vampire bat cloud problem

[Chosen]

I dont know if its a bug but many vampires at chapter 6 casting insect plague like spells so i assume it is bat cloud ability and should work like insect plague and used fire shield but it does nothing . Even more badly they seam to stack so my main character takes heavy damage . i installed nerf insect plague component is it just effect druid spell? help needed

[DavidW]

All this is intended behaviour, sorry. The nerf-insect-plague component is supposed to work on insects, not bats, and I don't see any particular reason why the bats shouldn't stack, given that there are more of them. I'm open to persuasion if people feel differently in either case (I'm probably more sympathetic to allowing insect-plague changes to affect bats than I am to removing stacking).

[Chosen]

Okey then, it will be good if spell change effect bats too because it is same as insect plague and overpowered. Stacking is no big deal if there is a way other than SI:conjuration to counter it. there is no reason fire shield cannot provide same protection against bats and i just find annoying enemies can still use non-fixed version of spell(even it is a special power) when i dont. thanks for reply. Any advice or local fix against bat cloud?

[DavidW]

Okey then, it will be good if spell change effect bats too because it is same as insect plague and overpowered.

 

I'm not sure I agree. The problem with insect plague (from an SCS point of view) is that it's basically impossible for solo NPC mages to counter it without a lot of hassle. That doesn't really apply in this case because the bat cloud is confined to enemy use.

 

Stacking is no big deal if there is a way other than SI:conjuration to counter it. there is no reason fire shield cannot provide same protection against bats and i just find annoying enemies can still use non-fixed version of spell(even it is a special power) when i dont.

 

I'm not hugely moved by that concern: it's conceptually a different power, it just happens to function game-mechanically similarly. (Note that it's also not magical (so bypasses MR))

 

thanks for reply. Any advice or local fix against bat cloud?

 

As a quick-and-dirty (and untested) fix:

 

- uninstall the vampire component

- open scsii/vampire/vampire.tph in a text editor and replace these lines:

 

	COPY ~scsii/vampire/dw#vbat1.spl~ ~override~
	SAY 0x8 @2400

COPY ~scsii/vampire/dw#vbat2.spl~ ~override~
	SAY 0x8 @2400

 

with these:

 

	COPY_EXISTING ~sppr319.spl~ ~override/dw#vbat1.spl~ 
	SAY 0x8 @2400

COPY_EXISTING ~sppr517.spl~ ~override/dw#vbat2.spl~ 
	SAY 0x8 @2400

 

- reinstall the vampire component

 

That replaces the vampires custom version with the standard version (and hence it no longer bypasses MR either). The vampires' targetting will now be a bit suboptimal, but not disastrously so.

[Chosen]

Actually it is currently overpowered in my opion because stacking damage is annoying and big for every class and mages have just have Spell Immunity to protect themselves against a non-spell ability. others just take damage. so enemy using a ability with considerible power and no counter. Especially cleric and druids are in trouble. i just dont like it. but probably it is just me. so i will try the fix thank you again for your interest.

[Salk]

I am actually very favourable to the use of non-standard powers for specific monsters. Especially if they have a PnP/Lore background like it happens for Cloud of Bats.

 

Said that, I can understand how this attack can lead to very big troubles trying to defend against it (especially considering it even bypasses MR) so I think that extending the nerf insect plague component to Cloud of Bats, which is conceptually very similar and works practically in the same way, would make sense.

[Guest Guest_Loz_*]

I found the improved vampires too annoying to keep installed.

 

The problem is they weren't really any harder - they still dropped very easily to turn undead, MoD/azureedge and any other undead destructions tools. They were just far more frustrating. The bats, as mentioned just getting popped on your casters ensuring you pretty much have to resort to the aforementioned cheesy methods.

 

I'd like to have seen something more like bodhi from ascension - using gaseous and bat forms mid fight to stay alive, but sticking with the offensive abilities they already had(dominate+melee). Then support them with some constructs and vampire mages. A couple of the more powerful ones could be made immune to turning/disruption, to reduce the power of those strategies a little.

 

Thats the way i'd do it anyway, but then i'm not a modder.

[DavidW]

I'd like to have seen something more like bodhi from ascension - using gaseous and bat forms mid fight to stay alive, but sticking with the offensive abilities they already had(dominate+melee). Then support them with some constructs and vampire mages. A couple of the more powerful ones could be made immune to turning/disruption, to reduce the power of those strategies a little.

 

Just to give a bit of insight into the parameters here:

- scripting things like gaseous form and bat form is very tricky without tying it to a specific location

- it's possible to add constructs and mages on an encounter-by-encounter basis, but it can't be done in a very systematic way. (Which matters only because it makes it a lot more time-consuming.)

- immunity to turning/disruption is easy enough to do, but I tend to avoid that kind of thing in SCS if I can help it. It does rather seem to annul the point of having those powers in the first place.

[Shaitan]

Hmm I really like the SCSII Improved Vampires, and that's mostly because it reminds me most of P&P vampires. I think DavidW did a fine job with those creeps.

[Ardanis]

- scripting things like gaseous form and bat form is very tricky without tying it to a specific location

Why so? Ascension Bodhi merely shifts to a cloud when heavily injured and regenerates back, then turns into vamp and fights again. Pretty similar to genies or trolls.

Game plot requires several Bodhi's named minions to flee away and fight another day, so they're restricted to one life per battle, but 'regular' vampires imo can disregard that (perhaps they're not strong/intelligent enough to make an escape...). Not sure what to do with the bat form though.

 

- immunity to turning/disruption is easy enough to do, but I tend to avoid that kind of thing in SCS if I can help it. It does rather seem to annul the point of having those powers in the first place.

There's plenty of other undead to turn or MoD. Liches iirc are actually made immune to turning, and skeleton warriors even used a race hack in vanilla for the same purpose. I'd say 3-4 vamps in the entire game won't make a difference.

[Wisp]

skeleton warriors even used a race hack in vanilla for the same purpose

Ah, but there are PnP grounds for making Skeleton Warriors immune to Turn Undead. The very same PnP source explicitly says Liches can be turned, not that that's some sort of straight-jacket for what you can and can not do.

 

However, as a SCSII enthusiast I like my vampires and liches without spurious immunities (something to address those ridiculous undead-killing weapons is another matter entirely).

[DavidW]

skeleton warriors even used a race hack in vanilla for the same purpose

Ah, but there are PnP grounds for making Skeleton Warriors immune to Turn Undead. The very same PnP source explicitly says Liches can be turned, not that that's some sort of straight-jacket for what you can and can not do.

 

And in fact liches in vanilla (and SCS) can be turned. You don't tend to notice it in SCS because they're too high level, though I've seen their simulacra be turned occasionally in high-level play.

 

As for Bodhi, I should probably have a look at the Ascension code. In the meantime, I'm glad to see that there isn't a unanimous dislike of the SCS vampires!

[Salk]

And in fact liches in vanilla (and SCS) can be turned. You don't tend to notice it in SCS because they're too high level, though I've seen their simulacra be turned occasionally in high-level play.

 

Making them turnable only by extremely high level clerics isn't too close to being non turnable?

[DavidW]

And in fact liches in vanilla (and SCS) can be turned. You don't tend to notice it in SCS because they're too high level, though I've seen their simulacra be turned occasionally in high-level play.

 

Making them turnable only by extremely high level clerics isn't too close to being non turnable?

 

Nope.

 

I've said lots of this before, but the basic philosophy behind at least the AI part of SCS is (a) correct inconsistencies in creature abilities, and then (b) fight as well as possible within those abilities. (It's a guideline, not a straitjacket: there are exceptions.)

 

In the case of liches, the game is inconsistent about their correct level. The spells they're scripted to cast, and the sequencers and contingencies they use, imply one level; the CRE files imply another, the memorised spells imply yet another. (And it's obvious from various details of the game files that this is in large part unintentional on the designers' part, though I'd still feel free to correct for it even if it wasn't - SCS isn't the Fixpack.)

 

So I need to establish a consistent level for each game lich, and then work with the abilities tied to that level. Earlier versions of SCS did this algorithmically, assigning the creature to the lowest level consistent with all of its abilities. Later versions are a bit more tailored, and tend therefore to assign somewhat lower levels. (I think my algorithm generated about L35 for liches, as the lowest level consistent with their memorised spells; the current version of SCSII goes for something closer to 27.)

 

The level of a lich, in turn, is what determines its turnability. I'm not explicitly choosing to make liches hard to turn; it's a foreseen but unintended consequence of achieving consistency on their caster level.

[Demivrgvs]

Vampire bat cloud

I like it, but I do agree it should probably work like tweaked summon insect spells. At the same time though I do like that it bypasses magic resistance, just like summon insect spells should imo. It's a conjuration spell which summons actual creatures, do magic resistance protects you from summons?

 

Turning undead

I have no problems with SCS liches being almost impossible to be turn. If I'm not wrong David was already kind enough to "nerf" this aspect after I and aVENGER repeatedly asked to lower lich's standard lvl from the absurd 35th to something more like 25th.

 

Edit: David preceeded me on this matter.

 

MoD and similar insta-kill undead weapons

Well, SCS could add another IR-like optional component similar to the one which tweaks Carsomyr, but I'm really not sure those components are so much within SCS scope.

 

Within Item Revisions I "nerfed" those ridiculously powerful items by removing the -4 save penalty on the insta-kill effect, but I recently discovered it may actually be not enough. Ironically liches are amongst the high lvl creatures with the worst saves vs death (because they use wizard's save table), and undead creatures in general tend to have very bad saves vs death. I should probably change the save to "vs spell" or put a +2 bonus on saves.