V2: some SoA feedback

[Raj]

I recently ended a SoA run with <charname> being a (evil) sorceror, Viconia to enjoy a romance and Imoen because I always feel bad leaving her in the Asylum ( changed her to be a thief/illusionist just to differentiate a bit from the protagonist who had most of the necromantic spells ).

 

No serious malee presence because I was curious about the new spells and summons and simply didn't want to hack through the game.

 

Thinking about it, I made a many errors in chosing the spells for my sorc, mainly because I focused too much on mage battles ( many antimagic attacks, sequencers, defensive spells, and very little artillery ), but I was used to no-SR spells too so when I finally hired Imoen and let her experiment a bit I discovered many interesting news so I'm not going to continue through ToB ( I gave up after defeating Gromnir ) but will start a new game with a different approach and without holding my breath for the romance.

 

I had a annoying issue with the disintegrate animation that made me avoid that spell too, but recently deleted a SPGREORB.PRO file from my override after toying with the Infinity and everything works fine, no idea what mod changed it.

 

Along with SR, I had almost every component of SCS2 installed ( option 3 for mages prebuffing, smarter fiends but no more staying power as suggested, no drow city improvements because it's sick for that stage of the game, only standard trolls and no clones for mages because they lag too much and aren't well protected too; I restricted myself from using simulacra and PI anyway ); then Refinements, Fixpack, some tweaks and addons ( PnP spell progression, anti-romance breaking tweaks, many cosmetic changes, more banters ).

 

- summons

 

The pre-Asylum ( up to level 14 ) part of the game went slow because of the limited magic power and my playstyle that makes me rest very little, only when somebody is tired and the place is a safe one.

I relied a lot on Vic summons, the skeletons that are a nice cannon fodder, while I ignored the arcane summoning spells: I found them really underpowered, with gnolls and hobgoblins being owned badly even by mephit and duergars in Irenicus dungeon due to high ac and low hp; on paper the ogres looks decent, but the lesser elementals are much more tough and immune to nasty magic effects.

I really can't think about a situation I'd like to have a couple of ogres instead of a lesser elemental, and by the time you can summon 3 of them the enemies can kill the fodder in less time it takes you to cast the spell; maybe the monster summoning spells just deserve to be moved one tier down ( 'summon monsters I' from level 3 to 2 and so on... ) .

Being a sorceror I didn't ''waste'' any slot on those situational summoning spells, anyway I made use of the scrolls I found and elementals and stalkers were fine, if I were a wizard I would have memorized one; shadows otoh aren't worth a level 6 slot, by the time you can summon them the enemies are too strong, and animate deads provides the same undead fodder but cheaper, even for mages.

At 14 my sorc learnt Mordenkainen's Sword, then I made Imoen summon djinnies and efreeties as a comparison and decided mords were a safer choice, due to the tendency of the other guys to attack my casters if I were using aoe spells ( and I wonder why from a roleplay prospective is a efreeti rebelling against me when I cast a fire-based spell over him... ); little bug report: the Mordenkainen's swords rebel against the casters too and they're not supposed to.

I didn't use the summon fiends spells beside some quick tests: they are cool looking, very powerful ( I'd say too powerful, enemy casters can't do much vs them ) but I get no experience from their kills and with all the dispel attacks flying around in SCS battles there usually is somebody who ends losing his protection from evil; oh well, they are meant to be used in desperate circumstances anyway.

In the hands of enemy spellcasters they are simply lethal an that's a good and a bad thing anyway: I have no problem with Deirex summoning two Pit Fiends under a time stop because that's fine at that stage of the game, but there're tons of low level mages making use of Glabrezus; I read about a console command that limits the demon summoning in SCS2 so I'll try that next time.

I have a complain about you changing the look of Pit Fiends to that of Balors anyway, as I'd like to keep Baatezu and Tan'nari different; if the old pit fiend animation creates too many collision issues the slayer shape is good too, as I remember a devil with that appearance in the Watcher's Keep, but the big old one is just pretty.

 

A thing I liked with another mod ( I think it was from GMinions ) was letting summons follow the caster through area transictions, wonder if it could be introduced?

 

- magical created weapons

 

Dealing with golems is a pain from a mage point of view with their immunity to lower resistance, anyway many summons strike as +2 and the phantasmal blade is a decent weapon in the hands of Imoen that ended playing a more hybrid role; the black blade of disaster is truly a wonderful weapon too, anyway I wonder if there's any penality to the save vs death or if I was just lucky with it. I'd like those weapons to set the mage attacks to a specific # anyway (2?), in order to be a decent choice for single class wizards and not being overpowered in the hands of multiclasses ( dualwielding kundane with improved haste like Imoen did, dispatching all 4 demons summoned by Irenicus in Hell )

Melf Minute Meteors helped a bit, but I find a little annoying their duration, wonder if it should be nerfed to 8 hours in order to lose them after resting.

Sol's Orb is simply useless, and I guess it's a bug that it is considered to be non-enchanted because almost every unded is immune to normal weapons; it cannot compete with False Dawn at divine level 6 anyway.

I'd welcome any change to the 'create magic weapon' spell in order to make it scale with levels ( but start as a +2 only ), and add a 2handed/simple weapon too maybe ( a quarterstaff, or a dagger, in order to equip the whole party... yes, Asylum w/o items is nasty )

Tenser's Transformation: it looked pathetic as always to me, if it has to be worth a lvl 6 slot and disable all the spellcasting it better make the wizard a competent fighter, raising the # of attacks and strength score as well, or even better setting them so that single classed mages are viable candidates to Tenser, not just multiclass and bards ( or ask for some cheese putting tenser, pro magic energy and imp haste in a sequencer before turning into the Slayer )

 

- disabling spells

 

What made me and Viconia survive through chapters 2 and 3 were her free action combined to web, slow, chaos, hold persons ( not worth a lvl 3 arcane imo so casted by her ) and then some slow killing with 1att/round, or some summons.

Chaos worked expecially good through the whole game, so good that I think confusion is redundant, being only one level lower and having the same effect, for the same duration and without the nice no-save vs low level monsters.

Grease was not party friendly, being not blocked by free action ( should it be considered a bug? same with the slow effect of ice storm ) so I used it very little; it came handy in dealing with hasted dragons anyway, and it was funny to cripple their movement with a cheap level 1 spell I remember using it in a couple of mage fights when the enemy kept running between castings making it hard to dispel his spell protections.

Otiluke Sphere is still a bad spell even with the -3 to the save, it simply never worked, and there're better ways to deal with a foe if you have to rely on a failed save, like polimorph them into a squirrel with a spell of the same level. I'd like to suggest it bypass magic resistance and be able to affect golems too, considering it doesn't actually affect the creature itself but creates a sphere around it. Lasting 1 turn and being single target only shoudn't be overpowered.

I took Ray of Enfemblement on my sorc in order to have a single target disable at level 2, but I didn't like it: it actually lowers thac0 and dmg but even with carry abilities heavily reduced they rush to me with ease ( how much are 15 libs? not pratical with UK system, anyway a enemy in medium armor shoudn't be able to move with only 5 strength, and even a mage with a staff, a robe and some potions should be encumbered ); shall they be slowed for the duration of the spell as a compromise, or change the spell to lower thac0 and dmg only? ( I'd say -6/-6 if you keep the save, or a -3/-3 without save ).

Prismatic Spray worked nice late in the game, maybe even too nice because I started to use it after Imoen learnt it in the Asylum, given the chance any creature could be mazed or just killed, while even little damage would interrupt a spellcaster; maze could be annoying anyway, and happened many times, so many that I wonder if the level 8 version became obsolete as a single target disable. The violet ray it replaces was the disintegrate effect that has been changed by SR to not be lootbreaking anyway, so why not keep a 100 magic dmg chance if failed save?

 

- damage spells

 

What I lacked the first half of the game, but then with the abundancy of undeads, aberrations and fiends I had to change my strategies a bit.

The Abi-Dalzim nerf is a welcome one, and made me select a more universal damage spell like incendiary cloud upon reaching lvl 16; I still took the horrid wilting later but I was worried by liches so I first tested the cloud.

What I realized is that the blindness heavily cripples the AI, so much that spellcasters ( and beholders as well ) in the incendiary cloud can't release spells effectively; it's not party friendly so viconia 100% MR showed me that the blindness bypasses MR too.

I think there should be another viable damage spell at level 8 beside Abi-Dalzim, but the blind effect is plain too much and makes for some cheese tactics so I see a couple alternatives: simply remove the blindness, should give monsters a chance and not make 'power word: blind' obsolete as well; lower the duration but raise the damage of the spell, from 4d6 x 10 rounds to 8d6 x 3 rounds ( less dmg overall but easier to use in a standard fight w/o cheese ), save vs breath for half.

 

Bigby spells aren't that useful if you consider how many foes are worth a lvl 8-9 single target spell, and how many of those who deserve some fisting action are immune to paralysis; it worked for a couple of rounds on gromnir but every other time I saw a humanoid target not protected from magic I had better luck with a finger of death or a power word stun/blind ( and vs gromnir I was in the mood for some experiments after having cleared the hall ); what about let it be no-save for the first round only?

 

- antimagic

 

I installed the SCS component that makes breach affect liches and rakshasas, leaving the area of effect to pierce magic and pierce shield for more consistency; removing combat protections to those bad guys didn't unbalance the game with a party without any real fighter anyway, and I don't like the idea of spawning random liches when my protagonist is level 15, without a chance to demolish some of their ( prebuffed ) long lasting protections; high level mage battles took long time anyway, mainly because of the annoying spell immunity: abjuration that your mod makes very nasty. In the end I started to use it on my sorc too, in order to avoid area dispel. I wonder, is si:abj supposed to stop breach and dispel spells only ( tested ) or secret word, pierce magic and similar too ( bit hard to check, and I use ruby ray and spellstrike that are alteration )? First option looks balanced and I won't feel bad using it ^^

 

The bad thing about too smart enemies is that they never cast spells against my spell trap so I miss the opportunity to recharge the spellbook enemy mages don't make great use of area spells so the best ( and cheaper ) defence against single target magic was keeping my mages improved invisible

 

I had a odd issue with Firkraag, with level 1 and 2 spells ( I reloaded multiple times to check different combinations with magic missle, doom, ray of enfemblement ) were reflected to my party even after some heavy antimagic attack, while lvl 3+ spells weren't affected; if I casted another level 1-2 spell after a more powerful one that one would still be reflected to me so it wasn't some sort of spell deflection that I didn't dispel, more a permanent effect, wonder if it's a smarter dragons buggy component or has something to do with your mod, anyway other dragons went smoother.

 

Spell Shield is still buggy: it's able to absorb unlimited antimagic rays from beholders; I never used the cloak of reflection or the shield of balduran ( I didn't even install the SCS components that move the items, just ignored them ) so they weren't a breeze for a spellcaster party ( Chaos worked good against the weak ones, still the elder orb/hive mother caused some havoc )

 

Kangaxx and the Twisted Rune were fun fights that didnt' cost me a real reload ( just once with the Rune because Imoen had been killed beyond resurrection near the end of the fight and that pissed me a bit ), while my worst experience with improved mages has been in the Quilue house in the drow city, with 6-7 drow mages of mid-high level, very mobile and magic resistant that simply overwhelmed my lvl 15-16 trio, multiple times

 

Overall, the SCS mages use a limited arsenal of spells ignoring some that became useful with SR so can't say much from their point of view; against the low level ones I used a lot the party friendly silence divine spell, but every decent enemy can vocalize himself so even the power word: silence didn't help much.

 

I noticed liches using sequencers with 2-3 remove magic inside and that looks like a waste to me, if you didn't change the dispel check there's no way my party can resist a single remove magic from a level 35 caster ( they have 99% to dispel a level 26 or less caster, while a level 31 protagonist - the max - can succesfully dispel a lich only 10% of times, 1% if 30 or lower ).

Beside the obscene improvment of SCS2 to liches level and the abundancy of high level mages in SoA-ToB, I don't find very fair the basic remove/dispel magic % system; changing the success/failure range from 1%-99% to 5%-95% or 10%-90% and making a check against every single buff instead of trying to dispel everything with a single roll would help removing at least one or two effects from higher mages, and keep some defence after being hit by a more powerful dispel, a more balanced and appropriate result from a level 3 spell if you ask me.

 

 

 

That's what I remember from my run, anyway thanks for the fun you keep providing to this old and unmatched game, I can't enjoy NWN1 and 2 enough, expecially with nice mods around

 

Oh and sry everybody for my english, I could have PM-ed him in italian but I wanted to share some thoughts

[Demivrgvs]

It has taken me some time to find the time to reply to it.

 

Summons

 

- In general you're saying that spells which summon one powerful being (Conjure Elementals, Invisible Stalker, ...) are better than those casting multiple weaker creatures (Animal/Monster Summoning). It's quite difficult to balance these summons...the point is that three ogres would actually kill one lesser elemental easily but when used as your summons they will be facing multiple enemies, and some of your characters would probably help them too. In this case having a single powerful ally is better than many weaker ones. I'll look into it, and if this is the general consensus I'll find a way to improve these spells (especially Summon Shadow isn't supposed to be weak at all).

 

- Djinni and Efreeti turning against the player if attacked is a feature I'm inclined to remove if players feel it nerfes them too much. They should be much more powerful now (better stats, more spells, and the nasty ability to turn into gaseous form!), but I know that having Mordenkainen Sword in the same slot is rather inviting. Regarding the sword turning to its caster, it's because I haven't touched its script, but I will make it work as all other SR's summons.

 

- SR's Fiends are extremely powerful, and I know that, but they now are as they always should, don't you think? Anyway, I will lower again these spells range, so that they can be casted only near the summoner, and I will add a chance to banish them to Holy Word.

Regarding the animation change...you can easily distingue Baalors as they have the aura of flaming death, and I've changed Pit Fiend's one because it's much more similar to PnP (vanilla's version has nothing to do with a pit fiend, not to mention its animation is too big). I alwyas hoped to find a mod added animation to replace it...with no luck until now.

Regarding SCS using them too much, I agree with you, but I can do nothing to change it.

 

 

Magical created weapons

 

- It's rather impossible to make spells like Flame/Phantom Blade or Tenser's Transformation work equally well with single or multi mages. The problem lies in the number of attacks. I may find a way to make them increase the number of attacks only if the caster is single classes (vie .eff files) but I'm not sure I can handle dual classes (as they might be considered single classed by the spells). I'll look into it.

 

- allowing Enchanted Weapon to create a wide variety of weapons with increasing enchantment level is on top of my to-do list

 

- I agree with you that Melf's Minute Meteor may be "nerfed" to last "only" 8 hours

 

 

Disabling Spells

 

- regarding "Confusion vs. Chaos" are you suggesting to reduce Chaos duration to balance them out? I quite like the idea. I would even go as far as having the latter lasts only 5 rounds considering its very powerful no-save effect, and in most battles being confused for 5 rounds already means to be doomed.

 

- Grease shouldn't affect dragons, and surely Free Action should protect from it (actually it already partially does, but doesn't prevent the slip and fall effect). Will fix it, thanks for pointing it out.

 

- Ray of Enfeeblement is partially broken as for some reason only the party is affected by encumberance. I thought about adding a fixed movement rate penalty, but it would stack with encumberance if used against the party (not that many enemies make use of this spell). I'll think about something, perhaps changing it as you suggest is the way to go ( -x to thac0 and damage, and movement rate reduced).

 

- Prismatic Spray is affected by one of those annoying hardcoded issue. If it proves itself too powerful I will lower the chances of having multiple effects, especially the most powerful ones. Should it be party friendly?

 

 

Damaging Spells

 

- I'm glad you like the "nerfed" Horrid Wilting, it's a must imo, I especially like to have it not affecting undead creatures.

 

- Incendiary Cloud's blinding effect will be removed/replaced then

 

- Bigby's spells are already much more powerful than in vanilla (as they need multiple saves instead of only one), but still I agree with you that they may need to be further improved. I thought the 9th level version already worked without a save in the first round, will work on it.

 

 

Antimagic Attacks

 

- SR's solution is pratically identical to SCS's one, though different on purpose. You can freely choose which one you prefer.

 

- SR's SI:Abjuration protects against all abjuration spells (the only exception is Spellstrike, which bypasses it being also an alteration spell).

 

- SR's Spell Shield is only slightly more "fixed" but it still is problematic.

 

The bad thing about too smart enemies is that they never cast spells against my spell trap so I miss the opportunity to recharge the spellbook

I agree, Spell Deflection/Turning too are highly penalized by this.

 

I had a odd issue with Firkraag, with level 1 and 2 spells ( I reloaded multiple times to check different combinations with magic missle, doom, ray of enfemblement ) were reflected to my party even after some heavy antimagic attack, while lvl 3+ spells weren't affected; if I casted another level 1-2 spell after a more powerful one that one would still be reflected to me so it wasn't some sort of spell deflection that I didn't dispel, more a permanent effect, wonder if it's a smarter dragons buggy component or has something to do with your mod, anyway other dragons went smoother.

I'm quite sure it has nothing to do with SR, will check.

 

I noticed liches using sequencers with 2-3 remove magic inside and that looks like a waste to me, if you didn't change the dispel check there's no way my party can resist a single remove magic from a level 35 caster

Many of us has already stated to DavidW our dislike about liches being so high in level, I can't do nothing about it, and the dispel check is hardcoded.

 

Oh and sry everybody for my english, I could have PM-ed him in italian but I wanted to share some thoughts

Right choice, thanks for chosing to share the thoughts with the forum, these posts are really useful to improve SR and fixing it when needed!