A few suggestions

[bholland]

So I know the first suggestion is possible but I don't know if the others are.

 

Pierce shield went from being a totally useless, crap spell to actually being a spell worthy of being 8th level. There is one slight glitch. I think the idea is to make it basically be a breach + ruby ray but it can't drop spell shield red and spell shield blue. Those are both spell protections and breach takes them down. It is rather silly and very frustrating having to spellstrike and then pierce shield and still have anything on the caster. That level of assault should strip everything from the caster.

 

Oh also, I think spell strike should ignore spell immunities. It doesn't make sense that a level 5 spell should protect against the most powerful magic striking component in the game. It also means that if someone were to say, cast two spell sequencers, they could actually make themselves completely immune to all magic. That actually makes me question why someone as smart as Irenicus doesn't do that, even with SCS installed. Perhaps the solution would be to make spell immunities work only against offensive magic or to allow spells which take down spell protections to bypass spell immunity.

 

For me, it is really just too frustrating guessing which protections a mage put up and if in this specific instance I need a ruby ray or if spellstrike would work or if I first need 4 ruby rays or 6 ruby rays and then a spell strike and then a pierce shield AND then breach. I want to cast spellstrike and know that the mage no longer has any spell protections up and I don't think it is that unreasonable considering that is the most powerful spell in the game.

 

 

My second thought would be to remake stoneskin in a way which protects against a certain amount of physical damage which increases with level. I have a f/t which can easily backstab for 90. It gets old really quickly when I can deal (with assassination) over 600 points in a round and have the mage be perfectly fine because of stoneskin. Same with mages being backstabbed. If a thief managed to backstab me 6 times, for 50 or 60 damage each, my mage should be dead, unless they were very lucky. Perhaps say, 10 points of damage per level is absorbed. If damage is done over that amount, the damage is still reduced to 0 but stoneskin goes away. That would actually work quite well with higher levels as well. The higher the level, the more damage monsters deal and the more monsters there are. A mage shouldn't be able to stand there and take a round of a dragon beating on them without so much as a scratch and yet if a mage is ambushed and whacked on by goblins, the sheer number of critters brings a stoneskin down far faster than a dragon. Also, contingency might be more useful as well. This is something I do not know can be programmed but I think it would be doable.

 

Also, could you make contingency either a select 3 spells or multiple casting be allowed? The change is nice in that you allow a level 27 mage to cast a level 9 spell automatically but it is a long time to wait. Perhaps something like up to a level 1/3 of the caster and they can cast one spell per 6 levels up to 3? Actually I just changed contingency to allow casting up to level 8 spells and to have 1 spell at level 12, 2 spells at level 16, and 3 spells at level 20. It is still worse than chain contingency since it can't cast offensive spells. I am in the process of testing it, but I can email you the spl file if you would like.

 

Oh also, can you make minute meteors be +3 or +4 weapons? +2 means I can't hit mummies and golems and a variety of other critters. +3 would allow me to hit everything except for demi-liches and +4 would also allow my mages to do something useful against a demi-lich. It doesn't even have to add +4 to damage but say, 1d4+2 damage but hit at a +4 enchantment. +4 THAC0 is nice since mages suck at hitting anything. Basically, this is a very strong and great mod. I think this would make the game much more fun, particularly paired with SCS mages pre-casting.

 

EDIT: Replace spell thrust with spellstrike (the level 9 spell). Sorry for the confusion.

[Jarno Mikkola]

It also means that if someone were to say, cast two spell sequencers, ... That actually makes me question why someone as smart as Irenicus doesn't do that, even with SCS installed...

SCS doesn't cheat intentionally... yeah, see having two of those is cheating. You can have instead 1 of this spell, one of the other like spell, and yet one of the yet another same kind of spells(sequencers, contingency'es and Time Stop, there's 6-7 similar like spells with minor and regular or improved versions)... but having multiple of the same thing is illegal... well, of course one can script them to be usable, hah, but the game doesn't allow it to be manually done by the player, so the same principle is tried to keep by SCS's AI to the enemy.

In addition the SCS also allows the player to choose the usage of the several precast options, which will help the enemy to be very close to that of the players equivalent in casting option. But you can opt that out depending on your preferences.

 

Well, there's a small exception for the rule above on SCS, it can have multiple Time Stops in effect if it can afford to them... but the player can do the same, so the equality is the case here as well.

[bholland]

No I mean that if you cast spell sequencer, use the sequencer loaded with 3 immunities (pre-buff) then cast another spell sequencer loaded with 3 immunities (post-buf) you can have 6 school immunities. Alternatively you have 1 spell sequencer as a pre-buff and chain consistency and the second I see a mage, that is 6 schools of immunity right there. All you need really is SI-Alteration (ruby ray is toast) and SI-Abjuration (the rest is toast). I once threw 6 piece shields at a mage and not a single debuf occurred. This is perfectly legal currently under SR and SCS. You can contingency multiple immunities. Spellstrike and pierce shield need to be able to dispel them. I would say that Ruby Ray might as well but I don't know if that power should be in a level 7 spell.

 

The problem I have is that there is a lack of consistency with this. The SR model is to make spells more useful at higher levels, nerf spells which are overused and overkill (AHW being the one there), and generally make the game more enjoyable and bring spells up to level. Pierce shield really should remove fire red and blue. Spell strike just should remove all spell immunities even if the caster is immune to that school. Guessing which immunity, or reading 100 lines in the console to figure out what was pre-cast just isn't that much fun the 15th time you do it. Some mages are affected by spellstrike, some are only affected by ruby ray, some are affected by both. The whole point of something like spellstrike is to remove all magic protections period. Pierce shield can remove all combat protections, period (perhaps make it a 9th level spell?). Casting both on a mage should render that mage 100% vulnerable to attack.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well yeah... the SI - Alteration should make the other SI's get dispelled and give immunity to them... whistle. And to PfMW etc.

[bholland]

Should it? I am almost certain I an sequence 3 SI's within SCS. I will test this tonight but my point still stands even if I can't. Why is it that a level 5 spell can prevent all but 1 spell from taking it down? It seems reasonable to block spells which damage the mage but the whole point of spellstrike is to bring down all spell protections, I would assume that includes SI. I would also expect pierce shield to bring down all combat protections and that includes red and blue shield. I would also recommend that basically only spellstrike or pierce shield can bring down an SI... well that and ruby ray, maybe. I don't know. I just sort of find is frustrating after playing this through twice now with mages fully pre-casting that I just cannot figure out which spell protections I need to bring down and which very high level spell I need to do it.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Should it? I am almost certain I an sequence 3 SI's within SCS.

Well, should yes, considering the SI spells are an Abjuration spells... so protecting from them should remove all and make immune to all of them.

But, not in game, as (apparently) the game is not all that consistent with the majority of the words, but more of feature this, feature that, feature ... so you can and are free to protect yourself while being immune to the all protection and protection removal spells(up to the level 7, which is where all the protection spells that actually matter are).