PfMW, Mantles & Absolute Immunity

[Demivrgvs]

I think I'm finally getting something out of this flaming debate. I've separated it from the main V3 discussion as it was becoming impossible to follow it in that immense topic.

 

I suppose the difference between me and DavidW can be summarized as:

 

- SCS is only interested to gameplay/challenge (which is not bad per se ) and DavidW does consider fine if a 6th level spell allows absolute immunity to weapons;

 

- within SR philosophy instead, it is just intolerable that a spell can be exploited so much, and that its higher level versions are actually inferior to it.

 

 

What I'm about to say may sound strange, but compared to the current situation I would even prefer PfMW to directly grant absolute immunity to weapons. Why? Because at least it would be consistent, and not exploitable by a selected number of creatures/players. If DavidW thinks 6th level is enough for a spell such as this, fine with me, I don't completely agree, but I can live with that because Breach can get rid of it anyway, and he did come with some convincing arguments (*). Furthermore, the way things are now, PfMW already works like that pratically in any difficult fight (rakshasas, liches, vampires), and players can use it like that because the AI just can't handle it (AI creatures don't switch to normal weapons, and most of them wouldn't be able anyway not having a secondary non magical attack).

 

 

(*) DavidW <<Furthemore, 6th level feels like about the right place for that spell to be. It's expensive at that level (it's competing with Death Spell and Truesight, both of which are essential for mages too) but it's cheap enough that liches and archmages can carry enough to have some staying power, while still keeping their attack spells topped up. And crucially, it fits into Contingency and Spell Trigger. A 25th level wizard, for instance, has 5 6th level spells slots, so he can carry PMWx3, Death, and Truesight. He only has 3 9th level slots; if I followed Jarno's suggestion and made PMW 9th level, I'd basically end up filling all those slots with PMW, at a cost to challenge and also to interest.>>

 

<< I've spent a great deal of time trying to write mage AI, for all levels, and I have very systematically found that once the party gets to around 15th level, it is simply impossible for a mage to survive concerted attack by the party for more than a few seconds without complete immunity to their magical weapons. Stoneskin, low AC, Fire Shield, and the like are no more than speed bumps. So if mages are going to be a remotely effective challenge, they need some spell which completely protects them.>>

 

 

Thus, that being said, if I'm not wrong the only thing we can/should do is making Mantle, Improved Mantle and Absolute Immunity more appealing, but always keeping in mind how the AI would handle them being it unable to detect the changes.

 

DavidW suggested to simply raise their duration (to 6, 7 and 8 rounds respectively), but I do fear it. Having Absolute Immunity last more 5-6 rounds may actually prove to become a real pain imo, whereas it may not be a problem for Mantles (after all you already have to deal with similar immunities when facing golems and demiliches).

 

Others suggested to make Mantles as per PnP Alustriel's Mantles, which are a sort of BG Mantle + Globe of Invulnerability.

 

If we keep it short lasting Absolute Immunity may be tweaked to grant absolute immunity to any form of damage, turning it into a sort of PfMW + Protection from Energy.

 

 

I do hope this discussion can bring us to a solution that will feel balalanced, fair, and not exploitable.

[Aranthys]

Well let's list the current spells and how I would modify them

PFMW : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 3 rounds

Mantle : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 4 rounds.

Improved Mantle : Grants Immunity to all weapons / Immunity against spells level 4 or lower. Lasts 5 rounds

Absolute Immunity : Grants Immunity to all weapons / All spells level 4 or lower / All damage type. Lasts 5 rounds

 

Detectable Spells should provide enemies with a way to know that your character is immune to spells lvl 4 or lower.

It should also provide a way for them to know that your character is immune to fire / cold & so on.

 

I'm pretty sure that mage enemies are already checking if an enemy has a Globe of Invulnerability on (means protection from spells lvl 4 or lower), these effects should be allright for the base SCS AI to handle (can you confirm, DavidW ?)

 

I would also have included an "Immunity to spells level 8 or lower" in Absolute immunity, but I don't know if detectable spells handles that... and i'm pretty sure SCS AI does not.

How big would be the patching for SCS AI to handle such a change ?

[Shaitan]

Well let's list the current spells and how I would modify them

PFMW : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 3 rounds

Mantle : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 4 rounds.

Improved Mantle : Grants Immunity to all weapons / Immunity against spells level 4 or lower. Lasts 5 rounds

Absolute Immunity : Grants Immunity to all weapons / All spells level 4 or lower / All damage type. Lasts 5 rounds

 

I like this if it isn't too short time with 3 rounds. Some with better gaming experience might tell me it is enough and that 4 rounds for PfMW is more than enough for mages to survive the meeting with PC better. Besides that I like the proposed changes by Aranthys. In short I'd make it 4 rounds for PfMW, 5 Rounds for the others.

 

Detectable Spells should provide enemies with a way to know that your character is immune to spells lvl 4 or lower.

It should also provide a way for them to know that your character is immune to fire / cold & so on.

I'd would be cool yeah, could SR contain such an update for DS?

[Aranthys]

Well let's list the current spells and how I would modify them

PFMW : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 3 rounds

Mantle : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 4 rounds.

Improved Mantle : Grants Immunity to all weapons / Immunity against spells level 4 or lower. Lasts 5 rounds

Absolute Immunity : Grants Immunity to all weapons / All spells level 4 or lower / All damage type. Lasts 5 rounds

 

I like this if it isn't too short time with 3 rounds. Some with better gaming experience might tell me it is enough and that 4 rounds for PfMW is more than enough for mages to survive the meeting with PC better. Besides that I like the proposed changes by Aranthys. In short I'd make it 4 rounds for PfMW, 5 Rounds for the others.

 

Detectable Spells should provide enemies with a way to know that your character is immune to spells lvl 4 or lower.

It should also provide a way for them to know that your character is immune to fire / cold & so on.

I'd would be cool yeah, could SR contain such an update for DS?

DS can't have new effects added.

It's impossible to detect GoI at the moment with DS ?

[Jarno Mikkola]

I think I'm finally getting something out of this flaming debate. I've separated it from the main V3 discussion as it was becoming impossible to follow it in that immense topic.

 

I suppose the difference between me and DavidW can be summarized as:

- SCS is only interested to gameplay/challenge (which is not bad per se ) and DavidW does consider fine if a 6th level spell allows absolute immunity to weapons;

- within SR philosophy instead, it is just intolerable that a spell can be exploited so much, and that its higher level versions are actually inferior to it.

Yeah...

A little appropriate cross referencing, if you allow a bit.

(i) you might think "it's not fair that Mantle etc are less powerful than PMW despite being higher level", while thinking that PMW is not itself unfair. I have time for that objection, but the solution is to improve the higher-level spells.

 

(ii) you might think "it's not fair that PfMW is so powerful, because it makes mages too powerful". That's perfectly reasonable: I guess it's a matter of taste. If you would like mages to become very significantly less powerful, you could tone down PfMW. I don't want that, so I won't be supporting it in SCS2.

 

...

This misses the fact that this system is a team framework. In modern warfare there's no chance for a tank to destroy a fighter aircraft. It doesn't follow that fighter aircraft are automatically better than tanks.

(i) Is it? Or you just don't have the capability to adjust to it. Like say the spell choices as you yourself said that you can't have the Lich be totally immune and be able to cast other high level spells if the PfMW is 9th level spell. Well does the Lich have to be immune with level 6th spell?

(ii) PfMW is too powerful for it's level, not as a single spell on it's own, and that's the problem.

 

And a tank can destroy a fighter aircraft, when it's on the ground! This also relates to the immunity and modern warfare, as one nation can take everything it's thrown against, if it has the proper counters that exploit the opponents weaknesses... but in BG2, the player is usually low on the available good counters if one doesn't use exploits.

 

Well let's list the current spells and how I would modify them

PFMW : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 3 rounds

Mantle : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 4 rounds.

Improved Mantle : Grants Immunity to all weapons / Immunity against spells level 4 or lower. Lasts 5 rounds

Absolute Immunity : Grants Immunity to all weapons / All spells level 4 or lower / All damage type. Lasts 5 rounds

Yeah, and it takes 3+5+7+7 spells to bring all of them down and then kill him with the magical weapons. 22 spells to kill 1 Lich.+ the exchange.

 

Sorry, I didn't express that very clearly: I mean, have all of these four spells grant protection from all magic weapons (and, in the case of Absolute Immunity, normal weapons too) but have the duration scale.

Yeah, and I have no interest in making my caster cast 22 spells to just remove all of them.

[Aranthys]

Well let's list the current spells and how I would modify them

PFMW : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 3 rounds

Mantle : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 4 rounds.

Improved Mantle : Grants Immunity to all weapons / Immunity against spells level 4 or lower. Lasts 5 rounds

Absolute Immunity : Grants Immunity to all weapons / All spells level 4 or lower / All damage type. Lasts 5 rounds

Yeah, and it takes 3+5+7+7 spells to bring all of them down and then kill him with the magical weapons. 22 spells to kill 1 Lich.+ the exchange.

Allright.

Let's see, with the WORST CASE scenario what happens.

 

The lich is improved invisible.

Protected with spell reflection.

Protected with spell immunity : Divination

Protected with spell immunity : Abjuration

Protected with spell trap

 

To make sure you can breach it you have to use :

1 - any spell able to dispell the spell immunity + spell reflection + spell trap. Kelben's warding whip works wonders for that, as does pierce magic.

2 - dispell the invisibility (have a rogue detect illusions for example, it even lets you ignore spell immunity divination)

3 - breach

 

There. After breach, the lich is dead. If he recasts Pfmw, just breach it again. loldeadlich.

 

If you don't see why you need to cast multiple spells to breach your opponent defenses when he is using his own spells to protect himself against you, then i am sorry, but scs is not for you.

 

Your opponent does not have infinite spell memorization. Every defensive spell he memorizes is a lost damaging spell.

 

Sorry, I didn't express that very clearly: I mean, have all of these four spells grant protection from all magic weapons (and, in the case of Absolute Immunity, normal weapons too) but have the duration scale.

Yeah, and I have no interest in making my caster cast 22 spells to just remove all of them.

If your opponents memorizes 3 + 5 + 5 + 7 protection from magical weapons, that means he has absolutly NO level 6, 7, 8 and 9 damaging spell.

Boy, that is surely a deadly lich that's going to punch you to death

[Jarno Mikkola]

To make sure you can breach it you have to use :

1 - any spell able to dispell the spell immunity + spell reflection + spell trap. Kelben's warding whip works wonders for that, as does pierce magic.

2 - dispel the invisibility (have a rogue detect illusions for example, it even lets you ignore spell immunity divination)

3 - breach

 

There. After breach, the lich is dead. If he recasts Pfmw, just breach it again.

Yeah, after I re-use all the other spells first, cause the Lich had the spells in Contingency(launch after first hit), as it has a Contingency plan placed in.

 

Your opponent does not have infinite spell memorization. Every defensive spell he memorizes is a lost damaging spell.

Yes, but it doesn't really need many if it's immune to all of my efforts to kill him, after all he can surely just use fireballs for example cause I run out of protections before he does...

[Aranthys]

To make sure you can breach it you have to use :

1 - any spell able to dispell the spell immunity + spell reflection + spell trap. Kelben's warding whip works wonders for that, as does pierce magic.

2 - dispel the invisibility (have a rogue detect illusions for example, it even lets you ignore spell immunity divination)

3 - breach

 

There. After breach, the lich is dead. If he recasts Pfmw, just breach it again.

Yeah, after I re-use all the other spells first, cause the Lich had the spells in Contingency(launch after first hit), as it has a Contingency plan placed in.

 

Well then you can use spell triggers. You can use your own Contingencies & so on. Or simply use Kelben's warding whip, since it is dispelling 3 effects by itself.

[DavidW]

Detectable Spells should provide enemies with a way to know that your character is immune to spells lvl 4 or lower.

More precisely, it lets you detect Minor Globes (in fact, this is a vanilla feature: check STATE_MINORGLOBE). So provided you include the animation in the tweak, we're fine.

 

It should also provide a way for them to know that your character is immune to fire / cold & so on.

Yep: again, DS isn't even needed.

 

I'm pretty sure that mage enemies are already checking if an enemy has a Globe of Invulnerability on (means protection from spells lvl 4 or lower), these effects should be allright for the base SCS AI to handle (can you confirm, DavidW ?)

Yep.

 

I would also have included an "Immunity to spells level 8 or lower" in Absolute immunity, but I don't know if detectable spells handles that... and i'm pretty sure SCS AI does not.

How big would be the patching for SCS AI to handle such a change ?

DS can't detect "immunity to spells L8 and lower" directly. But it can detect Absolute Immunity itself (CheckStat(scstarget,3,WIZARD_PROTECTION_FROM_MAGIC_WEAPONS), so it's scriptable. Incorporating that into SCS is a lot harder, though, and probably won't happen. Also, I think it's a bit overdone, because it'll make you immune to all anti-magic attacks except Spellstrike.

 

 

 

Well let's list the current spells and how I would modify them

PFMW : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 3 rounds

Mantle : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 4 rounds.

Improved Mantle : Grants Immunity to all weapons / Immunity against spells level 4 or lower. Lasts 5 rounds

Absolute Immunity : Grants Immunity to all weapons / All spells level 4 or lower / All damage type. Lasts 5 rounds

 

I like this if it isn't too short time with 3 rounds. Some with better gaming experience might tell me it is enough and that 4 rounds for PfMW is more than enough for mages to survive the meeting with PC better. Besides that I like the proposed changes by Aranthys. In short I'd make it 4 rounds for PfMW, 5 Rounds for the others.

 

Well, there are two basic styles of mage combat. In style one, the limiting factor is how long till the spell runs out. If the duration is reduced, then on this style, the mage casts two attack spells per three rounds instead of three per four rounds, and gets two thirds as many attack spells off as before. This is a relevant, but I think not crippling, penalty. In style two, the limiting factor is how long till the spell gets breached, in which case duration isn't relevant.

 

Overall, I think it's unproblematic though I'm unsure if it's an improvement from the point of view of variety and tactical challenge - I'd want to try a few playtests.

 

(Incidentally, the duration has to continue being an integer multiple of 6 seconds, or you'll confuse the hell out of SCS. And changing it off 4 rounds will break Tactics, but we're probably past caring about that by now.)

 

 

 

(i) you might think "it's not fair that Mantle etc are less powerful than PMW despite being higher level", while thinking that PMW is not itself unfair. I have time for that objection, but the solution is to improve the higher-level spells.

 

(ii) you might think "it's not fair that PfMW is so powerful, because it makes mages too powerful". That's perfectly reasonable: I guess it's a matter of taste. If you would like mages to become very significantly less powerful, you could tone down PfMW. I don't want that, so I won't be supporting it in SCS2.

(i) Is it? Or you just don't have the capability to adjust to it.

 

Sure, it's entirely possible that I simply "don't have the capability" to work out good strategic ways to avoid using PMW, even though ways exist. But since I currently have a monopoly on SR-compatible AI mods, my capability is what's relevant here. If you're planning to write your own AI and have ways of getting around this problem, good luck to you.

 

Like say the spell choices as you yourself said that you can't have the Lich be totally immune and be able to cast other high level spells if the PfMW is 9th level spell. Well does the Lich have to be immune with level 6th spell?

I've already explained why I think level 6 is correct (Demi quotes me accurately) and I shan't repeat it.

 

 

BG2, the player is usually low on the available good counters if one doesn't use exploits.

Speak for yourself.

[Aranthys]

I would also have included an "Immunity to spells level 8 or lower" in Absolute immunity, but I don't know if detectable spells handles that... and i'm pretty sure SCS AI does not.

How big would be the patching for SCS AI to handle such a change ?

DS can't detect "immunity to spells L8 and lower" directly. But it can detect Absolute Immunity itself (CheckStat(scstarget,3,WIZARD_PROTECTION_FROM_MAGIC_WEAPONS), so it's scriptable. Incorporating that into SCS is a lot harder, though, and probably won't happen. Also, I think it's a bit overdone, because it'll make you immune to all anti-magic attacks except Spellstrike.

Well, the point is to have a spell that is as good as Timestop to memorize for mages at level 9.

Either you stop time, and have 3 rounds to do whatever you want, or you use absolute immunity, where you can do whatever you want unless your ennemy can spellstrike you.

[Aranthys]

By the way, I would gladly try to create some addons for SCSII to use with Spell Revisions installed, but i would need quite a lot of informations about the macros you use to create the AI.

 

I've taken a look at the source code, but it's very big, and I'm not totally sure where to start

[Guest amanasleep]

I think after all this discussion I am convinced that the problem is not that PfMW is too strong, but that Mantles are too weak. Since these spells are almost identical to PnP, it is a problem established by PnP, not BG2.

 

If the Mantles were not in the game, I do not think we would be discussing changing the level of PfMW.

 

Well let's list the current spells and how I would modify them

PFMW : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 3 rounds

Mantle : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 4 rounds.

Improved Mantle : Grants Immunity to all weapons / Immunity against spells level 4 or lower. Lasts 5 rounds

Absolute Immunity : Grants Immunity to all weapons / All spells level 4 or lower / All damage type. Lasts 5 rounds

 

I would retain PfMW vulnerability to normal weapons. Maybe this:

 

PFMW: Grants immunity to magic weapons only, lasts 3 rounds (4 rounds if playtesting reveals that 3 is too low)

Mantle: Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 4 rounds

Improved Mantle: Grants Immunity to all weapons / Immunity to spells level 4 or lower, lasts 5 rounds

Absolute Immunity: Grants immunity to all weapons / spells level 4 or lower / all damage types, 5 rounds

[Kalindor]

PFMW: Grants immunity to magic weapons only, lasts 3 rounds (4 rounds if playtesting reveals that 3 is too low)

Mantle: Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 4 rounds

Improved Mantle: Grants Immunity to all weapons / Immunity to spells level 4 or lower, lasts 5 rounds

Absolute Immunity: Grants immunity to all weapons / spells level 4 or lower / all damage types, 5 rounds

 

Personally I am against replicating the Globe of Invulnerability spell level immunities in the mantle series of spells as it rather steals their thunder, so to speak. I would rather they simply protect against physical attacks and damage types in an increasing manner. Immunity to Weapons, damage resistances, and perhaps a little bit of magic resistance would be more to my liking.

 

*Edit: Retaining the PfMW vulnerability to normal weapons is a good idea in my opinion.

[Ardanis]

Detectable Spells

PFMW : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 3 rounds

Mantle : Grants immunity to all weapons, lasts 4 rounds.

Improved Mantle : Grants Immunity to all weapons / Immunity against spells level 4 or lower. Lasts 5 rounds

Absolute Immunity : Grants Immunity to all weapons / All spells level 4 or lower / All damage type. Lasts 5 rounds

 

Detectable Spells should provide enemies with a way to know that your character is immune to spells lvl 4 or lower.

It should also provide a way for them to know that your character is immune to fire / cold & so on.

It is possible to update DS one way or another (expect it has exhausted all free slots available). But it won't automatically update AI. It will detect GoI-like effect and will think it's GoI, not Absolute Immunity. And will try to Pierce Magic it instead of Breach.

[Aranthys]

*Edit: Retaining the PfMW vulnerability to normal weapons is a good idea in my opinion.

Problem is, this is exploitable by a PC player by using normal melee weapons.

Something that the IA can't do.