SR V3

[Icendoan]

For that screenie, count the number of bard songs, as well as having 25STR, and all those buffs with a max damage x7 backstab.

 

There are about 6 odd Bards, cause of Mislead.

 

Icen

[DarkWon]

All the proposed changes sound excellent except...

 

Draw Upon Holy Might

Nerfing this spell is a big no-no from my point of view. When you are a low level fighter in BG1 this keeps you alive, and theres no way I could beat SCS Sarevok without it!!

 

Maybe reduce its power from a per-level basis to +2 or +3? then high level clerics can't abuse it but its still good as a Bhaalspawn ability for non-casters who have nothing better

[Shaitan]

All the proposed changes sound excellent except...

 

Draw Upon Holy Might

Nerfing this spell is a big no-no from my point of view. When you are a low level fighter in BG1 this keeps you alive, and theres no way I could beat SCS Sarevok without it!!

 

Maybe reduce its power from a per-level basis to +2 or +3? then high level clerics can't abuse it but its still good as a Bhaalspawn ability for non-casters who have nothing better

 

Could be solved by dividing those up in two "different" spells I guess.

 

I'd like DUHM to be nerfed a bit, and the shorter duration seems to be most appropriate IMO.

 

Cheers

[DarkWon]

Could be solved by dividing those up in two "different" spells I guess.

 

I'd like DUHM to be nerfed a bit, and the shorter duration seems to be most appropriate IMO.

 

Cheers

 

Yeah that would work too. Now that I think about it they must use separate spells anyway as one is an innate...doh! Then the name of your Bhaalpower could be changed to Draw Upon Menacing Evilness with Accompanying Maniacal Laughter? so they are easy to tell apart

[Demivrgvs]

Mislead

For that screenie, count the number of bard songs, as well as having 25STR, and all those buffs with a max damage x7 backstab.

 

There are about 6 odd Bards, cause of Mislead.

Oh, that reminded me to prevent misleaded clones from being able to use bard songs. Done!

 

Speaking of Arcane Spells there are few spells that may be slightly changed...

Draw Upon Holy Might

Okay it seems the reduced duration is generally preferred over the more radical change.

 

Color Spray

Many players reported about it being still too powerful and I've just noticed something that should partially help reducing its effectiveness. It's AoE has two errors, it's the cone shaped area is almost the double of what it should be and the starting point can be 10 feet away from the caster instead of starting directly from the caster. To give you a general idea it shouldn't be much bigger than SR's Burning Hands AoE. What do you think?

 

Luck

Is it too weak? If yes, would it be better to allow it to last longer ot to grant "more luck"?

 

Mantle, Improved Mantle & Absolute Immunity

I left them untouched in V2.9 but we previously discussed about raising thier duration to 5-6 rounds to make them slightly more appealing compared to PfMW. I'd say 5 rounds for mantles because even a single round is quite much imo considering these spells protects from +3 and +4 weapons respectively with SR (instead of vanilla's +2/+3) and very few opponents have +4 or +5 enchanted attacks. Absolute immunity is a 9th level spell and a further round may be the only way to make it more appealing than Improved Mantle.

 

I'm not too sure about it right now, as the problem imo is not that these spells are weak, but rather that PfMW is too powerful. Anyway, I never used them and except the last few year I've played BG a lot, thus if you think the improvement is needed let's try it. I won't "vote" on this matter, it's entirely up to you.

[Shaitan]

Color Spray

Many players reported about it being still too powerful and I've just noticed something that should partially help reducing its effectiveness. It's AoE has two errors, it's the cone shaped area is almost the double of what it should be and the starting point can be 10 feet away from the caster instead of starting directly from the caster. To give you a general idea it shouldn't be much bigger than SR's Burning Hands AoE. What do you think?

 

Let's give it a gogo

 

Mantle, Improved Mantle & Absolute Immunity

I left them untouched in V2.9 but we previously discussed about raising thier duration to 5-6 rounds to make them slightly more appealing compared to PfMW. I'd say 5 rounds for mantles because even a single round is quite much imo considering these spells protects from +3 and +4 weapons respectively with SR (instead of vanilla's +2/+3) and very few opponents have +4 or +5 enchanted attacks. Absolute immunity is a 9th level spell and a further round may be the only way to make it more appealing than Improved Mantle.

 

I'm not too sure about it right now, as the problem imo is not that these spells are weak, but rather that PfMW is too powerful. Anyway, I never used them and except the last few year I've played BG a lot, thus if you think the improvement is needed let's try it. I won't "vote" on this matter, it's entirely up to you.

 

Give it a shot

[Aranthys]

Draw Upon Holy Might

Okay it seems the reduced duration is generally preferred over the more radical change.

If you do this, please consider reducing it's cast time to 1. (I know it's 2 atm, but if it doesn't last long, it should have a 1 cast time to make sure a cleric can cast it while fighting without beeing interrupted.

 

LuckIs it too weak? If yes, would it be better to allow it to last longer ot to grant "more luck"?

How about making it last 1turn/level ? It's not like it would be imbalanced (Strength lasts 1turn/level, and it provides a much higher benefit than luck while fighting)

[Icendoan]

Um, no, luck really is awesome: iirc, aVENGER_(RR) posted a thread on it somewhere, and it did something like give you +1 thac0, +1 Damage, +1 to all saving throws, and -1 on all of those to enemies attack or casting spells on you, per point of luck, as well as reducing effect damage rolls (such as spells, or weapons elemental damage, for EACH POINT OF LUCK) iirc. A little more formidable than first imagined.

 

I'll see if I can dig it up.

 

EDIT: Got it!

 

Icen

[DarkWon]

Color Spray

Many players reported about it being still too powerful and I've just noticed something that should partially help reducing its effectiveness. It's AoE has two errors, it's the cone shaped area is almost the double of what it should be and the starting point can be 10 feet away from the caster instead of starting directly from the caster. To give you a general idea it shouldn't be much bigger than SR's Burning Hands AoE. What do you think?

 

Luck

Is it too weak? If yes, would it be better to allow it to last longer ot to grant "more luck"?

 

Mantle, Improved Mantle & Absolute Immunity

I left them untouched in V2.9 but we previously discussed about raising thier duration to 5-6 rounds to make them slightly more appealing compared to PfMW. I'd say 5 rounds for mantles because even a single round is quite much imo considering these spells protects from +3 and +4 weapons respectively with SR (instead of vanilla's +2/+3) and very few opponents have +4 or +5 enchanted attacks. Absolute immunity is a 9th level spell and a further round may be the only way to make it more appealing than Improved Mantle.

 

Ha! I knew those cheating enemy mages were knocking my whole party out too easy! Nah its not that bad, only resulted in my death once.

 

As for PfMW and Mantles, yeah maybe reduce PfMW down to 3 and increase the others up to 5 rounds. The trouble with changing PfMW in any way but duration is that all SCS and Tactics mages abuse it beautifully, so nerf it and they all become super weak

[Kalindor]

As for PfMW and Mantles, yeah maybe reduce PfMW down to 3 and increase the others up to 5 rounds. The trouble with changing PfMW in any way but duration is that all SCS and Tactics mages abuse it beautifully, so nerf it and they all become super weak

I haven't played with SCS yet, but I am all for reducing the duration of PFMW to 3 rounds. I personally never use Absolute Immunity as it is only marginally better than Improved Mantle. Increasing the duration of Absolute Immunity to 6 or even 5 rounds would definitely make it more worthy of a level 9 slot. Really, if the mages in another mod are abusing an "overpowered" spell as their means of survival, then that shouldn't really come into consideration when planning a technical mod whose vision is to make all the spells interesting and viable. (As I see it, anyway.)

[DarkWon]

Really, if the mages in another mod are abusing an "overpowered" spell as their means of survival, then that shouldn't really come into consideration when planning a technical mod whose vision is to make all the spells interesting and viable. (As I see it, anyway.)

 

Yeah thats what I thought too until I tried out a spell mod that made PfMW only protect against +2 or less weapons The game's just not as much fun when liches die within 20 seconds. Irenicus didn't fare much better. Although its been a while since I played without Tactics I think vanilla mages use it a fair bit too?

[Kalindor]

Yeah thats what I thought too until I tried out a spell mod that made PfMW only protect against +2 or less weapons The game's just not as much fun when liches die within 20 seconds. Irenicus didn't fare much better. Although its been a while since I played without Tactics I think vanilla mages use it a fair bit too?

 

They do. However, a large part of the role of a mage is hiding behind fighters slinging spells. I think that most of the overpowered reputation that spellcasters have acquired relative to fighters stems from the fact that they can sit and laugh at fighter characters' attacks with their protective buffs as they immolate them. Maybe all of the arcane protective enchantments vs. physical attacks should be nerfed to some degree while leaving their protections vs. magic alone. That would make the sorcerer more vulnerable to fighters and more effective at shielding themselves against magic instead of just fit to take down any character at any time. Anyhow, I'm just philosophizing and that is probably out of the realm of this particular mod.

[Salk]

Mislead

For that screenie, count the number of bard songs, as well as having 25STR, and all those buffs with a max damage x7 backstab.

 

There are about 6 odd Bards, cause of Mislead.

Oh, that reminded me to prevent misleaded clones from being able to use bard songs. Done!

 

Speaking of Arcane Spells there are few spells that may be slightly changed...

Draw Upon Holy Might

Okay it seems the reduced duration is generally preferred over the more radical change.

 

Color Spray

Many players reported about it being still too powerful and I've just noticed something that should partially help reducing its effectiveness. It's AoE has two errors, it's the cone shaped area is almost the double of what it should be and the starting point can be 10 feet away from the caster instead of starting directly from the caster. To give you a general idea it shouldn't be much bigger than SR's Burning Hands AoE. What do you think?

 

I think that correcting those two bugs will be enough to make it perfect.

 

Luck

Is it too weak? If yes, would it be better to allow it to last longer ot to grant "more luck"?

 

Yes, I was going to mention just this spell (suggesting to improve it) when you proposed to change DUHM to boost luck.

 

Mantle, Improved Mantle & Absolute Immunity

I left them untouched in V2.9 but we previously discussed about raising thier duration to 5-6 rounds to make them slightly more appealing compared to PfMW. I'd say 5 rounds for mantles because even a single round is quite much imo considering these spells protects from +3 and +4 weapons respectively with SR (instead of vanilla's +2/+3) and very few opponents have +4 or +5 enchanted attacks. Absolute immunity is a 9th level spell and a further round may be the only way to make it more appealing than Improved Mantle.

 

I'm not too sure about it right now, as the problem imo is not that these spells are weak, but rather that PfMW is too powerful. Anyway, I never used them and except the last few year I've played BG a lot, thus if you think the improvement is needed let's try it. I won't "vote" on this matter, it's entirely up to you.

 

I am not sure about this myself.

[Icendoan]

How about if the spell Luck lasts longer and has a higher luck (say, 3)?

 

Icen

[Demivrgvs]

Draw Upon Holy Might

Okay it seems the reduced duration is generally preferred over the more radical change.

If you do this, please consider reducing it's cast time to 1. (I know it's 2 atm, but if it doesn't last long, it should have a 1 cast time to make sure a cleric can cast it while fighting without beeing interrupted.

 

Luck

How about making it last 1turn/level ? It's not like it would be imbalanced (Strength lasts 1turn/level, and it provides a much higher benefit than luck while fighting)

Actually Strength grants "only" +1/+2 to attack rolls and +1/+3 to damage rolls depending on the character starting STR value, and that's why it deserves such a long duration.

 

Um, no, luck really is awesome: iirc, aVENGER_(RR) posted a thread on it somewhere, and it did something like give you +1 thac0, +1 Damage, +1 to all saving throws, and -1 on all of those to enemies attack or casting spells on you, per point of luck, as well as reducing effect damage rolls (such as spells, or weapons elemental damage, for EACH POINT OF LUCK) iirc. A little more formidable than first imagined.

 

I'll see if I can dig it up.

 

EDIT: Got it!

I forgot about it myself, I should probably find a way to mention it in the description of the spell so that any player can fully understand the effectiveness of the spell.

 

How about if the spell Luck lasts longer and has a higher luck (say, 3)?

Both is too much, especially considering what has been just said, and I've already increased its duration from vanilla's 3 rounds to 10. I'd say it should either last longer (e.g. 5 turns) or keep the short duration (10 rounds) and get a further point or two of luck. The current 5% isn't very appealing considering the short duration, but even 10% may start to be really interesting imo (+2 to minimum hit and damage rolls, +2 to all saves, +10% to each thieving skill, and -2 damage from damage dealing spells). Surely not more than 15%, and we should probably make it scalable in that case (e.g. 5% at 3rd level, 10% at 6th and 15% at 9th), because +10-15% at 3rd level is too much imo.

 

PfMW & Mantles

Really, if the mages in another mod are abusing an "overpowered" spell as their means of survival, then that shouldn't really come into consideration when planning a technical mod whose vision is to make all the spells interesting and viable. (As I see it, anyway.)

Yeah thats what I thought too until I tried out a spell mod that made PfMW only protect against +2 or less weapons The game's just not as much fun when liches die within 20 seconds. Irenicus didn't fare much better.

I agree with DarkWon, and SR is inteded to be used along with SCS thus I'm not going to clash with it.

 

My real complain is that PfMW can be exploited to achieve complete immunity (e.g. liches and creatures naturally immune to normal weapons) and that unfortunately the AI usually don't bring a secondary non-enchanted weapon to bypass PfMW when used by the player.