Random stuff

[Guest!]

Hi there! I started a new playthrough a few days ago and thought I'd share some of my thoughts here. I'd love to hear from you and other players too.

 

Now to the ranting.

 

- Potions of magic protection/shielding are possibly the most powerful potions around, and they're extremely rare to come by (you can buy them from only one or two shops, iirc). Now every thug has one.

 

- It would be nice if casting wish gave enemy mages the same options it gives to the player - including crap ones. I don't get a double time stop plus improved alacrity every single time (almost never, actually) and seeing enemies constantly pull it off is quite annoying.

 

- The Lich in the Crooked Crane: I really, really dislike the “no retreat†thing. Fighting a Lich in a cramped space is a nightmare.

 

- Protection from Magic Energy also protects Undead from instant death from Sunray (which, I don't know why, is applied by doing a thousand damage on a failed st), eliminating the only real use of Sunray, ie: to instablast Liches.

 

- Using a Sequencer/Trigger is a full round action, like drinking a potion or casting a spell, but mages apparently don't know that and happily fire them immediately after casting (or soon before).

 

- Prebuffing: I think you've overdone it a wee bit. There's no way a mage could realistically have sixteen or so buffs active at a time. Most of them are short lasting (1 round/lvl), by the time the actual casting were completed the spells cast at the beginning would've almost expired already. Besides, it looks to me like there's a balance issue with massive prebuffing: mages are now totally overpowered and not even remotely comparable to equally experienced characters of other classes. In almost every fight involving mages, they're the real threat, regardless of their role: when you're fighting Tor Gal, you're really fighting his Yuan-Ti mages; Tarnor and the others are a snap compared to Gaius alone (who, for some reason, also gets some 4 levels on his boss), etc. Idle suggestion: reduce the quantity of buffs to roughly 75%.

 

- Individual versions of Spell Immunities make sense and are definitely better than having a blatantly cheating mage pull them out of a Trigger while you can't do the same, but they also make mage battles a lot cheesier, something they really don't need to be. What about removing them from triggers/contingencies altoghether?

 

- Mages casting Simulacrum is cool, mages casting Project Image is less cool. PI is possibly the most broken BG2 spell: as per description it should freeze the caster while the projection is active and deplete his spells, but does none of this and it's just a borderline cheating cheap way of doubling your spells.

 

 

Basically everything else is great.

[DavidW]

Hi, thanks for the comments. Some quick replies:

 

- Potions of magic protection/shielding are possibly the most powerful potions around, and they're extremely rare to come by (you can buy them from only one or two shops, iirc). Now every thug has one.

Fighters of L8-L11 have a 30% chance of having one or the other. Fighters of L12-L16 have a 50% chance. Fighters of L17+ have a a 60% chance. It's not clear to me that that's too high when you compare with the level at which the player gets them.

 

- It would be nice if casting wish gave enemy mages the same options it gives to the player - including crap ones. I don't get a double time stop plus improved alacrity every single time (almost never, actually) and seeing enemies constantly pull it off is quite annoying.

Yeah, I've some sympathy with this. I don't personally use Wish that often but my own testing of it suggests that someone with a very high Wisdom will get some useful option pretty much every time it's used. I randomise those options (so no mage in SCS2 always gets the Timestop/Alacrity combo; sometimes they'll get lower enemy defences, or hardiness all round.) I assume that wizards who cast Wish either have high Wisdom or simulate it via potions; I plead guilty to being too lazy to do an in-game implementation.

 

I could have introduced a small chance of getting a bad wish even for these casters, but I'm not sure it would really add much to gameplay. Once in a long while a battle would be unexpectedly easy because a wizard got a bad wish, but you couldn't plan for it and it would just (I reckon) lead to things being randomly unsatisfying.

 

- The Lich in the Crooked Crane: I really, really dislike the “no retreat†thing. Fighting a Lich in a cramped space is a nightmare.

It's meant to be a nightmare. (If I did this kind of thing all the time, it might get dull, but I only do it three times throughout the mod, and two of them - including this one - are optional battles.)

 

- Protection from Magic Energy also protects Undead from instant death from Sunray (which, I don't know why, is applied by doing a thousand damage on a failed st), eliminating the only real use of Sunray, ie: to instablast Liches.

Vanilla game feature, not something SCS2 adds.

 

- Using a Sequencer/Trigger is a full round action, like drinking a potion or casting a spell, but mages apparently don't know that and happily fire them immediately after casting (or soon before).

I'm fairly sure I don't do this, actually (certainly I don't intend to, and I've never seen it myself). If you're sure it's happening, it would be helpful if you could keep track of exactly when and in what circumstances.

 

- Prebuffing: I think you've overdone it a wee bit. There's no way a mage could realistically have sixteen or so buffs active at a time. Most of them are short lasting (1 round/lvl), by the time the actual casting were completed the spells cast at the beginning would've almost expired already.

This is a perennial issue, and one I'm always happy to keep under review, but here's an example. Going right to the top, a typical L30 archmage on the maximum buffing sessions has the following spells via prebuff:

 

-Spell Trap (18 rounds)

-Protection from the Elements (20 rounds)

- Globe of Invulnerability (20 rounds)

- Shadow Door (20 rounds)

- Mirror Image (23 rounds)

- Protection from Normal Missiles (50 rounds)

- Stoneskin (12 hours)

- Melf's Minute Meteors (24 hours)

- Protection from Magic Energy (200 rounds)

- Protection from Fire, Cold, and Acid (200 rounds)

 

So there are only five spells with durations of ~20 rounds or less, and plenty of time for the mage to cast them all. I'm not sure what the unrealism is. (Of course, there will also be three or four spells that come in instantly via contingencies, and possibly another three that come in in the first round via spell trigger).

 

Besides, it looks to me like there's a balance issue with massive prebuffing: mages are now totally overpowered and not even remotely comparable to equally experienced characters of other classes.

Define overpowered. They're not any more powerful than PC mages can be.

 

In almost every fight involving mages, they're the real threat, regardless of their role: when you're fighting Tor Gal, you're really fighting his Yuan-Ti mages;

That's true, I think, and something I've heard elsewhere; I'm less sure if it's meant to be a problem. If it is generally felt to be, I might lower their levels slightly.

 

Tarnor and the others are a snap compared to Gaius alone (who, for some reason, also gets some 4 levels on his boss), etc.

Blame the vanilla game: it gives Gaius spells appropriate to a L17 mage.

 

Idle suggestion: reduce the quantity of buffs to roughly 75%.

But what would be the justification? - why, in game, would enemy wizards choose to only use 75% as many buffs? (One possible reason would be that between buffs and combat spells, they use slightly too many spells; this is sometimes true, but won't really be fixed until I implement a properly systematic spellbook rewrite.)

 

- Individual versions of Spell Immunities make sense and are definitely better than having a blatantly cheating mage pull them out of a Trigger while you can't do the same, but they also make mage battles a lot cheesier, something they really don't need to be. What about removing them from triggers/contingencies altoghether?

The problem is that "cheesy" is in the eye of the beholder. I understand "doesn't happen in the vanilla game" and "players can't do it but enemies can" and "exploits a loophole in the game that breaks realism". But beyond that, no-one really seems to know what "cheese" really means. If anyone has an argument why SI in triggers/contingencies makes the game less interesting or enjoyable, I'm listening; personally, I like it because it gives me some chance of keeping mages alive for a few rounds.

 

- Mages casting Simulacrum is cool

Glad to hear it.

 

mages casting Project Image is less cool. PI is possibly the most broken BG2 spell: as per description it should freeze the caster while the projection is active and deplete his spells, but does none of this and it's just a borderline cheating cheap way of doubling your spells.

I don't see any suggestion in the readme that the wizard's spells are supposed to be depleted when his image casts them. I agree you could read it that way, but you could equally read it the other way, and since there's no way the BG2 engine could have done that, I assume the developers didn't intend it to. (And sure, the PnP version depletes the caster's spells, but this isn't PnP). Failing to freeze the caster is a problem, though (as acknowledged in the readme): it happens sometimes but not always, I suspect because the engine is confused by all the spells going off at the start. Again, I'm confused as to what the rules are for what's "cheap" or "borderline cheating".

 

Ironically, I've considered stopping using that spell because it's too ineffectual: it's very hard to stop the party's truesight killing the image before it has the chance to do any damage.

 

Basically everything else is great.

 

That's good to know. And thanks again for the useful criticism - do feel free to reply in turn to any of the above if you have a chance.

[Demivrgvs]

- It would be nice if casting wish gave enemy mages the same options it gives to the player - including crap ones. I don't get a double time stop plus improved alacrity every single time (almost never, actually) and seeing enemies constantly pull it off is quite annoying

I do agree they shouldn't pull off a double time stop every single time (and I'm not sure they do), but having enemy mages cast Wish with negative outcomes could probably ruin the AI performance. I think DavidW had his reasons to make it work as he did.

- The Lich in the Crooked Crane: I really, really dislike the “no retreat†thing. Fighting a Lich in a cramped space is a nightmare

I love it! It's plain stupid in vanilla that the lich just stands there while you can enter/exit the area as you wish. Not to mention it prevents the exploit of stealing the Daystar before the lich can even reacts, and by the way, SCS is intended for increasing the challenge and this fight is a nice one imo.

- Protection from Magic Energy also protects Undead from instant death from Sunray (which, I don't know why, is applied by doing a thousand damage on a failed st), eliminating the only real use of Sunray, ie: to instablast Liches

I was going to do something about it for SR, anyway it's not related to SCS at all. Sunray probably does that because some undead creatures are imune to death effects, though actually I think very few of them were in vanilla.

- Using a Sequencer/Trigger is a full round action, like drinking a potion or casting a spell, but mages apparently don't know that and happily fire them immediately after casting (or soon before)

I don't remember how SCS handle sequencers, anyway triggering a sequencer o drinking a potion aren't full round actions at all. You can't do it twice in a round but you can still move and attack in the same round.

- Prebuffing: I think you've overdone it a wee bit.

You may opt for option 2 or 3, I generally prefer the third because pre-buffs seem "unrealistical" imo and the challenge is still very good even without them (mages just fire contingencies at the start of the battle).

- Individual versions of Spell Immunities make sense and are definitely better than having a blatantly cheating mage pull them out of a Trigger while you can't do the same, but they also make mage battles a lot cheesier, something they really don't need to be. What about removing them from triggers/contingencies altoghether?

I already had a lot of discussions about it with DavidW, I won't repeat myself too much.

- Mages casting Simulacrum is cool, mages casting Project Image is less cool. PI is possibly the most broken BG2 spell: as per description it should freeze the caster while the projection is active and deplete his spells, but does none of this and it's just a borderline cheating cheap way of doubling your spells

Project Image is especially broken when used by enemy because sometimes both caster and the image remain active. That is why I would really like an option to have mages only use Simulacrum.

[Proteus_za]

- Protection from Magic Energy also protects Undead from instant death from Sunray (which, I don't know why, is applied by doing a thousand damage on a failed st), eliminating the only real use of Sunray, ie: to instablast Liches.

 

Remember that they get a save on that. I find it more useful for the damage it does. Do you think it should ignore magic defenses? I reckon it would make Lich fights too easy - just cast that and even if they make the save vs death, the damage will destroy them (since by the time you can cast the spell it should do 14d6 damage).

 

Oh the thousand damage thing is standard BG2, I noticed the mace of disruption doing to undead when they failed their saves (which I dont see often anymore).

 

I tend to use False Dawn a lot against liches - I dont think they get a save against the confusion effect, and so it interrupts their spells although they often dont take any damage.

 

Question for DavidW - my Ranger->Cleric is level 9/24. Will he able to turn any liches at this level? I'm guessing he can turn any other undead including vampires and vampiric illithids.

Regarding Spell Immunities, when I first started playing SCS II I used to think that SI:D and Improved Invisibility was the most overpowered and cheesy combination ever, and that it should be instantly banned. Now, the use of SI by mages doesnt bother me - when I see a mage, I expect to have to cast a few antimagic spells on them before breach, after which they die. Targeting anti magic spells against invisible mages can be tricky, but luckily they are immobile while casting. The bigger problem is that, until you get to higher levels and can cast Secret Word, Breach and at least Pierce Magic (if not Ruby Ray) quite often in one battle, mages can be extremely hard. Mages tend to get easier later on because you are more able to dispel their protections, without which they are quite vulnerable.

 

SCS II requires slightly different tactics, but for me its a refreshing challenge, not an exercise in futility or a how-many-reloads-do-I-need-to-kill-Ilyich record attempt.

[DavidW]

Question for DavidW - my Ranger->Cleric is level 9/24. Will he able to turn any liches at this level? I'm guessing he can turn any other undead including vampires and vampiric illithids.

I've never completely got the hang of how turning works but I think you won't be able to turn liches; you will be able to turn their simulacra, though, I reckon.

[aVENGER_(RR)]

I've never completely got the hang of how turning works

 

Actually, it's fairly simple.

 

To be able to turn an undead creature, the Cleric has to be 2 levels higher than it. In order to destroy (or control) an undead creature, the Cleric has to be 7 levels higher than it. Since Liches are level 35 in SCSII, a Cleric can turn them at level 37, but he'd have to be level 42 in order to destroy (or control) them which would require the use of an XP cap remover and a level 50 ruleset.

 

P.S.

 

According to the ToB manual, Evil Clerics can turn Paladins in the same way. I've briefly tested it with Viconia and Keldorn and it actually works properly in-game.

[DavidW]

Thanks; as you say, pleasantly simple.

 

According to the ToB manual, Evil Clerics can turn Paladins in the same way. I've briefly tested it with Viconia and Keldorn and it actually works properly in-game.

 

But I think Remove Fear blocks it - else I'd use it more.

[Bearwere]

I agree about prebuffing - having _that_ many buffs seems really unrealistically (well, my pc never had that much). I use "no-prebuffing" because of it. If there was an option for mages to have 1/2 - 1/3 of buffs, I might've used it, but as of now - it's just too touch for me)

[the bigg]

According to the ToB manual, Evil Clerics can turn Paladins in the same way. I've briefly tested it with Viconia and Keldorn and it actually works properly in-game.

 

But I think Remove Fear blocks it - else I'd use it more.

I heard IA does this extensively - which means that it's not blocked by a mere W2/C1 spell.

 

For comparison, this is from a F39 M32 C39 in IA:

IF
 Allegiance(Myself,ENEMY)
 !GlobalTimerNotExpired("Iaspell","LOCALS")
 !GlobalTimerNotExpired("Iaturntime","LOCALS")
 GlobalLT("Iaturning","LOCALS",2)
 See(Player1)
 LevelLT(Player1,37)
 Class(Player1,PALADIN_ALL)
 Range(Player1,12)
 !StateCheck(Player1,STATE_PANIC)
 !StateCheck(Player1,STATE_CONFUSED)
 !StateCheck(Player1,STATE_HELPLESS)
 !StateCheck(Player1,STATE_STUNNED)
 !StateCheck(Player1,STATE_CHARMED)
 !HasItemEquiped("hamm11",Player1)
 !HasItemEquiped("sw1h32",Player1)
 !HasItemEquiped("S!sw04",Player1)
 !HasItemEquiped("S!sw11",Player1)
 !HasItemEquiped("S!halb01",Player1)
 Global("Iamcavalier","GLOBAL",2)
THEN
 RESPONSE #100
IncrementGlobal("Iaturning","LOCALS",1)
SetGlobalTimer("Iaspell","LOCALS",6)
SetGlobalTimer("Isturning","LOCALS",6)
ApplySpellRES("SPINI10",Player1) // unblockable dispel everything
Turn()
END

IF
 Allegiance(Myself,ENEMY)
 !GlobalTimerNotExpired("Iaspell","LOCALS")
 !GlobalTimerNotExpired("Iaturntime","LOCALS")
 GlobalLT("Iaturning","LOCALS",2)
 See("keldorn")
 !Dead("keldorn")
 LevelLT("keldorn",37)
 Class("keldorn",PALADIN_ALL)
 Range("keldorn",12)
 !StateCheck("keldorn",STATE_PANIC)
 !StateCheck("keldorn",STATE_CONFUSED)
 !StateCheck("keldorn",STATE_HELPLESS)
 !StateCheck("keldorn",STATE_STUNNED)
 !HasItemEquiped("hamm11","keldorn")
 !HasItemEquiped("sw1h32","keldorn")
 !HasItemEquiped("S!sw04","keldorn")
 !HasItemEquiped("S!sw11","keldorn")
 !HasItemEquiped("S!halb01","keldorn")
THEN
 RESPONSE #100
IncrementGlobal("Iaturning","LOCALS",1)
SetGlobalTimer("Iaspell","LOCALS",6)
SetGlobalTimer("Isturning","LOCALS",6)
ApplySpellRES("SPINI10","keldorn")
Turn()
END

Er, it appears it is blocked by Remove Fear actually: otherwise, why would clerics cast the completely legitimate spell "dispel everything" before turning?

 

Notice how any paladin who isn't either Keldorn or <CHARNAME> never gets turned. Way to test stuff and be bug-less

[DavidW]

I agree about prebuffing - having _that_ many buffs seems really unrealistically (well, my pc never had that much).

I'm still not clear what sort of "unrealistic" people mean here. Nothing stops your PC having that much, after all. (Probably boredom means not every player buffs as much as they could, but that's a different matter.)

[DavidW]

Er, it appears it is blocked by Remove Fear actually: otherwise, why would clerics cast the completely legitimate spell "dispel everything" before turning?

 

Yes: I did look at the IA scripting but as you say, it does an autodispel beforehand.

[Bearwere]

I'm still not clear what sort of "unrealistic" people mean here. Nothing stops your PC having that much, after all. (Probably boredom means not every player buffs as much as they could, but that's a different matter.)

that might be, but I'm afraid that if I remember so much defensive spells, I'll get no space left for offencive (and even then I would be forced to sleep every fight or two, which is absolutely not my style of playing)

[DavidW]

I'm still not clear what sort of "unrealistic" people mean here. Nothing stops your PC having that much, after all. (Probably boredom means not every player buffs as much as they could, but that's a different matter.)

that might be, but I'm afraid that if I remember so much defensive spells, I'll get no space left for offencive (and even then I would be forced to sleep every fight or two, which is absolutely not my style of playing)

This is a fairly important difference between party and NPCs actually - in general enemy wizards don't expect to fight more often than once per day, so they don't have the "hold stuff back" problem.

[Icendoan]

Yeah, but from that point of view, they don't expect to have a Bhaalspawn crashing in on the operation, now do they?

 

The exception is Irenicus, who does, but he prebuffs anyway.

 

 

Icen

[Guest Guest]

I'm a sucker, but still I love pre-buffs