I am starting to dislike that prebuff component

[AzureDrag0n1]

Seems like my fights are either last 1 round and crush the enemy or get obliterated in round 2 by an invincible enemy.

 

Most hated thing about it is the multiple stacked spell immunities. I am not sure but I really think this is imbalanced to be able to stack several immunities on top of each other. Damn divination + abjuration combo.

 

SO after doing a ton of quests I decided to take on my first Lich by the city gates. Most of my party is around 14-15 level and I bring along Keldorn. After trying to figure out some way to beat him I give up after a few hours go to a shop and buy Azure Edge.

 

Return to the city gates equip Azure Edge and kill him immediately in 1 hit. I feel so dissatisfied.

 

Seriously how does this component even resemble prebuffing? No sane player would prebuff like this lich does. I did not bother counting but he must have 30 or so buffs on him in round 2. Something like an entire spell book worth of buffs and a lot of them are redundant like improved invisibility, then shadow door, then mislead. I mean WHY?? All this does is slow my system down.

 

I mean that lich is ready for anything.

[culmore]

I mean that lich is ready for anything.

 

Yes the liches are tough. There is a 1/2 second pause while he buffs in which you get "free attacks", some people actually wait for 1/2 second before attacking to give the lich a fair chance. Apparently it is the way the engine works and the mods designer cannot change this small delay.

 

Also Thief traps can insta kill the liches.

 

They are level 35, yes 35, so it is a hard fight if you don't insta kill them when they spawn. He summons demons quite a few of them... Which you need to hack you way through while the liches debuffs and AOEs. Nishruus helped me

 

 

spell strike helps if you have it (gets rid of all his spell shields Si:Div and Si:Abj). A plan is, summon a nishruu versus the lich, second kill the demons he summons, once the demons are dead spell strike and go after the lich (hopefully the nishruu will have eaten a good amount of his high level spells by then). But it is not easy!!!!

 

You could wait til near the very end of SoA and then come back for them, if you party is not yet strong enough??? The idea of scs2 is to make it harder, it is not your fault as a player if you party is still to low to kill them, in a non cheesy way. In fact I read the designer of scs2 saying that he thought Kangaax would be beyond some SoA parties.

 

Good hunting.

[Raj]

Try use option 3 when installing smarter mages, that gives them a fair/realistic amount of long lasting buffs.

 

If you really dislike prebuffing in general ( but then don't prebuff your party either ) try this: CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("DMWWDisableBuffing","GLOBAL",1) ( never used it but it should stop even long lasting buffs )

[Jarno Mikkola]

Damn SI divination + abjuration combo.

That should be impossible DavidW!!! And so should it be impossible for the Lich to cast any divination/abjuration spells there after(protection from magic weapons etc.). After all, everything, even the AI, needs to follow the game rules, not arbitrary/DavidW rules, as not even Mystra can do that.

But still...

[Arkain]

SI:Abjuration only makes you immune to abjuration spells cast by others thus you can still cast abjuration spells on yourself.

[DavidW]

This debate never gets old

 

In no particular order:

 

- there's an analysis of the amount of buffing used somewhere else on this forum so I shan't repeat it. But I don't think it's as dramatic as you're suggesting - don't forget that some of what happens isn't prebuffing, it's contingencies, triggers and the like being fired.

- there's no in-game block on stacking spell immunities - try it. SCSII (hopefully) keeps to BG2 in-game rules (which aren't necessarily the same as AD&D second edition rules). And as noted, you can cast quite a few self-only spells even through an SI spell.

- if I'm actually using II+Shadow Door, that's a mistake. There's a certain amount of automation in the prebuffing routine, and sometimes it does something silly like this.

- no, I can't do anything about that 1/2-second delay. It's basically a "loading time" for newly created creatures (you'll find it doesn't show up if you wander into an already-created creature). It's up to you whether you regard it as a legitimate window of attack or (like me) just wait it out.

[AzureDrag0n1]

I really wish there was a way to get rid of that SI combo. I feel that when a character gets that and the corresponding defense spells to go with it the game takes a quick turn around as that character becomes a god in defensive power.

 

You don't need to be very high level to do it either compared to the level 35 Lich an 18th level character should be just as untouchable. It is like a ceiling you reach and you are set for the rest of the game. You are all but untouchable with that. I wish neither I nor the enemy could do this. It is either one or the other. You can't exactly target them to remove those defenses.

 

There are some counters to the divination immunity with things like dispel and the only defense I know of to the double combo is chain contingency and load it up with some alterations which sometimes seem to fail even then. But then you run into the problem of whether this counter is cheesy or not as chain contingency bypasses invisibility. God help you if a mage makes himself immune to all spell removals and divination as well.

[DavidW]

There are some counters to the divination immunity with things like dispel and the only defense I know of to the double combo is chain contingency and load it up with some alterations which sometimes seem to fail even then. But then you run into the problem of whether this counter is cheesy or not as chain contingency bypasses invisibility. God help you if a mage makes himself immune to all spell removals and divination as well.

 

You can just tear it down - antimagic spells aren't stopped by SI:Abj (in SCSII or vanilla BG2), and in SCSII, antimagic spells penetrate invisibility.

[AzureDrag0n1]

Antimagic spells punch through invisibility? I could have sworn it was not letting me do that. I got messages with spell canceled. Maybe I will take a closer look at what is going on.

[Demivrgvs]

This debate never gets old

Indeed! I'm glad I to see I'm not the only one around that would really really like to stop multiple Spell Immunity from stacking!

 

Antimagic spells punch through invisibility? I could have sworn it was not letting me do that. I got messages with spell canceled. Maybe I will take a closer look at what is going on.

Are you playing with SR? Because I do have made SI:Abj correctly grant protection from Abjuration school (and thus abjuration spells like Secret Word, Pierce Shield, ...).

 

My tweak was actually intended to work together with SR V1's Spell Immunity which didn't allowed multiple SI to stack. I had reverted SI to vanilla's stackable version because players felt that it wasn't fair to be unable to use SI:Div + SI:Abj while opponents still could (I can't prevent it from stacking if used via contingency the way SCS does, though I didn't considered that too fair either as normally you can't use any SI via contingency).

[Jarno Mikkola]

I had reverted SI to vanilla's stackable version because players felt that it wasn't fair to be unable to use SI:Div + SI:Abj while opponents still could (I can't prevent it from stacking if used via contingency the way SCS does, though I didn't considered that too fair either as normally you can't use any SI via contingency).

Heh, heh. You might want to consider making this very clear next time.

By the way, does the SI:Abj, prevent the 9th level spell, as the Liches will rock it...

[Demivrgvs]

I had reverted SI to vanilla's stackable version because players felt that it wasn't fair to be unable to use SI:Div + SI:Abj while opponents still could (I can't prevent it from stacking if used via contingency the way SCS does, though I didn't considered that too fair either as normally you can't use any SI via contingency).

Heh, heh. You might want to consider making this very clear next time.

By the way, does the SI:Abj, prevent the 9th level spell, as the Liches will rock it...

I've made it very clear many times, as well as I've said many times that Spellstrike belongs to both Abjuration and Alteration school thus it bypasses any spell protection, including SI:Abj. With SR Spellstrike simply is THE spell removal par excellence, dispelling every protection of any level and bypassing any spell protection af any level. With SR V3 probably not even Spell Shield will be able to block it once, after all we're are talking about a 9th level spell, which has to compete with things like Time Stop and HLAs.

[AzureDrag0n1]

Ok then can anyone tell what can you do to remove the SI: divination + abjuration combo? Only thing that seems to sometimes work is dispel. I can not target invisibly creatures with spell defense removal spells unless they have an AoE.

 

Please be very clear and specific. The lowliest spells if possible. Not something like spellstrike or high level protection removal.

 

I encountered this combo again at the planar sphere so I simply cheese my way through it with stuff like web/sequencer x2 web + web sack + fear wand then 3x cloud kill wand. I discovered that web sack is not affected by free action as well.

 

Oh yes I am using spell revisions as well although a few of the spell revisions are disabled like stoneskin revision, MMM, and a few others I simply don't agree with. Vast majority of spells are untouched though as I like most of the revisions.

 

I never knew that barkskin was not a druid spell. When I use that scroll for corrected spell tables on druids it gets rid of barkskin. Sometimes missing spells comes back after a few levels. Seems pretty buggy.

 

Also is there a way to turn off summon AI? I really hate that aspect of it. I wish they did nothing or just had really passive AI scripts. That damn call woodland beings spell was 'justifiably' nerfed but now it can't obey any orders I give it and overrules my spell commands and does its own thing leaping into death without caring for its life. It teleports like mad all over the place.

[Arkain]

Ok then can anyone tell what can you do to remove the SI: divination + abjuration combo? Only thing that seems to sometimes work is dispel. I can not target invisibly creatures with spell defense removal spells unless they have an AoE.

 

Please be very clear and specific. The lowliest spells if possible. Not something like spellstrike or high level protection removal.

 

1. Use a thief to detect illusions (thus dispelling the invisibility).

 

2. Use a Chain Contingency since it can target invisible creatures and load it up with anti magic.

 

3. Use items, for example scrolls (bleh).

 

4. Install the SCSII component which assigns a small area of effect to anti magic spells and target the spell caster in question with some anti magic.

 

5. Wait it out.

[Raj]

Only SR changes SI:Abj to protect vs antimagic but you can target invisible creatures with antimagic because both SCS2 and SR alter them to have a aoe.

SR only leaves pierce magic/shield single target w/o a aoe, but if you install ( as you should ) SCS2 after SR then you can make those spell have a aoe as well.

The main problem then is to get rid of SI:Abj first, and that can only be accomplished with a Spellstrike or a cheaper Ruby Ray of Reversal: that is going to destroy the more powerful spell protection so if the enemy mage has a spell turning or a spell trap too, then you might have to use more than one ruby ray before finally getting rid of SI:Abj ).

After you destroyed SI:Abj the enemy wizard is never going to recast it so you can use other spell removals to take down SI:Div and then True Sight/Seeing will kick in.

 

 

 

As a alternative, for when enemy mages have more defences than you have ruby rays and you have no thief with detect illusions, you could dispel their invisibility first casting glitterdust; after that you can target the enemy mage with single target spells and take him down without help from fighters: if he has a spell turning that you can't take down because of SI:Abj then protect yourself with a similar spell and deplete his defence ( let say you both have a spell turning, you throw a flame arrow at him, it bounces several times between you two, depleting both spell reflections, and finally hit him ).

If the enemy mage has a globe of invulnerability on, or is a lich, then forget glitterdust and use aoe direct damage ( fogs/clouds can be a lil cheese but the fight itself can be a nightmare without that ); cast a dispel magic anyway because even if it is not going to dispel any spell protection it will always remove mirror images that could soak aoe damage, and always dispel magical created weapons ( like melf meteors ).

Chain Lighting, Delayed Fireball, Horrid Wilting are all going to bypass globes/lich immunities/spell protections but enemies often cast protections from elements and magic energy, things you can't breach if they have a SI:Abj, so won't help much; check the log and look at what elemental protections they cast on themselves and if they are immune to most damage try Prismatic Spray.