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[leania]

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- Animal Growth (+4 STR and CON, +2 to AC and saves)

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Thank you for the update, demi! By the way, I think increasing damage, thac0, and hp seems working better for the Animal Growth. The STR/CON bonus might not give few merit for lower level animals such as rats, because those would have a few STR and CON. For example, if we assume the rats have 10STR and 10CON, the +4 buff would bring nothing in vanilla.

[Ardanis]

Guys can you mod this game so that the scripted dialogue bosses like irenicus etc are still vulnerable to spells like dominate, desintegrate, flesh to stone, finger of death, polymorph other etc. its always been irritating for me that the most difficult opponents ignore these while save or die are actually best suited against the tough opponents .

This is purely a writing issue, not technical. You can't possibly be allowed to kill a plot character prematurely, if doing so may break the following plot. What can be done, is to revise the scene to keep the player out of control while the plot character is around. Preferably in a way that doesn't focus the attention on a fact you're in cutscene mode and your PC might be doing something against your will. Or provide a legal way to shield the boss from player attacks. Or something else. This is nowhere as simple as it may sound, and can go a long, long, long way until all the issues are resolved - sometimes never.

[subtledoctor]

Idea: IMMUNITY TO TIMESTOP

 

Is there a spell in SR that grants this? Or an item in IR? It would be nice if this was available to the player, as long as it is sufficiently rare.

 

I could see this being a Divination effect, if you bend the definition a bit like I do and figure that the ability to glimpse the future could give some ability to manipulate and/or resist time-based spell effects. So conceivably this could be an added effect for Moment of Prescience.

 

Alternatively, it could be resisted by phase effects: so, by Ghost Form and possibly the Boots of Phase Shifting.

 

Altenatively, and probably most sensibly, it could be added to the effects of Absolute Immunity at 9th level, making that really the most complete defensive spell.

 

This is based (like most of my ideas) on common tropes from fantasy writing. A powerful magic user freezes everything around him, but our hero is powerful enough to resist the effect, and now the two have a battle of wills (or, of fists) while the frozen world looks on... think of The Dark Is Rising, I forget what other sources.

 

Anyway, just food for thought, and seems like it would be easy enough to slot in somewhere.

 

FURTHER THOUGHT:

 

Timestop + Improved Alacrity is pure cheese, right? Especially with the all-too popular casting-time-reducing items. But it's nonsensical; seems to me the titanic effort required to stop time would preclude an effect that basically hastes yourself.

 

So, why not make Timestop disable (protect from) the effects of IA? Feasible? Or do SCS mages rock the TS+IA spam?

[kreso]

Immunity to TS would affect PCs being immune to TS cast by allies, which is very exploitable.

 

do SCS mages rock the TS+IA spam?

'fraid so.

[bradinmemph]

Posted Today, 01:02 PM

Jarno Mikkola, on 10 Mar 2015 - 06:59 AM, said:

 

bradinmemph, on 10 Mar 2015 - 06:28 AM, said:

been taken into account for the larger creatures ignore some entanglment effects per SCS?

It's just a stat bonus, besides you would have to be gigantic(as in the size of a giant, ettin, or similar) for it to effect the animal, and that's not what you are summoning here, unless I am totally off.

You could use your imagination a bit, is it better to cast a level 1 summoning spell and then boost them with level 5 boost, or cast a level 5 summon and then boost it with level 1 boost, I would argue that the later is always better, unless the level 1 boost ends up nerfing the summon in stats.

 

well text includes giants sooo 16'+ and a polar bear 8-9 feet standing..with animal growth doubled in size?16-18' rearing up 8-9 feet at shoulder..(the math 1.5M dbled for animal growth)3m would fall under the kind of size we are talking least polar and cave bears the rest possibly not though snake +animal growth might but perhaps Im just being picky ... on the whole thing...not sure how much it matters.. beyond consistancies sake

(moved comments over to here might not have been apropriate where it was orignally)

[Demivrgvs]

Quick replies...

 

Aerial Servant

Maybe add a mental battle akin to vanilla elementals or Protection vs Something check on party as in the case with fiends? So one actually must maintain proper wards if he wishes to summon an army of these.

I do thought about making it work as per PnP, or at least more similar to other "not fully controlled summons".

 

Could it normal melee be remade in a way that it would do no damage anymore, but instead will have a chance to apply a 1 round hold entangle + 8d4 damage in that round?

What's the purpose of this change? The required animation could be problematic...

 

When it comes to the creature itself I think I have to better define its role (e.g. glass cannon, tank, stealth, specialist, etc.) because right now it has pretty much everything (TONS of hit points, great AC, very high dmg output, PERMANENT IMPROVED INVISIBILITY, etc.). The 6th lvl 12HD Air Elemental simply pales in comparison.

 

Animal Growth

I think increasing damage, thac0, and hp seems working better for the Animal Growth. The STR/CON bonus might not give few merit for lower level animals such as rats, because those would have a few STR and CON. For example, if we assume the rats have 10STR and 10CON, the +4 buff would bring nothing in vanilla.

Generally I would agree (for a party buff it would be impossible to balance imo), but here we know exactly the base STR/CON values of each animal and the boosted value (afaik the only other possible variable is Strength of One). ASI is the only spell not seriously buffed from the current solution imo and we can live with that imo. Those rats would still perform pretty much the same way with the small bonus (am I wrong?) because at mid-high levels their only purpose is to gain 1-2 rounds of distraction nothing more, and their only hope of effectively posing a threat imo is to be combined with Stinking Cloud. Correct me if I'm wrong...

 

Anyway, I'm not discarding the more "mathematical" solution, I just think that increased STR/CON looks way more appropriate concept wise, thus I'll try to make that work if possible before discarding it completely.

 

@bradinmemph the current concept of the spell doesn't really involve 2x size for various reasons. Your idea has some merit but I'm not convinced and it takes out the uniqueness of each summon imo (e.g. if you want a combo with Entangle pick ASV snakes).

 

Time Stop

Immunity to TS would affect PCs being immune to TS cast by allies, which is very exploitable.

^this

 

On a side note, DavidW once said me I could disable melee attacks during TS because he stopped abusing it, but I never checked if he really did it.

[kreso]

On a side note, DavidW once said me I could disable melee attacks during TS because he stopped abusing it, but I never checked if he really did it.

He didn't, AI fighter-mages love to beat the crap out of PCs frozen in time, preferably with BBoD. There's an option via CLUAConsole to disable that.

[bradinmemph]

@bradinmemph the current concept of the spell doesn't really involve 2x size for various reasons. Your idea has some merit but I'm not convinced and it takes out the uniqueness of each summon imo (e.g. if you want a combo with Entangle pick ASV snakes).

 

hey if 2Xsize isnt part of animal growth i can accept that though that does call into question naming it "animal growth" i was just going by the spell descrip"dble in size *8 weight etc....." as for ruining the uniqueness im not convinced it would do nothing other than add a abil to the 3 highest AS lvls when under animal growth so youd be talking about 2 5th lvl spells or a 6th and 6th or 7th and 5th for As v AS 6 and conj animals respectivly with Animal growth thered still be differering uses for all 3..

[n-ghost]

What's the purpose of this change? The required animation could be problematic...

 

- to make Aerial Servants more PnPish (they don't just melee their targets, they try to constrict and strangle if grapple is successful. Undead and constructs probably should be immune to that, and Servant should be held too for the duration of the effect. All in all, imo it should be something like a bear grapple that was proposed here some time ago, but the creature affected probably should be just rooted, not held or unconscious);

 

- to turn them into more of a "controller"-type summon instead of a powerhouses they are now.

 

As for an animation (I presume you're talking about the effect on creature), Web might just fit for that.

Edited March 10, 2015 by n-ghost

[subtledoctor]

Immunity to TS would affect PCs being immune to TS cast by allies, which is very exploitable.

 

 

do SCS mages rock the TS+IA spam?

'fraid so.

Well, I suppose exploitable, but if you have this effect in a 9th-level spell then it's only exploitable if you have two 9th-level casters. Plus, it wouldn't be totally in the player's favor because any AI mages with Ab. Imm. active would resist player Timestops as well...

 

As for Alacrity, methinks it could stand to be rebalanced a bit. Maybe just add +2 to casting time to counteract the super-cheese. But I guess these are not things for SR.

[kreso]

Well, you also get that Wish-double lenght TS+Alacrity.....talking about cheese this tops them all.

SCS uses this too.

I'm not overly sure should AI protect one from TS effect. One, it would be fairly hard to use it in such manner.

2nd, there's no way mages can be scripted to cast this "in anticipation" of Time Stop, thus it would end up only favoring the player.

[n-ghost]

Iirc, some really high-level guys (Balthazar, Amelissan, Slayer form of Irenicus) were immune to TS as well, so MAYBE such thing could be made in some sort of class-specific (Timeless Body, duh) HLA.

 

It could be an interesting feature, with just a hint of bleu or maybe camembert.

Edited March 10, 2015 by n-ghost

[kreso]

Iirc, Mel, Demogorgon and Balthazar are the only creatures immune to it. Ascension mod gives this ability to protagonist, but only for the final battle.

[n-ghost]

So, a bit of feedback on druidic level 1 spells:

ASI

 

Save for the minor issue with the spellbook icon (http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=26517&p=233654, might have nothing to do with SR, frankly), the spell seems fine.

Mainly it's useable as a 'trap' spell that aims to prevent large targets from moving freely, also useful to block narrow passages and getting some pressure off the party. Diseases are nice bonus, but I don't count on it to trigger exactly when I need it too much.

 

As a possible improvement one could consider buffing up rats attack speed factor some.

 

Regenerate Light Wounds

 

As I've said before, it's awesome. For those people who prefer to kite rather go straight melee, anyway.

 

I'm yet to test it on undead, aTweaks should make undead immune both to negative and positive healing spells, but I actually think that regeneration should make an exception of that (i.e., it's not healing\harming by divine, but rather mending flesh with some druidic mojo, can't see why undead should be not affected by that).

 

Goodberry

 

Same as above, plus this is actually THE spell to keep your low-level party on their feet. Especially for people who hoard the potions and dread to use any up to final ToB battle (and maybe even then).

 

Strength of Stone

 

I have some doubts about this one. I mean, imo it actually goes against IR's philosophy of getting rid of all those items that set a fixed value for stats. Is it possible for it to give a flat bonus to stats that won't exceed 18\50?

The movement speed penalty is negligible, and with IR's armor revisions almost everything is penalized in one way or another anyway.

Knockback immunity is nice for every role (especially when you need to cast something vs dragons asap), but yet remains to be tested.

 

Armor of Faith

 

Nice tanking spell, but does it really fit a druid's spellbook context? Imo it should give a way to Cure Poison (that is much more needed especially at lower levels).

 

Entangle

 

Well this one is classic. Though for me atm it makes neutral NPCs hostile, so it's not that useable in city areas. Anyone can remember if there was some fix for it (or if there was even a discussion in SR forum)?

 

Shillelagh

 

There is a minor inaccuracy in wording of a description here.

 

 

Imo "victim" would be a much more accurate word here rather than "defender".

 

The spell per se is surprisingly nice, if a bit specific in usage (i.e., possibly killing Clay Golems, striking somecaster from invisibility etc).

 

Faerie Fire

 

AoE is very small so it's very easy to waste this spell. I suggest making area affected a bit larger.

Otherwise, good debuff, useful vs anyone.

 

Sunscorch

 

Our favourite no-brainer. Nuff said, this thing kills everything in BG1.

 

And we like it that way.

 

Magical Stone

 

Make a conjuring speed faster and it's fine. Attack range could be buffed a bit, but then again, if not, it's fine as it is (and 3 attacks per round are especially nice).

 

That concludes it for now.

Edited March 12, 2015 by n-ghost

[Demivrgvs]

Thanks n-ghost.

ASI

...the spell seems fine.
Mainly it's useable as a 'trap' spell that aims to prevent large targets from moving freely, also useful to block narrow passages and getting some pressure off the party. Diseases are nice bonus, but I don't count on it to trigger exactly when I need it too much.

As a possible improvement one could consider buffing up rats attack speed factor some.

Where did you tested them? I'll wait to see how they perform at least on a full BG1 run. Ideally it would be cool if they could at least perform as a very small distraction within BG2, and if the combo Stinking Cloud + ASI works as I wish.

 

Speed factor is already 1.

Regenerate Light Wounds

I knew this spell would have been good. Within BG1 it restores up to three or four times the amount of hit point of vanilla's Cure Light Wounds, and even later on it's a super cheap spell to slightly boost a character.

 

The whole "undead are damaged by heal/regen" is simply not implementable without risking to ruin the AI.

Goodberry
I actually expected these to still need something, but I'm glad you consider them viable now. At least they are cheaper (1st lvl instead of 2nd is a big deal imo), more effective, and more unique (druid doesn't have instant cures anymore now) than vanilla's ones.

Strength of Stone

I have some doubts about this one. I mean, imo it actually goes against IR's philosophy of getting rid of all those items that set a fixed value for stats. Is it possible for it to give a flat bonus to stats that won't exceed 18\50?

It's a self-only spell usable by a class who generally doesn't sport high STR (except maybe a fighter/druid). What you suggest is not doable, while a flat +x to STR would be hard to balance imo. Let's see if other players have some opinion on this matter.

Armor of Faith

Nice tanking spell, but does it really fit a druid's spellbook context?

Yeah, it's not tremendously out of place but I agree it doesn't truly fit a druid's spellbook. It was still there because of the lack of druid 1st lvl spells, but now that we added Obscuring Mist and Animal Summoning I we could consider to make AoF cleric-only.

 

Imo it should give a way to Cure Poison (that is much more needed especially at lower levels).

AoF curing poison? Slow Poison is there at 2nd lvl and it already has a small role we shouldn't make it even smaller imo.

Entangle

Well this one is classic. Though for me atm it makes neutral NPCs hostile, so it's not that useable in city areas. Anyone can remember if there was some fix for it (or if there was even a discussion in SR forum)?

I remember a similar discussion about Web. I had a few doubts about the possible exploit of pre-casting these against neutral NPCs "not yet but soon to be hostile". Mmm...

Shillelagh
Ideally it is one of the best, if not the best, 1-handed weapons a druid can find in the entire BG1, and a +3 weapon available at the very start of BG2 if needed.

Faerie Fire

AoE is very small so it's very easy to waste this spell. I suggest making area affected a bit larger.
Otherwise, good debuff, useful vs anyone.

Yes, I was thinking to extend it to 10 feet, but then it would be on par with Glitterdust. These two spells are too much copy/paste imo.

 

I'm tempted to try something more radical, like turning FF into a "stationary source of light" rather than the current "cast and forget". Kreso pointed out the AI would not actively try to leave the AoE, but I'm not sure if it's a big deal: right now an affected mage or thief cannot turn invisible for the whole duration of FF, with the change the worst case scenario is still the same if the targets remain in the same spot all the time.

Sunscorch

Our favourite no-brainer. Nuff said, this thing kills everything in BG1.

And we like it that way.

That's why casting time 5 has to stay imo.

Magical Stone

Make a conjuring speed faster and it's fine. Attack range could be buffed a bit, but then again, if not, it's fine as it is (and 3 attacks per round are especially nice).

I'm glad to hear these at least look decent. I can be persuaded to increase the range from 20 to 30 if it can help the spell a bit, especially considering Minute Meteors always had that range.

 

A few players reported issues with this spell duration (e.g. stones disappearing after few rounds), can anyone reproduce it and help me track the issue? I couldn't find any error within the spell files...