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[Shaitan]

I can't remember a game where I didn't rely on raise dead. I even play pnp style often in the manner of not using raise dead on elves. I always have two chars with ressurrection/raise dead memorised.

[Aranthys]

Then I'll tell you that there are people who don't reload game and just deal with the fact that part of their team is dead. ;]

Well, I agree that some do. Most don't, that's all I'm saying

Or they just memorize the spell, rest, resurrect the character(s), unmemorize the spell then rest again. Kinda defeats the purpose of the "PnP-ize the spell" way to see it.

Edited December 19, 2010 by Aranthys

[Shaitan]

Then I'll tell you that there are people who don't reload game and just deal with the fact that part of their team is dead. ;]

Well, I agree that some do. Most don't, that's all I'm saying

Or they just memorize the spell, rest, resurrect the character(s), unmemorize the spell then rest again. Kinda defeats the purpose of the "PnP-ize the spell" way to see it.

I've no clue of "what most players do", but I guess some rely on reload.

[Aranthys]

Then I'll tell you that there are people who don't reload game and just deal with the fact that part of their team is dead. ;]

Well, I agree that some do. Most don't, that's all I'm saying

Or they just memorize the spell, rest, resurrect the character(s), unmemorize the spell then rest again. Kinda defeats the purpose of the "PnP-ize the spell" way to see it.

I've no clue of "what most players do", but I guess some rely on reload.

Well, when guessing about "what most players do", just think about the less troublesome way to handle things

[topuur]

Then I'll tell you that there are people who don't reload game and just deal with the fact that part of their team is dead. ;]

 

Hm and if, if playing in such way a person (let's assume he's not so good a tactician, meta-gamer etc) would lose important characters so many times in later parts of the game ( i.e major wizard battle went wrong and 3 pepole are dead in just this one battle) that you don't have the opportunity to make replacements, like being so far in the game that the next place with free ppl to recruit is too far away to reach ( i.e spellhood or shanguain city where you can't just travel back to Alkhatla for fresh recruits) and besides if you would recruit them they would be too weak to survive in the advanced environment of later chapters (because of game mechanics they would have no chance to gain new levels- no exp left to gain in such short time)

 

Probably it would cause that a player would have no chance to go further in the game (i.e because the designer's had the idea that all te mobs in this moment of the game are set for a strong enough party i.e five 12 lvl characters not two).

 

And in such a situation, to feel the grief of the tragedy that death brings etc and to roleplay the failure of our hero's quest, a player restart the game and play again and again until he succeeds etc. Or maby to feel the grief and pain even more he should destroy his copy of the game and/or his computer to roleplay it even deeply. The "death" of the computer as a symbolic resemblance the death of our in-game alter ego, it seems logical.

 

Of course I'm not trying to judge anything but Im fascinated by the seriousness of the way you see it.

[Ardanis]

The point is that other players don't reload after a battle where something went wrong and fix thing 'by the rules', going to the nearest temple or using raise scrolls/wands/spells.

[yarpen]

Just play Temple of Elemental Evil and you will see what I mean.

[D1Nonly]

great job though i have a few commentaries/complaints.

 

here goes. bring animate dead back. i dont mind the shadows, but there is still room for both.

 

the damage in disintegrate is wrong, or atleast where AD&D 2ed is concerned. on my first tryout of the spell i hit someone for 111 damage + 16 dagamge + the disintegration effect while his body fell to the ground. right then and there i saw that is was broken. anyway, the damage should be removed as it is not 2ed IMO and should be nerfed in the d&d setting as it is one of THE most overpowerd spells atm (not counting the fact that it doesent work due to spellplague )

 

banishment needs to be put in the roster.. AND FAST.

 

the 8th level spell "spell shield" which as far as the description tells, is just a slighly better GOI.. useless. it should be replaced by mind blank. im really not sure why, as far as i know, no one has made part of this game yet. might be because of chaotic commands, but i gave up party-playing a long time ago. eighter way, if you replace it or not, mind blank MUST be a part of v.4!!

 

limited wish and wish needs to be reworked. they are only useful if you cheat atm. i installed the biggs cheesy wish, which in fact isnt really that cheesy if you can show some restraint. its exactly how it should be.

the 2.ed description of the spells leaves something to be desired, but 3.5ed fixed that,

here are links to the descriptions:

limited wish: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Limited_wish

wish: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Wish

 

granted this is a very powerful spell, so i'd go along with the penelty said in 2ed. -3 strength (1 nights rest should be enough though) and fatigue.

 

maybe its too much to ask, and too much clicking required to actually have the wish spell entail ALL the spells, maybe a poll of just a handful of the most useful ones.. i dunno. modders-choice

 

i'll finish of with some long overdue praise. the new AOE tweaks to acid fog and incidiary cloud are GREAT, and the fact that with protection from energy you can stand right in the middle without having to worry about being disrupted without taking any damage is amazing.. that annoyed the hell out of me before!

 

that reminds me. the damage output on some spells are weird. ice storm and meteor swarm. they deal only elemental damage which IMO is incredibly strange. if you get hit in the head by a giant shard of ice you dont die of hypothermia.... just saying!

 

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[Ardanis]

Animate Dead, Banishment, (Limited) Wish, Meteor Swarm are all in v4's todo list.

 

Disintegrate

In vanilla game it was killing outright, not dealing high damage that could still be survived. However, this spell is now much more effective against bosses, because they're generally immune to instant death, but not to magic damage. Slight nerf may be needed.

 

Greater Globe of Invulnerability

It's not so useless, as it provides immunity to Chaos (an excellent way to deal with wizards) and Breach.

This spell may also slightly confuse AI, because it can't distinguish Minor/Normal/Greater Globes from each other. GGoI has a little counter to it, because atm it counts as Spell Deflection by Detectable Spells, but still that's confusing a bit for AI. Otoh, why not, since it's not too radical.

 

Mind Blank

Dunno if that's in the list, and I personally am indifferent about it, so decide without me.

 

Ice Storm

Good point.

Edited January 3, 2011 by Ardanis

[yarpen]

Mind Blank

As far as I remember Demi thinks about turning Chaotic Commands into Impregnable Mind, which is close to Mind Blank - but it's 5th level spell and it doesn't protect against psionics. There is 7th level spell which grants full immunity to any mind-affecting effects of Impervious Sanctity of Mind - I'm not sure if Demi thinks about implementing this one.

 

Ice Storm

I think that it is the difference between Druidic and Arcane elemental spells. Druids are summoning powers of elements - ice blocks which hit enemy's head and which should deal crushing and cold damage. Wizards don't. Instead of they shape pure magic into elemental shape similiar to those ice blocks... still, their attack is clearly energetic - not natural. That's how Invocations work as I think ... Well, that'd suggest turning druid's elemental spells into non-Invocation spells. ^^'

[D1Nonly]

Animate Dead, Banishment, (Limited) Wish, Meteor Swarm are all in v4's todo list.

 

nice!

 

disitegrate too useful, damage needs to be reduced. but hey, i dont really use it anyway. just my opinion of the spell in general. its like avada kedavra..

 

Greater Globe of Invulnerability hehehe, yes, its not useless. i retract my comment. it is the only spell that makes you immune to cloudkill.

 

Mind Blank

As far as I remember Demi thinks about turning Chaotic Commands into Impregnable Mind, which is close to Mind Blank - but it's 5th level spell and it doesn't protect against psionics. There is 7th level spell which grants full immunity to any mind-affecting effects of Impervious Sanctity of Mind - I'm not sure if Demi thinks about implementing this one.

what is the reference to those two spells, i'm unfamiliar.. mind blank goes back far in the d&d spell books, so i think it should have priority. 5th and 7th level already has vast amounts of useful spells, 8th does not.

 

Ice Storm

I think that it is the difference between Druidic and Arcane elemental spells. Druids are summoning powers of elements - ice blocks which hit enemy's head and which should deal crushing and cold damage. Wizards don't. Instead of they shape pure magic into elemental shape similiar to those ice blocks... still, their attack is clearly energetic - not natural. That's how Invocations work as I think ... Well, that'd suggest turning druid's elemental spells into non-Invocation spells. ^^'

any which way you see it, its not the temperature thats killing

[Demivrgvs]

Animate Dead, Banishment, (Limited) Wish, Meteor Swarm are all in v4's todo list.

I can confirm this.

 

 

Disintegrate

In vanilla game it was killing outright, not dealing high damage that could still be survived. However, this spell is now much more effective against bosses, because they're generally immune to instant death, but not to magic damage. Slight nerf may be needed.

Right now the only nerf I planned was to lower its save penalty. Its damage output seems insane but:

a) we can't lower it much without making this spell unappealing compared to lower lvl ones imo

b) on a failed save this spell should "disintegrate" almost all non-bosses

 

 

Greater Globe of Invulnerability

It's not so useless, as it provides immunity to Chaos (an excellent way to deal with wizards) and Breach.

This spell may also slightly confuse AI, because it can't distinguish Minor/Normal/Greater Globes from each other. GGoI has a little counter to it, because atm it counts as Spell Deflection by Detectable Spells, but still that's confusing a bit for AI. Otoh, why not, since it's not too radical.

What's confusing for the AI? It detects and counters it quite effectively. The only small issue I can think of is that high lvl mages could ignore it (aka not dispel it) and cast 6th+ lvl spells against the protected mage, but casting a spell removal and then use any other spell (which is what SCS AI does against it) is still the most effective way to face GGoI imo.

 

 

Mind Blank

Dunno if that's in the list, and I personally am indifferent about it, so decide without me.

As far as I remember Demi thinks about turning Chaotic Commands into Impregnable Mind, which is close to Mind Blank - but it's 5th level spell and it doesn't protect against psionics. There is 7th level spell which grants full immunity to any mind-affecting effects of Impervious Sanctity of Mind - I'm not sure if Demi thinks about implementing this one.

Turning CC into Impregnable Mind is only a cosmetic change, other than that the spell will remain as per V3. Impervious Sanctity of Mind is a divine spell, while Mind Blank is almost its arcane version. Long story short CC and Impregnable Mind were two different 5th lvl spells within AD&D (see here), and together they granted almost full immunity to mind affecting spells, but BG2's CC already grants all sort of immunities, deprecating ISoM and making Mind Blank extremely unappealing (8th lvl slots are not cheap).

 

 

Ice Storm & Meteor Swarm

the damage output on some spells are weird. ice storm and meteor swarm. they deal only elemental damage which IMO is incredibly strange. if you get hit in the head by a giant shard of ice you dont die of hypothermia....

I suggested to make Meteor Swarm deal haf elemental half crushing dmg and the same could be done to Ice Storm indeed (it works like that in 3rd edition). That being said I'm not 100% sure because these spells are Evocations, not Conjurations, and thus they should be made of pure energy (magic or elemental dmg).

 

Should Protection from Elements (and its 5th lvl cousins PfCold & PfFire) still grant immunity to them in case we opt for a similar tweak?

Edited January 4, 2011 by Demivrgvs

[D1Nonly]

Turning CC into Impregnable Mind is only a cosmetic change, other than that the spell will remain as per V3. Impervious Sanctity of Mind is a divine spell, while Mind Blank is almost its arcane version. Long story short CC and Impregnable Mind were two different 5th lvl spells within AD&D (see here), and together they granted almost full immunity to mind affecting spells, but BG2's CC already grants all sort of immunities, deprecating ISoM and making Mind Blank extremely unappealing (8th lvl slots are not cheap).

not so. as solo sorcerers and solo mages, mind blank would be incredibly useful. especially with the amount of mind affecting magics out and about, not to mention that once charmed you're dead in the eyes of the game. mind blank would be invaluable. vanilla 8th had nearly no good spells, save trigger, wilting and incidiary. now with the pro-elements we have 4. arguably ggoi is usable, but its not part of 2.ed afaik atleast. mind blank is. and least of all it should not be kept out of arcane spell selection because something simillar is in the divine.

 

I suggested to make Meteor Swarm deal haf elemental half crushing dmg and the same could be done to Ice Storm indeed (it works like that in 3rd edition). That being said I'm not 100% sure because these spells are Evocations, not Conjurations, and thus they should be made of pure energy (magic or elemental dmg). hm.

 

Should Protection from Elements (and its 5th lvl cousins PfCold & PfFire) still grant immunity to them in case we opt for a similar tweak?

 

i've given my suggestion due prosess and might have to reconsider as i think it would make both spells hugely OP. im fairly certain that it should work the way i suggested, but the reality is that it would make the game less enjoyable. it would be little or no way to protect against. and with the AI the way that it is, one would have to re-program SCS2 so the mages there would have the same knowledge as you, else it would be another cheap trick... but as far as theory goes, it should deal crushing/blunt damage as well as elemental..

 

what is the current ideas for the limited wish and wish spells, if you're in a divulgatory mood

[yarpen]

BAM is multi-colored, I'm not sure about changing head colour into blue. But I hope you'll like it.

[Constantine]

BAM is multi-colored, I'm not sure about changing head colour into blue. But I hope you'll like it.

we all know that red is restricted for offensive spells, so yes, I think you should change color to blue. great job though!