Item FeatureBlock Power

[FredSRichardson]

Please let me know if there's more documentation I should look at on this (I tried to hunt around a bit).

 

What does the "power" field (offset 0x003) do in the Effect/FeaturBlock of an Item's ability do?

 

I'll try to avoid too many n00b questions, but it won't be easy

[Artimus]

Please let me know if there's more documentation I should look at on this (I tried to hunt around a bit).

 

What does the "power" field (offset 0x003) do in the Effect/FeaturBlock of an Item's ability do?

 

I'll try to avoid too many n00b questions, but it won't be easy

 

From my understanding, power comes into play when you have spells that make you immune to X level spells and below.

 

Usually, power is set to the level of the spell.

 

Burning Hands = Power Level 1

Meteor Swarm = Power Level 9

 

If you want a spell to work regardless of Globe of Invulnerability etc, you use Power Level 0. It will work even if the target is immune to Level 1-9 spells.

 

Power Level 0 is generally used on defensive spells. It's also useful with summoning spells. Before, if you would cast a low level summoning spell on a something like a lich or a mage with a Globe of Invulnerability spell, the spell would fail. Instead of forcing players to cast the spell on the ground, we set the power level to zero so it will work even if the lich/mage is immune to some spells.

[devSin]

Power is the effect level (even in spells). The Baldur's Gate II engine uses some hardcoded rules to determine whether the power should be respected or ignored (in most cases, if you're casting something on yourself). I don't know how much of this is true in ID2, but I'm guessing it should be pretty close.

 

For items, you just need to decide if you want to have certain effects blocked by spell level immunity (which uses power) or not; in most cases, you probably wouldn't. BioWare did set the power to 4 for potions and protection scrolls (probably some D&D rule or similar rot), but there's not much call for it elsewhere (the occasions where it does occur is probably just lazy copy/paste from existing spells).

 

Summoning spells failed under spell level immunity in the Baldur's Gate series because the target was a ground point but the effects were still applied to the caster (necessary to work correctly). The engine's rules for determining whether power applies apparently didn't cover this use, so the spell would fail if you had globes of invulnerability or other level immunity effects. You can set the power to 0 or some other impossibly high number (20 would have worked just as well) to bypass this particular behavior.

[FredSRichardson]

Okay, that makes sense. I was making a Ghast's touch ITM using the "Ghoul Touch" spell item, but noticed that used a power of "2" (when many other things are "0"). I guess that's because it's a 2nd level spell. A real Ghast/Ghoul doesn't use magic, so no spell level

 

I actually only did this for the Ghast and not the Ghoul because the Ghast has a stench effect much like the spell where everyone can get nauseous. Neato!

 

Does IWD2 have a way of setting DC's for saves? What does the "save penalty" field do (I've noticed it's not always 0)?

[Avenger]

I never found anything in iwd2 regarding power, but some effects use another field (caster level).

Earlier i thought dispel uses the power field, but this isn't the case.

 

I assume, the save penalty/bonus field modifies the DC.

But i didn't see that part of the code.

[FredSRichardson]

Is there a chance in IWD2 that power is spell level? For example, to determine if it's blocked by spell level (sphere of immunity or whatever it's called).

[devSin]

In BG2, that's how it's done (spell level is stored in EFFv2 structs, but I think it's only used for dispel magic; it's definitely not used for level immunity). It's also this way in BG for level immunity, but the actual spell level isn't stored, and I suspect that dispel magic is just faked.

 

For ID2, it could just be a hardcoded list (only > 1n99 or 2n99). They apparently liked that stuff.