Wolf NG Plus

This mod serves to rebalance NG+ and make some gameplay changes (mild to moderate) that, in my opinion, make the game's combat more engaging and closer to the Witcher lore covered in the books.

This mod is probably best summarized as bringing the following changes:

Making NG+ is more challenging compared to vanilla.

Brings Geralt closer to the legend established by the books (game wise)

Various gameplay improvements/skill redesigns that, in my personal opinion, improve the combat system

While these metrics eventually ended up being a core part of the mod, I didn't take them into consideration. In fact, I ended up modifying the game as I played it - making small changes here and there that I thought would improve the experience. Finally, I got something like the above. This makes it really difficult to summarize this mod in a concise way. Instead, I'll provide a brief summary, followed by all the changes the mod made in meticulous detail. But, before we begin:

Full disclaimer: This is the first pattern I've ever made for anything... ever. I don't even know if it will work (at least in my version of the game!) Speaking of which, I'll try to address any questions people may have.

With that out of the way, let’s jump in:

Summarize

I guess the first thing to note is that this mod was designed with NG+ in mind. In fact, the mod may not work in a normal new game and will be completely unbalanced anyway.

As for specific changes, most of the game's large monsters have been given a lot of health, attack power, and resistance. I'd like to try and reduce the difference between large one-on-one monsters (i.e. Griffins) and group monsters (i.e. Drowners). I find that fighting the former is generally more daunting than fighting the former in most situations, as it should be the other way around. To combat this, large monsters now pack much bigger, so you really need to make sure you have your wits about you when facing it. This is especially true for contract monsters.

Next up are key changes to the combat and alchemy systems. On the combat side, some skills have undergone changes, ranging from minor changes to complete overhauls. Overall, adrenaline is now a more important component of combat, albeit more difficult to generate. While the main change to Alchemy is how poison works, some alchemy skills have also been modified. Even the maximum toxicity of specialized alchemy has been reduced by nearly 50%, and potion toxicity has been increased. It's impossible to activate three decoctions with this mod (well... at least not until much later). This change is for lore reasons as much as gameplay. Geralt shouldn't be a potion - potions should be used when necessary. To balance these changes, potion effects have been improved - significantly in some cases. Additionally, the oils have been heavily polished to make preparations more substantial, and most decoctions have been overhauled to be less situational

You may be wondering why I didn't mention any change flags. This is mainly because there isn't any, except for a small change to Quen. This is due to two reasons:

As part of the lore, logos were never a focus for The Witcher - more were added. In fact, I'd say the way the logo is depicted in the game is already overpowering.

I've never played with a dedicated logo build, so I don't believe I know how to improve it.

Suffice to say, a dedicated logo build probably wouldn't blend well with this mod.

barbaric change

General situation

Sprinting/jumping outside of combat does not require stamina

Geralt can parry arrows from the start - no skills required. He doesn't have amnesia anymore, so there's no point in him forgetting how to parry arrows between games

Strong attacks deal 33% more damage

Improved stats for Winter Blade (sword given by Crache). They are no longer automatically generated, the swords will always be given at Geralt's level

Toxicity face threshold increased from <25%/<50%/<75%/75%+ to <45%/<65%/<85%/85%+

Removed …