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[Demivrgvs]

Hey, I'm glad you considered some of my suggestions. It's very nice of you to involve your mod's players in the decision making process.

Deciding everything myself would be easier sometime, but other times it's actually more difficult because I have many doubts myself. It surely takes much more time to involve players but the end result generally is much better imo.

 

Shadow Door

You do make some good points about Maze possibly being too weak for its level. On the other hand, I think that Shadow Door is primarily supposed to be a fast defensive spell, not a tool for mass enemy removal. Just my 2 cents of course, I simply felt that its current form was too strong when I used it.

Its secondary effect is there to make the spell unique compared to the vastly superior Mislead. Anyway, it should indeed be a secondary effect, not its main one. Completely removing its save penalty should be enough imo (roughly speaking it's a -20% chance to trigger).

 

Invisibility spells

I didn't reduced the duration of any of those spells afaik

In the original game, basic invisibility (provided by the 2nd level spell) used to last 24 hours, now it wears off after just 8. That's not enough to travel between most areas, so random encounters in BG1 can become quite messy. As said earlier, avoiding these encounters using invisibility is a very popular strategy in BG1, especially early on when the party is still very weak.

Ahh, I though you're speaking of II or similar spells because you used the plural, and I forgot of this small change. It all comes down to a simple rule within SR, spells shouldn't last more than a full rest (e.g. the same happened to Stoneskin). I'm not sure your reason behind the request convinces me ("convenience" rarely does). Doesn't casting Invisibility to escape a triggered encounter (casting time is uber fast) work almost as good as casting it before travelling? Invisibility Sphere may come handy if you need an entire party to escape.

 

True Seeing & Detect Invisibility

I think your changes to these spells might be causing a small problem with aTweaks demons.

Mmm...one more reason to restore power 0 (perhaps even quickly with a hotfix update). What about Invisibility Purge and Oracle? They too had power lvl 0 in vanilla, and I guess I should restore them too if I do it for TS and DI, though it doesn't make sense at all at least for Invisibility Purge.

 

On a side note, I do planned to make TS not destroy illusionary creatures, as we're claiming that TS doesn't directly affect the targets, while adding such feature to Detect Illusion.

 

@Ardanis, perhaps I'm an idiot, but can't we use opcode 136 to make Detect Invisibility remove normal invisibility without dispelling II state? That would make an excellent difference between it and Invsibility Purge. If it works, it could also make TS work more it should when coupled with 193, though the whole "TS removes illusionary protections from targets" still remains a problem for such concept.

 

P.S Did David used the suggested 193 opcode for TS as he once said, or the recent ToBEx hacks made him ignore it and go for "all spell removals ignore II"? Using 136+193 on a 'power lvl 0' Detect Invisibility can allow pretty much anyone (except Conjurers right now, but they have Glitterdust) to have their personal ignore II without the need for hacks or tweaks which kinda break the rules. Am I wrong?

 

Feeblemind

I fully agree with Amanasleep. There're four disabling spells on 5th level, and each one belongs to the Enchantment school.

I know. I don't like so much having Chaos there too, but at least it doesn't completely overlap with Hold Monster, whereas Domination and Feeblemind completely overlap each other with the former outshining the latter.

 

Was my suggestion (adding non-lethal dmg) completely rejected? No one commented about it.

 

Another wild thought - rename this spell to Solipsism (the effect is identical to BG2's feeblemindedness) and pretend that having a useless Illusion spell makes a difference.

Or remove completely and use the space for something else entirely new.

Feeblemind is too "famous" to be removed imo. I may feel ok renaming or replacing very rare spells (e.g. Sunfire should be renamed Fireburst imo) or non-PnP spells (e.g. BG's Spell Shield never existed), but in this case we're talking of a very classic spell, am I wrong?

 

You do gave me a good suggestion for a new high lvl illusion spell though. Solipsism could fit well an 8th lvl slot as an illusion-based Mass Hold, and still compete with Mass Charm.

 

As for Miscast Magic, this points out the conundrum with anti-mage spells: if they are single target they are useless, since you could have cast Breach to guarantee death. Serious consideration should be made towards making any anti mage spell an area effect or bypass invisibility somehow.

I think I like the AoE idea. I most definitely WILL memorize it then.

Are we still talking about Feeblemind here or Miscast Magic? Because a Mass Feeblemind would surely deserve a 7th or 8th lvl slot!

 

If we're talking about Miscast Magic instead we may discuss it, though the AoE has to be small, or the duration must be lowered to keep it balanced imo (not to mention it would kinda overlap with my planned PnP Nahal's Wildzone spell - aka a Miscast Magic "cloud-like" spell).

 

Regarding "all anti mage spells should have AoE or bypass II" thing, I'm not sure I can agree...what's the purpose of II then?

 

Maze

Speaking of capped duration, do you know that maze opcode works by force applying the delayed freedom effect onto the target? It's possible to cast Maze, then Freedom, the Imprisonment, then watch how the character pops up well and fine once Maze's freedom kicks in. Worse yet, there seem to be no way to protect from it, even 101 doesn't work against freedom opcode (regardless of it's source).

Oh my... Fortunately this never happen. Edited April 6, 2011 by Demivrgvs

[Guest Thailog]

Invisibility spells

I'm not sure your reason behind the request convinces me ("convenience" rarely does). Doesn't casting Invisibility to escape a triggered encounter (casting time is uber fast) work almost as good as casting it before travelling? Invisibility Sphere may come handy if you need an entire party to escape.

 

In theory perhaps, but in practice, every second counts.

 

For example, in BG1, it's fairly common to get a random encounter in which your party is completely surrounded by enemy archers (usually a dozen bandits or skeletons). These guys can easily take down a low level character in just 1-2 hits. Because of that, long lasting invisibility cast before traveling is just about the only way to protect the party from such ambushes. Check some of the posts in the BG1 No-Reload thread on the Bioware forum and you'll see what I mean.

[Galactygon]

Feeblemind

I fully agree with Amanasleep. There're four disabling spells on 5th level, and each one belongs to the Enchantment school.

I know. I don't like so much having Chaos there too, but at least it doesn't completely overlap with Hold Monster, whereas Domination and Feeblemind completely overlap each other with the former outshining the latter.

 

Was my suggestion (adding non-lethal dmg) completely rejected? No one commented about it.

 

Let me chime in here.

 

In AD&D Charm spells were meant to befriend hostile creatures (turn their foot circle to GOODBUTBLUE) while Domination spells were meant to establish a telepathic link with the caster giving him/her full control of the .cre's abilities (this would include remove fog of war). The 5th level domination is only meant to affect humanoids (who save at -2) while feeblemind affects everyone (but wizards save at -4). Both are meant to be permanent.

 

-Galactygon

[Guest Thailog]

Invisibility spells

For example, in BG1, it's fairly common to get a random encounter in which your party is completely surrounded by enemy archers (usually a dozen bandits or skeletons). These guys can easily take down a low level character in just 1-2 hits.

 

As pictures sometimes speak louder than words, here's a nice screenshot which illustrates my point:

 

http://i961.photobucket.com/albums/ae98/Gr...nk/Baldr038.jpg

 

It's almost impossible to survive such an encounter at low levels without using invisibility before traveling, unless you reload the game of course.

[Salk]

Invisibility spells

For example, in BG1, it's fairly common to get a random encounter in which your party is completely surrounded by enemy archers (usually a dozen bandits or skeletons). These guys can easily take down a low level character in just 1-2 hits.

 

As pictures sometimes speak louder than words, here's a nice screenshot which illustrates my point:

 

http://i961.photobucket.com/albums/ae98/Gr...nk/Baldr038.jpg

 

It's almost impossible to survive such an encounter at low levels without using invisibility before traveling, unless you reload the game of course.

 

I think the problem in this case is a poor scaling of random encounters rather than SR's reduction of Invisibility to 8 hours (which is a good choice, according to me).

[amanasleep]

Regarding "all anti mage spells should have AoE or bypass II" thing, I'm not sure I can agree...what's the purpose of II then?

 

The purpose of II is to prevent direct spell targeting, sure, but is it not enough to be protected from magic missile, acid arrow, Maze, Imprisonment, all the PW's, etc.? The issue is that the exact spells that are supposed to disable mages are weakest against them because every mage is II, and any mage who does not have II should be Breached immediately and bashed. The only possibility where this is not true is a pure mage duel, but even then you are better off with Chaos than Feeblemind against any mage as long as the save penalties are equal.

 

What if the save penalty of Feeblemind was inversely proportional to Intelligence? Like -10 save, +3 for each Int point under 18. So 16 Int would be -4 (normal save for M5 spells) but 15 would be -1 and lower Int would get big bonuses. Still pretty weak compared to Breach vs. mages, but shines for the solo Sorcerer at least.

 

There is another issue that makes Feeblemind weak vs. Breach: in SCS2 Breach works on Liches, but Feeblemind doesn't (although do Liches have Undead immunity to it anyway?)!

[Dakk]

Invisibility spells

For example, in BG1, it's fairly common to get a random encounter in which your party is completely surrounded by enemy archers (usually a dozen bandits or skeletons). These guys can easily take down a low level character in just 1-2 hits.

 

As pictures sometimes speak louder than words, here's a nice screenshot which illustrates my point:

 

http://i961.photobucket.com/albums/ae98/Gr...nk/Baldr038.jpg

 

It's almost impossible to survive such an encounter at low levels without using invisibility before traveling, unless you reload the game of course.

 

I think the problem in this case is a poor scaling of random encounters rather than SR's reduction of Invisibility to 8 hours (which is a good choice, according to me).

Agreed with Salk (and Demi), the problem is not the 8 hour duration of invisibility - but the poor scaling of random encounters. Rather than lament the "nerfed" (I prefer "fixed") duration, have a look at BGSpawn instead, it might be what you are after!

 

BGSpawn changes all the “spawns†you may face in all the areas around Baldur’s Gate. Now, with the new system, you won’t have always the same spawned creature(s) as in the past. This will bring, hopefully, some freshness to the game and some longevity also. Moreover the spawned creatures now are based on the number of your party members and your levels. So you won’t see anymore in a party of 6 character at 6th level a single wild dog approaching you, it really doesn’t make sense to me.

[Demivrgvs]

Feeblemind

In AD&D Charm spells were meant to befriend hostile creatures (turn their foot circle to GOODBUTBLUE) while Domination spells were meant to establish a telepathic link with the caster giving him/her full control of the .cre's abilities (this would include remove fog of war). The 5th level domination is only meant to affect humanoids (who save at -2) while feeblemind affects everyone (but wizards save at -4). Both are meant to be permanent.

Is there a way to make Charm Person and Dire Charm work as they should? Afaik A64 simply fixed Charm Person to allow affected creatures to talk (which is a cool feature used in BG1 but unfortunately never used in BG2 - a shame because it could have huge roleplaying potential).

 

Anyway, none of that matters because we're talking about Domination vs Feeblemind, and the former is the only charm spell that already works as it should. You're right about PnP Domination being "limited" to humanoids, but even if I add such restriction it would still cover the vast majority of your opponents. How many non-humanoids creatures are there in BG? More importantly, how many of them are good candidates for a 5th lvl single target "save to negate everything" spell like Feeblemind?

 

A +-2 save penalty difference isn't enough to make a difference imo (especially when Domination's effect on a failed save is way more appealing), not to mention that I'm kinda forced to have Domination go with -4 penalty right now, because it currently is the only advantage it has over Dire Charm.

 

Regarding "all anti mage spells should have AoE or bypass II" thing, I'm not sure I can agree...what's the purpose of II then?

The purpose of II is to prevent direct spell targeting, sure, but is it not enough to be protected from magic missile, acid arrow, Maze, Imprisonment, all the PW's, etc.? The issue is that the exact spells that are supposed to disable mages are weakest against them because every mage is II, and any mage who does not have II should be Breached immediately and bashed. The only possibility where this is not true is a pure mage duel, but even then you are better off with Chaos than Feeblemind against any mage as long as the save penalties are equal.

Everything you say is correct, I was just saying that having all anti-mage spells ignore II would completely remove the main use AI does of it (and as you say the AI heavily relies on II, especially SCS). Furthermore, unless Ardanis' work to implement my suggested revision of the Spell Deflection system beomces the standard system, having those spells ignore II would also destroy the main purpose of all Spell Deflection/Turning spells.

 

What if the save penalty of Feeblemind was inversely proportional to Intelligence? Like -10 save, +3 for each Int point under 18. So 16 Int would be -4 (normal save for M5 spells) but 15 would be -1 and lower Int would get big bonuses. Still pretty weak compared to Breach vs. mages, but shines for the solo Sorcerer at least.

I'm not sure I'd like it, but it's not doable anyway.

 

There is another issue that makes Feeblemind weak vs. Breach: in SCS2 Breach works on Liches, but Feeblemind doesn't (although do Liches have Undead immunity to it anyway?)!

Well, Breach shouldn't affect liches, and it normally doesn't. I play SCS without such tweak because I see it as a too much convenient tweak, and I just wait to have Pierce Shield before facing a L25-30 undead archmage.

 

All undead creatures should be immune to mind affecting spells (liches are far from "mindless" imo), but I just checked and liches miss quite a lot of immunities they should have, including immunity to feeblemindedness. I started making spells not affect certain creatures via EFF files for SR V3 (e.g. Horrid Wilting doesn't work on undead), but I gave for granted monsters had the most obvious resistances back then, unlike IR V3 which hugely relies upon this system without leaving anything for granted (almost all abilities now have at least a few of these race/type checks). I'll pay more attention for SR V4.

 

Invisibility

Other players already answered for me.

Edited April 6, 2011 by Demivrgvs

[Guest Thailog]

Invisibility

I think the problem in this case is a poor scaling of random encounters rather than SR's reduction of Invisibility to 8 hours (which is a good choice, according to me).

 

I agree about the unbalanced nature of the BG1 random encounters.

 

However, the point remains that Spell Revisions removed a legitimate option to avoid combat via invisibility while traveling. This option existed in the original game and was used by many players, including myself. Removing it on the grounds of an arbitrary rule that "no spell shall ever last over 8 hours" seems a bit near sighted to me.

[Ardanis]

Are we still talking about Feeblemind here or Miscast Magic? Because a Mass Feeblemind would surely deserve a 7th or 8th lvl slot!

 

If we're talking about Miscast Magic instead we may discuss it, though the AoE has to be small, or the duration must be lowered to keep it balanced imo (not to mention it would kinda overlap with my planned PnP Nahal's Wildzone spell - aka a Miscast Magic "cloud-like" spell).

Replace Feeblemind with mass Miscast Magic (the failure chance, as in vanilla). Yes, a bit daft, I know.

 

What if the save penalty of Feeblemind was inversely proportional to Intelligence? Like -10 save, +3 for each Int point under 18. So 16 Int would be -4 (normal save for M5 spells) but 15 would be -1 and lower Int would get big bonuses. Still pretty weak compared to Breach vs. mages, but shines for the solo Sorcerer at least.

I'm not sure I'd like it, but it's not doable anyway.

It actually is possible to build a spell in a such way (two 146s, the first 206s the real effect, which goes second) that picking a specific CRE and adding to it a 206 will make it the only one to suffer the effect.

The problem, imo is the woeful inconsistency in creatures' stats. More often than not they have everything set to 9.

[amanasleep]

The problem, imo is the woeful inconsistency in creatures' stats. More often than not they have everything set to 9.

 

From what I can see, spellcasting creatures tend to have accurate Int stats. The point is for it be great against spellcasters and weak against fighters with Int 9.

[amanasleep]

Feeblemind

Everything you say is correct, I was just saying that having all anti-mage spells ignore II would completely remove the main use AI does of it (and as you say the AI heavily relies on II, especially SCS). Furthermore, unless Ardanis' work to implement my suggested revision of the Spell Deflection system beomces the standard system, having those spells ignore II would also destroy the main purpose of all Spell Deflection/Turning spells.

 

But there are already area spells in the game, and they are all for that reason "anti-mage". My point is that any single target spell that is only good against mages needs something extra, because all mages in the game will be immune to it, and the moment they become visible that spell becomes worse than Breach.

[Ardanis]

Breach... yep, you're right about it being always the best choice against wizards. It's been pointed out already several times before.

 

Is it sensible to limit the list of Combat Protections to weapon immunities only? I remember Demi suggested to remove Fireshields, but imo all AC-boosting spells (and Armor of Faith) can go as well. Reason - if fighters have trouble hitting a wizard even after breaching him, then trying to cast offensive spell is the next logical step.

 

Acid Sheath can also contribute here, by increasing the damage that grunts would take.

 

PS I wish Stoneskin could be changed to physical resistance. With ToBEx's concentration check, it would work wonders.

 

True Seeing & Detect Invisibility

@Ardanis, perhaps I'm an idiot, but can't we use opcode 136 to make Detect Invisibility remove normal invisibility without dispelling II state? That would make an excellent difference between it and Invsibility Purge. If it works, it could also make TS work more it should when coupled with 193, though the whole "TS removes illusionary protections from targets" still remains a problem for such concept.

I don't know... 136's description says yes.

 

P.S Did David used the suggested 193 opcode for TS as he once said, or the recent ToBEx hacks made him ignore it and go for "all spell removals ignore II"? Using 136+193 on a 'power lvl 0' Detect Invisibility can allow pretty much anyone (except Conjurers right now, but they have Glitterdust) to have their personal ignore II without the need for hacks or tweaks which kinda break the rules. Am I wrong?

He went wth ToBEx, as far as I can see. Edited April 6, 2011 by Ardanis

[phordicus]

All undead creatures should be immune to mind affecting spells (liches are far from "mindless" imo), but I just checked and liches miss quite a lot of immunities they should have, including immunity to feeblemindedness. I started making spells not affect certain creatures via EFF files for SR V3 (e.g. Horrid Wilting doesn't work on undead), but I gave for granted monsters had the most obvious resistances back then, unlike IR V3 which hugely relies upon this system without leaving anything for granted (almost all abilities now have at least a few of these race/type checks). I'll pay more attention for SR V4.

wouldn't it be easier to start working in some Creature Revisions as a recommended but optional component? it seems it'd be better to provide immunities at the source instead of stacking EFFs across multiple spells.

[DrAzTiK]

Do you think it could be a good idea to reduce the speed of magics missiles in order to avoid this spell to be an insta disrupt spell?

I remember that in BG1, missiles go very slowly.