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[Bartimaeus]

Unholy Word: From deafness to silence? But...it's Unholy Word! The entire idea is that it's something you hear, . I can see where you're coming from though, the design of this spell is a bit...difficult to balance. Arcane spellcasters shouldn't be quite as affected from it if you have the 'Spell Deflection blocks AoE spells' component installed, though - sure, you can hit them with it once when their spell protections are down, but assuming you're using SCS, you can't just Holy Word right at the beginning of a fight and make a big group of mages all useless. I never really thought about the fact that a mage can vocalize through silence but not deafness.

Spellstrike: You know, I couldn't ever really put it into words, but I never really liked the idea of Spellstrike giving spell failure, and I think you just made me realize what it is: there's no counter for it. It doesn't matter how powerful of a spellcaster you are, how high your magic resistance is, or what protections you have running*, a spellcaster is just...straight up disabled with no counter by Spellstrike, and you have to just sit there and take it, and if you're a player that can feasibly cast multiple of them in a row, an enemy spellcaster just has...no recourse whatsoever. That's not really very cool.

*Okay, technically, I think Spell Shield will absorb a Spellstrike, but Spell Shield is so easily done away with via a Secret Word that it's barely worth mentioning. I'd actually be more in favor of making Spellstrike kill Spell Shield and the other spell protections as its "unique" factor rather than doing the silly spell failure thing...buuut I'm not sure how SCS AI feels about that.

Dispelling Screen: Don't think this one will change, think it would make it way too unattractive. Maybe a simpler tweak would be to reduce its AoE down to 10' radius (size of a Skull Trap) from 15' (Fireball), making it a bit more difficult to effectively use in an already raging battle.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[WanderingScholar]

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Unholy Word: From deafness to silence? But...it's Unholy Word! The entire idea is that it's something you hear, . I can see where you're coming from though, the design of this spell is a bit...difficult to balance. Arcane spellcasters shouldn't be quite as affected from it if you have the 'Spell Deflection blocks AoE spells' component installed, though - sure, you can hit them with it once when their spell protections are down, but assuming you're using SCS, you can't just Holy Word right at the beginning of a fight and make a big group of mages all useless. I never really thought about the fact that a mage can vocalize through silence but not deafness.

Spellstrike: You know, I couldn't ever really put it into words, but I never really liked the idea of Spellstrike giving spell failure, and I think you just made me realize what it is: there's no counter for it. It doesn't matter how powerful of a spellcaster you are, how high your magic resistance is, or what protections you have running*, a spellcaster is just...straight up disabled with no counter by Spellstrike, and you have to just sit there and take it, and if you're a player that can feasibly cast multiple of them in a row, an enemy spellcaster just has...no recourse whatsoever. That's not really very cool.

*Okay, technically, I think Spell Shield will absorb a Spellstrike, but Spell Shield is so easily done away with via a Secret Word that it's barely worth mentioning. I'd actually be more in favor of making Spellstrike kill Spell Shield and the other spell protections as its "unique" factor rather than doing the silly spell failure thing...buuut I'm not sure how SCS AI feels about that.

Dispelling Screen: Don't think this one will change, think it would make it way too unattractive. Maybe a simpler tweak would be to reduce its AoE down to 10' radius (size of a Skull Trap) from 15' (Fireball), making it a bit more difficult to effectively use in an already raging battle.

I like this idea of making Spellstrike remove Spell Shield + all spell protections. That seems like a decent upgrade from it's vanilla without going too overboard. 

Taking a cursory glance over the SCS combatblocks doesn't raise any apparent conflicts. I don't see any triggers that prevent Spellstrike from being cast on a SS protected target. Although, you might consider adding this if you wanted to give the AI an incentive to use it on Spell Shield protected PC's.

Spoiler

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////    Attack Spell Shield
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

IF TRIGGER
       IgnoreBlock(Indiscriminate)
       TargetBlock(PCsInOrder)
       TriggerBlock(SpellShieldTarget|Enemy|Helpless|SRDetectInvisible)
       !GlobalTimerNotExpired("dropped_spell_shield","LOCALS")  
THEN DO
       Combine()
       SetGlobalTimer("dropped_spell_shield","LOCALS",12)
       Action(SpellArea,WIZARD_WARDING_WHIP)
       Action(SpellArea,WIZARD_SECRET_WORD)
       Action(SpellArea,WIZARD_SPELL_THRUST)
       Action(SpellArea,WIZARD_PIERCE_MAGIC)
       Action(SpellArea,WIZARD_RUBY_RAY_OF_REVERSAL)
       Action(SpellArea,WIZARD_SPELL_STRIKE)
END

Worth mentioning here is that Spellstrike has to compete with other 9th level spells, such as Chain Contingency, which can release triple Pierce Shields in a single round mid-combat. This is even deadlier since SR gives Pierce Shield the ability to remove combat protections in addition to magic ones, making it potentially more powerful than Spellstrike just on it's own.

That aside, I think some of SR's anti-magic could benefit from a bit of tweaking in general. For instance, in my own game I changed these slightly: 

Pierce Magic-> Removed the 2 round MR nullification and replaced it with lowering MR 2% per level. Similar to vanilla

Pierce Shield-> Removed the "breach" component and replaced it with the 2 round MR nullification that Pierce Magic had.

 

[subtledoctor]

Doesn’t SR make Chain Contingency non-combat-only? Or is it just in my game?

[Endarire]

I see nothing in the description to indicate chain contingency is non-combat only.

[docbeard]

Is Protection From Missiles supposed to block Arrows of Dispelling? (Not arguing for a change either way, just trying to work out what the intended behavior is. 

[Guest BooChew]

Hello.

I have installed BG2EE with the latest patch. With various mods installed, including SR, my game was reliably crashing whenever I entered Yaga Shura's Lair (AR5201) and Yaga Shura's Keep (AR5204). After some testing, I narrowed down the cause to SR (not SRR, which I had also been installing). Before installing SR the area worked fine; after installing it, not so: the game simply froze and crashed. Is this a known bug? My game generated a crash report, but its a .dmp report and I have no idea how to read it and post its contents (or if that would even be appropriate).

I would appreciate any help you might give me. The mod is great, by the way, and I appreciate all the work that has gone into it.

[ktchong]

During installation of Spell Revisions v4.19 Release Candidate 1, I ran into a problem with this component:

Mirror Image Fix (may be used with or without the main component)

I skipped the main component (Spell Revisions) and was only installing the additional content (fixes).  All the other fixes were installed successfully.

 

Install Component [Spell Revisions]?
[I]nstall, or [N]ot Install or [Q]uit? n

Skipping [Spell Revisions]

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.
.
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.

Install Component [Mirror Image Fix]?
[I]nstall, or [N]ot Install or [Q]uit? i

Installing [Mirror Image Fix] [v4.19]
Copying and patching 3796 files ...
Copying and patching 1 file ...
Copying and patching 1 file ...
Copying and patching 1 file ...
Copying and patching 3 files ...

ERROR locating resource for 'COPY'
Resource [sppr951d.itm] not found in KEY file:
        [./chitin.key]
Stopping installation because of error.
Stopping installation because of error.
Stopping installation because of error.

ERROR Installing [Mirror Image Fix], rolling back to previous state
Will uninstall   8 files for [SPELL_REV/SETUP-SPELL_REV.TP2] component 20.
Uninstalled      8 files for [SPELL_REV/SETUP-SPELL_REV.TP2] component 20.
ERROR: Failure("resource [sppr951d.itm] not found for 'COPY'")
Please make a backup of the file: SETUP-SPELL_REV.DEBUG and look for support at: marco.montagnoli83@hotmail.it
Using Language [English]

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.
.
.
.

SKIPPING: [Update Spellbooks of Joinable NPCs]
        This component requires that the main Spell Revisions component be installed.

SKIPPING: [Revised Warrior HLAs]
        This mod is designed for the Baldur's Gate II engine and will not function on other games.

SUCCESSFULLY INSTALLED      Deva and Planetar Animations

NOT INSTALLED DUE TO ERRORS Mirror Image Fix

SUCCESSFULLY INSTALLED      Dispel Magic Fix

INSTALLED WITH WARNINGS     Spell Deflection blocks AoE spells

Press ENTER to exit.

 

SETUP-SPELL_REV.DEBUG

Edited January 31 by ktchong

[subtledoctor]

Thanks for the report, I’ll take a look at it. Really need to get 4.19 out as a proper beta/release. 

Incidentally, if you are playing the EE games you don’t need that component - The EE engine already fixes MI IIRC. But the SR main component ‘unfixes’ it, and thus requires the MI fix. Again, IIRC. 

Edited February 1 by subtledoctor

[pathetic]

https://github.com/Gibberlings3/SpellRevisions/issues/130

[subtledoctor]

  

On 4/23/2023 at 1:34 PM, Guest Person said:

Let's compare Holy Word to PW: Silence.
PW:S
- Level 6 arcane
- Requires a single, visible target
- 100% spell failure for 1 turn
- Some enemies have immunity
- Countered by Vocalize, which almost every arcane caster will have
(U)HW
- Level 7 divine
- Doesn't require a target, affects everything in radius
- 50% spell failure for 1 turn
- No enemy has immunity, it's magic resistance or bust
- Countered by Cure Disease etc which most encounters won't have access to, and no AI is scripted to detect it anyway

It's ridiculous how much better HW is.

I know this is a year old but I happened upon it and it struck me: PW:Silence really is a bit underpowered against mages - specifically against SCS mages who almost always have Vocalize at the ready. Would it be crazy to attach something like a 2- or 3-round Deafness effect in addition to the 1-turn Silence effect? The idea being, PW:Silence assaults your senses with magical silence, and even if you counter it immediately it still leaves you a bit unbalanced for another 1-2 rounds. (If you don't counter it immediately, then this is irrelevant because the effects of Deafness are completely subsumed by the effects of Silence.) Would that be wildly unbalancing?

On 7/19/2023 at 8:30 PM, docbeard said:

Is Protection From Missiles supposed to block Arrows of Dispelling?

Yes, I believe so. All missiles.

On 1/13/2024 at 8:27 PM, Guest BooChew said:

I have installed BG2EE with the latest patch. With various mods installed, including SR, my game was reliably crashing whenever I entered Yaga Shura's Lair (AR5201) and Yaga Shura's Keep (AR5204). After some testing, I narrowed down the cause to SR (not SRR, which I had also been installing). Before installing SR the area worked fine; after installing it, not so: the game simply froze and crashed. Is this a known bug?

I have played through the game with SR 4b19 installed and did not get such a crash. SR doesn't really do enough, to my knowledge, to cause a crash upon loading an area. That sounds like on of the creatures present in the area has something illegal going on. Or else something about the area script. Hard to troubleshoot... though uninstalling/reinstalling the mod mid-game to test the area is not ideal.

EDIT - I just CLUA jumped to those two areas in my current game with SR 4b19 installed, and no crashes.

Quote

https://github.com/Gibberlings3/SpellRevisions/issues/130

I see it, an off-by-one error with the Animal Summoning 1 bats when affected by Magic Fang.

[Bartimaeus]

6 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I know this is a year old but I happened upon it and it struck me: PW:Silence really is a bit underpowered against mages - specifically against SCS mages who almost always have Vocalize at the ready. Would it be crazy to attach something like a 2- or 3-round Deafness effect in addition to the 1-turn Silence effect? The idea being, PW:Silence assaults your senses with magical silence, and even if you counter it immediately it still leaves you a bit unbalanced for another 1-2 rounds. (If you don't counter it immediately, then this is irrelevant because the effects of Deafness are completely subsumed by the effects of Silence.) Would that be wildly unbalancing?

Putting any concept issues aside for the moment, how does SCS handle deafness? 50% chance of making the immediately following Vocalize fail would seem to pretty much make or break that spellcaster unless SCS waits until the deafness is over.

[subtledoctor]

Oh, I didn’t think above Vocalize failing. Was really thinking about a round of deafness after Vocalize. Welp, that rules this idea out. 

[pathetic]

On 3/8/2024 at 6:07 PM, subtledoctor said:

I see it, an off-by-one error with the Animal Summoning 1 bats when affected by Magic Fang.

Thanks for taking care of it so quickly, but I see that it went to some "waiting room", "approval", who can approve it if you have already fixed it?

[Guest imbadatgameok]

Hello,

So I'm playing a monk and it felt like I was failing my saves a bit more often than I used to remember. Turns out that the saves table has been changed and, per the change-log, SR is installing:

"V4 - Beta 12 (31 December 2015) - KR's Revised Saves temporary added to main component (for those without KR)"

This isn't in the main mod's readme and it's an important change. Furthermore, apparently the component only affects playable characters unless SCS is installed as well, in which case the better value will be used between vanilla and KR's tables, for enemies. This is essentially an undocumented nerf for the player. If not going to be made an optional component, it should at least be added to the readme, I think.

BR

[subtledoctor]

15 hours ago, Guest imbadatgameok said:

This is essentially an undocumented nerf for the player. If not going to be made an optional component, it should at least be added to the readme, I think.

Fair points. Unfortunately, the mod author left with most of the work on v4 done, but without creating a readme for it. So this is not a case where someone is evilly twirling their mustache, slipping undocumented changes into unsuspecting players' games, but rather just an instance of real life getting in the way.

Thank you for calling attention to this. As far as what we can do about it, being mere caretakers and not the author, I am not sure. I don't think I see a problem breaking the revised save tables out into a separate component.

Will wait to see if anyone else chimes in with an opinion.