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Again with Breach and Liches


caltino

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I know this keeps coming up. I read a few and decided to create a thread to describe my case instead of following in another, existing thread.

 

BG2EE, latest patch, using SCS2 v28. No other mods. Smarter mages always put up all kinds of protections both "before" the fight and through contingencies and triggers, which is fine.

 

I enabled consistent breach. Here's the line from the log:

 

~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v28

 

I can't get rid of combat protections, such as fireshields and most importantly, protection from magic weapons. This is most painful against liches.

 

I am currently fighting Kangaxx. My PC sorcerer is level 19, Edwin is 19. We hit Kangaxx with a series of spell strikes, ruby rays, pierce everythings, all followed by breaches. The combat protections never go away. My fighters are swinging with carsomyr and crom faeyr and all I hear is "weapon ineffective." By the way, Breach is casting properly, it is not failing due to invisibility. I constantly get true sight up.

 

The few times I got through was with repeated castings of remove magic. The probability is low against a lich 10-15 leves my superior, but I guess there's still a chance. My sorcerer can cast 7 of them, and in time stop with IA, you get all of them off. So I project image, cast all 7, project image, cast another 7 and so on. Once or twice, I think they did the trick and dispelled everything, although I was so surprised I can't tell for sure that happened.

 

The other times I just survive until Kangaxx runs out of PfMW and starts taking hits.

 

These fights are really annoying. At least with other mages I can hit with dragon's breath or something.

 

Reading through, I found a thread titled something like "consisten breach problem" and there was a "patch" in it. I put those files in the override folder and that didn't help either. Now I know I should not have needed to do that because that was right around when v28 was going to be realeased and I already have v28, but the file lengths were different so I thought I would give it a shot.

 

Any thoughts?

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I copied this file and it seems to have helped. I was able to dispel the PfMW and hit kangaxx.

 

Is this an issue only for liches? That's what the file name seems to suggest, or am I reading too much into it?

 

Also, should I reverse the changes made by the files from the "more consistent breach problem" thread since those files were different than the ones they replaced in v28?

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Is this an issue only for liches? That's what the file name seems to suggest, or am I reading too much into it?

 

Also, should I reverse the changes made by the files from the "more consistent breach problem" thread since those files were different than the ones they replaced in v28?

Afaik Breach spell should affect both Liches and Rakshasa with the relevant component installed. I can't check now since I use Spell Revisions, but nobody reported anything about rakshasa so I guess it works...

I don't really understand the 2nd question.

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Afaik Breach spell should affect ... and Rakshasa with the relevant component installed.
Actually the original idea in the game is that as Rakshasa are immune to all spells under the 7th level limit(and the Demi Lich's case is similar but with the 9th level), they should not be effected by the spells that are commonly removed by breach, like the PfMW, meaning there's no need for it either(and why the Demi Lich just casts his "9th" level spells without defenses, yes, those are actually the first level innate's). That's partially why there's Mantle spells and so forth. But of course the protection routine do what they like... yeah, did anyone see a lich casting Invisibility on himself, or even having the spell... no... the reason is not because it's not a suitable spell, but because the Lich is(as in should be) immune to it-

 

Yes, the system is not perfect in this respect either....But there's only two spells that the original spell selections that the liches should not have if we actually go with this rule, it's the Vocalize spell and the Mirror Image to what comes to the Liches ... the rest of the Liches considerable archive of spells is either level 4 or above or attack spells(fireball spell is perfect spell to kill enemy chars near ones own immune spell caster). And those spell selections as understandable considering the Vocalize removes the silents effect if it's somehow effecting a lich while the Mirror Image is tied to the minor spell sequencer.

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You say "actually, ..." but do you have substantive evidence for that? Don't get me wrong, I know how I like to play and I install mods to ammodate that, but do you have any actual evidence to suggest that that's how the devs wanted it? (I'm thinking BG2 Fixpack style evidence, if that helps.)

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nah

 

immunity only to hostile spells. lich is immune to spells lvl 1-5 in vanilla. breach is, extremely hostile, lvl 5 spell. in tactics mod lich is casting imp. invisibility on himself ALL the time with imm. divination and immunity abjuration simultanously making himself completely immune to dispel without cheese or cheating. scs 2 is not a cheesy mod and handles magic system in such a way that player can fight liches "legally" without cheese... under at least one condition - "more consistent breach" actually works/spellshield bug is actually fixed. In my game(s) it always works. but I didn't play for a long time. ;]

 

in my opinion, lich immunity to breach is not a good game design to begin with, considering what original devs wanted or not wanted. BG2 system is such a mess that it is impossible to even imagine what they really wanted. I think thats the spell level that is actually screwed, should be level 6 or even 7 in my humble opinion.

 

"BG2EE, latest patch, using SCS2 v28. No other mods. "

 

maybe try spell revisions. you still can't breach a lich heheh but you can destroy his combat protections via pierce shield and club him to un-death.

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... and club him to un-death.
Erhm, one usually can't club the undead to undeath... you can destroy their body and thus end their existence. The undead are already affected by the un-death.

 

When you said "tactics", you are referring to the mod called Tactics, not to tactics as general, and thus you walked into mod territory, and to the cheese stink end of it.

There are various ways to go around the immunity problems, but really it would be nice for it to be clear and have no draw backs ... like say the Spell Immunity: Abjuration not making the caster immune to all adjuration spells, but only to non friendly spells like Breach... so casting the PfMW is no problem, but try to get rid of it and we got a problem. Yeah, you should be immune to all abjuration spells, not just the chosen few.

 

What a hostile spell is ? It's a spell that has the flag there to inform the AI that it's been attacked by the party. It's part of the AI structures-tie-in-to-the-spells, not the spells system itself. But it can be used at it in modified game.

 

The problem here is that as the games spell system is a layered cake, the mods add to it, and it becomes a total mess, when there's not clear one cut way approach, but a punch of small scoops that stir the filling with the cake base.

 

I think thats the spell level that is actually screwed, should be level 6 or even 7 in my humble opinion.
Actually the spell level itself is not a problem, it's that there's not several versions of the same like spell in multiple spell levels... the greater versions being greater of course. But that's only a small byte of the problem. The major being the above. PS; like this:
- First we make the Breach spell an area of effect spell, 1 feet is all we need. And the target of course needs to be changed to area(=4, or "dead actor" according to a DLTCEP version I have).

...

- Third, we make two more Breach -like spells, but with added area of effect(instead of the 1 feet; 10 feet, and 30 feet) and spell power level as the levels rise, yes, so a level 6 and a level 7 spells. Or we could mutate the present spell, but I would vote for new spells as they won't exactly match the old.

That was a few moths ago... hmm, mayhaps a 8th level could be better than the 7th...

 

You say "actually, ..." but do you ...
Yeah, it's good that you noticed that... and no, I don't have evidence except the pieces that are found in the game.
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