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Dispel/Remove Magic


Demivrgvs

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The only other thought I had was to try get DavidW from scs2 into this debate and see what he thinks maybe the two of you could brainstorm something together, being as you are the mod designers? I could post on the scs2 form if you don't object and ask him to peak at this thread?? Seems like the change we are talking about here is relevant to both mods.
Fine with me, but if he has some time to mod I think he'll want to devote it to fix the issues with the current versions of SCS, SCSII and WoP first.

 

Good call.

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I like this idea. My warriors are tired always escape to avoid being touch by dispel magic (who has said that movement penalities in heavy armor are inexistant? :blush: )

 

I usually don't prebuff so it doesn't matter a lot for me but for players who play with less XP, there is abolutely no usefulness to prebuff coz of all dispel magic! (I mean with SCSII of course)

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I like this idea. My warriors are tired always escape to avoid being touch by dispel magic (who has said that movement penalities in heavy armor are inexistant? :blush: )

 

I usually don't prebuff so it doesn't matter a lot for me but for players who play with less XP, there is abolutely no usefulness to prebuff coz of all dispel magic! (I mean with SCSII of course)

 

I buff lots in SCSII, despite dispel magic. Scattering usually prevents at least some of you from being dispelled.

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I think it's enough to change the AoE from 30' to 5' or 10'.
I like this idea. My warriors are tired always escape to avoid being touch by dispel magic (who has said that movement penalities in heavy armor are inexistant? :blush: )

 

I usually don't prebuff so it doesn't matter a lot for me but for players who play with less XP, there is abolutely no usefulness to prebuff coz of all dispel magic! (I mean with SCSII of course)

I buff lots in SCSII, despite dispel magic. Scattering usually prevents at least some of you from being dispelled.
I'm not particularly into this...but if we have to "rebalance" Dispel Magic (the cap we talked about at 20th caster level still is on my mind) reducing its AoE from 30 feet to 20 may be not too bad (as per 3rd edition PnP). Less than 20 would cause a mess with the AI scripts imo, and I suppose it would cause something DavidW warned me about a few times: a small AoE Dispel probaly is much more "exploitable" by a human player than the AI, and we would end up with a tweak which effectively makes the spell weaker for the AI and (to a certain extent) better for the players, which is unfair.
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Guest Aranthys

How about making Remove / Dispell magic only remove X effects (fixed number, 2 or 3) 100% of the time, regardless of the level of the caster ?

Isn't that possible ?

It would nicely balance the spell.

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How about making Remove / Dispell magic only remove X effects (fixed number, 2 or 3) 100% of the time, regardless of the level of the caster ?

Isn't that possible ?

It would nicely balance the spell.

It can't be done. The only way to rebalance Dispel/Remove Magic would be the cap we've talked about.
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Guest Aranthys
How about making Remove / Dispell magic only remove X effects (fixed number, 2 or 3) 100% of the time, regardless of the level of the caster ?

Isn't that possible ?

It would nicely balance the spell.

It can't be done. The only way to rebalance Dispel/Remove Magic would be the cap we've talked about.

Can't you duplicate another spell effect (secret word, for example) and modify the affected spells ?

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I don't want to turn on a big debate but its seems that most of us are agree to nerf/capp/reduce AoE of dispel/remove magic ?

 

erf except maybe DavidW lol

 

I buff lots in SCSII, despite dispel magic. Scattering usually prevents at least some of you from being dispelled.

If you allow me, I personally find scattering a bit cheesy and unfair coz ennemy can't do it. ( I think I am boring with unfairness concept lol) I really think that we should prevent insane speed like that :

 

http://www.500heros.be/images/webserver/flash1-1.jpg

 

Imo, speed should also be capped : Items + haste provides too much speed Imo. I don't understand why so many players are happy to rediscover dimensional door meanwhile you can already move like Flash.

==> I wonder if even +5 movement rate for Boot of rapidity is not a bit too much (with Item revisions) Personally, I find boot of rapidity considerably more appealing in comparaison to others boots.

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I personally find scattering a bit cheesy and unfair coz ennemy can't do it.

 

I find that a little strange. There's nothing unrealistic about scattering, after all, and the fact that the computer can't do it is an AI limitation. If you're going to avoid doing things just because the AI can't do it, the logical conclusion is to get a good AI script for your party, and then just sit back and watch.

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I think that scattering is too much efficient when you got insane speed (providing by items, haste, no speed penality in heavy armor etc...).

 

I would also mean that even if scattering can be consistent and fair (coz more difficult) in some other situations, that also doen't mean that dispell/remove magic is balanced :hm:

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Dispel Magic

I for one don't mind that Dispel has no level cap on it--the Level 20 cap has always seemed arbitrary to me, and I actually like having at least 1 decent spell where being of epic levels actually matters sometimes. And it's hardly overpowered--at least not in the sense that a supercharged Fireball from Weimer's Spell-50 mod is overpowered. Sure, a Level 30 Lich can Dispel any prebuffs you can dish out . . . but you didn't let him hit the whole party with it, did you? You made him cast it only at your Thief, because you were scouting ahead like an intelligent player, right?

 

Player vs. AI

I certainly don't regard things that the player is smart enough to do but the AI is effectively not--things like scattering the party so that AoE spells are essentially wasted--as being an abuse of the game engine, because both sides have advantages that the other does not. The computer has the upper hand in terms of not having 1 party member that must be kept alive at all costs, its spellcasters are almost always of a higher level than the party, its Mages automatically know all the best spells (even if they're from their Opposition school), and of course they have "fair" fights like Wizard duels against Magic-Resistant Drow. With the advent of things like Tactics and SCSII came another huge advantage: Cascades of prebuffs and protections, emphasizing the main disparity of the game--CHARNAME and party have to go through roughly 20 different fights every day, and win every single one of them, whereas the computer only has to win one. So, as far as each enemy in the game is concerned, they only have to prepare for one fight in their entire lives, so they might as well pull out ALL the stops for it. The player does not have that luxury, so I for one am going to insist on keeping the ones I do have. I'm not going to insult the game's intelligence by doing things like Cloudkilling Dragons from offscreen, but am I going to screw with spellcasters by only letting them see my Tank with great Magic Resistance and rock-bottom Saves? Damn right.

 

DavidW, here's another tweak to take into account for SCSII, should you desire to. Two of the changes that my Kitpack is making to the Inquisitor kit are:

1) Their Dispel Magic ability is now no longer cast at 2x their actual EXP level, or even SCSII's setup of 1.5x their actual level. Their new Dispel ability has a casting-level multiplier of 1.25, but the effective Spell Level increments as well, acting as a spell of 1/2 the Inquisitor's EXP level: A Level 8 Inq throws a Dispel that strikes as a Level 4 spell, but after you hit Level 12, your Dispel starts acting like a Level 6 spell, and you can start using it on Liches. (Removing the bizzare "murder against Mages, but useless against Liches" dichotomy of vanilla.) So you may want to make Liches (and possibly Rakshasa) consider a good SI:Abj.

2) They gain a new HLA, Greater Disenchantment, which is an AoE Remove Magic, Oracle, and Silence (possibly Zone of Sweet Air as well). The ability is schoolless, but does allow Saves against each of the effects.

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I think that scattering is too much efficient when you got insane speed (providing by items, haste, no speed penality in heavy armor etc...).

 

I would also mean that even if scattering can be consistent and fair (coz more difficult) in some other situations, that also doen't mean that dispell/remove magic is balanced :hm:

Well, IR halves Boots of Speed bonus, and adds movement penalties to armors, but other than that I cannot block scattering, and as long as it is confined to fast, light armored characters it's probably fine.

 

 

Regarding Dispel/Remove Magic we can do two things:

1) capping it at 20th level as all other spells (look the first post on this topic for details)

2) reduce the AoE to 20' radius as per 3rd edition (scattering would be easier, but at least we wouldn't see characters running away 30 miles to avoid Dispel AoE)

 

Anyway, I'm not particularly into these changes, though I do consider these spells really too powerful for 3rd level slots, thus I'll probably let players discuss/decide this.

 

 

DavidW, here's another tweak to take into account for SCSII, should you desire to. Two of the changes that my Kitpack is making to the Inquisitor kit are:

1) Their Dispel Magic ability is now no longer cast at 2x their actual EXP level, or even SCSII's setup of 1.5x their actual level. Their new Dispel ability has a casting-level multiplier of 1.25, but the effective Spell Level increments as well, acting as a spell of 1/2 the Inquisitor's EXP level: A Level 8 Inq throws a Dispel that strikes as a Level 4 spell, but after you hit Level 12, your Dispel starts acting like a Level 6 spell, and you can start using it on Liches. (Removing the bizzare "murder against Mages, but useless against Liches" dichotomy of vanilla.) So you may want to make Liches (and possibly Rakshasa) consider a good SI:Abj.

Are you sure about this? In my install Inquisitor's Dispel does work on liches and not because of SR. It's power level is set to 0.

 

Anyway, I've just noticed a further issue with Inquisitor, at level 1 they currently dispel as a 12th level caster! This is hugely OP in BG1 and I'll fix this within KR (where I'll probably use SCS 1.5x progression).

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Guest guest

SCSII gives you the option of putting the inquisitors dispel at either 1.5x, or even 1x, actually.

 

At least it was until v7 or so, and if it was changed, the readme sure hasn't been. Doubt that though.

 

What would be the affect of capping the level of dispel magic at 20? Everyone would be able to dispel each other easily enough at/after that point, compared to how it is now?

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