Minor ongoing critique

[Demivrgvs]

you have to keep in mind that not everyone that uses Spell Revisions is going to be using SCS/SCSII or other tactical mods or the maximum hit-points tweak for enemies. He can't base his changes around that assumption.

Indeed, though I also tested SR with such tweak and most damaging spells seemed to have balanced damage output.

 

 

The reason Death Knights don't play by the rules as regards to max fireball damage is: the spell you're refering to isn't a regular fireball. It is the approximation of a unique ability they receive called Abyssal Blast. Only half of it is fire (max of 10d6, as a regular fireball), the rest (the other 10d6) is divine energy granted to them by whatever malevolent deity resurrected them as Undead. They should only be able to use the ability once per day, though.

Yep, as Andrew says DK's fireballs are not the 3rd lvl Fireball used by mages. If you notice these powerful undead demons have spell-like abilities which simulate 7th+ lvl spells, thus you should compare this spell more to the 7th lvl Delayed Blast Fireball (which SR improves from 15d6 to 20d6) rather than the 3rd lvl Fireball.

 

 

I'd like some kind of option to extend the spells further myself, because I'm quite fond of playing solo. But Demi has pretty much said it will never happen within Spell Revisions. So I'm content to just work out a combination with Spell-50, and tinker with SR spells and extend the ones I can myself, manually.

By "further extend" do you mean over 20th lvl? If so yes I'm really against it for various reasons just like I'm really against "un-nerfed" tables in general (e.g. fighters getting thac0 better than 0 ends up seriously screwing the balance because AC doesn't and cannot increase in a similar pattern).

 

What I do find strange though is that archmages can only cast so few low level spells. I don't want Fireball to suddenly rival Horrid Wilting in terms of raw damage (it's what you're suggesting), but it should instead be a cheap spell for an archmage (translated: more low level slots wouldn't be so bad imo), while the current system actually have archmages cast more or less the same number of spells indipendently by their power level.

 

 

A few more observations:- a long while back I suggested that since the gate spell allows one to summon a pit-fiend, that chaotic evil-aligned characters could instead summon a Balor with a neutral-evil-aligned character having a 50% chance each of summoning either a Balor or a pit-fiend(or perhaps a neutral-evil-aligned AD&D Ultroloth?). I think I was told at the time that a Balor was too powerful, yet a Balor, in AD&D hierarchical etc. terms, is equal in power to a pit-fiend. When I suggested that a marilith could be summoned instead as it's only 2nd in rank to a Balor, that was also dismissed as being too powerful for a 9th level spell. I was somewhat surprised, to say the least, then, when I saw the gate-summoned pit-fiend in the latest 3rd version of spell revisions, with hugely powerful abilities(150hp of damage via poison etc. etc.!). Any chance therefore of changing your mind re the above issue re incorrectly aligned PCs summoning a lawful-evil-aligned pit-fiend? It's just that I recently saw that my cacofiend spell has been altered by a mod so that it is now possible to summon a powerful nabassu instead of a glabrezu if one is chaotic-evil-aligned, with neutral-evil-aligned PCs getting a 50% chance of summoning either. Can't recall whether that was a spell-rev-altered spell or if some other mod was responsible.

SCS does that if you have it installed, and I was actually going to do that too. As you says Balors are the "equivalent" of Pit Fiend (though the former is slightly more powerful imo) thus if I ever said something like "Balor is too powerful" I was drunk. Mariliths on the other hand are a little tricky, as they are too powerful compared to Glabrezus, and not as powerful as Pit Fiends (though their melee prowness rapes). I probably said they were "too powerful for a 8th level spell" not for for a 9th lvl one.

 

Also, I think that grease, stinking cloud and similiar area-effect, delaying spells should have the same minor -2 to saving-throws penalty as the web spell does. It seems fair. Otherwise, high-level NPCs simply don't get affected by such spells, making them not worth casting, later on in the game.

Actually there's a recent discussion where SR players asked me to slightly nerf Grease and I think almost all SR veterans agree on Web already being hugely effective, and many consider it overpowered (multiple Web spells is indeed OP imo).

 

 

The other thing I cannot understand is the protection from magic weapons spell puzzle. In the past, that spell was a 6th level one lasting 1 round per level, making the higher level spells protecting against +2/+3/+4/+5 weapons(improved mantle etc.) totally pointless. Now that some mod has changed the protection from magical weapons spell to last only 4 rounds, the other higher level spells like absolute immunity are still completely useless(at least I think the protection from magical weapons spell still protects against all magical weapons?). I would prefer it if the improved mantle and higher spells simply were replaced by different, more unusual spells instead.

Just so you know: vanilla's PfMW lasts 4 rounds, it never lasted more than that.

 

SR's (and to a lesser extent SCS) improves the Mantle serie (they both protect from a higher enchantment lvl compared to vanilla's spells and they both grant a huge bonus to saves and AC) and Absolute Immunity (which now protects from +6 weapons too and lasts a bit longer), while it slightly nerfs PfMW (from 4 to 3 rounds).

 

 

*Another suggestion. A different(?) mod added the blackmantle spell to my installation. This 6th level AD&D spell allows the caster to be enveloped in a black-coloured globe and any creature that hits it and fails their save gets covered by the black sphere and then fails to regenerate during the spell's duration. In AD&D I'm pretty sure the spell lasted 1 round per level, but this version of blackmantle only allows a duration of 1 round for every 4 levels, which makes it too weak. Any chance of including a better version of that spell?

6th lvl slots already reached the spell limit cap, and the only "expendable" spell imo is Wyvern Call, which I already planned to replace with an illusion-based summoning spell, Shades.

[Duckfeet]

Wait, if you want your spells allocation to last a whole dungeon on solo can't you just slide the difficulty all the way down? Why need to change the numbers in the spells?

[Strontium Dog]

Wait, if you want your spells allocation to last a whole dungeon on solo can't you just slide the difficulty all the way down? Why need to change the numbers in the spells?

I like the enemy to have a very good chance of killing my party-members. That's why.(using insane difficulty is just too unrealistic as physical hits in TOB pretty much all become positively life-threatening).

 

I consider resting in the middle of a particular major quest to be cheating if the party is constantly in the same area - and constant resting in the same area is always required if a mage's spells cause so little damage or negative effect, especially with the vastly improved SCS AI of opponents. Having my high-level mages able to cast spells with damage linked to their levels is anyway counter-balanced by plenty of powerful spell50-enhanced enemy mages/liches, requiring me to use protection spells against them etc.

 

As for lasting a whole dungeon on solo comment, I meant for a whole party to last a dungeon together. I find that even with my 6 party-members being either fighter/mage/clerics or fighter/mage/thieves(triple-xp-given to make them the same as single-classed characters re level) they can easily run out of spells by the end of a major quest.

 

 

In previous times, when playing the vanilla game, it was hopeless. Fireball became utterly useless in the TOB portion of the game, requiring me to launch 3 or 4 fireballs to wipe out most enemies(I always used max hit-points once that option appeared in BG2Tweaks). Druids were a total waste of space, due to few(very nerfed) spells and were extremely difficult to keep alive even in vanilla BG2. Fighters were far too powerful and I wish they could be nerfed much more given greater whirlwind-type attacks at high enough level etc. Plus, fighters got too powerful weapons like Carsomyr etc. Fortunately, the item revisions mod has made some changes re this.

 

Also, the full-plate mod has nerfed that ridiculous 2nd edition notion of having dexterity benefits even after wearing heavy armour.PLus, I now have installed the wonderful option of excluding 75% of all potions in BG1 and 100% of all the potions carried by opponents in BG2, which makes the game more balanced.

[Strontium Dog]

Indeed, though I also tested SR with such tweak and most damaging spells seemed to have balanced damage output.

 

I reckon most people who play BG2 are hardened veterans given the longevity of the game, and will be playing BWP megamods mostly, and the SCS AIs are a major aspect of BWP. Most would install it.

 

 

Yep, as Andrew says DK's fireballs are not the 3rd lvl Fireball used by mages. If you notice these powerful undead demons have spell-like abilities which simulate 7th+ lvl spells, thus you should compare this spell more to the 7th lvl Delayed Blast Fireball (which SR improves from 15d6 to 20d6) rather than the 3rd lvl Fireball.

Yes, thanks for making the delayed blast fireball spell more useful as a sort of "trap".

 

 

By "further extend" do you mean over 20th lvl? If so yes I'm really against it for various reasons just like I'm really against "un-nerfed" tables in general (e.g. fighters getting thac0 better than 0 ends up seriously screwing the balance because AC doesn't and cannot increase in a similar pattern).

I agree re fighters being far too powerful. My aim with extending spell-damage for mages in line with their levels is to counter the otherwise near-total dominance of the fighters. Only prepared mages have a chance, IMO. And constant use of spell-sequencers for every fight etc. means constant resting/cheating.

 

 

 

What I do find strange though is that archmages can only cast so few low level spells. I don't want Fireball to suddenly rival Horrid Wilting in terms of raw damage (it's what you're suggesting), but it should instead be a cheap spell for an archmage (translated: more low level slots wouldn't be so bad imo), while the current system actually have archmages cast more or less the same number of spells indipendently by their power level.

Casting many more low-level spells but keeping the damage nerfed would not help with games that have a superior AI added in; those AIs get your opponents to constantly drink potions when hurt, which means only high levels of damage can be really effective against them. And I just think that an archmage casting magic missile should be more effective than a 9th level mage casting magic missile, etc.

 

SCS does that if you have it installed, and I was actually going to do that too. As you says Balors are the "equivalent" of Pit Fiend (though the former is slightly more powerful imo) thus if I ever said something like "Balor is too powerful" I was drunk. Mariliths on the other hand are a little tricky, as they are too powerful compared to Glabrezus, and not as powerful as Pit Fiends (though their melee prowness rapes). I probably said they were "too powerful for a 8th level spell" not for for a 9th lvl one.

 

Well, if you're planning some sort of change re variety of summoned monsters that's great. How about a different druidic shapeshift into a shambling mound form, for example?

 

Actually there's a recent discussion where SR players asked me to slightly nerf Grease and I think almost all SR veterans agree on Web already being hugely effective, and many consider it overpowered (multiple Web spells is indeed OP imo).

 

In most BG2 games I've played, the web spell, even with a -2 to saving-throws only halted a few opponents. I would always need 2 web-spells to be sure of blocking all opponents in the webs.

 

 

Just so you know: vanilla's PfMW lasts 4 rounds, it never lasted more than that.

I could swear that in past games, years ago, the protection frommagical weapons lasted 1 round/level. Maybe I got it mixed up with the PFNW spell.

[Duckfeet]

BG2 is a combat-focused CRPG. You just can't expect it to make sense in terms of one rest per mission, the encounters are much more intense and numerous than for a PnP. In other words, the balance is broken because you broke it yourself with your weird nonstandard playstyle.

 

I mean, I could go like "dual wielding rule is broken, it should not give you 2 attacks since it doesn't work like that in real life, so I won't dual wield" then I'll go complaining that I can't get enough damage output out of my fighters and rangers suddenly suck. No, I don't get to do that, because it's my own weird playing style that put me in that position.

[Strontium Dog]

BG2 is a combat-focused CRPG. You just can't expect it to make sense in terms of one rest per mission, the encounters are much more intense and numerous than for a PnP. In other words, the balance is broken because you broke it yourself with your weird nonstandard playstyle.

 

I mean, I could go like "dual wielding rule is broken, it should not give you 2 attacks since it doesn't work like that in real life, so I won't dual wield" then I'll go complaining that I can't get enough damage output out of my fighters and rangers suddenly suck. No, I don't get to do that, because it's my own weird playing style that put me in that position.

 

The dual-wielding fix is quite realistic in a way.as it technically doesn't give 2 attacks, but 2 chances of hits as such. In other words, in the real world, having a standard long sword and a dagger in the other hand might not give you 2 hits at once, but would give you a greater chance of landing a hit in a critical part of an opponent's body etc., thus likely causing more damage per minute/round.

 

Doing just 1 rest per major mission is far more realistic in terms of gameplay, anyway. Besides, the frequent appearance of random monsters during resting in unsafe areas(ie dungeons etc.) makes it clear that the game frowns on resting when in the middle of a quest and makes you pay for it. That is, of course, because the game is heavily skewed towards favouring fighters. Mages have to rest all the time once their meagre spell-count is exhausted whereas fighters can go on and on(especially with the ludicrously vast amounts of potions that dead enemies had in vanilla BG2). My aim is simply to make mages on a par with fighters re defeating opponents.

 

If people go away to rest constantly(ie cheat), then I would suggest, for the sake of realism, that more monsters start appearing in the relevant area just visited by the party, to signify calls for reinforcement.

[Duckfeet]

SR is concerned with internal balance within the spell system ("every spell is useful"), not about changing the overall game to support rest-once-per-day requirements. Whether or not that playstyle is more realistic is irrelevant. That it should be a totally separate mod, is the point.

[Strontium Dog]

Well, we can argue about this all day. What is without doubt is that our mages are completely useless in combat unless they rest, frequently on a continuous basis, many times throughout every major quest. The fact that the game , via regular random monsters appearances, expects us NOT to rest all the time, mid-quest, is telling.