SR V2.9

[Salk]

Familiars

P.S. How is the Find Familiar revision doing?

I've left them as last thing to do, and potentially they are the hardest. I wrote a few months ago a PM to Rabain to know if I could use his work on WTP...I guess I should consider that project "abandoned" and just try to use the material to speed up my work. In that case I think I'd only need to change a lot of stats/files, and modify the scripts for the level up routine...all of which may take only one day if I happen to have a free day.

 

Knowing Rabain, I am sure he will have no problems at all seeing his code being part of the Find Familiar revision of SR!

 

The activity at Border Kingdoms can be sadly described as non existant and it's been so for many months now.

 

Good luck with it and thanks for the hard work!

[Raj]

About familiars, them being availabe only for mage protagonist and not for mage npcs looks like a game limitation more than a balance/roleplay limit; any way to let other mages in party have their own familiars?

[Demivrgvs]

Ok...a few more spells have been done and tested.

 

Implosion

"This fearsome spell creates a destructive resonance in a corporeal creature's body, causing it to collapse in on itself, and crushing it to death. The spell does 20d8 points of crushing damage, and holds the target for 1 round. The victim can save vs. death at -6 penalty to halve the damage". The list of changes is quite long:

- 'save vs. spell at no penalty' replaced with 'save vs. death at -6'

- 20d8 crushing damage instead of 10d10 crushing + 10d10 fire damage

- casting time from 5 to 7

- doesn't bypass magic resistance anymore

- 'hold creature' replaced with 'hold creature 2' which affects a lot more creatures (undead included)

- doesn't affect incorporeal creatures

- much more appropriate animation

 

Freedom

"When this spell is cast, all friendly creatures in the area are freed from spells and effects that restrict their movement or bind their minds. These effects include charm, confusion, domination, entangle, feeblemind, hold, paralysis, petrification, sleep, slow, stunning, and web. This spell will also cancel the effects of the spell Maze and return any characters trapped in the labyrinth of planes. If it is cast in an area where a creature was sealed with an Imprisonment spell, it will instantly free him and he will reappear exactly where he was standing when he was imprisoned. Affected creatures are also protected from all these spells and effects for the duration of the spell (5 turns)." I guess the improvements are pretty obvious.

 

Dragon's Breath

Damage nerfed from 20d10 to 20d6, but the added- 6 penalty to save allows full damage and knockback effect to take place much more often. Unconsciousness last 6 seconds instead of 2.

 

Comet

Deals 10d10 crushing damage with no save, bypasses magic resistance (most players requested it), and knocks unconscious for 3 rounds. It has become more effective than Dragon's Breath imo, and unfortunately I cannot make it affect only 20' radius as it should (its projectile is hardcoded ), thus I've increased its casting time to 1 full round.

 

Familiars

About familiars, them being availabe only for mage protagonist and not for mage npcs looks like a game limitation more than a balance/roleplay limit; any way to let other mages in party have their own familiars?

I'm not planning to work on that for now, sorry.

[Raj]

Familiars

About familiars, them being availabe only for mage protagonist and not for mage npcs looks like a game limitation more than a balance/roleplay limit; any way to let other mages in party have their own familiars?

I'm not planning to work on that for now, sorry.

Ah who cares, it was just because you were on them

 

 

What are the incorporeal creatures unaffected by implosion? I can think about fire/air elementals, the various shadows and mists...

[Salk]

Familiars

About familiars, them being availabe only for mage protagonist and not for mage npcs looks like a game limitation more than a balance/roleplay limit; any way to let other mages in party have their own familiars?

I'm not planning to work on that for now, sorry.

 

Personally I like it better the way it is with a familiar allowed only to the main protagonist of a specific class.

[Demivrgvs]

Implosion

What are the incorporeal creatures unaffected by implosion? I can think about fire/air elementals, the various shadows and mists...

Exactly, any creature "flagged" as air/fire elemental, mist, shadow, specter, and wraith.

[Raj]

On a second reading, I'm not sure about the level 9 Bigby: it shall bypass MR like most level 9 spells (all? except pw:kill that is very sad against enemies ), and the choice between hold creature 2 and stun isn't clear either, can you provide a list of enemies who are immune to one and affected by the other?

[DavidW]

That seems to make Freedom awfully powerful... aren't the recovery effects enough without the protection effects too? Vanilla Kangaxx, in particular, becomes a pushover for a party with a Freedom scroll. And Imprisoning / Mazing enemies are going to waste a lot of time on attacks that aren't going to get anywhere. (I know the latter problem is in principle solvable by AI changes, but quite apart from the question of whether people - notably me - will get around to implementing it, there's not actually that much room left in Detectable Spells, and I can't see which code(s) this spell could reuse.)

[Raj]

"When this spell is cast, all friendly creatures in the area are freed from spells and effects that restrict their movement or bind their minds. These effects include charm, confusion, domination, entangle, feeblemind, hold, paralysis, petrification, sleep, slow, stunning, and web.

That seems to make Freedom awfully powerful... aren't the recovery effects enough without the protection effects too?

 

I partially agree because I see the latest Freedom protects and free people from effects that bind their minds as well: just the 'remove chaos/charm' effect alone makes the spell interesting because dealing with confused party members is a pain, it means dispel your own buffs.

What I don't agree with is using vanilla Kangaxx as an example because that's the most exploitable boss around there and the surprise factor only worked some years ago

So yes, I think having the spell remove all negative effects is enough.

 

I'd leave alone petrification btw,that's really overkill as the level 6 spell now could be just removed, while I was hoping for it to include the same protection effect ( still not worth memorizing maybe but every bit helps ). Add fear to the list of negative effects removed instead.

[Demivrgvs]

Freedom

"When this spell is cast, all friendly creatures in the area are freed from spells and effects that restrict their movement or bind their minds. These effects include charm, confusion, domination, entangle, feeblemind, hold, paralysis, petrification, sleep, slow, stunning, and web.

That seems to make Freedom awfully powerful... aren't the recovery effects enough without the protection effects too?

I partially agree because I see the latest Freedom protects and free people from effects that bind their minds as well: just the 'remove chaos/charm' effect alone makes the spell interesting because dealing with confused party members is a pain, it means dispel your own buffs.

What I don't agree with is using vanilla Kangaxx as an example because that's the most exploitable boss around there and the surprise factor only worked some years ago

So yes, I think having the spell remove all negative effects is enough.

Actually I probably agree with both of you...and I think I previously suggested it. I've gone so far because it seemed many players considered it not enough. SCS takes precedence imo, and unless many players complain about it I'll do as you wish DavidW.

 

Would reducing casting time from 9 to 5 help keeping it more interesting?

 

P.S Thinking about it I'm not sure the spell can "cure charm"...would adding another charm effect to the creature just "override" the previous one? That may do the trick...

 

Regarding Stone to Flesh I think I'll internally replace it with something like Shape Stone, which would have the old "stone to flash" effect plus some new effect. I probably won't do it for V3 though, as some players were against this spell been changed, it may become an optional "add-on". We'll see.

[Shaitan]

Would reducing casting time from 9 to 5 help keeping it more interesting?

Yes - and IMO enough

[Salk]

Well, I preferred the original version which includes also the protection.

 

What we might do is to have the protection last a short period (like 5 rounds). If such period should or not be made scalable, it's something that might be discussed.

[Raj]

Freedom

SCS takes precedence imo, and unless many players complain about it I'll do as you wish DavidW.

 

Would reducing casting time from 9 to 5 help keeping it more interesting?

 

Go for it.

 

 

 

 

Couple more clarifications needed:

 

Flame Arrow: if the caster is against one opponent only, are all arrows going to hit the same target? If the caster is level 20 and fights more than one but less than 5 opponents, how are the arrows distributed and in which order, if any, targets get hit by more than one arrow?

 

What are the new durations for (improved)mantle/absolute immunity spells? I remember talking about 5-6-7 rounds but the first post doesn't list them. SCS2 never uses those spells so I guess there's some freedom about their implementation

[Ardanis]

Haste and Improved Haste

 

I ran into this just once again and decided to give it a talk. They protect from each other. I can see definitely how it may benefit a character with Imp H not being overwritten by the generic one, but the reverse is rather an annoying obstacle. I would opt for disabling these immunities. It's a pure bonus when IH is casted after H, and should I diminish extra attacks to +1 then, well, at least that's fair. Hm?

[Jarno Mikkola]

Haste and Improved Haste

I ran into this just once again and decided to give it a talk. They protect from each other. I can see definitely how it may benefit a character with Imp H not being overwritten by the generic one, but the reverse is rather an annoying obstacle. I would opt for disabling these immunities. It's a pure bonus when IH is casted after H, and should I diminish extra attacks to +1 then, well, at least that's fair. Hm?

To my book, what should be done is to make the Improved Haste make immune to have immunity to Haste, but not the reverse... and make the Improved Hate Dispel the normal Haste. This way you can the others with 1 normal Haste, and then Haste few of your soldiers with the Improved and there is no double effects. Actually the Improved could protect from slow etc. effects which the normal shouldn't. But that's just my opinion.