Cure/Cause Wounds & Regenerate Wounds

[Shaitan]

The values seems fine with me at a glance. I'd use it heavily. Will it work travelling the worldmap?

[veyn]

Regarding Harm and similar 1-use-item spells: weapons can be made to auto-hit without attack roll by setting thac0 bonus to 32767 in itm header. I'd prefer this solution: it would preserve the original flavour and the ability to precast such spells from safety and eliminate "useless with low thac0" problem.

[polytope]

Regarding Harm and similar 1-use-item spells: weapons can be made to auto-hit without attack roll by setting thac0 bonus to 32767 in itm header. I'd prefer this solution: it would preserve the original flavour and the ability to precast such spells from safety and eliminate "useless with low thac0" problem.

 

Alternatively, rather than expending "charges" you could use an opcode #112 effect under the touch-attack item's melee header, to remove the item from self on hit.

 

This would ensure that the item vanishes with the first successful attack rather than the first attempted attack - if you didn't touch the opponent the spell wasn't triggered.

 

Also, it wouln't require changing the scripts of creatures to cast the touch-attack spells on their enemies rather than themselves.

[Demivrgvs]

Harm & Cause Wound spells

Regarding Harm and similar 1-use-item spells: weapons can be made to auto-hit without attack roll by setting thac0 bonus to 32767 in itm header. I'd prefer this solution: it would preserve the original flavour and the ability to precast such spells from safety and eliminate "useless with low thac0" problem.

I've thought about this, but there would be a couple of things I don't like much, such as:

* having to assign an enchantment lvl to these "weapon-like" touch spells

* having PfMW spells protect from CW spells

* having casting time for all CW spells not matter (e.g. faster casting time is the only thing that keeps lower lvl ones somewhat appealing imo)

 

Last but not least, considering that neither ray spells (e.g. Aganazzar's Scorcher, Disintegrate, etc.) nor other spells which requires a hit roll within PnP (e.g. Acid/Flame Arrow, Vampiric touch, Imprisonment, etc.) require it within BG, I consider my suggested solution almost a must have in terms of consitency. Am I wrong?

[veyn]

Regarding enchantment level and pfmw, I think you can change pfmw to protect vs. enchantment lvls 1 through 5, and assign some fake enchantment level (i.e. 6 or something else greater than ench. lvl of any existing weapon) - wouldn't that work?

 

Regarding casting speed - there are still ways to interrupt spells at range quite reliably, so making harm/cw castable outside of melee alone wouldn't completely remove casting speed from consideration. Of course, I agree that being able to precast harm/cw from range (or even better, prebuff) is quite significant benefit, so it should be taken into consideration.

 

But I assume that changing harm/cw from "weapon" spells to direct-damage can mess up AI scripts - am I wrong here? If so, it is probably better to preserve compatibility with AI mods.

 

Regarding consistency - I agree that hit roll should be removed from touch spells, but personally I wouldn't be bothered much that some spells have to be cast in melee, while others can be precast and then delivered via auto-hit touch - variety is cool. If we decide that both auto-hit and being able to precast makes spells too imbalanced, then Polytope's suggestion is fine too. If turning these spells into direct-damage won't mess with AI, then it's also great (though I'm wondering how are non-Cleric/Mages going to cast it without interrupts - in fact, I think the main reason why Vampiric Touch/Imprisonment are usable is the ability of mages to protect themselves from melee effectively).

[Ardanis]

I'm beginning to think that keeping the old melee attack behavior is the best choice indeed. Change PFMW and Absolute Immunity to not stop 6+ enchantment, and we're fine.

Another benefit is that high-AC characters will have some okay protection against proposed new deadly damage values. Also, there will be no weird situations when priest begins to cast Harm on somebody, the target moves away, the would-be-touch-range Harm goes across half the screen.

[Demivrgvs]

Cause Wound spells

I'm beginning to think that keeping the old melee attack behavior is the best choice indeed. Change PFMW and Absolute Immunity to not stop 6+ enchantment, and we're fine.

It would have to be +7 enchantment lvl for non-IR games.

 

The thing I like the least here is that I should put a line in the description which says something like "counts as +7 enchanted weapon to determine which creatures it can hit". That would be very silly to read, isn't it? We need to find a way to describe such behaviour without mentioning the +7 thing imo.

 

Another benefit is that high-AC characters will have some okay protection against proposed new deadly damage values.

I'm not following you, so you are not even in favor of making it automatically hit? We could make it not auto-hit but it should at least keep the charge until a hit is made, else the spell would become completely pointless.

 

More importantly, making the spell require both a hit roll and a save is potentially disastrous for its effectiveness imo.

 

Also, there will be no weird situations when priest begins to cast Harm on somebody, the target moves away, the would-be-touch-range Harm goes across half the screen.

On this I agree. As I told you this is the only thing I really don't like of my suggested solution, though only the long casting Harm is really affected by it.

 

What about "consistency"? We would still have plenty of spells not working this way even if they should, and while for some of them is not clear (e.g. Acid Arrow, Imprisonment, etc.) for others it's clearly obvious they should behave as CW spells (e.g. Vampiric Touch). I kinda liked to finally remove such inconsistency.

 

But I assume that changing harm/cw from "weapon" spells to direct-damage can mess up AI scripts - am I wrong here? If so, it is probably better to preserve compatibility with AI mods.

Afaik only SCS really uses these spells, and only Harm. Am I wrong?

 

That being said, this is indeed an important thing to keep into account, though it's still manageable (e.g. making AI's Harm work the old way). Too many variables.

[aVENGER_(RR)]

Afaik only SCS really uses these spells, and only Harm. Am I wrong?

 

RR does too, in the Chosen of Cyric encounter. Ascension might use it as well.

 

And yeah, making Harm directly castable at the victim instead of creating a "magical weapon" would definitivelly mess up targeting for the AI.

[Demivrgvs]

I've moved here the discussion from the main V4 topic because this was the topic I created to discuss this kind of spells, and I think it's better to keep all the relative stuff here. A focused topic is better than a huge topic full of other things.

 

Cause Wound spells

Afaik only SCS really uses these spells, and only Harm. Am I wrong?

RR does too, in the Chosen of Cyric encounter. Ascension might use it as well.

My suggested workaround (making AI use old Harm) is still valid, though as always I'd prefer AI and players to use the same spell. Does RR use any other CW spell? Harm is the only CW spell which could still be appealing even requiring a hit roll imo, thus an alternative solution could be to make it the exception.

 

The other lesser CW spells would kinda suck with a hit roll imo (their mediocre dmg can be buffed, but it should be absurdly high to counter a required hit roll followed by a save). I may try to see if making them require a hit roll, but not require a save could work, but I have serious doubts for Cause Critical Wounds, and Harm would surely need to keep the save (creating another inconsistency).

 

On a side note, how am I supposed to make Cause Mass Wound spell work then? In PnP it's a mass touch attack isn't a problem, but I obviously cannot reproduce it within BG.

 

Last but not least, what about Vampiric Touch and similar spells, am I the only one who cares about consistency?

[aVENGER_(RR)]

I've moved here the discussion from the main V4 topic because this wDoes RR use any other CW spell?

 

Slay Living.

 

Last but not least, what about Vampiric Touch and similar spells

 

If you change it to a proper touch spell it will mess up the existing AI targeting, and many mods use Vampiric Touch in their scripts.

[Demivrgvs]

I've moved here the discussion from the main V4 topic because this wDoes RR use any other CW spell?

Slay Living.

Good to know. Would my inteded tweak (make it add an on hit effect instead of replacing the weapon) confuse your AI?

 

Last but not least, what about Vampiric Touch and similar spells

If you change it to a proper touch spell it will mess up the existing AI targeting, and many mods use Vampiric Touch in their scripts.

I know, in fact I had no intention of changing it. What I'm saying isn't that I want to change VT, but that I hate the current inconsistency between touch spells.

[aVENGER_(RR)]

Would my inteded tweak (make it add an on hit effect instead of replacing the weapon) confuse your AI?

 

Slightly.

 

There are script blocks which check if a creature has SLAYLIVE.ITM as a means to determine if the spell is still active on that creature.

[Demivrgvs]

Slay Living

Would my inteded tweak (make it add an on hit effect instead of replacing the weapon) confuse your AI?

Slightly.

 

There are script blocks which check if a creature has SLAYLIVE.ITM as a means to determine if the spell is still active on that creature.

Sadness. So I have to give to that cool tweak too? Is that block really necessary?

[aVENGER_(RR)]

Is that block really necessary?

 

I'm afraid so, there's no other way for a creature to know that it's "wielding" Slay Living.

 

It's also used in some Dispel Magic blocks (i.e. if someone has cast Slay Living on himself, try to dispel it).

[Ardanis]

I'm not following you, so you are not even in favor of making it automatically hit? We could make it not auto-hit but it should at least keep the charge until a hit is made, else the spell would become completely pointless.

 

More importantly, making the spell require both a hit roll and a save is potentially disastrous for its effectiveness imo.

Like I've said earlier, I'm not sure I want enemy priests to walk up and just touch for ~50% hp damage. Hit roll and save reduce the effectiveness, but new damage values should easily make up for that, no?

 

I, of course, prefer the removal of weapon on successful hit over one-charged attack.