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[Dermit]

While the current incarnation of lightning bolt is an improvement over the old bouncing one it seems like it doesn't really have a niche. There are plenty of other good direct damage spells, and it doesn't really stand out in this regard. I liked the idea of it acting sort of like a thinner directional version of it's counterpart Fireball, but the bouncing in tight areas either made it too powerful or just plain annoying. Would it be possible to implement a version more like the one in IWD 2, where it deals damage to whatever it goes through?

[StrixO]

Just wanted to say Spell Revisions is great, I'm enjoying it. While I have a few dislikes (such as AoE anti-magic and randomness of Flame Arrows, which I removed), on the whole it's added/changed a lot of things I wouldn't have ever considered.

 

EDIT: I've always considered Level 1: Blindness as overpowered, as it can make several nasty opponents a cakewallk (even with panic to make them run around when blinded, instead of standing motionless). I think it's duration should be measured in rounds, not turns (vanilla game) or hours (SR). I also wonder why it's been changed to necromancy? I considered the spell as creating an illusory blindness, not as actually physically affecting the eyes.

 

I changed both Blindness to 5 rounds, Deafness to 1 turn. Blindness is a level 1 spell - a debuffer at that level shouldn't last hours, especially when the effect is so pronounced.

Edited July 6, 2010 by StrixO

[Demivrgvs]

Lightning Bolt

While the current incarnation of lightning bolt is an improvement over the old bouncing one it seems like it doesn't really have a niche. There are plenty of other good direct damage spells, and it doesn't really stand out in this regard. I liked the idea of it acting sort of like a thinner directional version of it's counterpart Fireball, but the bouncing in tight areas either made it too powerful or just plain annoying. Would it be possible to implement a version more like the one in IWD 2, where it deals damage to whatever it goes through?

Back then I hoped to somehow "copy" Scorching Ray's projectile to make it work a la IWDII, but it cannot be done.

 

Making this spell stand out has always been a concern of mine. In the same slot you have Fireball as an AoE damage dealer and Flame Arrow was way more powerful as a single target damage dealer (actually I ask myself quite often if FA is overpowered). Thus trying to make both LB and FA useful I've made the former more "user-friendly", and the latter more unique (and more faithful to its description and PnP version).

 

Long story short, I really have no idea how to make LB more appealing (we discussed a bouncing effect, but it would be really too similar to Chain Lightning), and if you have a good suggestion I'm indeed open to it.

 

P.S After SR's change the spell is now used by SCS AI, thus there's no way I'll revert it to its old vanilla behaviour.

 

 

Various

Just wanted to say Spell Revisions is great, I'm enjoying it. While I have a few dislikes (such as AoE anti-magic and randomness of Flame Arrows, which I removed), on the whole it's added/changed a lot of things I wouldn't have ever considered.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. Regarding the two things you don't like: 1) AoE anti-magic and 2) Flame Arrow randomness.

 

1) I don't like it myself, but it had to be implemented for SCS compatibility, and I cannot remove it. At least I managed to convince David to remove it from many of them (e.g. Pierce Magic, Pierce Shield, ...).

 

2) What's there that you don't like? You prefer it to always strike a single target? Anyway, I've done it for many reasons as stated above. The randomness itself makes it slightly less reliable on purpose because else there's no way Lightning Bolt can compare to this spell if both hit a single target.

 

 

Blindness

I've always considered Level 1: Blindness as overpowered, as it can make several nasty opponents a cakewallk (even with panic to make them run around when blinded, instead of standing motionless). I think it's duration should be measured in rounds, not turns (vanilla game) or hours (SR). I also wonder why it's been changed to necromancy? I considered the spell as creating an illusory blindness, not as actually physically affecting the eyes.

 

I changed both Blindness to 5 rounds, Deafness to 1 turn. Blindness is a level 1 spell - a debuffer at that level shouldn't last hours, especially when the effect is so pronounced.

I felt too Blindness was OP for a 1st lvl spell (mainly because the AI cannot handle it much), and proposed to move it at least to 2nd lvl (replacing its 1st lvl slot with Daze or something like that), but then we opted to not mess things up too much for V3.

 

Regarding its duration it doesn't matter that much in terms of gameplay if it lasts 1 turn or hours. David pointed out to me that a blinded AI mage is "dead" in both cases. Thus I kept the longer duration because it's deadlier when used against players, who instead generally survive long enough to be "annoyed" by its long duration (making Cure Disease much more appealing).

 

Making it work as a necromantic spell (a la 3ed) instead of illusion (a la AD&D) was "only" a matter of consistency: I don't think an illusion would be "curable" by Cure Disease.

 

Considering it's a save-or-else spell with no secondary effect I fear that reducing its duration to 5 rounds would make it completely pointless (and it would highly reduce Cure Disease appeal too). Why would I care to risk using a single target disabling spell that more often than not does nothing (it's quite easy to save against it) and when it finally works it lasts so little? I'd take Color Spray or Sleep over it anytime, wouldn't you?

Edited July 6, 2010 by Demivrgvs

[StrixO]

I know it's already been discussed, but I liked bouncing lightning - sometimes it worked for me, sometimes against. You take away the bounce, and it seems like instant damage is the primary way to distinguish it from other spells. The randomness of bounce kept it interesting.

 

Regarding Blindness, I've upped my own to 1 turn, which seems plenty. It's long enough for me to be useful - though not so long as to blind a mage and then forget about him to deal with others. I've had good success with it when coupled with Doom/Malison, so I consider it effective. I think moving it to level 2 (with whatever tweaks you'd include) is a good idea.

 

I understand if part of the rationale is to be effective against players, which makes sense. It just gives me pause to see such a strong effect for a long time because of a level 1 spell.

 

What's there that you don't like? You prefer it to always strike a single target? Anyway, I've done it for many reasons as stated above. The randomness itself makes it slightly less reliable on purpose because else there's no way Lightning Bolt can compare to this spell if both hit a single target.

 

Is there a way to work the .SPL so that each flame arrow is cast sequentially? 5th level gives you 1 flame arrow, sent instantaneously after casting, 10th level gives you the same, plus one more at delay of 1 s, 15th the same, with another delayed at 2 s, etc. If the target is set when the arrow is thrown, you can have a spell used to manually select different targets.

 

The obvious downside is the flame arrow would cause a stuttering effect on the caster until all arrows are spent. At 30th level, it'll burn the whole round.

 

EDIT:

The only stumbling block left in my current installation for my next playthrough is trying to decide whether to use your summoned fiends or aVENGER's. They're both great, though I like to see all fiends upgraded, and not just those summoned by spell.

Edited July 7, 2010 by StrixO

[Dakk]

Earthquake

I'm not sure I understand what's the problem here...that it's hard to use this spell without risking to kill party members?

It may well be my personal bias but I think a spell should not insta-kill 'sometimes'. Either often enough to recognize it as a true death type spell and therefore treat it accordingly or never. Because unlike other curable debilitating effects (confusion, charm, hold, etc.) death is irreversible when it affects PC or, as in the example above, NPCs.

Against opponents it may be fine to kill some once in a while (even if I personally don't like to kill enemies 'unintentionally' ), but when it is used against party and/or has no party-friendly flag it means a player has to treat it as a full power WotB - which Earthquake is not - otherwise they must take a gamble and reload when they lose.

I absolutely sympathize. The spell is somewhat "non-lethal" (well, for an earthquake;)) but it has the potential for non reversible NPC loss (=reload) if you don't stack up on the protection spells. If I understand Ardanis correctly, it should either be deadlier (so NOT buffing would be foolhardy) or have less permanent death potential. Right now it's "meh Earthquake, nobody ever dies from it" and then the giant miniature space-hamster goes buh-bye.

[Dermit]

Back then I hoped to somehow "copy" Scorching Ray's projectile to make it work a la IWDII, but it cannot be done.

 

If you have a good suggestion I'm indeed open to it.

 

Scorching Ray? Is that one that works like the projectile for Aganazzar's Scorcher? Because that would be my suggestion, a short duration effect like that.

 

If nothing works I would agree that your revision is preferable to the old ping pong version

[Demivrgvs]

Flame Arrow

Is there a way to work the .SPL so that each flame arrow is cast sequentially? 5th level gives you 1 flame arrow, sent instantaneously after casting, 10th level gives you the same, plus one more at delay of 1 s, 15th the same, with another delayed at 2 s, etc. If the target is set when the arrow is thrown, you can have a spell used to manually select different targets.

 

The obvious downside is the flame arrow would cause a stuttering effect on the caster until all arrows are spent. At 30th level, it'll burn the whole round.

I could do that, actually I think Spellpack does that, but the AI couldn't handle such feature, and the spell wouldn't correctly work on a spell sequencer anymore.

 

 

Summoned Fiends

The only stumbling block left in my current installation for my next playthrough is trying to decide whether to use your summoned fiends or aVENGER's. They're both great, though I like to see all fiends upgraded, and not just those summoned by spell.

Actually SR and SCS fiends have been made to work together. SR handles summoned ones, while SCS handles all the others (and sometimes it assign better scripts to SR's ones too). There may be very small differences but in general SR and SCS fiends have almost identical stats with the very same abilities.

 

SR/SCS fiends follow a mix of AD&D and 3ed (the latter more than the former) while aVENGER's fiends instead are much more true to AD&D PnP. In terms of features aVENGER's work is probably more refined but I haven't tested them, and thus I don't know how they are in terms of gameplay and I'm not sure how they work along with SCS (e.g. SR/SCS fiends ignore Protection from Evil when gated by the AI).

 

 

Earthquake

It may well be my personal bias but I think a spell should not insta-kill 'sometimes'. Either often enough to recognize it as a true death type spell and therefore treat it accordingly or never. Because unlike other curable debilitating effects (confusion, charm, hold, etc.) death is irreversible when it affects PC or, as in the example above, NPCs.

Against opponents it may be fine to kill some once in a while (even if I personally don't like to kill enemies 'unintentionally' ), but when it is used against party and/or has no party-friendly flag it means a player has to treat it as a full power WotB - which Earthquake is not - otherwise they must take a gamble and reload when they lose.

I absolutely sympathize. The spell is somewhat "non-lethal" (well, for an earthquake;)) but it has the potential for non reversible NPC loss (=reload) if you don't stack up on the protection spells. If I understand Ardanis correctly, it should either be deadlier (so NOT buffing would be foolhardy) or have less permanent death potential. Right now it's "meh Earthquake, nobody ever dies from it" and then the giant miniature space-hamster goes buh-bye.

Ok ok I'll think about it, though I don't understand the "NPC loss = reload" thing considering Raise Dead magic is far from uncommon within the Realms.

 

I cannot make it more deadlier imo because it's a 7th lvl spell (it cannot work like a WotB + unconsciousness + crushing damage!), and the "sometimes it kill outright - sometimes not" part isn't so strange imo. Many high lvl spells inflict random damage that can occasionally kill in one hit, thus I don't see much difference, just imagine to replace 'death' opcode with 'outstanding crushing damage'.

 

 

Lightning Bolt

Back then I hoped to somehow "copy" Scorching Ray's projectile to make it work a la IWDII, but it cannot be done.

Scorching Ray? Is that one that works like the projectile for Aganazzar's Scorcher? Because that would be my suggestion, a short duration effect like that.

 

If nothing works I would agree that your revision is preferable to the old ping pong version

Sorry, Aganazzar's Scorcher is Forgotten Realms name for a classic spell which in the base manuals is called Scorching Ray, but they are the very same spell. Anyway, as I said I couldn't use its projectile. Edited July 7, 2010 by Demivrgvs

[Ardanis]

Earthquake

The chance to kill, however small, always means that even 1000 hp PC is a subject to it. Therefore, unless we find a way to remove gameover-if-pc-dies feature (which we should not), PC must Death Ward himeslf if the spell is about to be cast. Otherwise it's a reload on failured %. Unlike the save, % is completely beyond player's control. And casting DW against low-chance IK is like casting 6th level PfME against a lowsy MM.

Not rational at all, but becomes necessary due to BG2 special game over condition.

 

To tell the truth, the instant death is what I dislike the most in a great variety of games, so it might be just my habit to see it an enemy. What you say about high damage isn't much different, although it looks to be more fair.

 

What to do with it now, you guys decide for yourself

[Dakk]

What Ardanis said

Oh and just to clarify, I thought Earthquake dished out a no-res death? If I was mistaken my only gripe is what Ardanis outlines above. But I absolutely not equal NPC death = reload! I'd "happily" have my entire band killed, as long as CHARNAME gets out alive it's all good. I really don't reload if I can help it, sometimes I'd even rather restart

[Demivrgvs]

Earthquake

The chance to kill, however small, always means that even 1000 hp PC is a subject to it. Therefore, unless we find a way to remove gameover-if-pc-dies feature (which we should not), PC must Death Ward himeslf if the spell is about to be cast. Otherwise it's a reload on failured %. Unlike the save, % is completely beyond player's control.

Just to clarify this considering both you and Dakk seem to have the same wrong assumption: death effect always allow a save, because you have to either fail the save vs unconsciousness or the fail vs the death effect itself.

 

That being said, I got your point, and I'll think more about it.

[StrixO]

Flame Arrow

I could do that, actually I think Spellpack does that, but the AI couldn't handle such feature, and the spell wouldn't correctly work on a spell sequencer anymore.

Ah. I didn't think so far forward.

 

Looking at Emotion, I agree with the nerfing, but it seems now to be primarily an anti-melee spell. What about adding an effect against spellcasters, like a 25% chance of spell casting failure?

Edited July 8, 2010 by StrixO

[Guest Nominar]

I have no idea if this has been addressed before but my PC actually died in a cut scene because of Flame Arrow. It was right after I'd escaped Irenicus' dungeon and was watching the Archmage himself decimating the Cowled Wizards when he pops a FA and my PC died. I was like: "What?"

 

Just thought I'd share this.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I have no idea if this has been addressed before but my PC actually died in a cut scene because of Flame Arrow. It was right after I'd escaped Irenicus' dungeon and was watching the Archmage himself decimating the Cowled Wizards when he pops a FA and my PC died. I was like: "What?"

You probably should use this.

 

Earthquake: etc.

My opinion is, and should have always been that the game shouldn't have any kind of instant death spell/ability, that is not actually counted via the damage amount, cause I could as well Ctrl + Y every monster there is and be actually more satisfied with the end result... because they take damage, they are not instantly killed.

[Guest Nominar]

I have no idea if this has been addressed before but my PC actually died in a cut scene because of Flame Arrow. It was right after I'd escaped Irenicus' dungeon and was watching the Archmage himself decimating the Cowled Wizards when he pops a FA and my PC died. I was like: "What?"

You probably should use this.

 

I've actually got the hotfix, I needed it so I could install SCSII 'Improved Mages' component, you see.

[Demivrgvs]

I have no idea if this has been addressed before but my PC actually died in a cut scene because of Flame Arrow. It was right after I'd escaped Irenicus' dungeon and was watching the Archmage himself decimating the Cowled Wizards when he pops a FA and my PC died. I was like: "What?"

You probably should use this.

I've actually got the hotfix, I needed it so I could install SCSII 'Improved Mages' component, you see.

Yeah because your issue has nothing to do with that.

 

It's because of the multiple target Flame Arrow, it's a known "issue" I'll have to solve sooner or later. Sorry, I hope at least it doesn't happen too often, and that's the only curscen where it can happen.