Spell Immunity

[Drelnza]

It's unrealistic to suppose that a real adventuring party wouldn't make extensive use of buffing magic. Their lives are on the line, after all. In real life, you don't get to reload.

I completely agree. A real party makes extensive use of a scout, when the scout surprises an enemy it enables the party to buff up and take them on on much better terms. In BG2 the scout has this opportunity a lot of the time, so the party should be buffed up more than the enemy a lot of the time. Thats why the "teleports only are buffed" option i mentioned above sounds ideal.

I think it is unrealistic to assume the party only ever go anywhere in a fully buffed state, similarly I think it is unrealistic to assume the enemy will always be buffed up. I would be strongly against the later option, it would spoil my game, so thanks again for making this modular.

I know if I was DM and a party tried to only travel anywhere fully buffed, they would have some very nasty encounters when their buffs ran out!

[DavidW]

One of the suggestions I've had for the next version, which I might well implement, is to make the area effect apply only to single-spell antimagic, i.e. not KWW and Spellstrike.

 

I have not played through SCSII yet so cannot give you my feedback on the balance of "antimagic attacks bypass improved invisiblity". But I would just like to say that I like the idea of all antimagic attacks being handled the same way from a role playing point of view. I do not like the idea of RRoR being AoE and SS not being AoE, to be it just feels right to have them all act the same. I can imagine antimagic attacks target the protective sphere around the target, therefore bypass the II. I cannot imagine RRoR being able to do this and SS not, for example. Just my two cents!

 

As always, I'll make this optional in any case.

[phordicus]

talk of realism regarding scouting/prebuffing/whatever is ridiculous.

 

first, with neglible exceptions, every enemy in the game has no problem using every spell, potion, and item available for their one encounter with the PC. a stark contrast to the PC who may have to fight several battles before supplies and spells can be replenished, or who finds it unrealistic to take 8-hour naps separated only by 1-hour fights or variable travel.

 

second, again with almost no exceptions, the enemies fight to the death every single time, sometimes in circumstances that are absolutely ridiculous, so much so that the battle should never have been initiated in the first place.

 

finally, "teleporting" and ambushes are about as unrealistic a circumstance as the game has. if this needs elaboration i'll do so but i hope it's self-evident.

 

please, let's leave intelligence and realism out as justifications for anything we're doing here. i think we just want good, smart fights where the AI doesn't cheat.

 

this probably came off as hostile but that's not my intent .

[DavidW]

talk of realism regarding scouting/prebuffing/whatever is ridiculous.

 

first, with neglible exceptions, every enemy in the game has no problem using every spell, potion, and item available for their one encounter with the PC.

 

Actually, I think that's totally realistic. Two factors:

 

(i) With negligible exceptions, anybody fighting the PC party knows they're in for an incredibly difficult fight. Even if they don't know who they're fighting, they know it's a well-equipped party of adventurers, and adventuring parties are usually lethal opponents. Add in the fact that the enemies can't reload if it's going badly - if they get this wrong, they're dead - and it makes sense for them to pull out the stops. For the enemy, every fight is the equivalent of the final battle against Irenicus on a No-Reloads run.

 

(ii) Again with negligible exceptions, enemies don't have to have multiple fights per day, so they don't need to save their spells.

 

second, again with almost no exceptions, the enemies fight to the death every single time, sometimes in circumstances that are absolutely ridiculous,

It isn't possible to do anything about that (not without ridiculous amounts of work) - it's quite difficult to code effectively, but more importantly, it would break large bits of the existing game.

 

so much so that the battle should never have been initiated in the first place.

Blame the vanilla game (though I can't think of many concrete examples, myself).

 

finally, "teleporting" and ambushes are about as unrealistic a circumstance as the game has. if this needs elaboration i'll do so but i hope it's self-evident.

It isn't.

 

please, let's leave intelligence and realism out as justifications for anything we're doing here. i think we just want good, smart fights where the AI doesn't cheat.

That might be what you want, but it's not the design goal of SCS.

 

Also, I wonder if it is what you want. At the moment, SCS restricts the intelligence of certain creatures (notably Golems and Skeletons) because it's not realistic for them to act with cunning strategy. Are you saying you think that's mistaken.

 

this probably came off as hostile but that's not my intent .

 

No, it's fine.

[Ardanis]

And I keep insisting that there should be option 3 - when they will always prebuff, but not in full strength. Say, only 30%-50% of the 'ambush' amount.

Not a chance, sorry. Way too much work.

Please do excuse my ignorance, but how much work can it be? As far as I can tell it involves editing (mostly via copypaste) few .ssl files 5kb large.

[DavidW]

And I keep insisting that there should be option 3 - when they will always prebuff, but not in full strength. Say, only 30%-50% of the 'ambush' amount.

Not a chance, sorry. Way too much work.

Please do excuse my ignorance, but how much work can it be? As far as I can tell it involves editing (mostly via copypaste) few .ssl files 5kb large.

 

It's more about the logic of redesigning what will be used, and then testing it for effectiveness, and less about the implementation. And it's also about the code I use to select mage spells in the first place, which makes certain assumptions about the amount of buffing magic to use. And it affects what contingencies and triggers should be used.