SCS AI and SR

[Demivrgvs]

- Doom: do you prefer vanilla's version or the one I proposed (which is practically Spallpack's one)?

Vanilla, I think. The effect isn't powerful enough to be worth casting if there's a save, and in general I think the game has quite enough save-or-else effects already.

In BG2 this is certainly true, but I'm not sure in BG1 (where this spell didn't existed). At low levels -2 on attack, damage, and save rolls can be too effective imo. I would have made its save built up to a -6 penalty, though most opponents by the end of SoA and in ToB can still make such a save quite often, but if you're against it, and surely most players are, than I'll leave it as it is now.

 

- Greater Malison: do you prefer BG2 version (-4 to saves), or it's IWD/PnP version (-2 to saves)?

In BG1 I don't much mind. In BG2 I think the -2 version is underpowered. (As a general rule, I guess, it's fair to assume that whenever something's modified from PnP in a way that didn't need to be done - e.g. a save modifier being changed - it's at least prima facie a sensible balance choice.)

I will try to explain my concern about it one last time, maybe you can convince me I'm totally wrong.

 

Spell Trigger: (x3 Confusion) vs. (Greater Malison + 2x Confusion)

- Targets have outstanding saves vs. spell: 2;

- Confusion has a save vs. spell at -2 penalty (-3 with SR but let's discard this change for now);

 

x3 Confusion: targets have a 51% chance to successfully save against the whole Spell Trigger

 

Greater Malison + 2x Confusion: targets have a 36% chance to successfully save against the whole Spell Trigger

 

Correct me if I'm wrong (as I'm not a mathematician), but this makes Greater Malison already very effective on the first round. Then you should consider that all subsequent spells casted in the following rounds (up to 4 turns!) will have a +20% chance to affect all targets. Most spells guides/threads seem to forget this, but instead it's the most important thing about Greater Malison (and the one that makes -4 penalty overpowered imo), especially because very few times the AI will dispel Greater Malison on itself (I'm not sure how SCS handles it).

 

Am I wrong?

[aVENGER_(RR)]

I think the Glitterdust spell may be a bit problematic in its current form. Since you've removed the saving throw for revealing invisibility and prevented the affected creatures from becoming invisible for the duration, this spell is now much more powerful than any divination spell of the same level and might even rival True Sight by sheer effectiveness. In AI terms, no opponent is currently scripted to check whether he's affected by Glitterdust or not, so thief opponents will waste their invisibility potions and futilely attempt to hide in shadows while affected by the spell.

 

IMO, you should either allow a saving throw vs. breath to avoid the dust and its primary "reveal invisible" effect or drop the "opponents can't become invisible until the dust disappears" secondary effect.

[Galactygon]

In AD&D, the Glitterdust even blinds creatures (and does not allow for any saving throws against the invisibility effect), but has a small area of effect (in BGII, it would be 10'radius).

 

-Galactygon

[Salk]

I understand the problems that the AI might have with Glitterdust but the secondary effect shouldn't be removed at all because it makes very much sense.

 

Allowing a save vs breath in the first place might be instead reasonable.

 

Let's see what Demivrgvs says...

[Demivrgvs]

In AD&D, the Glitterdust even blinds creatures (and does not allow for any saving throws against the invisibility effect), but has a small area of effect (in BGII, it would be 10'radius).

 

-Galactygon

It's exactly how I've made it in SR.

 

I think the Glitterdust spell may be a bit problematic in its current form. Since you've removed the saving throw for revealing invisibility and prevented the affected creatures from becoming invisible for the duration, this spell is now much more powerful than any divination spell of the same level and might even rival True Sight by sheer effectiveness.

Surely it's not as powerful as True Sight which is also able to dispel blur effects, mirrored images, misleaded clones, and projected images. It may be slightly more powerful than Detect Invisibility in a few instances, but the latter dispels invisibility each round for 10 rounds instead of once, and covers the whole screen instead of a small 10'radius, thus I'm not sure your statement is absolutely true.

 

That being said, I can allow a save vs. breath to avoid the "reveal invisibility" (as Salk says it seems "reasonable" considering how the spell works) but wouldn't it make the spell too weak? You would have a save-or-else spell (save at -1 penalty) with a limited area of effect, and that would make Detect Invisibility a better choice most of the times (except against SI:Div or if you do want to blind the targets). Am I wrong?

 

Anyway, I surely prefer to allow a save vs. breath and keep the "reveal invisibility" effect rather than removing the latter. Not to mention there was even an unused glitterdust's portrait icon which is a shame to leave unsused!

 

P.S No comments about Greater Malison?

[aVENGER_(RR)]

Anyway, I surely prefer to allow a save vs. breath and keep the "reveal invisibility" effect rather than removing the latter.

 

The main problem is that, being unable to realize that they are affected by Glitterdust, thief opponents will act silly and try to go invisible/hide even though that's impossible instead of doing something smarter. I'd wait and see what David has to say about the possible DS implications of this change as well.

 

P.S No comments about Greater Malison?

 

Script wise, it's not really relevant to RR either way, though I'd personally preffer the PnP/IWD version.

[Salk]

Well. Demivrgvs... For me Glitterdust looks perfectly fine the way it is now. I could just add that a save vs breath might suit the spell. But to not make it too weak there should be a good penalty to the saving throw (like -4) else better keep it without any saving.

[Demivrgvs]

P.S No comments about Greater Malison?

Script wise, it's not really relevant to RR either way, though I'd personally preffer the PnP/IWD version.

Glad to hear you're on my side about that!

 

And to expand the abovementioned comparison I may add that in case we "restore" Greater Malison to its PnP/IWD version (-2 penalty) we would have:

 

Greater Malison + 2x Confusion: targets have a 49% chance to successfully save against the whole Spell Trigger

 

Which is still slightly better than 51% of 3x Confusion (all 4th level spells anyway). Thus unless I'm miscalculating something I do think Greater Malison would be better as per PnP/IWD.

[DavidW]

- Greater Malison: do you prefer BG2 version (-4 to saves), or it's IWD/PnP version (-2 to saves)?

In BG1 I don't much mind. In BG2 I think the -2 version is underpowered. (As a general rule, I guess, it's fair to assume that whenever something's modified from PnP in a way that didn't need to be done - e.g. a save modifier being changed - it's at least prima facie a sensible balance choice.)

I will try to explain my concern about it one last time, maybe you can convince me I'm totally wrong.

 

Spell Trigger: (x3 Confusion) vs. (Greater Malison + 2x Confusion)

- Targets have outstanding saves vs. spell: 2;

- Confusion has a save vs. spell at -2 penalty (-3 with SR but let's discard this change for now);

 

x3 Confusion: targets have a 51% chance to successfully save against the whole Spell Trigger

 

Greater Malison + 2x Confusion: targets have a 36% chance to successfully save against the whole Spell Trigger

 

I think the maths is slightly out, actually: I get a 39% save chance without the Malison and a 42% save chance with the Malison (using the normal version of Malison).

 

My chance of saving against the three confusions is (17/20)^3. My chance of saving against the two confusions if Malisonned is (13/20)^2.

 

On the broader point, I guess I'm assuming that in most combats, a sensible party is fairly thoroughly protected against a lot of save-or-else attacks by Chaotic Commands, Death Wards, Helms of Charm Protection, and the like. The enemies don't get a lot of chances to get successful hits with save-or-else as it is. Malison at least makes it possible for them to have a fighting chance of the spell actually working once it gets in. Observationally, looking at battles in SCSII it looks about right.

 

And put another way, an enemy wizard will get maybe five chances to cast offensive spells in a battle. For Malison to be worth bothering with, it had better do something that makes a material difference to the other four chances.

 

But, ultimately, it comes down to whatever kind of internal logic is driving SR. A -2 save penalty isn't going to break the game, and it doesn't have major AI implications (SCSII probably overuses it if the penalty is -2, but it's not the end of the world), and people who don't like it can uninstall. So do what you prefer.

[Demivrgvs]

I think the maths is slightly out, actually: I get a 39% save chance without the Malison and a 42% save chance with the Malison (using the normal version of Malison).

 

My chance of saving against the three confusions is (17/20)^3. My chance of saving against the two confusions if Malisonned is (13/20)^2.

I've used 80% and 60% respectively instead of yours 17/20 and 13/20 so there are slightly differences.

 

Anyway I think you've miscalculated (17/20)^3, shouldn't it be 61% instead of 39%?!

 

17/20 = 0.85 thus, 0.85 x 0.85 x 0.85 = 0.614 which is 61%, while 39% is the chance of being confused

 

That means vanilla's Greater Malison is even more effective than I've previously thought, as with Greater Malison the chance of being confused is 58%!

 

 

EDIT:

I've moved here an excerpt of a post of yours about SCS's AI which is quite relevant to this thread.

Examples: I can't protect SCS 1 wizards effectively without PNM affecting magic weapons; I can't see easy ways of getting around SI:Div + II, so I add one.

Both things are changed in SR now that you mention it!

 

PNM (assuming it's Protection from Normal Missiles) has been "replaced" by Protection from Missiles, and do protects against enchanted missiles like Arrows of Fire.

 

The latter issue is handled by both SR's Glitterdust and Invisibility Purge which correctly bypass SI:Div. The former has been fixed to bypass it as it should being a Conjuration spell, and the latter has changed its school to Abjuration as per PnP.

 

I think you may need to take these changes into account.

[DavidW]

I think the maths is slightly out, actually: I get a 39% save chance without the Malison and a 42% save chance with the Malison (using the normal version of Malison).

 

My chance of saving against the three confusions is (17/20)^3. My chance of saving against the two confusions if Malisonned is (13/20)^2.

I've used 80% and 60% respectively instead of yours 17/20 and 13/20 so there are slightly differences.

I think mine are right, though: a save of 4 means a 17/20 success chance, not a 16/20?

Anyway I think you've miscalculated (17/20)^3, shouldn't it be 61% instead of 39%?!

17/20 = 0.85 thus, 0.85 x 0.85 x 0.85 = 0.614 which is 61%, while 39% is the chance of being confused

 

Sorry, yes: quoted the wrong number.

[DavidW]

Anyway, I surely prefer to allow a save vs. breath and keep the "reveal invisibility" effect rather than removing the latter.

 

The main problem is that, being unable to realize that they are affected by Glitterdust, thief opponents will act silly and try to go invisible/hide even though that's impossible instead of doing something smarter. I'd wait and see what David has to say about the possible DS implications of this change as well.

 

Sorry, I should have picked this one up earlier. It has quite serious DS implications, yes, for just the reasons you give: mages and thieves who try to go invisible won't be able to, but they can't tell that. I'd recommend against doing this if you're worried about compatibility with third-party AI mods.

[Demivrgvs]

Anyway I think you've miscalculated (17/20)^3, shouldn't it be 61% instead of 39%?!

17/20 = 0.85 thus, 0.85 x 0.85 x 0.85 = 0.614 which is 61%, while 39% is the chance of being confused

Sorry, yes: quoted the wrong number.

Does this make you agree with aVENGER and me about Greater Malison then? As with a toned down Malison the change of being confused would still be better (44% instead of 39%), and the following rounds are not even the only other advantage of Greater Malison. Having Malison in a spell trigger allow for more powerful combinations, as x2 confusion o x2 slows would be partially wasted (as you can't be double confused/slowed) but with Malison you can use each spell with increased effectiveness. Not to mention Malison can make even higher level spells more effective, think of Malison + Wail of the Banshee!

 

 

Regarding Glitterdust, can't you take it into account somehow? Your made the AI able to check weapons enchantment level, thus I don't think it should be so difficult. Even if there would be some third-party AI mods unable to optimally work with it (nothing that really breaks the game anyway), I would go with it anyway as long as SCS handles it (and if it does I'm sure aVENGER's RR will too). This spell was supposed to work as I've made it (even the original description suggested it) and it would be really a shame not having it work properly.

 

P.S I assume you're ok with the other abovementioned changes which should help you in SCS I.

[SirLancelot]

If you change Greater Malison to cause a -2 save penalty instead of -4, you will have to adapt most of the save related spells to the tactical consequences. Think twice. What is your goal with this modification? A general plan behind the ideas would come in handy. I strongly suggest to make some important global decisions before go further.

 

Glitterdust: Just to note that it was already a very powerful spell in vanilla BG, cause the blind effect is devastating (ie: -4 penalty to saves, thaco, AC, and only 2' see radious which is actually the most serious AI scripting implication due to the IE limitations), so, i would actually worth consider implement the invisibility things (taking care of the AI, of course), but discard the blind effect or make it less likely to trigger (let's say +3 or +4 bonus to successfully pass the save)

[Salk]

Demivrgvs concept behind the revised Glitterdust is, for me, excellent and I would not like to see it changed because of compatibility problems with AI mods unless they are directly linked to SCS'/RR's AI and prove to be really insurmountable. I do hope that the secondary effect won't have to be sacrificed.