A few spell questions

[urdjur]

I few questions on spell behaviour under SCS v30 and BG2EE (no Spell Revisions, Ascension or other mods).

 

1) Are any creatures immune to a) Breach and b) Lower Resistance, and if so which? I'm specifically wondering about Liches, Rakshasas, and ToB bosses including Demogorgon. I'm trying to evaluated the need for Pierce Shield in a solo run.

 

2) Does Project Image make the immobile caster invisible under SCS alone (just as with Spell Revisions) so that recharging via Spell Trap is impossible?

 

3) Let's say a Project Image clone casts [VIII] Summon Fiend (there are no other summons or party members except the original caster present). The image has cast Protection from Evil before. Will the fiend then teleport and attack the original caster of the Project Image, even if he is off scren and invisible (the demon sees the invisible, no?) as a default first order of business according to its script?

 

4) How are simulacrum levels handled under SCS v30 BG2EE? In the original game, a complex level draining formula was used which typically meant a single classed caster would get a max 14 level clone at the ToB XP cap of level 29. Now I understand the 60% XP as written is implemented, can anyone confirm? Also wondering how Death Spell, True Sight/Seeing and Dispel/Remove magic affects the Simulacrum nowadays.

 

5) I'm trying to find a use for Spell Deflection/Turning spells under SCS v30, but I have a hard time doing so. It seems like in almost all cases, [V] Spell Shield would be better. My arguments:

- Mislead (or Improved Invisibility) already protects against all targeted spells by virtue of invisibility rules. The exception is spell protection removals like RRoR, which will remove only spell protections, which in turn will only defend against targeted spells, which are already thwarted by Mislead. Mislead also thwarts physical attacks, especially if you make the clone invisible and have it hide somewhere relatively safe.

- Hence, it seems more important to defend the Mislead effect at all costs, rather than defending a spell protection since it is more narrow and redundant if Mislead works as planned anyway. To defend Mislead against the automatically successful True Sight or against dispel effects, you need SI: Abjuration and SI: Divination. Now, these are ripped by the simple [iII] Spell Thrust and all other sp removals. IIRC, Spell Thrust will ignore Spell Deflection/Turning since they are too high level to be dispelled, and go directly for the Spell Immunities and dispel them all, thus opening you up to continous True Sight dispelling against which there is no other defense than Spell Immunity. Hence, Spell Shield is the only defense, and it will even protect against Spellstrike. It's also lower level, hence more efficient.

- SCS scripts prevents you from ever gaining secondary benefit from actually turning a spell, or spell trap recharging, so again untargetability via invisibility is just as powerful. The only exception would be creatures with innate ability to see the invisible, but in my experience, even these appear to be distracted by Mislead clones (can anyone confirm?). So in the corner case where such a creature would have a nasty single-target spell effect (say, a demon with PW:Stun), then some form of deflection/turning could be useful. But of course, it could still use area effects or physical damage, so it's only really useful if that single target spell is the best use of that creature's action economy. In practice, I find Imprisonment is the best way to deal with such creatures since you need to handle them anyway and protections won't accomplish that, and you can typically distract them with something while you cast the spell.

 

So what is the use of spell protections under SCS?