+20 DR respectively (so reduces about a third as much but doesn't run out) is also an option. Which is problematic as well for two reasons.

One, mind affecting immunity tends to be binary -- either you have it and laugh or don't have it and are dead. Getting affected by a mind affecting spell is very rarely a minor deal.

Two, if you remove the mind affecting stuff then people may complain about the immunity being useless (which wouldn't break my heart).

Perhaps keep a few mobs here and there with mind affecting (but only a little bit) to keep players "honest" and otherwise remove most of them? If you're curious about the kind of stuff I'm talking about, I'd suggest looking at my module here:

http://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/siege-heavens

You could also look at the bosses in this module (mainly the last one):

http://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/peremptory-summons What would you suggest changing about Time Stop? I agree that being able to chain Time Stops + IGMS (and thus being able to unload like 15+ IGMSes before any enemy can react) is nuts but not sure the best way to go about changing it. Maybe limit how often Time Stop can be used? Or make Time Stop last longer but it makes enemies invulnerable or something while Time Stop is active? Tricky issue.

And that's true for the "clean shot" comment...but those encounters also tend to heavily favor mage AoE so we're back to mages crushing everything. I think making the gameplay of NWN feel faster is probably a good thing at epic levels -- especially for spellcasters. Simply planning on everyone having permahaste and balancing according will probably work best.

It is insanely strong, though, to the point that I advocate that it either be available on items or that the spell is flat out removed (or very, very modified). At a minimum, adding part (or all) of Dex to ranged damage and making ammunition better.

May also set up an unlimited ammunition system once you find a certain type (that comes from a quiver or something). I've almost always soloed it, yeah. Though I'd also plan to make companions/summons not decrease XP.

Yep, we appreciate the game and mechanics in very different way. Well, if the cleric has more than 10 spell slots for casting Heal (or metamagic versions) and more than 10 slots for the 9th spells , then what is the problem? is part of his CR be able to cast so many spells (as well to implement AI for the enemy uses the counter-spell ability). By the way, is truly possible to reach that number of slots in the higher level in the game? An epic cleric with 52 Wis only has 9 slots for each level from 5 to 9 (NWNwiki info). I suppose there can be items to increase said slots but in the vanilla version is possible?

Other example of tactic: the epic mobs can easily to have drows wizard which cast dispel magic on the PC and henchman (Can't remember er if NWN1 dispel has area effect and target effect) or the fearsome antimagic ray (Though do not exist in the default campaign) making the powerful wizard a simple monkey meanwhile the dragon is still a dragon.

It's actually pretty good value, precisely because damage amounts are so low that it doesn't run out all that quickly. If damage were actually higher, such that enemies overflowed the DR more often and depleted it more quickly then your analysis would be spot on. I do agree that there's a lot of competition for those valuable 4th level spell slots, and it's generally better to proactively remove a threat rather than block its damage after the fact.

And yeah, healing is essentially unlimited. That said, resting is also rarely restricted so there's nothing stopping a wizard from laying down camp and getting back those slots if he runs out. NWN is very forgiving in that matter, and only Mask of the Betrayer in NWN2 even attempts to impose a serious limitation (and fails due to a multitude of easily exploitable loopholes). Power Attack was very important balancing factor in high-optimization pen and paper. Unlike NWN, which is a fixed tradeoff at a relatively low number, pen and paper allowed you to adjust your power attack and was only limited by your BAB, so you could make a large trade (say -20 AB for +40 damage) to punish a foe for skimping on AC. It's a shame there isn't an easy way to get that kind of natural scaling here. I agree that it makes it a bit too binary, but I think another part of the problem is that mind-affecting spells often have ludicrous DC's and are utterly debilitating. No matter how high your will save, there's no reason you would ever skimp on immunity to these effects. I often forget about it before fighting that dragon in chapter 1, and get a very stern reminder of why immunity to mind-affecting is a staple in NWN. A Cleric might make the save against that fear aura, but no one else is going to. Switching up the item availability and rebalancing accordingly won't help, either, as that just gives spellcasters the edge since they can get the immunity without the use of items. I think your solution of just downplaying it (and perhaps adjust the DC's to be more sane) makes the most sense. If it's not IGMS it'll be something else. The only way I could see it being balanced is if you limited it to self-target only spells. That much spellcasting effectively being unleashed instantaneously on the enemy is going to win fights, full stop. Forcing only defensive options would still leave it some utility without allowing the worse. Or you could leave it as broken as ever, but introduce in-universe "consequences" for overusing it. True; there's a brutally overpowering spell for every occasion. The closer we get to pen and paper, the more D&D becomes "rocket tag", with whoever acts first preemptively eliminating their opponent.

Anti-magic is a good way of incapacitating a wizard in PnP, but without some form of soul trapping he'll be back in business in no time. There are plenty of different ways to schedule your own resurrection as a high-level wizard, and the last thing you want is an angry wizard plotting to kill you from some unknown secret lair.

The ability to heal to full 20+ times a day (which isn't even including personal buff spells) is definitely not accurately reflected in the CR.

But that isn't even what I was driving at -- I was saying that trying to reduce the amount of available healing from potions/healing kits makes clerics/druids even more relatively powerful. That's why something like removing (or reducing the amount of) Potions of Heal causes issues. It'll make things more difficult for non Druids/Clerics but those two classes still have a ton of healing. Silence (or Still) Spell. Say you have 34 wisdom at level 24 (with +12 wisdom items). That's seven level 6 spells, seven level 7 spells, seven level 8 spells, and six level 9 spells.

Which is...

7 Heals
7 Silenced Heals
7 Mass Heals
6 Silenced Mass Heals

For 27 full heals (with 13 of those being group heals). OotS reference?

Let's put it this way: how many times during a fight have you run out of spells as a mage and desperately wished you had a few more (especially at lower levels)?

Now how many times during a fight have you run out of healing potions as a mage and desperately wished you had a few more?

I'm guessing the former is "a lot" and the latter is "zero." It's trivial to run around with 50 Cure Serious Wounds potions or whatever.

Sadly, in NWN, the AI also often uses it horribly. It'll go "Hey, let's gain like 50% more damage per hit at the cost of hitting half as much!" Which is 25% less damage dealt over...and this problem gets worse at higher levels.

The binary was also referring to the "utterly debilitating" part. If a fighter fails a will save it's usually not "you now have 2 less AB/AC"...it's "you are now stunned/feared/paralyzed for 2 minutes and will die."

And yes, spellcasters providing it is also an issue, especially when Protection from Alignment works against most monsters.

Simply making it only usable every 60 seconds or something would help. Could even do something cruel like drain 1 spell per spell level as well as an additional cost (potentially including even another level 9 spell).

But what is the problem here? Is the cleric capacity to cast that amount of spells, he even need to spent feats for doing it. He can't cast Storm of Vengeance or Harm or Destruction by doing that. Is a valid way to use the spells (And making the monster to go by Chinese food). Is the same if the wizard uses all his slots for summon elemental.

By the way, in P&P Mass heal is a level 9 spell, not 8 (I didn't noticed until you listed the silenced spells), you can fix that as truly the heal spells are broken in NWN1. Yet, you can have 7 empowered heal (8th level) and 6 mass heal spell (9th spell) and my words remain: Is part of the cleric CR.

You wan to balance the things? remove the Heal potion and return the Heal skill to his general purpose, that is breakable thing in the NWN settings, in D&D not spell beyond 4th level can be used for making potions, except by an epic feat (But then is something to see at level 21 not 9).
And when the wizard need to drink a potion in combat usually him is already death (A cure critical potion will not give you more energy than the monsters is taking from you each single round.

If you work in the I.A. you will make more harder the game without need to modify how the spells works. The mob wizard can cast the spells breachs in each character that has stoneskin or similar and being counterspelling the other spells, the fighter can save the power attacks feats for hitting those creatures wearing light armor and/or buckler shield (So normal probability for hitting to the tank, and the poor wizard will be made spaghetti quickly). You can make a combo of IA, the melee attacks those already affected by the dispel spells. You could have the normal IA for the first chapter as those are not yet epic and then switched once you are in the underdark.

The melee warriors can be a mix of tactic, one can use the Knockdown feat on everyone, disarm against rouges and clerics (Which probably will not have enough skills for resisting the attack). You can even have special melee that knockdown the melee and immediately go by the casters (maybe that dangerous cleric which probably has +20 heal spells?), you want to make it worse? give him armor with fortification, the gargoyle boots (Stoneskin spell) and haste potion, and a true seeing ring, even more lethally? special sword that each hit cast a Silence spell as 20th level caster. You want to laugh evil? The items are linked to the drow blood and sustained by Mephistoles power, thus is useless by your characters (Though made with good material so, they are sold by good price). Bad combo for the party, excellent combo for once time NPC.

All the melee characters can bring weapons with randomly elemental damage which in turn will make Stoneskin less useful as the fighter/Wizard will still getting damage. The wizard buffed the party for avoid that? He had to sacrifice slots for do it, probably losing the slot for a greater invisibility spell for getting away for drink cure potions. And the enemy who ambush the player probably are buffed as well (you don't need to make changes to AI, just the script for spawning the creatures). After all, they can be teleported in front of you once they were buffed by lesser wizards (is a excuse but very reasonable for a D&D setting, more if the Matriarch don't want chosen ones after her).

Heh! you can even bring the lethally epic monk vampires to the NWN1 as mercenaries. That is one of the worst "random" hordes to find, they have one chance to kill with the first attack, immune to almost everything (by racial trait, high bonus saves or spell resistance), drain touch, high HP, can bypass the stoneskin/premonition spells because their fist are seen as Adamantine, even turned into chickens are hard to kill due their AC. In nwn2 with just levels 21-26 they were very hard to fight, in NWN1 where they can reach until level 40 (Well 36 by their level adjustment)...

As the drow matriarch has gaining power over many other house, she has collected their treasure including many golems to protect his females arcane casters or making pudding from the party casters (meanwhile the melee is busy with the drow warrios). Even normal golems will have good time pudding epic casters due their immunity to the spells and the wizard/sorceress low AC.

The mobs is having a bad day? No problem, the mercenary cleric of Bane/Cyric with more than 20 heal spells is there. OR maybe he will just cast mass heal and have the Storm of Vengeance and Earthquake ready for the party casters. ( I remember was hard to script spawned creatures with the metamagic spells ready).

What knows a simple matriarch in comparison to Mephistoles? his lieutenants demons will have more dangerous troops, even the drows souls already killed by your party (and/or Mephistoles) and now with undead traits or turned into elemental or other lesser demons, after all you are linked to Mephistoles in the first part of the game, he get yours kills.

All this in my opinion is better than making 6th level or lower totally useless, by example, Stonkeskin having 10/+3 mean that is useless in the campaign (At 14th level creature is expected to have that type of weapons). There is a reason why in D&D 3.5 the damage resistance change to /magic (+1), /epic (+6), /-- and the type of damage and weapon material.

All that without forgetting that some place of the Matriach's palace and the hell can have anti-magic zones, so the fighter will have his day.

But is useful, restricted places for sleeping with different risk of being ambushed by resting. AND moving the time in the game motor (For thoses spells that have duration)

For the IGMS, the spell Shield don't say that stop any type of magic missiles? Though a 2th spell be able to stop 4th and 6th spells see overpower though is very specific, is like protection from arrows (More when those arrows are fired by a 20th ranger archer). You could even create a mass version which only protect against those type of force attacks.

Ok, this is off-topic but, if the body remain in the anti-magic zone, Raise Dead and Resurrection will not work, neither divination spells for finding in which random point was buried, right? Can't remember if True Resurrection can build a new body if the previous still exists.

And finally, as another solution, you can sold the death body to demons, they can hidden their alignment for casting the resurrection and slave the once powerful wizard to their service (MUA JUA JUA JUA!)

Oh, low levels, absolutely in agreement. However, HotU begins at around level 12-14, so 4th level spell slots aren't even your highest-level ones. That gives you plenty of leeway to prepare a broad selection with duplicates of stuff you may not need. If it's such a huge deal that one extra casting is make-or-break for you, then play a Sorcerer. It's like the only reason the class exists, to have flexibility even when your spell slots are depleted. (I like both Wizards and Sorcerers, for the record).

And it's not so much a matter of how many potions you can quaff, but whether you have the opportunity to quaff them before your hit point total gets caved in. Stoneskin is nice because you can activate it before they start wailing on you, freeing you to spend your actions casting other spells in-combat (if necessary). It also helps if you're going stingy on magic items; an arcane spellcaster's HP total is pretty tight without boosted constitution.

I'm well aware; I have vivid memories of struggling to find an AI setting in NWN2 that did the things I wanted it to do without being stupid about stuff like power attack. My opinion today? Puppet Mode FTW!

Lots of spells will stop an IGMS. This is why any competent Wizard and Sorcerer is well equipped with means to remove those protections.

Here's one easy way around it. Doesn't matter if your dead corpse is under the effect of anti-magic, your clone isn't. There's obviously a bunch of logistical overhead to doing this, but it's basically a true resurrection that can be prepared ahead of time that fires off immediately whenever you die.

The problem is that the spell itself is too powerful and being able to cast it that many times only compounds the practice. Say that "Heal" healed the Cleric to full health, made them invulnerable for 18 seconds, and then regenerated 10% HP per round for another 30 seconds. Being able to do this once per day wouldn't be a massive problem. Being able to cast it 20+ times per day is.

And if we did this then either everything would be completely trivial for a cleric/druid or things wouldn't be beatable except by a cleric/druid. Even if you completely ignore cleric buffs, a fighter has about an 8 AB/8 damage increase compared to a cleric and maybe 10-20% more HP. Being able to heal yourself to full 20+ times per day is far, far better. And obviously that's not even addressing the cleric buffs which will add another 15 AB and at least 6 damage.

What is I.A.? I'm guessing you mean AI but want to be sure it's not some DnD term.

Part of the problem with this is that Knockdown is terribly designed. And, generally speaking, you either can resist it/are immune to it or you just sit on your back and die. Neither is fun from a player angle.

Where did this come from? If anything we were discussing making Stoneskin more powerful.

Presumably you'd be casting the spell more than once per day, you'd cast it whenever it wore off (unless you were constantly resting).

True. Stoneskin is currently basically useless because powerful healing is plentiful, the damage isn't potentially lethal if you don't use Stoneskin, and nothing is tuned tight enough that you really don't want to spare the actions to quaff a potion or two. Technically speaking changing any of the three would work.