Cast Spell on Condition with area effect spells

[thebigMuh]

Hi!

 

First post here, so please be gentle

 

I'm trying to make an item that gives it's owner an aura. It has a constant effect "Cast spell on condition" with target 0 (=caster) and condition 9 (=every round). The spell is an area spell that applies the required effects to all targets in range.

 

The idea is that once every round, the area spell gets launched at the item owner, hits all the creatures in it's range, and applies some buff or debuff.

 

This works fine - as long as some creature actually is in range of the item owner. As soon as my character moves too far away from other creatures, the spell doesn't fire at all. Which sucks, as the owner should also get the spell effects applied. I tried all kinds of projectile (instant area party only, instant area large, etc...), no difference.

 

Am I doing something wrong, or is this the way it's supposed to be?

 

Ciao, muh!

[Galactygon]

The spell will not fire if the range of the .spl file is not set to the appropriate amount. In this case, 30 is what you are looking for.

 

-Galactygon

[thebigMuh]

The spell will not fire if the range of the .spl file is not set to the appropriate amount. In this case, 30 is what you are looking for.

 

-Galactygon

 

The range is set to 320, but in any case, it shouldn't matter, as the spell target is "Self".

 

I guess it didn't quite come across what I want to achieve, so here's some screenshots:

 

One of the items I'm trying to create, and which I'm going to use for explanation here, is an armor that radiates an aura of negative plane protection and protection from evil to all party members in 30'.

 

To that end, the armor has a "Cast spell on condition" effect, like this:

 

http://img229.imageshack.us/my.php?image=baldscr03ih0.jpg

 

This casts the following spell every round:

 

http://img508.imageshack.us/my.php?image=baldscr04ky7.jpg

 

(I set the projectile to "Sparkle Area Blue" here for testing purposes, normally it would be an area projectile without effect)

 

The problem now is, that the spell doesn't get cast when noone is in the projectile range. Here's two pictures to illustrate:

 

First, my second char is in range of the first one, and the spell gets cast every 6 seconds, and everyone within range gets the effect applied. The blue cloud around the feet shows that the "aura" gets applied:

 

http://img508.imageshack.us/my.php?image=baldscr01ar3.jpg

 

When I move my guy a few steps further away, the spell doesn't get fired as it should:

 

http://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=baldscr02hd1.jpg

 

Now what I would expect to happen is that the spell still gets cast every 6 seconds, and since noone is in range of my main char, only he gets the spell effects applied. But that doesn't happen at all, the automatic spell casting just ceases.

 

I hope that makes it more understandable

 

Ciao, muh!

 

EDIT: Some more things:

 

- I know that for beneficial effects like the one I'm describing above, I can just permanently apply the effect to the item owner, and not worry about the spell not firing. But for stuff like a constant "Find Traps" spell, this won't work.

- I just tried using the default "Protection from Evil 10'", and I get the same result - when someone is in range, the spell fires every 6 seconds, when I'm standing alone, the spell doesn't fire. But when I cast the spell from my paladin's spell list, I can of course cast it just fine, and my lonely guy gets the protection from evil applied.

[Ardanis]

Seems wierd indeed. I can advise to look at Refinements, it has very similar aura as a HLA for paladins (Holy Aura iirc).

 

Also for debugging purposes you may want to use one of default Bioware spells (like Defensive Harmony) instead of your own to see if everything works as intended. Then piece after piece change it to what you want to have.

[thebigMuh]

Seems wierd indeed. I can advise to look at Refinements, it has very similar aura as a HLA for paladins (Holy Aura iirc).

 

Also for debugging purposes you may want to use one of default Bioware spells (like Defensive Harmony) instead of your own to see if everything works as intended. Then piece after piece change it to what you want to have.

 

AWESOME!

 

Huge thanks Ardanis, that was just what I was looking for.

 

It seems that an additional level of indirection is required. What I had was that:

 

Armor-> has "Spell on Condition" -> casts my aura spell

 

That had the problems mentioned above. I now modified it by using an "apply effect on condition" on the armor, and putting a "Cast spell at target" into the effect file which in turn casts the spell, and that works:

 

Armor -> has "Effect on Condition" -> effect -> has "Cast spell at target" -> casts my aura spell

 

So, thanks a lot again, my aura is all nice and shiny now

 

Ciao, muh!