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[Demivrgvs]

This is a bit moot, as I'm not keen to have Breach not affect Stoneskin.

Also, I don't think Stoneskin needs any more buffs. It is appealing enough for a spell slot already.

Fine with me, I do said I was probably daring too much. That being said, I wasn't suggesting it as a boost for Stoneskin, but rather as a nerf for Breach. Stoneskin is sligthly overstimated imo because its effectiveness is much higher when used by players, as AI warriors rarely have weapons with elemental dmg or on hit abilities that bypasses it, whereas any party can have tons of such weapons, forcing the AI to heavily rely on PfMW. My mages very rarely need PfMW because Stoneskin and Mirror Image are more than enough, whereas an AI mage is pretty much doomed without PfMW protecting him/her from Carsomyr, Celestial Fury, and so on. Not too mention my spellcasters generally have a much better AC than AI ones. Just my 2 cents, but I can live with Breach affecting it, and surely Stoneskin already is one of the best 4th lvl spells.

 

On a side note, I suggested ages ago to turn Stone to Flesh spell into a multi purpose spell and amongst its effects allowing it to work as a Stoneskin usable on other targets, but I just discovered that both Stoneskin and Ironskin could be cast on others within AD&D! Would add such feature to druid's version of this spell be a bad idea? In theory it would "justify" its higher lvl slot compared to wizard's version.

 

There's another huge difference in PnP between wizard's and druid's version of this spell, but it's not implementable, and it doesn't even make much sense imo. Wizard's Stoneskin could be teared down even when attacker's "to hit" roll is failed. I mentioned it for the sake of completness, but sometimes being 100% true to PnP clearly isn't the best thing to do.

[Ardanis]

Ironskin

IR already provides enough ways for Yarpen to buff his solo fighter as if he was a first grade wizard. I'd keep all Stoneskin spell self-only. To compensate for higher slot of druid version, maybe increase the amount of skins.

 

Stone to Flesh

You probably meant to remove Stoneskin, not grant it? Except it can't work out easily.

[phordicus]

i haven't tested all of these but to me they aren't immersion breaking and have helped out my (enemy) clerics & druids:

 

iron/stoneskin for druids isn't just the non-arcane version for non-mages; it's a literal transformation of flesh via natural magicks and as such, along with barkskin, is not subject to breach.

 

two versions of cleric/druid casting times: all casting times are 1 regardless of level -- or -- all castings are uninterruptable. the former i have no problem with either RP or mechanic-wise as it's easy for me to imagine divine power being more of a "hey god help me" rather than the elaborate production mages have to go through.

Edited January 19, 2011 by phordicus

[yarpen]

IR already provides enough ways for Yarpen to buff his solo fighter as if he was a first grade wizard. I'd keep all Stoneskin spell self-only. To compensate for higher slot of druid version, maybe increase the amount of skins.

Also, I don't need those puny spells at my glorious fighter! But well, such a change for druid's Stoneskin would be nice. On the other side, that'd make them better buffers than clerics - so I'm not sure if it's a good change.

[urdjur]

I've just started out using SR and thinks it's a wonderful mod! I play a solo sorceror game mostly, so here are a few suggestions from my perspective:

 

*The MS 1 hobgoblins are great, but run out of arrows pretty quickly (long before duration expires). I don't think it would be unbalanced if they had enough arrows to more or less last 3 turns of constant firing (60 arrows each, no?)

 

*The SR documentation on familiar state that some familiars like the rabbit can "find/remove traps" when they can in fact only find them. I thought SR upgraded the familiars to also remove traps, but I now have to find another way to handle traps as a solo arcane caster. I like it this way though - it makes no sense that a rabbit can disarm a trap.

 

*As it is now, your familiar will set off a trap, but a summoned creature will not. This is completely unrealistic and not PnP-like. It wouldn't unbalance the game IMO if this was allowed, no more than the Knock spell. It also gives you a high level use for low level summons (always welcome for a solo sorceror). You would still need a thief to F/R traps on containers though, so this tactic doesn't make the thief obsolete (it also costs you a spell to accomplish). Before SR, I used PS: Mustard Jelly to safely trigger traps as a solo arcane caster, but the rebalanced PS in SR (which I otherwise prefer) negates this tactic.

 

(Note: There is another mod allowing NPCs and summons to set off traps, but I'd rather not use it as I find it unrealistic and potentially unbalanced that NPCs would set off their own traps. It'd be much more elegant if it was a property of the summon itself).

 

*Melf's Minute Meteors (and I'm assuming Energy Blades too) does not allow a strength bonus to damage, despite being a thrown weapon. Was this intended? IMO, if the missiles have weight, the bonus should apply. If they don't, it shouldn't.

 

More later as I get more familiar with the higher level spells...

[Demivrgvs]

I've just started out using SR and thinks it's a wonderful mod! I play a solo sorceror game mostly, so here are a few suggestions from my perspective:

Cool, I feed on feedback.

 

*The MS 1 hobgoblins are great, but run out of arrows pretty quickly (long before duration expires). I don't think it would be unbalanced if they had enough arrows to more or less last 3 turns of constant firing (60 arrows each, no?)

Actually I have reduced their arrows from an initial 20 to 10 for a reason. The Hobgoblin Shaman you get at 12th lvl goes in melee after casting a bunch of buffs, and I wanted his allies to go with him instead of leaving him alone and continue to fire arrows from afar. Perhaps I can script them to follow him in melee even if they don't run out of arrows. I'll try to test them a little when I get back to SR.

 

*The SR documentation on familiar state that some familiars like the rabbit can "find/remove traps" when they can in fact only find them. I thought SR upgraded the familiars to also remove traps, but I now have to find another way to handle traps as a solo arcane caster. I like it this way though - it makes no sense that a rabbit can disarm a trap.

Sorry for the misleading document, but yes, it's intended they don't disarm traps like thieves.

 

*As it is now, your familiar will set off a trap, but a summoned creature will not. This is completely unrealistic and not PnP-like. It wouldn't unbalance the game IMO if this was allowed, no more than the Knock spell. It also gives you a high level use for low level summons (always welcome for a solo sorceror). You would still need a thief to F/R traps on containers though, so this tactic doesn't make the thief obsolete (it also costs you a spell to accomplish). Before SR, I used PS: Mustard Jelly to safely trigger traps as a solo arcane caster, but the rebalanced PS in SR (which I otherwise prefer) negates this tactic.

 

(Note: There is another mod allowing NPCs and summons to set off traps, but I'd rather not use it as I find it unrealistic and potentially unbalanced that NPCs would set off their own traps. It'd be much more elegant if it was a property of the summon itself).

Mmmm... If it's a safe change that doesn't cause issues I may be fine with it, but I'm not sure.

 

Speaking of traps and allowing mages to partially handle them I might do something about it for V4 if I manage to make Ruby Ray of Reversal work as per PnP, where it does A LOT more things than in BG, like reverting polymorphed creatures to their natural shape (implementing this can make it the only counter to Shapechange's Iron Golem), dispelling illusions and setting off traps.

 

*Melf's Minute Meteors (and I'm assuming Energy Blades too) does not allow a strength bonus to damage, despite being a thrown weapon. Was this intended? IMO, if the missiles have weight, the bonus should apply. If they don't, it shouldn't.

It's intended, because both spells are Evocations, and thus made of pure energy. If I'm not wrong I've made them have no weight. For V4 I was gogin to suggest to either make MMM a Conjuration spell or to make them deal fire dmg only (they currently do physical missile dmg too).

 

More later as I get more familiar with the higher level spells...

Edited January 18, 2011 by Demivrgvs

[DavidW]

*The MS 1 hobgoblins are great, but run out of arrows pretty quickly (long before duration expires). I don't think it would be unbalanced if they had enough arrows to more or less last 3 turns of constant firing (60 arrows each, no?)

Actually I have reduced their arrows from an initial 20 to 10 for a reason. The Hobgoblin Shaman you get at 12th lvl goes in melee after casting a bunch of buffs, and I wanted his allies to go with him instead of leaving him alone and continue to fire arrows from afar. Perhaps I can script them to follow him in melee even if they don't run out of arrows. I'll try to test them a little when I get back to SR.

 

Get the hobgoblin shaman to Shout(39) when he goes to melee. (I'm pretty sure SCS doesn't use that number.) Get the hobgoblins to set some local variable to 1 if they hear that shout from someone with the same allegiance as them. (You need the allegiance check in case there are two versions of MS1 running concurrently.) If the variable is set to 1, get them to EquipMostDamagingMelee and get in there.

[urdjur]

Glad you like the feedback!

 

Mmmm... If it's a safe change that doesn't cause issues I may be fine with it, but I'm not sure.

 

Speaking of traps and allowing mages to partially handle them I might do something about it for V4 if I manage to make Ruby Ray of Reversal work as per PnP, where it does A LOT more things than in BG, like reverting polymorphed creatures to their natural shape (implementing this can make it the only counter to Shapechange's Iron Golem), dispelling illusions and setting off traps.

 

Any mage method of handling traps should ideally be available at a fairly low level for TuTu/BGT use. I mean, it should be available for use in Durlag's Tower and final chapters of BG1. Before that, simply detecting the traps with your rabbit should suffice IMO.

 

RRoR is already an interesting pick in this suite of spells - adding important functionality to it would make it a given pick for a sorceror unless balanced against the other options somehow.

 

If you want to implement the "summons set off traps" idea, here's something that I found (but don't understand ) that I think solves the issue very simply:

http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/to....msg305715.html

 

Another low level approach could be modifying ORS so that the target could move about with the sphere and trigger traps with it - also makes it a more useful escape plan.

 

It's intended, because both spells are Evocations, and thus made of pure energy. If I'm not wrong I've made them have no weight. For V4 I was gogin to suggest to either make MMM a Conjuration spell or to make them deal fire dmg only (they currently do physical missile dmg too).

 

I play a very specialized game using no items and at insane difficulty. MMM is a saving grace for producing a magical weapon that my solo sorceror can use against highly magic resistant foes that require magical weapons to hit. Having two damage types ensures that even foes with fire immunity will at least take some damage.

 

Compare it to Melf's Acid Arrow, which is a Conjuration (at least in PnP) and doesn't deal any physical damage... Rather than seeing this as an inconsistency, one could view the "physical" damage component of MMM as a blast much like that from SR's Knock. Most explosions come with a blast wave anyway... Either way, this is still consistent with a weightless missile without str bonus IMO.

 

On another note: Sunfire. I realize the no MR was an oversight in the original game and that SR v3 does away with it. But consider this:

 

Lvl III: Fireball - 10d6 - MR yes - Not friendly

Lvl V: Sunfire - 15d6 - MR yes or no? - Not Friendly

Lvl VIII: ADHW - 20d6 - MR yes - Friendly

Lvl IX/X: Dragon's Breath - 20d6 -MR no - Friendly, extra effects

 

If you consider Dragon's Breath to be balanced as compared to ADHW, one could argue that a no-MR Sunfire is balanced against Fireball. I think you've done a great job balancing all the lvl III damage spells against each other, but the current yes-MR Sunfire has little appeal IMO. Making it party friendly would be another way of making it more attractive. Even if it was level III, I'd still take Skull Trap over it as it reads now (even at 20d4/12d6 of SR/SCS-II). Cloudkill is an offensive spell worthy of level 5 - Sunfire isn't.

[Demivrgvs]

On another note: Sunfire. I realize the no MR was an oversight in the original game and that SR v3 does away with it. But consider this:

 

Lvl III: Fireball - 10d6 - MR yes - Not friendly

Lvl V: Sunfire - 15d6 - MR yes or no? - Not Friendly

Lvl VIII: ADHW - 20d6 - MR yes - Friendly

Lvl IX/X: Dragon's Breath - 20d6 -MR no - Friendly, extra effects

 

If you consider Dragon's Breath to be balanced as compared to ADHW, one could argue that a no-MR Sunfire is balanced against Fireball. I think you've done a great job balancing all the lvl III damage spells against each other, but the current yes-MR Sunfire has little appeal IMO. Making it party friendly would be another way of making it more attractive. Even if it was level III, I'd still take Skull Trap over it as it reads now (even at 20d4/12d6 of SR/SCS-II). Cloudkill is an offensive spell worthy of level 5 - Sunfire isn't.

You have forgot to mention that I've lowered Sunfire's casting tme from to 3 to 1, making it an "instant spell". This is a kinda huge advantage imo. That being said, I do thought about making it use d8 instead of d6, but I'm not sure. I based it upon PnP Fireburst (Spell Compendium), which goes up to 15d10, but it's from 3rd edition, where mid-high lvl characters have more hit points. I also reduced its AoE from 30 to 15 (making the spell identical to PnP) which makes it more friendly imo. With instant casting time and medium AoE a skilled player can easily position the caster and quickly hit all opponents without hurting party members, whereas with vanilla's huge AoE and slower casting time it was really difficult to properly use it in many circumstances. Long story short, I do think this spell is really fine right now (except perhaps a slight increase to its dmg output), but I'm always open to discuss everything.

 

On a side note:

* Skull Trap vs Fireball has always been a pain to handle. The former has same casting time, higher dmg output in the long run (it was simply INSANE before SR/SCS nerf), better dmg type (magic instead of fire), and can be used as a delayed trap. The advantages of Fireball are its long range and larger AoE (large unfriendly AoE isn't always a good thing, but it works well with a long range spell), but I'm not 100% sure they are enough to make it on par with Skull Trap (though its shorter range can seriously limit its use in many circumstances imo).

* Horrid Wilting uses a better dmg type compared to Dragon's Breath, but yes DB is way better overall. Anyway, DB is an HLA not a 9th lvl spell, and for V4 I'll make it work as an innate (which will also help to justify an Evocation which bypasses mr). In theory you'd have to compare ADHW to Meteor Swarm (aka party-friendliness vs outstanding dmg output).

Edited January 19, 2011 by Demivrgvs

[Shaitan]

Skull Trap vs Fireball has always been a pain to handle. The former has same casting time, higher dmg output in the long run (it was simply INSANE before SR/SCS nerf), better dmg type (magic instead of fire), and can be used as a delayed trap. The advantages of Fireball are its long range and larger AoE (large unfriendly AoE isn't always a good thing, but it works well with a long range spell), but I'm not 100% sure they are enough to make it on par with Skull Trap (though its shorter range can seriously limit its use in many circumstances imo)

Yeah the shorter range of Skull trap is very limiting. It's however still better in comparison to fireball IMO, but I don't see any need to change it further as of now.

[DavidW]

Re Sunfire: the fact that the caster is immune is a significant advantage over Fireball when used by enemy wizards. Even non-Globed wizards can use it. (Of course, that's somewhat less crucial when it's used by a PC: as usual, party-unfriendly or caster-unfriendly spells are significantly more useful in the hands of the PC than of the computer.)

[phordicus]

on an only marginally-related note, i wonder if it wouldn't be better to just make some NPC-only AoE spells that are (their) party-friendly. i'd love it if the bad guys could use Cone of Cold or Fireball without range and ally-proximity checks.

[Dakk]

on an only marginally-related note, i wonder if it wouldn't be better to just make some NPC-only AoE spells that are (their) party-friendly. i'd love it if the bad guys could use Cone of Cold or Fireball without range and ally-proximity checks.

That would send the crowd into a frenzy of "cheating wizards!!one1!", no doubt. Let's spare Demi that agony

[Salk]

on an only marginally-related note, i wonder if it wouldn't be better to just make some NPC-only AoE spells that are (their) party-friendly. i'd love it if the bad guys could use Cone of Cold or Fireball without range and ally-proximity checks.

 

And what kind of logic would there be behind a same spell being party-friendly for enemy AI and not for players (or viceversa, of course)?

Edited January 19, 2011 by Salk

[Demivrgvs]

on an only marginally-related note, i wonder if it wouldn't be better to just make some NPC-only AoE spells that are (their) party-friendly. i'd love it if the bad guys could use Cone of Cold or Fireball without range and ally-proximity checks.

I'm obviously with Dakk and Salk on this matter. In fact I consider SCS/SR tweak to Blade Barrier an almost mandatory tweak because it had really no sense for such spell to be "friendly" only when used by the AI (which wouldn't be able to handle an unfriendly BB), despite the fact that BB concept seems to leave little space for "friendliness". Within a SR game I really don't want a spell to work in a different way when cast by the AI (for example SR's Protection from Evil is an inevitable consequence of SCS work on summoned fiends).

 

I do thought a couple of times about this "problem" and there's little I can do imo, though something (little) may be doable. The thing is that some spells are really not suited to be 'party friendly' (and the two spells you mention are amongst those) because of their concept and/or their animations. I dwelled quite a lot over the fact that 3rd edition Archmages can cast party friendly Fireball and Cone of Cold, but I don't know how much I could like something that looks so wrong (in fact I hate that DB is party friendly). Am I the only one that would find "strange" a party friendly Fireball even if cast by a 21th lvl mage?

 

On the other hand Ice Storm could work as SR's Fire Storm, which I tweaked to have PnP's small unaffected area around the caster. Meteor Swarm could probably be fine as a party friendly spell within SR because of its new animation and concept. In PnP it's more or less a 4x Fireball, whereas I've turned it into a rain of minute meteors, and the caster may be able to make them fall only other selected areas. That being said, unless SCS can make good use of these things I'm not too much into it. It did with a bunch of SR's "friendly changes" like Lightning Bolt, Symbols, Glyph of Warding, and perhaps Silence, but I don't know how much David is willing to take into account our deliberate changes.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Demivrgvs