Epic spells

[D1Nonly]

epic spells (wizard/sorcerer HLA's) should be represented on the initiate abilities, not 9th level spell slots, just like the HLA traps for the rouge. as it is now, its wrong rule-wise. balance-wise it's already broken. im just anxtious to have the 9th level slots left alone. epic spells in itself is a travisty, but it would be too much to ask to delete them altogether

[Demivrgvs]

epic spells (wizard/sorcerer HLA's) should be represented on the initiate abilities, not 9th level spell slots, just like the HLA traps for the rouge. as it is now, its wrong rule-wise. balance-wise it's already broken. im just anxtious to have the 9th level slots left alone. epic spells in itself is a travisty, but it would be too much to ask to delete them altogether

I'm pretty sure there's a mod at SHS doing it, and I'll probably do the same either with SR V4 or KR V1, but this cannot be considered a 'fix' and thus it will never be part of Fixpack.

[D1Nonly]

IMO it would be a fix in terms with the rules, but if it's being done with SR just disregard this thread. i guess. hehe!

[DavidW]

IMO it would be a fix in terms with the rules, but if it's being done with SR just disregard this thread. i guess. hehe!

 

Fixpack has a very clear (though not uncontroversial) definition of a fix: Something is a fix if it fixes a bug, and something is a bug if it's not what the developers intended. It's completely clear that the way HLA spells work is deliberate, hence, it's not a fix.

 

(By "the rules", I'm guessing you mean "the PnP rules". But 2nd edition D&D played with a fairly wide variety of different ways of handling spells more powerful than level 9, so I don't think there's any stable canon here ... not that I particularly care about PnP rules in BG2.)

[D1Nonly]

what? 9th + spells are not epic spells, so that would not be in the same department. epic level spells comes with its own slots, which i think is undebatable. and the TOB 'booklet' stated that it was indeed epic spells that were introduced. no matter how they intended, its still a rule violation, IMO should be considered a fix to the game. overall.

[DavidW]

what? 9th + spells are not epic spells, so that would not be in the same department. epic level spells comes with its own slots, which i think is undebatable. and the TOB 'booklet' stated that it was indeed epic spells that were introduced.

 

Not in my copy. The mage versions are referred to as "10th level spells" (p.11, p.18, p.20) and it's stated that they "must be memorised as 9th level spells" (p.18). The priest versions are referred to as "quest spells" (p.11, p.18, p.22) and it's stated that they "are memorised by priests as 7th level spells".

 

The term "quest spell" comes from the 2nd edition accessory "Tome of Magic". The rule there was that a quest spell is memorised in lieu of all your seventh level spell slots; the BG2 version is a less drastic variant more suited to a CRPG. 10th level mage spells are introduced (in inconsistent ways) in at least two 2nd edition resources I can think of; the BG2 version isn't a direct port of either of them, though it captures some of the spirit if I recall correctly.

 

I don't believe the phrase "epic spell" appears anywhere in the manual (it certainly doesn't appear anywhere in the in-game text), and I don't find this surprising, as so far as I know it was coined by the 3rd edition epic level handbook, which wasn't published until 2002 (but I wouldn't claim an exhaustive knowledge of the history of 3rd edition D&D, so I could be wrong).

 

no matter how they intended, its still a rule violation, IMO should be considered a fix to the game. overall.

 

This suggests that you have a different definition of "fix" to me. I suspect your definition is something like "better approximates PnP rules". This isn't the fixpack's definition (it's a fixpack, not a PnP fidelity pack), but in any case - as noted above - I don't think it's correct to say that the BG2 version fails to fit 2nd edition rules.

 

If you mean "the BG2 HLA spells don't fit the 3rd edition PnP Epic Spell rules", then I agree, of course. It would be unreasonable to expect otherwise, given that (a) BG2 is based on 2nd edition AD&D, not 3rd edition D&D (albeit with a smattering of ideas from the then-new 3rd edition, and with other changes designed to adapt a PnP system to computers); (b) those rules didn't even exist when ToB was being developed.

[D1Nonly]

hehehe, point taken. case closed