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[Demivrgvs]

Not sure I like the second hack, as it breaks an established rule (you cannot target an II creature), but David will probably love it.

It doesn't break any rule, actually, it just gives others the option to break it.

Isn't it the same? If you use it, you do it to break a rule, it has no other purpose.

 

Are you going to use this instead of the previously discussed tweak to make creatures under TS able to target II creatures? If yes, which spells will have this feature? I suppose all spell removals.

 

 

On a side note, this great hack doesn't make my work on ProEenergy serie of spells completely redundant because of spells secondary effects (e.g. SR's ProCold grant immunity to Ice Storm's slow effect), thus the question is: should I keep this features or not? I'd keep them to enhance the appeal of these protecion spells, but it may be just me.

...

 

If this is the approach taken, will it be applied consistently or considered for each effect? For example:

*Will a Sword Spider have to save vs. death in a Cloudkill?

*Will you be immune to blowback from Dragon's Breath if 100% fire resistant? What about if an actual red dragon breathes on you?

*Would your sight still be obscured, slowing you though immune to acid, in an Acid Fog?

*If incendiary cloud works as per the v3 description, and a non-protected mage stands 12 feet away from an Efreeti (both are in the cloud), will the Efreeti be able to target him but not the other way around?

* they currently does, but they probably shouldn't (I can easily make all spiders immune to Cloudkill)

* I've currently left DB out for balance purposes but I'm not much against making ProFire grant immunity to it

* V3 ProAcid makes the affected caster immune to all Acid Fog's effects

* within V3 yes, SR's Efreet are immune to all fire based spells, and their LOS isn't affected by Incendiary Cloud

 

I really like the damage animation fix. But it will require TobEx, and thus a windows platform, correct? Or will it be incorporated into SR somehow, and thus be platform and TobEx independent?

As of now it isn't something strictly needed by any SR spell, especially if I keep the current system for ProEnergy spells. Any game will greatly benefit from it imo, but I don't have much reasons to force such hack into SR. The only one I can foresee could be a separate component to add an entirely new "concentration checks" system to BG. Edited January 29, 2011 by Demivrgvs

[DavidW]

Not sure I like the second hack, as it breaks an established rule (you cannot target an II creature), but David will probably love it.

It doesn't break any rule, actually, it just gives others the option to break it.

Isn't it the same? If you use it, you do it to break a rule, it has no other purpose.

 

Well, my point wasn't very deep - I just mean that an added flag that allows a spell to bypass invisibility no more breaks a rule than the existing flag that allows spells to bypass MR does. It just increases the range of tools available to modders. Of course, you're right that it would be fairly pointless to deliberately install that flag unless you intended to use it. (But I can envisage a time when there's a core chunk of ToBEx that just does fixes and engine expansions, and there'd be no reason not to include this flag in that core.)

 

Are you going to use this instead of the previously discussed tweak to make creatures under TS able to target II creatures? If yes, which spells will have this feature? I suppose all spell removals.

 

I already have code to let spell removals bypass invisibility without using AoE (invisible-creature hackery, basically). If I can manage it, I'll get that component to detect the ToBEx component, take advantage of it if it's installed, and fall back on the invisible-creature method if it isn't. And I'll carry on supporting AoE on legacy grounds.

 

My advice for SR is that you should entirely ignore my bypass-invisibility needs. Unless you do something very wild to the spell, my code can still add invisibility-penetration to an SR-modified spell just as readily as a vanilla one. There's no reason to mirror SCS spell changes in SR unless you actually like them yourself.

[Ardanis]

* they currently does, but they probably shouldn't (I can easily make all spiders immune to Cloudkill)

* I've currently left DB out for balance purposes but I'm not much against making ProFire grant immunity to it

* V3 ProAcid makes the affected caster immune to all Acid Fog's effects

* within V3 yes, SR's Efreet are immune to all fire based spells, and their LOS isn't affected by Incendiary Cloud

If it's spell descriptor that ProEnergy protects from, then yes. If it's only making the target immune to damage, then clouds' secondary effects seem less like coming from direct contact with skin.

[Dakk]

I think Ardanis and I are of the same opinion, and to expand:

a) elemental resistance gained from armour, weapons, rings and what have you reaching 100% would give full immunity to damage but still suffer the side effects (slowed, LOS, etc)

b) if magically protected with a Pro[energy/element] you should be totally protected (hey, it's magic!)

 

Edited January 29, 2011 by Dakk

[urdjur]

* they currently does, but they probably shouldn't (I can easily make all spiders immune to Cloudkill)

Great, I think that's very appropriate. The other harmonizations of the principle seem fine to me as well. Btw, how are you keeping track of all these little nitpick changes that your players are incessantly suggesting? Are you coding them into the hotfixes as the thread goes along, or do you have a long "v4 wish list" that's getting longer and longer?

[DavidW]

* they currently does, but they probably shouldn't (I can easily make all spiders immune to Cloudkill)

Great, I think that's very appropriate.

 

I don't think there's any need to (though: feel free to do so if you've got other reasons to). There's more than one kind of poison.

[urdjur]

* they currently does, but they probably shouldn't (I can easily make all spiders immune to Cloudkill)

Great, I think that's very appropriate.

 

I don't think there's any need to (though: feel free to do so if you've got other reasons to). There's more than one kind of poison.

 

Oh, I think v3 spiders are already immune to all forms of [poison] damage, it's just that they should be immune to the slay effect of Cloudkill too despite being 6HD or lower (reasoning being that that effect, too, is really poison based). But there might be other poisons with secondary effects in the game that I don't know about (?). Anyway, Cloudkill should be the most common example, since Web/Cloudkill and Web/SpiderSpawn are both pretty common strategies. Apart from being consistent, being able to combine all three presents some strategic appeal, especially if Animate Dead moves up to level 6 in v4.

[Demivrgvs]

I think Ardanis and I are of the same opinion, and to expand:

a) elemental resistance gained from armour, weapons, rings and what have you reaching 100% would give full immunity to damage but still suffer the side effects (slowed, LOS, etc)

b) if magically protected with a Pro[energy/element] you should be totally protected (hey, it's magic!)

I second this.

 

 

Btw, how are you keeping track of all these little nitpick changes that your players are incessantly suggesting? Are you coding them into the hotfixes as the thread goes along, or do you have a long "v4 wish list" that's getting longer and longer?

I'm leaving spell changes out of the hotfixes unless they are semi-fixes, but I have both a separate install to test new things, and a to-do list to keep track of things I have/wish to do.

 

 

* they currently does, but they probably shouldn't (I can easily make all spiders immune to Cloudkill)

Great, I think that's very appropriate.

I don't think there's any need to (though: feel free to do so if you've got other reasons to). There's more than one kind of poison.

Spiders being immune to Cloudkill's "deadly poison" isn't mandatory, I give you that, but it makes sense indeed, and it may help improving spiders appeal and the variety of possible tactics. If that causes any issue (e.g. SCS AI uses Cloudkill to kill spiders) then I can back off from this. In theory I also need the "full immunity tweak" to make spiders immune to Cloudkill's dmg animation (which is a must), but it seems like ToBEx will handle that anyway.

[DavidW]

Spiders being immune to Cloudkill's "deadly poison" isn't mandatory, I give you that, but it makes sense indeed, and it may help improving spiders appeal and the variety of possible tactics. If that causes any issue (e.g. SCS AI uses Cloudkill to kill spiders) then I can back off from this.

 

 

I don't think so.

 

(As an aside, this is an interesting example of how what people think of as "realism" is so varied. I have mild realism angst about creatures being immune to an inhaled toxin just because they use an injected one, and exterminators across the world can testify that poison gas works on poisonous invertebrates. But I can't say it's something I'm going to lose sleep over.)

[Demivrgvs]

Spiders being immune to Cloudkill's "deadly poison" isn't mandatory, I give you that, but it makes sense indeed, and it may help improving spiders appeal and the variety of possible tactics. If that causes any issue (e.g. SCS AI uses Cloudkill to kill spiders) then I can back off from this.

 

I don't think so.

 

(As an aside, this is an interesting example of how what people think of as "realism" is so varied. I have mild realism angst about creatures being immune to an inhaled toxin just because they use an injected one, and exterminators across the world can testify that poison gas works on poisonous invertebrates. But I can't say it's something I'm going to lose sleep over.)

I thought you had a problem with "immunity to poison = immunity to Cloudkill" while instead I now realize you have a problem with "creature use poison -> creature is immune to poison". I do agree the latter is not true, in fact I don't always give for granted that a poison dealing creature is immune to poison (e.g. SR's wyverns are not immune to poison). In this particular case the fault is mine, because I was giving for granted BG spiders are immune to poisons, which is not true. In the end it seems like I have to remove such immunity rather than refining it. Edited January 30, 2011 by Demivrgvs

[Jarno Mikkola]

I have mild realism angst about creatures being immune to an inhaled toxin just because they use an injected one, and exterminators across the world can testify that poison gas works on poisonous invertebrates.

I can also testify that the spiders themselves aren't that much more immune to their own poisons either, as they have specialized cell structures that handle the poisons, but the rest of the spider is as weak as their pray is. For example there's a male spider that usually gets poisoned within the mating ritual and gets eaten to provide the nutrients to the mother... that is if it doesn't get eaten before the mating happens. And usually the insect anatomy is actually weaker against airborne elements, as they 'breath' through their 'skin' structure, unlike mammals.

 

Of course I have nothing against the fact that the summoned would summon monsters that are immune to poisonous clouds... as the spiders can be magical too.

Edited January 30, 2011 by Jarno Mikkola

[phordicus]

i always imagined cloudkill as a combination of chemical damage (which is more what a contact poison is) + suffocation. i suppose different backgrounds lead to these different interpretations as i would have never thought to make spiders immune to cloudkill!

[urdjur]

My whole "spiders immune to cloudkill" argument was based on the premise that they already had poison immunity - not that spiders should be immune to [poison] effects as such. I'm not saying they should or they shouldn't. As far as realism goes though, as there are no phase spiders etc. in the real world, I'd sooner try to stay true to PnP than to biology. From the d20 SRD on poison:

 

Creatures with natural poison attacks are immune to their own poison. Nonliving creatures (constructs and undead) and creatures without metabolisms (such as elementals) are always immune to poison. Oozes, plants, and certain kinds of outsiders are also immune to poison, although conceivably special poisons could be concocted specifically to harm them.

 

To be strict, then, spiders should be immune to spider poison, though if BG doesn't really differentiate between poisons much, I think it would be more appropriate to have them immune to poison rather than not-immune. The same reasoning (as per SRD) should apply to wyverns. As Demi said, game balance is also a concern and poison immunity could make spiders a bit more interesting when compared to elementals and skeleton warriors (the latter, of course, already immune to poison).

[urdjur]

Addendum: I'm trying to compile a table for my solo sorceror, cross-referencing damaging/debilitating effects with the immunities of summons that are of interest to me. I want it to be as "SR v4 ready" as possible, though I understand that the jury is still out on some issues. Here's what I've got marked down with a dubious question mark:

 

Spiders: Immune to cloudkill (poison) or immune to cloudkill (entirely) or vulnerable (entirely)?

 

Genies and Mordy Swords: Immune to grease and web (flying)?

 

Planetars: Immune to grease and web? They are winged and very large, but I don't know if it's that clear cut.

 

Also, I wonder what will be of secondary effects from elemental damage spells when a creature is only partially immune. For example, Efreet ignore Inciendiary Cloud entirely, but what about planetars that have 50% fire resistance?

 

Details on the above as per v3 w/ hotfixes and intentions for v4 would be much appreciated for planning my trilogy experience

[Demivrgvs]

Spiders: Immune to cloudkill (poison) or immune to cloudkill (entirely) or vulnerable (entirely)?

Within V4 I'll probably remove their immunity to posisons for consistency with in-game spiders.

 

Genies and Mordy Swords: Immune to grease and web (flying)?

As previously discussed Mordy Sword needs many refinements (it's almost as per vanilla right now), but it should indeed be unaffected by Entangle, Web and Grease imo.

 

Genies are not identical. Within SR you can easily distinguish them by their animation, as the flyining genie with no legs is the djinni, whereas the walking genie is the Efreeti, whereas vanilla game was inconsistent on this matter if I'm not wrong (it still is for in-game genies). Long story short, djinn are flying creatures, and thus are unaffected by Entangle, Web, Grease and Earthquake, whereas efreet are affected by all of them (though they are not affected by fire-based spells).

 

On a side note, Mordy is not the only creature needing small refinements, because I just noticed djinn are not immune to Gust of Wind (and they should), and they should probably be immune to cloud spells too (shouldn't they? ).

 

Planetars: Immune to grease and web? They are winged and very large, but I don't know if it's that clear cut.

Actually they aren't "very large" within SR because they don't share Solar's animation anymore. Right now they are not considered "flying" despite their wings, but you have a point, I may add such immunities.

 

Also, I wonder what will be of secondary effects from elemental damage spells when a creature is only partially immune. For example, Efreet ignore Inciendiary Cloud entirely, but what about planetars that have 50% fire resistance?

Creatures with 100% resistance to an element are considered immune to such element rathen than resistant, whereas creatures with limited resistance simply absorb part of the damage, nothing else.