SR V2.9

[lac]

Spell I badly want to cast:

 

protection from backstabbing

 

So Aerie can get her sweet self down to Cromwells without getting murder by SCSII improved thugs and brigands in the dock district without getting killed. I finally shelled out for the armour of the deep night because I am so bloody sick of raising her.

 

Thank you for listening to me rant.

 

Laura

[lac]

re killing those of con 7 ...

 

Xan has con 7. So bad for BG1 (but would that spell ever be cast there?) and

makes-it-impossible-to-bring-my-favourite F/M along in SoA, which I think would be a show stopper for me.

 

Laura

[SixOfSpades]

I've put some more thought into the Illusion school, and don't worry, it's not part of the debate--it's new spells. Project Image and Simulacrum are notorious for having a supposedly nonexistent creature affect real changes in its environment--namely, killing folks. It's been suggested that we mitigate the stupidity by making them only allowed to cast spells that a) only affect themselves, b) are purely defensive in nature, or c) are more Illusions, or spells of a similarly immaterial nature (like Horror or Emotion). But what about dropping those spells entirely, and replacing them with spells that create illusionary versions of existing summons? These new summons would not be able to actually harm enemies, they would function merely as blockers/decoys, and would therefore be creatures with primarily defensive traits, like Mordy's Swords. True Sight would dispel them, but (as they're not real) Death Spell would not. Alternatively, the Illusion school could get some actual summons as well: Invisible Stalker could be moved over, and we could add Phantasmal Killer and perhaps Shadows & Shadow Fiends. I know SR isn't in the business of adding new spells, but it's something to think about.

 

Clairvoyance

Regarding the Trap-detection I'm against it, else Find Trap spell would results in a complete waste of a spell.

I was taking Find Traps into account, that's why I said "some trap-detection capability," with the idea of doing something like a 15% chance to see a nearby trap, for every round the spell is active. Of course, I've never played around with those opcodes, so I don't even know if that can be done.

 

Summon Insects, Insect Plague, Creeping Doom

Spell failure is 100% because I allow a save each round to avoid it.

Hmmm . . . my overall plan was to make the 3 standard Insect spells have the bugs bite you wherever they can, and thus do more damage, while Swarm and Greater Swarm (my Hivemaster spells) ignore everything except sensitive spots like your eyes, neck, armpits, crotch, and even try to crawl into your nose and ears, with the result that they don't do as much damage, but they're a lot more distracting (bigger penalties to spellcasting and THAC0). So my Spell Failure rates were Summon Insects (Level 3) 33%, Insect Plague (Level 5) 50%, Swarm (Level 6) 75%, Creeping Doom (Level 7) 66%, Greater Swarm (HLA Innate) 100%. As you say, these penalties would all be superfluous if the bugs are biting every second, so I agree we should make the damage be per round. Saving every round is OK too . . . perhaps the regular Insect spells could be "Save vs. Breath with whatever penalty each round, to take half damage and avoid all Spell Failure during that round," while the Swarm spells would be "Save vs. Breath with whatever penalty each round, to take half damage and halve the Spell Failure penalty during that round." The Save for half duration doesn't sound that appealing, IMO.

 

Poison

. . . Thus for example at 7th level Poison would deal 2D6 (no save) + 2/round for 1 turn (save negates).

Oh, ok, now I gotcha. It looks good to me, but I would make one change: Since most spells "progress" up through Caster Level 20, I would add Level 18 (7D6 + 6/round) and Level 20 (8D6 + 8/round) to the list.

 

Dolorous Decay

Actually the spell is still less effective against target with higher CON, because they last longer. I agree with it not affecting some creatures, but this spell must remain tied to disease imo, I'd never use magic damage for this spell. If creatures that die by stat drain don't give exp that would be annoying as hell, I'll check it asap.

"Last longer" is actually irrelevant, as the spell can't kill anything with more than 13 CON anyway, and creatures with less than 13 will die no matter what. But enemies with higher CON actually do suffer more, because all the stat-drain does is remove the bonus hitpoints, and those with higher CON have more to lose. So I'm glad you're taking another route with this. Thought: If "disease Slow" doesn't affect ApR, can it at least be stacked with itself, making it easier for characters to run away? Anyway, I'm with Salk and Ardanis: Contagion + Poison, with the disease possibly spreading to nearby creatures (not just enemies) every round. Reducing targets' maximum HP by a given percentage each round is also good.

 

P.S I never liked Horrid Wilting's magic damage. It doesn't make sense imo that it deals damage as a Magic Missile or a Skull Trap. Not to mention that using Energy Resistance to resist it doesn't feel right. Changing it to something else (e.g. either cold or physical damage) may be interesting but it would have issues as well (e.g. why cold/physical resistant creature should resist it?).

Way back when, I thought up a devious little tweak for the Wave Halberd: It deals Water damage. How? Each hit increases the victim's Fire Resistance by 100% for 1 second, and then the weapon applies negative 50 points of Fire damage. You hit Average Joe with the Wave, his normal 0% Fire Resistance gets bumped to 100%, and the water does nothing. You hit a Fire Giant with the Wave, his normal 100% Fire Resistance gets bumped to 127%, and the water deals an extra 13 hitpoints of damage. Of course, I never implemented this (not least because it creates a way to kill Yaga-Shura too early), but it's an interesting idea. Another possibility, that involves a lot more work, would involve taking all spells & items that deal with Magic Fire and Magic Cold damage, and change them to just use regular Fire and Cold, thus freeing up 2 types of damage to be used for other things, like dehydration and disease.

 

PnP does have a 6th level druid's spell that works similarly to a single target ADHW (actually it does almost the opposite ), and it knocks target unconscious at 0 hit points. I'm talking about Drown.

Then you should definitely not make that spell, as there are WAY too many water-based spells in the game already. [/sarcasm]

 

Specialist Mages

I feel the very same way about specialist mages being not tied at all to their chosen school right now, but my proposed solution is actually way easier to code and still very similar. Instead of giving them an additional spell slot per level I'd give them one spell of their chosen school per spell level, a la Divine Remix.

Decent, but I'll do you one better: Instead of just 1 set spell from each level (Transmuters get Burning Hands as their free Level 1 spell, etc.), have their Level 1 innate use Select Spell [214], with the Resource Key of L1ALT, or whatever 2DA you write that contains all the Level 1 Alteration spells (Burning Hands, Color Spray, Shocking Grasp). I've already done this for the Goliard and Hunter of the Occult, and it works great. One thing I haven't tried yet (as both of those kits are essentially Priests) is to set the 'Type' of Opcode 214 to 1, so that only known spells can be chosen. What I expect this will do is the following: Our little Level 1 Transmuter picks Color Spray as one of his known spells at the start of the game. He uses his "Level 1 Focus" ability, which displays (and lets him cast) Color Spray. Later on, he scribes Shocking Grasp to his spellbook, and the next time he uses his "Level 1 Focus," it now displays both Color Spray and Shocking Grasp. Now, I don't know if it will actually work that way or not, but if it does, it would of course be too cool for school.

 

Opposition schools are "hardcoded", they are tied to exclusion flags that would probably mess up things like SI if changed.

I strongly doubt Spell Immunity would be affected, it would simply be a pain in the ass to go through all the spells in the game, and change their School, Usability, and Description. And yeah, it would be nearly impossible to get a consensus on which schools would be opposed to which other(s).

[SixOfSpades]

protection from backstabbing

Stoneskin.

 

The inability to cast/memorize spells of your opposition school is in fact standard, although you can still use Wands: Enchanters can use Wands of Fire, etc. Scrolls, however, are a different matter, and handled somewhat inconsistently: In BG1, you could cast your Opposition's spells directly from the scroll, but in BG2 you can't even do that [Edit: unless you have Use Any Item].

[Ardanis]

spells & items that deal with Magic Fire and Magic Cold damage, and change them to just use regular Fire and Cold

I believe these aren't used in game anyway. Though I can't confirm, I've heard they cause crash.

 

Speaking of damaging illusions, 3E has them. I even find them reasonable. As for Simulacrum, well, vanilla one does seem to be more of Conjuration than Illusion. Considering it's generally way more powerful than Gate which is one level higher... hmm... Disbalance it is.

Shadow Conjuration

Illusion (Shadow)

Level: Brd 4, Sor/Wiz 4

Components: V, S

Casting Time: 1 standard action

Range: See text

Effect: See text

Duration: See text

Saving Throw: Will disbelief (if interacted with); varies; see text

Spell Resistance: Yes; see text

You use material from the Plane of Shadow to shape quasi-real illusions of one or more creatures, objects, or forces. Shadow conjuration can mimic any sorcerer or wizard conjuration (summoning) or conjuration (creation) spell of 3rd level or lower.

Shadow conjurations are actually one-fifth (20%) as strong as the real things, though creatures who believe the shadow conjurations to be real are affected by them at full strength.

Any creature that interacts with the conjured object, force, or creature can make a Will save to recognize its true nature.

Spells that deal damage have normal effects unless the affected creature succeeds on a Will save. Each disbelieving creature takes only one-fifth (20%) damage from the attack. If the disbelieved attack has a special effect other than damage, that effect is only 20% likely to occur. Regardless of the result of the save to disbelieve, an affected creature is also allowed any save that the spell being simulated allows, but the save DC is set according to shadow conjuration’s level (4th) rather than the spell’s normal level. In addition, any effect created by shadow conjuration allows spell resistance, even if the spell it is simulating does not. Shadow objects or substances have normal effects except against those who disbelieve them.

Against disbelievers, they are 20% likely to work.

A shadow creature has one-fifth the hit points of a normal creature of its kind (regardless of whether it’s recognized as shadowy). It deals normal damage and has all normal abilities and weaknesses. Against a creature that recognizes it as a shadow creature, however, the shadow creature’s damage is one-fifth (20%) normal, and all special abilities that do not deal lethal damage are only 20% likely to work. (Roll for each use and each affected character separately.) Furthermore, the shadow creature’s AC bonuses are one-fifth as large.

A creature that succeeds on its save sees the shadow conjurations as transparent images superimposed on vague, shadowy forms.

Objects automatically succeed on their Will saves against this spell.

[lac]

protection from backstabbing

Stoneskin.

 

The inability to cast/memorize spells of your opposition school is in fact standard, although you can still use Wands: Enchanters can use Wands of Fire, etc. Scrolls, however, are a different matter, and handled somewhat inconsistently: In BG1, you could cast your Opposition's spells directly from the scroll, but in BG2 you can't even do that [Edit: unless you have Use Any Item].

 

Alas, I have kitted Aerie to be a Cleric/Thief. So no stoneskins for her....

[lac]

More about the woman who is one-sided.

 

Since Demivrgvs liked it I went and looked her up some more.

 

She comes from an era when all women wore makeup. She carefully applies it every day, but to one side of her face only. Her one side is done perfectly. Mostly her other

side is untouched. Sometimes she has huge smears of lipstick on her blind side --

as if she used a gesture which was to get the whole lips covered, made a mess of it, and neglected to clean up the smears with a tissue. She never notices these things.

 

A different woman with a very similar lesion had a different makeup response. She

made up both sides of her face. One side perfectly. With the other she made a complete mess of her face. Lipstick, eyeshadow, blusher -- all over the place and

in the wrong places and inappropriately applied and so on and so forth. She never

noticed this, either.

 

This second woman had a vivid memory. You could ask her to describe the buildings on the street as she took an imaginary walk from her former house (before this injury left her in an institution) to the market, or the library. And she could envision things perfectly -- on one side. She could tell you all the shops on her right side all the way

down to her destination, and then on the way back tell you all about the buildings on the other side of the street which she had completely left out on the describing of how to get to the destination. On the way back, of course, it was her other side that was blind.

 

So, a person who was familiar with the streets involved could then interrupt her and

say things like 'so the bakery is across the street from the Iranian grocery store' ...

which it was, but she couldn't see that. She could work it out, i.e. 'yes, they are both between 6th street and 7th street along Lincoln avenue, and in the middle of their

blocks, so they must be across the street from each other' but there was no way

for her to see this thing.

 

She said that for her the most astonishing thing is that nothing is astonishing. She knows that she ought to feel that something is terribly wrong with her world, but she does not. The worst that happens for her, she has, is a feeling much like you get when you balance your monthly bank statements, and you are unexpectedly short money. There is a nagging sense that something doesn't add up -- and you redo your figures and then discover that you subtracted when you should have added, and yes, you do have more money in your account than your first calculation shoed, and you feel better because it all adds up. Or you find a few more expenses that you had forgotten about, and then, again, it makes sense that your bank balance is as small as it is. And you again feel better. She says every so often she gets the sense that something isn't adding up, and she then recalculates her world, to find out what she is missing.

 

But she knows that it wasn't always that way -- Before her (accident? brain tumour? I forget -- lac) she could experience what she was missing directly, and would also have experienced the loss of such feeling directly. At the very least she would be confused. And it is that feeling that she knows she has lost. Not only can she no longer see the left hand side of things, it is the whole idea of 'leftness' that is missing. As if it never was.

[SixOfSpades]

I'm going to have to read this book. The Dragons of Eden was not enough. MUST HAVE MORE BRAINS.

[lac]

must have more brains

 

I am not sure all of that is in The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, and I have loaned my book to a colleague, so I cannot check right now. Where I looked up the rest was in course notes, because we were fortunate enough to have Oliver Sacks come in and speak to us on Neurology. He spoke at greater length about some cases he mentioned in his published works.

 

The Island of the Colour Blind and An Anthropologist on Mars, Awakenings, and A Leg to Stand On are also fascinating reading.

 

Laura

[Jarno Mikkola]

Spell I badly want to cast: protection from backstabbing... So Aerie can get her sweet self down to Cromwells

Alas, I have kitted Aerie to be a Cleric/Thief. So no stoneskins for her....

Your own fault perhaps.

 

MUST HAVE MORE BRAINS.

Try Esiriak. The brains won't be guarantied, but I promise some will be eaten.

[Salk]

I updated my post (88) about Dolorous Decay and I'd be grateful for any comment about it.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Dolorous Decay... Even better perhaps, to have the damage expressed in percentage of the total HPs.

 

Example: om hit, -5% of the total HPs; -10% of the HPs left at second round; -20% of the HPs left at third round, -40% of the HPs left at fourth round and finally - 80% of the HP left at fifth round.

Would there be saving throws for each, and how much and would they cancel the later ones... -160% at +20 save vs. magic.

 

"No one said I could get 6 natural 1's in a row, someone obviously tweaked the rules a little."

[Salk]

Dolorous Decay... Even better perhaps, to have the damage expressed in percentage of the total HPs.

 

Example: om hit, -5% of the total HPs; -10% of the HPs left at second round; -20% of the HPs left at third round, -40% of the HPs left at fourth round and finally - 80% of the HP left at fifth round.

Would there be saving throws for each, and how much and would they cancel the later ones... -160% at +20 save vs. magic.

 

This is something that needs discussion. My original idea was to not allow saving throws but to limit the damage to a certain number of rounds, with the latest round being very punishing (80% of what HPs are left) but I am open to suggestions, of course.

 

The idea of contagion doesn't seem to fit this spell but... Contagion instead.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well, with that he is left with 0.95*0.9*0.8*0.6*0.2= 0.08208=<10% of his total hit point , a little too much as you can sanctuary yourself to get the creature to that... because no saves. Now, if we make the spell use saving throws, we can make the first(-5%) have no save, the second(-10%) with -10 save vs. magic, the third(-20%) with -4 save vs. magic, the forth(-40%) with +2 save vs. magic, the fifth(-80%) with +8 save vs. magic and the sixth(death) with +14 save vs. magic.

[Demivrgvs]

Project Image & Simulacrum

...what about dropping those spells entirely, and replacing them with spells that create illusionary versions of existing summons? These new summons would not be able to actually harm enemies, they would function merely as blockers/decoys, and would therefore be creatures with primarily defensive traits, like Mordy's Swords. True Sight would dispel them, but (as they're not real) Death Spell would not. Alternatively, the Illusion school could get some actual summons as well: Invisible Stalker could be moved over, and we could add Phantasmal Killer and perhaps Shadows & Shadow Fiends. I know SR isn't in the business of adding new spells, but it's something to think about.

I won't remove PI and Simulacrum from the game, they're renowned spells in the D&D world and too many players love them. I've managed to do a good job at blocking their exploits, making especially the latter quite balanced (PI is still too powerful imo).

 

Regarding a spell which summons illusionary creatures, I've already thought about it, and its very interesting imo, but far from being a priority considering how much work could/has to be done with existing spells first.

 

Summon Insects, Insect Plague, Creeping Doom

...So my Spell Failure rates were Summon Insects (Level 3) 33%, Insect Plague (Level 5) 50%, Swarm (Level 6) 75%, Creeping Doom (Level 7) 66%, Greater Swarm (HLA Innate) 100%. As you say, these penalties would all be superfluous if the bugs are biting every second, so I agree we should make the damage be per round. Saving every round is OK too . . . perhaps the regular Insect spells could be "Save vs. Breath with whatever penalty each round, to take half damage and avoid all Spell Failure during that round," while the Swarm spells would be "Save vs. Breath with whatever penalty each round, to take half damage and halve the Spell Failure penalty during that round." The Save for half duration doesn't sound that appealing, IMO.

The "problem" imo with tieing spell failure to a "save vs. breath" is that pure mages have really bad saves vs. breath, and fighter/mages would be advantaged against this effect. Isn't a "save vs. spell" more appropriate for a concentration check to cast a spell in a difficult situation?

 

Poison

Oh, ok, now I gotcha. It looks good to me, but I would make one change: Since most spells "progress" up through Caster Level 20, I would add Level 18 (7D6 + 6/round) and Level 20 (8D6 + 8/round) to the list.

It's also very common for spells to progress only up to 10th or 15th level (e.g. Fireball, Lightning Ball, Sunfire, Flame Strike, and so on), and the last "upgrade at 15th level already does a considerable amount of damage imo 6D6 + 60 is the equivalent of 23D6, which for a 4th level spell is enough imo, am I wrong?

 

Dolorous Decay

If "disease Slow" doesn't affect ApR, can it at least be stacked with itself, making it easier for characters to run away? Anyway, I'm with Salk and Ardanis: Contagion + Poison, with the disease possibly spreading to nearby creatures (not just enemies) every round.

Slow effect doesn't stack, and cannot stack. It sets movement rate to 50% no matter how many times you cast it.

I do like the "plague/contagion" idea, but I'm not sure it fits this particular spell. If something like that will be implemented I'd prefer it to spread to all creatures, because it doesn't make sense for the disease imo to not affect "friendly" creatures. Anyway, I suppose that would greatly reduce the spell appeal for most players.

 

The idea of contagion doesn't seem to fit this spell but... Contagion instead.

Exactly what I was trying to say, though in terms of "power level" it's much more suited to a 6th level spell. Contagion should be fine as it is.

 

On top of the slow effect and the -2 to Str, Con, Dex and Cha, we could think of an amount of damage which doubles itself to simulate the decay.

...on hit, -5% of the total HPs; -10% of the HPs left at second round; -20% of the HPs left at third round, -40% of the HPs left at fourth round and finally - 80% of the HP left at fifth round.

I'm not even started to think how this should be done, but of one thing I'm sure, it can't be done with "disease" opcodes.

 

Horrid Wilting

Way back when, I thought up a devious little tweak for the Wave Halberd: It deals Water damage. How? Each hit increases the victim's Fire Resistance by 100% for 1 second, and then the weapon applies negative 50 points of Fire damage. You hit Average Joe with the Wave, his normal 0% Fire Resistance gets bumped to 100%, and the water does nothing. You hit a Fire Giant with the Wave, his normal 100% Fire Resistance gets bumped to 127%, and the water deals an extra 13 hitpoints of damage. Of course, I never implemented this (not least because it creates a way to kill Yaga-Shura too early), but it's an interesting idea. Another possibility, that involves a lot more work, would involve taking all spells & items that deal with Magic Fire and Magic Cold damage, and change them to just use regular Fire and Cold, thus freeing up 2 types of damage to be used for other things, like dehydration and disease.

The first suggestions doesn't seem "issue free", and I'm not sure I'd like to work on such a strange workaround, but it's indeed creative!

Magic Fire and Magic Cold may cause crashes, and I've removed every instances of them both in IR and SR.

 

Specialist Mages

Decent, but I'll do you one better: Instead of just 1 set spell from each level (Transmuters get Burning Hands as their free Level 1 spell, etc.), have their Level 1 innate use Select Spell [214], with the Resource Key of L1ALT, or whatever 2DA you write that contains all the Level 1 Alteration spells (Burning Hands, Color Spray, Shocking Grasp).

One thing I haven't tried yet (as both of those kits are essentially Priests) is to set the 'Type' of Opcode 214 to 1, so that only known spells can be chosen. What I expect this will do is the following: Our little Level 1 Transmuter picks Color Spray as one of his known spells at the start of the game. He uses his "Level 1 Focus" ability, which displays (and lets him cast) Color Spray. Later on, he scribes Shocking Grasp to his spellbook, and the next time he uses his "Level 1 Focus," it now displays both Color Spray and Shocking Grasp. Now, I don't know if it will actually work that way or not, but if it does, it would of course be too cool for school.

Really nice suggestion Six. Anyway I don't think those innate spells have to be tied to known spells, as in PnP specialist mages are supposed to learn by themselves a few spells of their school. We may instead think about adding them their innates in their spellbook too.

 

Anyway this is really a matter I'd leave for when I finally have the time to start a topic or two on Kit Revisions. My efforts as of now should be put into SR as I'd like to finish V3 as soon as possible.

 

Shadow Conjuration

This spell rocks, I absolutely adore it, but it would be a real pain to code. I would have to create tons of spells which mostly copy the original ones except for an additional save vs. spell to check if the targets perceive the illusions, and slightly reduced effectiveness.