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[Incantatar]

@Dakk

It's really easy to change the spells in Near Infinity to not cause hostility. I did it for Web.

[Chronis]

Enjoyeing this mod on a BG1 playthough

 

Reflected Image seems to not work when cast after mirror image even after the last copy of the mirror

has been hit and is down. Not sure if this is because the spell is still considered active because it was cast recently.

 

If possible it would be preferable to have reflected image to replace mirror image when cast.

[Bartimaeus]

Level 3 Spell: Minor Spell Deflection - 4 Spell Levels Deflected

Level 5 Spell: Minor Spell Turning - 4 Spell Levels Reflected

Level 6 Spell: Spell Deflection - 10 Spell Levels Deflected

Level 7 Spell: Spell Turning - 12 Spell Levels Deflected

Level 9 Spell: Spell Trap (Deflection) - 30 Spell Levels Deflected

 

Difference between the minors: reflection is two spell levels above deflection; difference between the normals: reflection is one spell level above deflection, and has two more skins. Is it just me, or does that seem extremely inconsistent? 6th level Spell Deflection is too weak in comparison to its 7th level turning counterpart, but 5th level Spell Turning is too weak in comparison to its 3rd level deflection counterpart, IMO. I would think Minor Spell Turning should be a 4th level spell - or have a few more spell levels, (6, 7?), to reflect - while you could do a few things with the other two "normals", like reducing Spell Turning to 10 spell levels, or increasing Spell Deflection to 12, etc.

 

Similarly, the Spell Triggers...

 

4th Level Spell: Spell Matrix - 2 spells of second or less level

7th Level Spell: Spell Sequencer - 3 spells of fourth or less level

8th Level Spell: Spell Trigger - 3 spells of sixth or less level

 

Shouldn't Sequencer be a 6th level spell? That, or give access to fifth level spells, I guess...

Edited June 29, 2013 by Bartimaeus

[Jarno Mikkola]

Shouldn't Sequencer be a 6th level spell?

Erhm, the spells have their levels assigned to reflect their power drawn level... and if we were to place the spell sequencer to the 6th level... the spell trigger would leave a widely open... as it can't cast the 6th level spells right away. Yes, the spells get better at levels too.

The turning and deflection spells is another matter, in which their piercing magics(dispel magic, secret word... spellstrike) are level tied to the spell themselves... so there's really nothing to adjust.

[Bartimaeus]

I do not mean to offend, but I sadly failed to understand any of your points. Their power drawn level? Leave a widely open...widely open what? The spells get better at levels? I think I understand this bit, but at the same time, I don't, as I think you're implying the three spells progressively get better as you get higher level - which they don't, as it's always level 2 or lower for Matrix, level 4 or lower for Sequencer, and level 6 or lower for Trigger. So I think I'm not understanding that, too.

 

I also don't understand the bit about the piercing magics. The lowest level piercing magic is Spell Thrust, (takes away one level 5 spell protection or lower in an area of effect of 15 radius, IIRC), which would still definitely work on a level 4 one. So I'm probably misunderstanding that, too.

 

Also, looking over Contingency, shouldn't it be mentioned that the hard max is level 6? At the moment, the description just reads "The spell level must be lower or equal to the level of the caster divided by three.". I was honestly expecting it to go up to 8, (not 9, since you could trigger a Chain Contingency which could trigger a Contingency which could trigger a Chain Contingency, etc., eek!), though balance-wise, it does make sense that it stops there.

Edited June 29, 2013 by Bartimaeus

[Jarno Mikkola]

and level 6 or lower for Trigger. So I think I'm not understanding that, too.

When you get the spell at level 13, you can only bind a level 4 spell to it(as here is where the caster level is divided by three 13/3 < 5), then when you level up a bit, you get to bind level 5 spells too to it and eventually you get the level 6. Edit, or which ever spell level you get it at... doesn't matter.

 

I also don't understand the bit about the piercing magics. The lowest level piercing magic is Spell Thrust, (takes away one level 5 spell protection or lower in an area of effect of 15 radius, IIRC), which would still definitely work on a level 4 one. So I'm probably misunderstanding that, too.

Well the point is that you can't see the whole picture, see when you look it the way you do, as when you make a spell go up level, you also need to make it's natural counter spell up a level or at least remove it... and as the system is in the original very delicate, it's has no good ways to go haphazardly and pick a spell and go. Or leaves a lot of bodies behind Edited June 29, 2013 by Jarno Mikkola

[Bartimaeus]

For the first point: I'm afraid you're simply incorrect, at least on the latest (official) release of Spell Revisions.

 

Description:

Simbul's Spell Trigger

Level: 8

School: Universal

Range: Personal

Duration: Special

Casting Time: 1 round

Area of Effect: Special

Saving Throw: None

 

This spell allows a mage to prepare a magical trigger that can store spells to be used later in a single swift action. The trigger can store three spells to be released simultaneously, all of which must be of 6th level or lower. A mage can only possess one spell trigger at a time, and the trigger will remain active until the spells contained within it are released.

 

Number of extended effect headers: 1, (a spell which improves as you level up should have more, for those who don't know - consequently, this spell stays the same no matter what level you are)

Effect 1: Spell Sequencer Creation - Maximum Level Usable: 6; Amount: 3, (Permanent Timing, Self)

Effect 2: Play 3D Effect: SPCONTIN, (4 Duration, Self)

 

This is from the raw file, (SPWI809), of Spell Revisions' install folder. Also, it'd be level 15 you could get it at for a level 8 spell, Only Contingency does the divide by three thing, as far as I can see.

 

For the second point: I still don't understand. There are no spell protection counters that can't take it down, already, as a level 5 spell. No spell counters would be unable to take it down, consequently, as a level 4 spell. The lowest spell protection counter's, Spell Thrust, highest level of spell countering is level 5...which would still affect Minor Globe of Invulnerability and Spell Shield, (as well as the lower level spells Minor Spell Turning and Minor Spell Deflection, of course). Therefore, I don't really see the problem...it literally changes nothing, except the balance between it and Minor Spell Deflection would be kept in line, as opposed to how it is now, (where it makes absolutely no sense to use Minor Spell Turning). The only thing that changes for counters is that now all spell protection counters are theoretically/technically less powerful, as a result of one of the spell protections they affect being one less level...functionally, it makes no difference on their part. *shrug*

Edited June 30, 2013 by Bartimaeus

[valky]

Only some minor thoughts about Barkskin & Prot from Evil...despite that I seriously am in love with the mod

 

Barkskin: While I really welcome the change done to reflect the real 'natural armor' behaviour, I don't get it, why it stops to advance to +5 at level 12 as it is supposed to. Doesn't really matter in a vanilla game with prolly only tweaks/fixpack but accidentally makes a huge difference in stuff like SCSII. Changed mine to reflect it in my game though....

(Demogorgon didn't care about Mazzy's ~ -27 AC anyway and continued to hit her like friggin' truck *d00h*)

 

Prot/Evil: Now that's a serious one in several ways, you made the single spell so damn useful that I don't bother anymore to ever learn prot/evil 10' (or magic circle whatsoever). You kind of switched the PnP duration from both spells and made the circle even more useless with the 2nd condition attached (Any creatures leaving the aura's area of effect will lose these protections within one round.)

From the rulebook the BG2 vanilla 10' circle reflects the real behaviour more closely, cause any creature, who partially got covered while the spell is being cast or got some sprinkles of the components on his clothes too (I think holy water is involved ^^) is treated as being the recipient of a single casted prot. from evil spell and should get the 3 rd/caster version instead. Yet it doesn't matter in ToB and the uber high level you can achieve, so the circle should provide roughly the same duration instead to those leaving it. (henceforth the vanilla spell)

 

[or for the sake of quoting: A creature unable to fit completely into the area of effect remains partially exposed and subject to whatever penalties the DM decides. If such a creature is recipient of the spell, the spell acts as a normal protection from evil spell for that creature only.]

 

 

Anyway, since the abundance of spell slots I have, I usually cast the single version, so I don't really care - though it would make several SCSII fights easier, cause of the partially insane spell stripping involved from certain enemies and a re-casted -2 AC for the whole party (or whoever is in range) makes a huge difference.

 

Also, the Paladin innate ability should make use of the same duration, but still uses the old duration of BG2, which makes it completely useless, since it lasts like 1.5 minutes instead of 5.

Changed mine as well, cause Keldorn currently could cast 26 times a useless spell in my game :>

 

I might further add that the Death Knight summon is a friggin' machine for at least SoA *yay* Made some SCSII powered-up encounter ridiculous easy...

[Demivrgvs]

Barkskin

While I really welcome the change done to reflect the real 'natural armor' behaviour, I don't get it, why it stops to advance to +5 at level 12 as it is supposed to. Doesn't really matter in a vanilla game with prolly only tweaks/fixpack but accidentally makes a huge difference in stuff like SCSII.

The cap was lowered from +5 at level 12 to +4 at level 9 after playtesting because the spell was considered overpowered. Even in its current form Barkskin is extremely powerful for a 2nd level spell imo, especially because it can be cast on others and stacks with armors.

 

@kreso, Kalindor, and/or Lawlight. Considering I think all of you are testing KR with SR let me know if this spell or any other spell feel underwhelming or overpowered.

 

 

Protection from Evil

@valky, which version of SR are you using? Because I reverted the "nerf" you are talking about ages ago, and now Magic Circle against Evil simply work as a "mass" version of ProEvil which lasts 5 turns as its lesser version.

 

Also, the Paladin innate ability should make use of the same duration, but still uses the old duration of BG2, which makes it completely useless, since it lasts like 1.5 minutes instead of 5.

Changed mine as well, cause Keldorn currently could cast 26 times a useless spell in my game :>

Leaving aside that paladins should not have those uses of ProEvil in the first place (though it could be developer's silly way of implementing PnP Aura of Protection), I actually tweaked paladin's version of ProEvil too, and it shares the 5 turns duration.

 

 

Death Knight

I might further add that the Death Knight summon is a friggin' machine for at least SoA *yay* Made some SCSII powered-up encounter ridiculous easy...

Yeah, it's probably a tad OP. For V4 we'll make sure you'll have to "pay some sort of price" for casting and "bribing or subjugating" powerful gated demons/devils.

[kreso]

Barkskin

While I really welcome the change done to reflect the real 'natural armor' behaviour, I don't get it, why it stops to advance to +5 at level 12 as it is supposed to. Doesn't really matter in a vanilla game with prolly only tweaks/fixpack but accidentally makes a huge difference in stuff like SCSII.

The cap was lowered from +5 at level 12 to +4 at level 9 after playtesting because the spell was considered overpowered. Even in its current form Barkskin is extremely powerful for a 2nd level spell imo, especially because it can be cast on others and stacks with armors.

 

@kreso, Kalindor, and/or Lawlight. Considering I think all of you are testing KR with SR let me know if this spell or any other spell feel underwhelming or overpowered.

 

Will do. And yeah, Barkskin alone is reason enough to tag a druid in your party - it's simply that good, and has long duration.

I generally avoid use of summons for some reason so can't comment on Death Knights.

[valky]

The cap was lowered from +5 at level 12 to +4 at level 9 after playtesting because the spell was considered overpowered. Even in its current form Barkskin is extremely powerful for a 2nd level spell imo, especially because it can be cast on others and stacks with armors.

 

I agree partially...like I said, for a vanilla game +4 'natural' is a sick boost to the AC. But for a more recent example (yesterday *g*) with the SCSII boosted Demogorgon fight:

If my math is right, he comes close to -19 Thac0 (!) [base: -8, STR +7, weapon +4] so any tiny boost to ones AC makes a very huge difference. Mazzy had something like -26 AC IIRC (forgot to cast def. harmony...and with the 'old' Barkskin) including the attack penalty from prot evil. (+some funny items from weimars i-upgrade)

So he was punishing her for quite a bit and roughly all the time and without Hardiness it would have been a slaughter..for him ^^

Yet he/it(?) was debuffed though, so it gave "it" maybe only a 50% to score a hit, which still did hurt.

 

Don't bother my comment, as said in SCSII it is okay to change it for yourself, if needed to. But for the majority of players (I assume) the +4 version still does the trick and is already on the limit to OPness.

Was only wondering, cause I was so darn bored that I installed BG2 recently and started playing for a bit, only to notice, that it bores me again without having a real challenge. ANd with tactics/scs it's is actually much more enjoyable

 

Protection from Evil

@valky, which version of SR are you using? Because I reverted the "nerf" you are talking about ages ago, and now Magic Circle against Evil simply work as a "mass" version of ProEvil which lasts 5 turns as its lesser version.

 

Silly me has "VERSION ~v3~" according the tp2 file and the hotfix' posted applied manual to the override to avoid messing around with my flawlessly working installation. I learned the hard way to not touch mods installed in before some major ones, like SCS in my case.

Guess I'll grab the mod and manually apply the Mag. Circle change, but am currently using the vanilla version anyway, so it'd make only a minor difference according the duration. And it's the same as the 'real' counterpart from the 2nd edition's rulebook.

 

Leaving aside that paladins should not have those uses of ProEvil in the first place (though it could be developer's silly way of implementing PnP Aura of Protection), I actually tweaked paladin's version of ProEvil too, and it shares the 5 turns duration.

 

I c, I only was wondering about the spell in the first place. Hmm, they should have given the Paladin a persistent protection from evil nonetheless to reflect their aura (it's also a weaker version of the spell anyway). Need to check how temple of elemental evil implemented it...

Despite the duration and as already mentioned, my main character is an imported BG1 fighter switched to cleric...am now @24 wisdom (after hell/Lum & card deck) and have a sh*tton of bonus spells. So I really don't care about learning 5/6 prot evil spell on my cleric only and skip the Paladin innate ability completely. Hell, even the mage lvl 1 spells becoming more useless in ToB with SCS and I have only mage armor & shield learned. That gives me more than enough slots to learn that spell.

 

Despite having reverted the circle to its old behaviour :>

 

Death Knight

Yeah, it's probably a tad OP. For V4 we'll make sure you'll have to "pay some sort of price" for casting and "bribing or subjugating" powerful gated demons/devils.

 

Hmm, the Gate summon is already more than punishing according the description, specially for a good aligned party, thanks the amassed AoE spells, which already are a tiny bother in case of the Death Knight, since you can't have other summons. Else they would turn hostile thanks to the Fireball thingie. (and/or fear aura)

I actually haven't tried Gate yet and won't necessary do so, cause I rather stick to the Deva/Planetar overhaul (Celestials), which do their Job just fine for me in case of need.

Else, your other revised summons do their job just nicely and are actually very useful again.

 

But for a few supposedly hard encounters with even SCS the Death Knight is a b*tch! Mind-flayer dungeons comes to my mind, Kua-Toa dungeon and the so-called tougher Demon Knights and similar stuff. When I was bored with some fights, I just summoned it and closed the door only to go in later to grab the loot *eg*

Edited July 26, 2013 by valky

[Ardanis]

If my math is right, he comes close to -19 Thac0 (!) [base: -8, STR +7, weapon +4] so any tiny boost to ones AC makes a very huge difference. Mazzy had something like -26 AC IIRC (forgot to cast def. harmony...and with the 'old' Barkskin) including the attack penalty from prot evil. (+some funny items from weimars i-upgrade)

The base AC, i.e. not counting bonuses not appearing in the inventory page, is limited to -20 + DEX bonus + single weapon style, i.e. -26 is usually as much as you can get, any more would be wasted away by the engine. In other words, there is not much difference whether Barkskin grants +4 or +5.

[valky]

If my math is right, he comes close to -19 Thac0 (!) [base: -8, STR +7, weapon +4] so any tiny boost to ones AC makes a very huge difference. Mazzy had something like -26 AC IIRC (forgot to cast def. harmony...and with the 'old' Barkskin) including the attack penalty from prot evil. (+some funny items from weimars i-upgrade)

The base AC, i.e. not counting bonuses not appearing in the inventory page, is limited to -20 + DEX bonus + single weapon style, i.e. -26 is usually as much as you can get, any more would be wasted away by the engine. In other words, there is not much difference whether Barkskin grants +4 or +5.

 

Aaah, I completely forgot about this and you'r right *whistle*

Though there are 3 exceptions, as they did get applied on the opponents' to-hit roll and not on the visible AC:

-2 prot/evil as mentioned

-4 imp invisibility

-x special armor modifier against pierc/slash/crush attacks

 

So it's possible in that case to reach at least -32 AC against evil opponents, which are roughly 99% of your enemies...

 

(since I don't bother to gulp the dex potion all the time, it's arguable if it matters or not ^^)

 

edit: she only had -24 'visible' at that time, I already counted in the 'hidden' AC boost from prot/evil.

Edited July 26, 2013 by valky

[kreso]

These are the spells I find OP:

 

Barkskin - too much too soon I guess

Know Opponent - physical resistance penalty should be dropped imo. Penalty to AC is enough for a 2nd level spell. In addition, it's no save+ignores MR

Blindness - 8 hours is too long duration, 1 turn as PW:Blind is enough, especially powerful spell in BG1

Spell Thrust, Spellstrike - no need for such big, if any, AoE. I'd keep this single-target.

Wail of the Banshee -save at -6 or die? mmm.....-2 is enough.

Flesh to Stone, Disintegrate - -5 penalty is too much. It's a 50% chance through SoA that this works on almost anything

 

Underpowered

 

Goodberry - I never ever use this

Cloak of Fear - maybe make it work as Berserker's aura? Why would you want enemies to run away...?

Pixie Dust - level 5 and works like Invisibility 10' radius, which is a level 3 spell. Never used it.

Edited July 26, 2013 by kreso

[kreso]

So it's possible in that case to reach at least -32 AC against evil opponents, which are roughly 99% of your enemies...

You'd be surprised how many enemies aren't actually evil.