SR V2.9

RestInPeace · December 23, 2008

ARCANE

Color Spray -

Is it overpowered? Maybe in BG1? It is a never used spell on my BG2 journey.

Clairvoyance -

It is a useful spell for me. It reveals the entire map of an unknown area. This is helpful for minions, as they can't travel trough unrevealed areas. It is almost a must for me when playing with those Tactics-like mods. I'd rather get it improved to reveal "indoors" areas.

Lightening Bolt -

Maybe unconscious instead of stun? Collateral damage is a good idea.

Dimension Door -

Some mods introducing this spell make it a "visual range of the caster" thing, which renders this spell almost useless. I have not yet tried your SR mod. How is this spell implemented in SR?

Fire Shields -

Raising damage with caster level is good, but please limit that damage strictly.

The old resistance bonus is fine. Fireshield is not a fireplace, I think. It is reasonable that when you cast a Fireshield (Red) spell, you also get enough resistance to fire to avoid being burned by those flames.

Enchanted Weapon -

Yes, it should.

Spell Shield -

I like the original one as it is the only spell that protect you from anti-magic-protection spells.

Sunfire -

It's a good news that you can't make it being blocked by magic resistance.^^

Monster Summoning spells -

More diversified, not too powerful

Animate Dead -

I think the current one is good enough. Powerful undead creatures should not be summoned by this spell.

The spell description says that they are immume to death effects. Does that include Death Spell and Death Fog?

Tenser's Transformation -

Great!

Flesh to Stone -

You may have to change a lot of things to deal with its "game-over" issue, though the efforts is very likely to be fruitless. I'm not a modder, I judge that by some common sense.

Unlike IWD, BG is centred on CHARNAME. When a party member is killed (or imprisoned/petrified), CHARNAME can go to a temple to resurrect him/her or buy some scrolls from store to save him/her. I can't imagine what will happen if the party travel without CHARNAME. Is it possible to make things like this: Korgan is the only one who survived the battle against the demilich, now he has to save Imoen and go to the Underdark to buy those Freedom scrolls. Not very likely.

Maybe CHARNAME is a special bhaalspawn that cannot be resurrected, freed. A bit ridiculous, but the game works this way.

Protection from Magical Weapons -

I always think PRMW is overpowered as it make those Mantle-like spells never-cast ones. I'd rather remove this spell from the game or make things like this:

Minor Mantle (replace PRMW) up to +2

Mantle: up to +3

Improved Mantle: up to +4

Absolute Immunity: All weapons (as it is "absolute")

Disintegrate -

I like the original one. The only thing I wish to get improved is to prevent it from detroying items.

Summon Djinni/Efreeti -

No. "Mages are warned to be careful of this spell, for a mistreated djinni will turn on his master at the first available opportunity."

Ruby Ray of Reversal -

That'll be interesting.

Sphere of Chaos -

The original one is better, I think. Better if more funny effects can be applied.

Summon Nishruu/Hakeashar -

They are already a nightmare to spellcasters.

Mordenkainen's Sword -

Don't let them go hostile.

Control Undead -

Good idea.

Incendiary Cloud -

Save or be blinded. The original one is overpowered, the damage should be tuned down a bit, but don't make this powerful lv8 spell a joke ^^

Some other thoughts about "Cloud" things and Mirror Image:

Mirror Image should not protect the caster from "clouds" and area effects (i.e. fireball, skull trap, dragon's breath) since everything is affected within the area of effect.

Furthermore, all mirrored images within the cloud should be destroyed in the first round. "Images" that have hitpoints will not be destroyed until enough damage is taken. Mirror Image should give the caster some chance to avoid single targeted spells from enemies who cannot see through invisibility.

Stinking Cloud should be an exception, because it doesn't inflict any damage. It should only affect the caster.

Minor Spell Sequencer, Spell Sequencer & Spell Trigger -

Longer casting time is good. 3 spells for the minor one.

Is it necessary to change its school? Anyhow, don't make it universal, specialists should make some sacrifice.

Energy Drain -

6 levels (save for half) with some hp drain (no save). Bypass magic resistance. Hey! It is a lv9 spell. Maybe the lv3 Vampire Touch should have some limited level drain effect to make it more vampiric, but not overpowered as a lv3 spell.

Black Blade of Disaster -

Bypass PFMW is interesting. But what about PFME. I prefer the vanilla disintegrate effect as it seems to be more disastrous.

Power Word Silence/Blind/Stun/Kill -

Enchantment? Good idea.

Can we make the "Blind" one function like other power words? Instant, no flying ball, single target.

Wail of Banshee -

Brainless creatures instead of deafened ones.

Freedom -

well. Even with this tweaks, it is not very likely the player will give this spell a precious lv9 slot.

Dragon's Breath -

Bypass magic resistance, not party friendly. Firkragg's breath often kill his mage assistant.

DIVINE

Doom -

Why should it be saved?

Shillelagh & Spiritual Hammer -

I like it.

Magic Resistance -

Lowered? Then this spell will be more effective.

Physical Mirror -

Yes.

Some other suggestions and questions:

1. Time Stop

This spell is too powerful. But I don't have any idea what should be done. I'm not good at physics.

2. The summoned demons, minions are improved. Have you made any change to similar creatures which are not summoned?

3. In a vanilla game, there are some contradictinos among spells. For example, Global of Invunerability cannot block Dispel Magic, a lv3 spell; Spell Thrust can penetrate Spell Immunity:Abjuration. Maybe we should make some improvement.

4. Most mods are based on the vanilla game. How is SR supposed to work with these mods. Funny things may happen if certain spells don't work as the modder expected.

5. In the readme file, priests don't have Gate. They have Cacofiend instead. Is that a mistake?

6. Creatures with 100 resistance to a certain kind of damage still take a 0 damage, which causes cast failure. Can we make 100 resistance completely ignore certain effects?

Thank you for your efforts to make the spell system more balanced and interesting.

DavidW · December 23, 2008

I haven't followed by any means all of this, but a quick SCS-related comment:

Dragon's Breath

Okay now I get it. It's the usual messing with SCS AI problem (it starts getting on my nerves since many good suggestions or fine working spells get discarded because of this)

("It" is the suggestion that DB stops being party-friendly)

I may be missing something but I don't think these sort of things are SCS-specific. Any spellcaster AI obviously makes certain assumptions about how the spells work, so if the spells are changed enough that those assumptions are false, it's going to create a compatibility problem. I think SCS is the usual reference point just because it's the most recent large compatibility-friendly AI mod. In any case, the options are:

(1) change the AI and spells in one integrated package and don't worry about compatibility (the IA approach)

(2) make sure the spells don't change enough that the basic circumstances in which they're useful change (which is by and large Demi's approach, I think)

On the particular subject of party-friendliness, I should note that it's basically impossible for enemy AI to use non-party-friendly spells effectively. So leaving aside compatibility worries with existing scripts, removing the party-friendly tag from a given spell usually hands the player a huge advantage. For instance, Comet could still be pretty useful to players if it wasn't party-friendly; it would be useless to enemies.

Jarno Mikkola · December 23, 2008

Protection from Magical Weapons -
I always think PRMW is overpowered as it make those Mantle-like spells never-cast ones. I'd rather remove this spell from the game or make things like this:

Minor Mantle (replace PRMW) up to +2

Mantle: up to +3

Improved Mantle: up to +4

Absolute Immunity: All weapons (as it is "absolute")

I like this approach.

That sounds cool, even without the stun/area effect. But perhaps it should be 50% casting failure for one round on the LB, while Chain Lightning should have the proposed effect.

Yeah, that works. How about they both cause Speed Factor / Casting Failure penalties that decay over time? Something like this:

Lightning Bolt) Round 1: +3 to SF, +15% CF. Round 2: +2 to SF, +10% CF. Round 3: +1 to SF, +5% CF.

Chain Lightning) Round 1: +4 to SF, +20% CF. Round 2: +3 to SF, +15% CF. Round 3: +2 to SF, +10% CF. Round 4: +1 to SF, +5% CF.

That would be nifty, but I don't think that the SF actually lowers the attacks per round rate...

I may be missing something but I don't think these sort of things are SCS-specific. Any spellcaster AI obviously makes certain assumptions about how the spells work, so if the spells are changed enough that those assumptions are false, it's going to create a compatibility problem. I think SCS is the usual reference point just because it's the most recent large compatibility-friendly AI mod.

You are right.

Demivrgvs · December 23, 2008

Ok, I'll quickly reply to DavidW (great to have you back! ), than Six and when I have the time to the long post of RestInPeace (welcome to the discussion ).

I haven't followed by any means all of this, but a quick SCS-related comment:
Dragon's Breath
Okay now I get it. It's the usual messing with SCS AI problem (it starts getting on my nerves since many good suggestions or fine working spells get discarded because of this)

("It" is the suggestion that DB stops being party-friendly)

I may be missing something but I don't think these sort of things are SCS-specific. Any spellcaster AI obviously makes certain assumptions about how the spells work, so if the spells are changed enough that those assumptions are false, it's going to create a compatibility problem. I think SCS is the usual reference point just because it's the most recent large compatibility-friendly AI mod.

I think I have pointed it out myself that these "problems" would generally mess "every script" and not just SCS's ones.

In any case, the options are:

(1) change the AI and spells in one integrated package and don't worry about compatibility (the IA approach)

(2) make sure the spells don't change enough that the basic circumstances in which they're useful change (which is by and large Demi's approach, I think)

Indeed (2) is the way I work, and though I highly recommend to use SCS I have to make sure SR works fine with vanilla's AI too.

On the particular subject of party-friendliness, I should note that it's basically impossible for enemy AI to use non-party-friendly spells effectively. So leaving aside compatibility worries with existing scripts, removing the party-friendly tag from a given spell usually hands the player a huge advantage. For instance, Comet could still be pretty useful to players if it wasn't party-friendly; it would be useless to enemies.

You do have a point. I'll keep it in mind.

Spell Shield

What about a spell-equivalent of PfMW? Caster automatically saves against any spell, and is immune to magical sources of damage (fire, cold, ...) for 4 rounds.
That sounds appealing. I rarely use spell protections, but this would make Spell Shield somewhat tempting. I don't know about Improved Anvil, but some other AIs do use Spell Shield (although admittedly, the only one I know for sure is Kuroisan, sorry), so maybe you could include the original "will protect against 1 anti-protection spell" effect as well as the new "magic immunity" effects.

Actually the "will protect against 1 anti-protection spell" effect is the very reason I have to change this spell, bucause the opcode is incredibly bugged. IA claimed to have fixed it, and with SR V1 I did the same, but it happens to only reduce the bugness without fully fixing the spell, which can potentially do a lot of strange things like absorbing infinite magic attacks. If the spell could work as per vanilla without issues I would have left it untouched.

Regarding it being used by AI enhancing mods:

- IA probably uses it, but does SR is compatible with this mod which is pratically incompatible with every mod?

- SCS used it very rarely, and perhaps DavidW wanted to remove it completely exactly because of the issues it causes

Summon Insects, Insect Plague, Creeping Doom

I certainly don't mind the Death save on the Panic, but the reason I wanted the Spell Failure on these lowered (to 33, 50 and 66%, respectively) in the first place was so that the Swarm spells could come in above them (at 75 and 100%).

Sorry but though I'm all in at helping be fully compatible even from a conceptual point of view I don't think the main spell system should be tailored to fit two spells used by one single mod added kit. May I suggest you to make those spells more effective using more unique effects (e.g. your poison idea)? It would also improve the kit's appeal imo.

Dolorouse Decay

Regarding how the spell deals damage I've already said a few times that I cannot make it inflict % damage with a "disease" opcode.
Hmmm, but we can with the Poison opcode, while the Disease can handle most of the stat penalties--meaning the recipient would need a Neutralize Poison and a Cure Disease, or a Greater Restoration to cover both. Interesting.

I considered it interesting too before realising that it would cause some strange things on characters immune to either disease or poison. Those characters would suffer a semi-spell, wouldn't it be weird?

Summon Nishruu/Hakeashar

I don't think so. I see 2 sources for the Nishruu's power: If it's a creature that hates magic but nevertheless has magicial abilities of its own, then it should cast Dispel Magic just like any other spellcaster, where the odds of a successful Dispel depend on the relative difference between the Nishruu's level and the level of the enemy caster. But if the Nishruu is a living embodiment of Dead Magic, then its ability to create a localized anti-magic zone should, again, depend on its experience level. (For comparison, my version of the Wizard Slayer has such an ability--for every EXP Level of the WS, all nearby creatures have a 2% chance to have all active enchantments dispelled.) Basing on a Save would add randomness, sure, but I think it's out of tune with other sources of Dispel/Remove Magic in the game.

I call it Dispelling Aura to make plyers understand what it does, but it's not an actual dispel. It would be a sort of "Eat Magic", as these creatures actually feed on magic. They don't have an aura of dead magic, but their gaseous form occupy 10 feet radius area in PnP, and they absorb any form of magic within those 10 feet. In PnP their Absorb Magic ability is also capable of depowering magical items like weapons and armors, but you're lucky as I can't implement it!

Neutralize Poison

It's only available to priests as per vanilla, I've just added the protection effect because else the spell was just identical to the 2nd level version Slow Poison.
Well, that and for some reason it also cures Disease, Blindness & Deafness. I take it you removed those, if you're giving new prominence to Cure Disease? And I think Divine Remix is bringing back Cure Blindness & Deafness? I'm getting muddled between other people's mods, here.

As you guessed SR's Neutralize Poison don't cure Disease, Blindness & Deafness. Divine Remix is bringing back Cure Blindness & Deafness but I'm not, as Cure Disease has to cure also blindness & deafness to be at least appealing imo, am I wrong?

Death Spell

Your suggestion about "Banishment" or "Dismissal" is quite radical. I'll think about it.

Protection from Evil

If the Protection from Creature Type opcode seems made for abuse, it's more logical to remove that from the PfE spells, rather than running around messing with genders. (Additionally, this would mean that the only "true" PfE in the game would be the Staff of the Magi, which only seems fair.) But still, Pit Fiends should be smart enough to know when to use their Dispels anyway.

As I said I agree with you. To make that opcode even less appropriate here is how it should work in PnP:

"Third, the spell prevents bodily contact by summoned creatures. This causes the natural weapon attacks of such creatures to fail and the creatures to recoil if such attacks require touching the warded creature. Good summoned creatures are immune to this effect. The protection against contact by summoned creatures ends if the warded creature makes an attack against or tries to force the barrier against the blocked creature. Spell resistance can allow a creature to overcome this protection and touch the warded creature."

Which means Protection from Evil wouldn't make a Pit Fiend stand there like a mindless brain as it currently does with vanilla's "protection from creature" opcodes. The warded creature would be easily targeted with all Pit Fiend's magical abilities even without having to be detected, there's no "invisibility" effect in PnP. Last but not least creatures with high magic resistance may just overcome the protection and hit the warded character.

DavidW · December 23, 2008

Spell Shield

What about a spell-equivalent of PfMW? Caster automatically saves against any spell, and is immune to magical sources of damage (fire, cold, ...) for 4 rounds.
That sounds appealing. I rarely use spell protections, but this would make Spell Shield somewhat tempting. I don't know about Improved Anvil, but some other AIs do use Spell Shield (although admittedly, the only one I know for sure is Kuroisan, sorry), so maybe you could include the original "will protect against 1 anti-protection spell" effect as well as the new "magic immunity" effects.
Actually the "will protect against 1 anti-protection spell" effect is the very reason I have to change this spell, bucause the opcode is incredibly bugged. IA claimed to have fixed it, and with SR V1 I did the same, but it happens to only reduce the bugness without fully fixing the spell, which can potentially do a lot of strange things like absorbing infinite magic attacks. If the spell could work as per vanilla without issues I would have left it untouched.

Regarding it being used by AI enhancing mods:

- IA probably uses it, but does SR is compatible with this mod which is pratically incompatible with every mod?

- SCS used it very rarely, and perhaps DavidW wanted to remove it completely exactly because of the issues it causes

Yep. (In fact, I didn't realise I used it at all.)

Raj · December 23, 2008

Elder Orbs use it and almost always it is bugged.

DavidW · December 23, 2008

Elder Orbs use it and almost always it is bugged.

That makes sense: beholders were almost the first bit of SCSII I wrote, before I realised how broken Spell Shield is. I'll change it sometime when I have a chance.

Demivrgvs · December 23, 2008

RestInPeace,

I hope you can find my reply in this quite massive topic! The first thing I've realized is that probably this topic cannot be fully understanded by players who haven't played an earlier version of SR yet. I have to take for granted changes already introduced by earlier versions which are way more than the ones you can guess from the current readme. I have to do that because else the discussion on further improvements would be almost impossible.

Arcane Spells

Color Spray

Is it overpowered? Maybe in BG1? It is a never used spell on my BG2 journey.

You have never used it because its vanilla's version was a completely useless spell in BG2. :beholder:

SR V2 made it as per PnP bur many players correctly pointed out that the current version is slightly too powerful and outshines Sleep.

Clairvoyance

It is a useful spell for me. It reveals the entire map of an unknown area. This is helpful for minions, as they can't travel trough unrevealed areas. It is almost a must for me when playing with those Tactics-like mods. I'd rather get it improved to reveal "indoors" areas.

SR's Clairvoyance revelas indoors areas since V1.

Dimension Door

Some mods introducing this spell make it a "visual range of the caster" thing, which renders this spell almost useless. I have not yet tried your SR mod. How is this spell implemented in SR?

SR's Dimension Door was implemented since V1 but it's "hidden", anyway it would work within "visual range of the caster" but it would have casting time 0 and for 1 turn it would allow the caster to teleport around which is a quite effective way to dodge AoE spells like a Fireball or to get out from a difficult position. What makes other mods DD unappealing imo is that it normally allows to teleport only once within visual range, which is kinda lame for a 4th level spell.

Fire Shields

Raising damage with caster level is good, but please limit that damage strictly.
The old resistance bonus is fine. Fireshield is not a fireplace, I think. It is reasonable that when you cast a Fireshield (Red) spell, you also get enough resistance to fire to avoid being burned by those flames.

You have a point, and it "stacks" with the issue that some creatures like Efreeti and Fire Elemental Prince use Fire Shield (Red). Players the suggested this change correctly pointed out that switching the damage output would make them more effective in some situations. For example a Fire Shield (Red) grants a good degree of protection from a Fire Elemental or an Efreeti, but its damage output can't hurt them, and vice versa the Fire Shield (Blue). As of now I think I'm "forced" to keep the damage types as they currently are.

Regarding the damage output, I had in mind something like 1D6 + 1 every 2 levels. It would start at 7th level with 1D6+3 (instead of the current 1D8+2), and it would build up to 1D6+10 which is a very consistent value imo (+7 damage compared to vanilla seems quite much).

Spell Shield

I like the original one as it is the only spell that protect you from anti-magic-protection spells.

Read a few posts obove this on this matter.

Elder Orbs use it and almost always it is bugged.

That makes sense: beholders were almost the first bit of SCSII I wrote, before I realised how broken Spell Shield is. I'll change it sometime when I have a chance.

Perhaps if you'll ever take SR into account for SCSII as you did for SCS you'll be able to use it again! :beholder:

Monster/Animal Summoning

More diversified, not too powerful

I agree. Anyway this takes really a lot of time and I may add it via "hotfix" if it happens to delay V3 too much.

Animate Dead

I think the current one is good enough. Powerful undead creatures should not be summoned by this spell.

Skeleton Warrior will surely remain the most powerful summoned creature with this spell, and for a 3rd level cleric spell it's already slightly too much imo.

The spell description says that they are immume to death effects. Does that include Death Spell and Death Fog?

Death Fog doesn't have a "kill" effect anymore, Clodkill has it but SR's undead creatures are immune to that effect, as well as vorpal effects and spells like Wail of Banshee and Finger of Death. Death Spell doesn't kill summoned creature, it unsummon them, and thus still works.

Protection from Magical Weapons

I always think PRMW is overpowered as it make those Mantle-like spells never-cast ones. I'd rather remove this spell from the game or make things like this:
Minor Mantle (replace PRMW) up to +2

Mantle: up to +3

Improved Mantle: up to +4

Absolute Immunity: All weapons (as it is "absolute")

That is exactly how those spells alredy work since V1, though I immediately had to revert PfMW to its vanilla's version. The problem is that the AI uses it thinking to be immune to almost all weapons, and unless SCS starts to take into account SR or I change myself the AI I can't chace PfMW. As I already stated, making PfMW protect from normal and +1, +2 weapons is exactly the way I would go.

Disintegrate

V3's Disintegrate is going to disintegrate quite everything, as I don't know many creatures who can withstand 40D6 points of magic damage. Items won't be disintegrated, and the spell will deal some damage even on a successful save, making it much more appealing imo.

Summon Djinni/Efreeti

I have no problem keeping them as they are, SR V2 made them extremely more powerful anyway, especially with the introduction of the gaseous form ability which makes them last much longer.

Sphere of Chaos

The original one is better, I think. Better if more funny effects can be applied.

My latest thought on it is to actually combine the original one and the current SR's one. Miscast magic will simply be one of the possible effects of the affected creatures.

Summon Nishruu/Hakeashar

They are already a nightmare to spellcasters.

Are you sure? You can completely protect yourself with any PfMW or Mantle spell, and easily kill them via Death Spell and even the cheaper Dispel Magic.

Incendiary Cloud

Save or be blinded. The original one is overpowered, the damage should be tuned down a bit, but don't make this powerful lv8 spell a joke ^^

Trust me, I don't want it to become a joke, I actually like to have very effective 8th and 9th level spells, it's just that blindness without a save proved to be extremely too effective.

Mirror Image

Some other thoughts about "Cloud" things and Mirror Image:
Mirror Image should not protect the caster from "clouds" and area effects (i.e. fireball, skull trap, dragon's breath) since everything is affected within the area of effect.

Furthermore, all mirrored images within the cloud should be destroyed in the first round. "Images" that have hitpoints will not be destroyed until enough damage is taken. Mirror Image should give the caster some chance to avoid single targeted spells from enemies who cannot see through invisibility.

Stinking Cloud should be an exception, because it doesn't inflict any damage. It should only affect the caster.

I do hate MI ability to protect from AoE spells, but I'm not sure an AoE spell should be able to dispel all the images either, should it?

Minor Spell Sequencer, Spell Sequencer & Spell Trigger

Is it necessary to change its school? Anyhow, don't make it universal, specialists should make some sacrifice.

Specialists really should make some sacrifice, but:

- I don't think these spells should be one of those

- currently the only specialist mage losing them is the Enchanter, and Enchanters already are by far one underdeveloped kit. They loose some of the most effective spells (most of the damage dealing spells belong to Evocation and even the most effective summon, Mordenkainen's Sword, belong to Enchanter's opposite school). They not even had a single spell of their school for 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spell slots!

- I'm thinking about including part of my upcoming Kit Revisions into SR as mage and cleric's kits would probably be better implemented here (to make sure they can use SR's spells).

Energy Drain

6 levels (save for half) with some hp drain (no save). Bypass magic resistance. Hey! It is a lv9 spell. Maybe the lv3 Vampire Touch should have some limited level drain effect to make it more vampiric, but not overpowered as a lv3 spell.

This spell already bypass magic resistance in V2 (sorry I forgot to mention it) and it's quite a big feature imo. Should we keep it?

Black Blade of Disaster

Bypass PFMW is interesting. But what about PFME. I prefer the vanilla disintegrate effect as it seems to be more disastrous.

Good catch on the PFME, but I actually think it's much more appropriate for it to protect from the spell because PnP BBoD states that "it bapasses any magical protection" (Stoneskin, PfMW, ... , and many spells not included in BG like Prismatic Sphere), but the blade is made of pure magical force. I suppose a creature immune to magical damage has a few rights to be immune to a magical force, am I wrong?

Power Word Silence/Blind/Stun/Kill

Enchantment? Good idea.
Can we make the "Blind" one function like other power words? Instant, no flying ball, single target.

I don't know what the "flying ball" was, but since V2 "PW: Blind" works as you are suggesting.

Freedom

well. Even with this tweaks, it is not very likely the player will give this spell a precious lv9 slot.

I know, but something is better than nothing no?

Time Stop

This spell is too powerful. But I don't have any idea what should be done. I'm not good at physics.

I agree and I've proposed two solutions, both rejected.

Divine Spells

Doom

Why should it be saved?

We have already discussed it quite much, try to read a few more post in this immense topic or I'll get crazy at repeating myself, sorry. Long story short, really too effective/powerful right now.

Magic Resistance

Lowered? Then this spell will be more effective.

No. I suppose you're thinking about the exploit of using it to actually lower magic resistance of high resistant opponents, but I blocked that exploit long time ago. :beholder:

Fiends

The summoned demons, minions are improved. Have you made any change to similar creatures which are not summoned?

No, but SCSII does, and it happens to make them just like I did for SR.

Various

In a vanilla game, there are some contradictinos among spells. For example, Global of Invunerability cannot block Dispel Magic, a lv3 spell; Spell Thrust can penetrate Spell Immunity:Abjuration. Maybe we should make some improvement.

I've worked on all these things too. GoI is supposed to be dispellable in PnP, and Spell Thrust like many other abjuration spells are now blocked by SI:Abj with SR.

Most mods are based on the vanilla game. How is SR supposed to work with these mods. Funny things may happen if certain spells don't work as the modder expected.

I always take that into account, and many SR's users now fear the usual "can't be done - would screw the AI" recurring discussion. :devlook:

In the readme file, priests don't have Gate. They have Cacofiend instead. Is that a mistake?

Not at all, Gate is a 9th level spell really too powerful for being a 7th level cleric spell (take a look at SR Pit Fiend description in the relative topic and you'll discover that I've made this creature outstandingly more powerful). Furthermore Cacofiend now is a Necromantic spell which summons a powerful undead demon, a Death Knight, and it suits clerics much more than a frenzied demon imo.

Creatures with 100 resistance to a certain kind of damage still take a 0 damage, which causes cast failure. Can we make 100 resistance completely ignore certain effects?

I'm partially working on that too, but not everything we wish for is doable.

Thank you for your efforts to make the spell system more balanced and interesting.

Thanks for deciding to join us! :beholder:

RestInPeace · December 23, 2008

I've just returned to the world of BG. I'm really very happy to see so many mods are made for it. Spell Revisions is new to me for I have not played BG for years. I love those ideas. I know nothing about modding, the only thing I can do is to give you some suggestions, reasonable or not, and hope that will be a bit helpful.

I had not read all the threads before I posted mine, there are quite a bit of words to read. I'm very lazy

I've also found that SCSII is the very ai improvement mod I've been looking for: no cheats, more intelligent. Unfortunately, my computer is too old to run it. However I tried it once and found that the ai improvement is awesome.

SixOfSpades · December 25, 2008

That would be nifty, but I don't think that the Speed Factor penalty actually lowers the attacks per round rate...

Oh, it doesn't, it just imposes a small delay before they can attack, meaning that you're more likely to get in the first hit--which can make a big difference if you're using a weapon that causes Stun/Slow/Poison, etc. But it has to be non-stackable, because large Speed Factor penalties will prevent the victim from attacking at all.

Spell Shield

Actually the "will protect against 1 anti-protection spell" effect is the very reason I have to change this spell, bucause the opcode is incredibly bugged. If the spell could work as per vanilla without issues I would have left it untouched.

Okay, phooey then. I'm not sure I like the new proposal of having it grant total immunity to Elemental damage, though, even for just 4 rounds, largely because elemental damage comes from a lot more sources than just spells. I think I'd be happier if it granted a brief surge of Magic Resistance, or a 4-round Globe of Invulnerability, to complement the Saving Throws bonus.

Summon Insects, Insect Plague, Creeping Doom

Sorry but though I'm all in at helping be fully compatible even from a conceptual point of view I don't think the main spell system should be tailored to fit two spells used by one single mod added kit. May I suggest you to make those spells more effective using more unique effects (e.g. your poison idea)? It would also improve the kit's appeal imo.

Don't you remember that I wasn't the only one who said that Insect Plague was overpowered, that the number of Level 5 slots Jaheira has is basically equivalent to the number of Mage-based parties (like the Temple Sewers gang) that the party could steamroller over each day, that that spell (okay, and Breach) is the #1 reason that there are so many Liches in Athkatla? It was these opinions, plus the fact that maximum control over the Insect spells should rightfully belong to the Insect kit, that motivated me to ask for the change.

I'm making the Swarm spells do roughly 1/3rd the damage of their more standard counterparts, but be slightly more difficult to Save against, the Fear is unavoidable in the 1st round, have larger penalties to THAC0, and yes, carry larger Spellcasting Failure penalties. Maybe I'll just make my own versions of the standard Insect spells, and let the players choose which mod to place later in the install order. As for the Poison idea, I'm not sure I like it yet, but I might add a small amount, so characters with FireShields up would still have to worry a little.

Plague

. . . the recipient would need a Neutralize Poison and a Cure Disease, or a Greater Restoration to cover both. Interesting.
I considered it interesting too before realising that it would cause some strange things on characters immune to either disease or poison. Those characters would suffer a semi-spell, wouldn't it be weird?

It would indeed. Of course, "weird" doesn't mean "bad," but it doesn't mean "good" either. I'm not terribly worried about semi-spells, as either the stat loss or the life drain would be sufficient motivation to get cured right away. Alternatively, we could go the Secondary Type route mentioned above, and have Plague be of the Conjuration type (which I believe is unused for long-duration spells), and change Cure Disease, Neutralize Poison, & the Restoration spells so that they also remove Conjuration-type spells. But, again as previously mentioned, this would be overly clunky, and not particularly friendly to other modders.

Neutralize Poison

As you guessed SR's Neutralize Poison don't cure Disease, Blindness & Deafness. Divine Remix is bringing back Cure Blindness & Deafness but I'm not, as Cure Disease has to cure also blindness & deafness to be at least appealing imo, am I wrong?

No, you're quite correct--the only Disease-based spell in the game is Contagion, which has been cast at me a grand whopping total of once. So if all Cure Disease did was cure disease, it would be about as useful as Remove Curse.

Death Spell

Your suggestion about "Banishment" or "Dismissal" is quite radical. I'll think about it.

SixOfSpades -- giving modders ideas to chew on since 2001.

One thing about a spell affecting only gated/summoned creatures, though: The Baalor in chapter 5 has a gender of Summoned_Demon, but it's been buried in the earth for quite some time. It's not exactly summoned (who summoned it, and shouldn't the duration have expired by now), but on the other hand the Prime Material isn't exactly its home plane, either. Should the player be able to dispose of it with just a single spell to send it home? Should the Dismissal spell ignore the Baalor's 90% Magic Resistance? I'll be thinking about it myself.

Protection from Evil

As I said I agree with you. To make that opcode even less appropriate here is how it should work in PnP:

So does that mean you will be removing the "Protection from Creature Type" opcode from the PfE spells, and possibly re-tweaking the Pit Fiend's gender? Speaking of which, you never mentioned if the Pit Fiend was the only type of demon who could "see" through PfE--it would be more than a little silly if it were.

RestInPeace · December 25, 2008

To demivrgvs

Mirror Image -

This is how a Mirror Image spell works: when an image get hit, it disappears.

Damaging AoE spells hit every thing in the area, so all mirrored images should be "killed" instantly. This spell should give the caster some chance to avoid enemies' single target spells rather than AoE ones.

Energy Drain -

I'm not sure. Maybe bypassing magic resistance makes this spell somewhat overpowered.

Black Blade of Disaster -

I think you are right.

Power Word Silence/Blind/Stun/Kill -

The "flying ball" is the shining orb released from your hand to its target when you cast certain spells. Unlike the other power word spells, PW:Blind is the only one works like that.

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