SR Revised V1.3.900 (2022 August 8th)

[Bartimaeus]

19 minutes ago, FixTesteR said:

It's been said a couple of times that DM passes through MGoI. Vanilla description of MGoI:

This spell creates a faintly shimmering magical sphere around the caster that prevents any 1st-, 2nd-, or 3rd-level spell effects from penetrating (i.e., the area of effect of any such spells does not include the area of the Minor Globe of Invulnerability). This includes innate abilities and effects from devices. However, any type of spell can be cast out of the magical sphere, and these pass from the caster of the globe to their subject without affecting the globe. Spells of 4th level or higher are not affected by the globe.

It seems DM gets blocked and doesn't dispell a thing. SR adds one sentence in the end of description of MGoI:
.... Fourth and higher level spells are not affected by the globe. The globe can be brought down by a successful dispel magic.

So DM can bring down a MGoI. Pretty much the same with GoI. Does the SR version of DM bring down a MGoI and gets consumed in the process, or does it go further and have a chance to dispel something else underneath? SRR says that it doesn't dispell it but goes right through.

It seems, if I'm reading it correctly, that Vanilla MGoI is the strongest, SR is in the middle, and SRR is the weakest. I should test the behaviour, of course, but maybe of one you can answer off the cuff.

BG1 M/GoI can be brought down by a successful Dispel Magic.

BG2 M/GoI cannot be brought down by a successful Dispel Magic, but it does not protect the user from the Dispel Magic either.

SR's M/GoI, for whatever reason, matches the weaker BG1 behavior. I'm not exactly sure why, since it's a spell protection, which can't usually be dispelled. Not sure if M/GoI was perceived as being too strong when that change was made or what.

SRR's default behavior is to instead revert it to back to the stronger BG2 version, which cannot be brought down by Dispel Magic but which does not protect the user from it, either. However, there's a settings.ini switch to change it back to the BG1 behavior (i.e. matching SR) or you can make it so that M/GoI does protect wholesale against Dispel/Remove Magic. Different options may be suitable for different gameplay styles - I made the latter "super globe" version for someone that was trying to solo the game and just getting constantly bombarded with Remove Magic by SCS, and it was a slightly more elegant solution than trying to restore the ridiculous Spell Immunity spells.

Edited October 17, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[subtledoctor]

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I still have a feeling that this still prove itself to be a bit too strong against enemy spellcasters, since it will essentially act as a cheap Breach that removes their most critical combat protection

Forgot to mention: inspired by polytope, I have it set to only remove up to 6th-level protections. That’s a nice feature of opcode 230 that you can’t do with opcode 58. 

I’m testing this for my comprehensive spell battle overhaul, not as an individual tweak. So it will be blocked by deflections, and deflections will insulate Dispelling Screen. So the most likely result is that enemies will cast RM with the expectation of taking down your buffs, and it will work on most party members but your mage will still be protected. This is slightly inefficient by SCS standards, and especially so in edge cases like when you play a solo mage. But who knows, if I dial it in and people like the mod maybe DavidW will account for it. He already talked about adding to SCS a “don’t cast RM on me” spellstate, which could be patched onto the deflection spells.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

SR's M/GoI, for whatever reason, matches the weaker BG1 behavior. I'm not exactly sure why, since it's a spell protection, which can't usually be dispelled. Not sure if M/GoI was perceived as being too strong when that change was made or what.

Honestly... this sounds like an oversight?  Demi designed SR for BG2 (Tutu/BGT were not ubiquitous when this stuff was being laid down - that's why you see the string errors in BGEE) and for most of BG2, MGOI and even GOI are kind of useless.  If I had to guess (and it is just a wild guess), I'd guess that RM dispelling GOI just escaped his notice.  Or was found to be inconsequential since, once you're being dispelled a GOI isn't going to save your ass anyway.  Maybe? 

This can be the subject of an RFC, but I would argue in favor of changing the base SR mod in this respect...

Edited October 17, 2021 by subtledoctor

[Guest Alkaid]

@Bartimaeus

Just since you seem to have missed it, best as I can tell SRR changes e.g. the Fallen Planetar's animation to Female_Elf from the actual Planetar one. I don't really want to change it back in case it was done for a particular reason, but it does seem funny having this mini-planetar that's smaller than most of my party, lol. 

[Bartimaeus]

3 minutes ago, Guest Alkaid said:

@Bartimaeus

Just since you seem to have missed it, best as I can tell SRR changes e.g. the Fallen Planetar's animation to Female_Elf from the actual Planetar one. I don't really want to change it back in case it was done for a particular reason, but it does seem funny having this mini-planetar that's smaller than most of my party, lol. 

If you installed the "Deva and Planetar Animations" component, yes, it will do that. If you did not and it did that, that would be news to me, since I've never used the humanoid celestial animations and have always preferred and used the originals.

3 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Honestly... this sounds like an oversight?  Demi designed SR for BG2 (Tutu/BGT were not ubiquitous when this stuff was being laid down - that's why you see the string errors in BGEE) and for most of BG2, MGOI and even GOI are kind of useless.  If I had to guess (and it is just a wild guess), I'd guess that RM dispelling GOI just escaped his notice.  Or was found to be inconsequential since, once you're being dispelled a GOI isn't going to save your ass anyway.  Maybe? 

If the line about it being able to be brought down by a Dispel Magic wasn't added, I might be inclined to agree, but it's right there in the description. I really have no idea, I'm not a big fan of using either M/GoI myself even when it *can't* be brought down by a Remove Magic, to be honest.

[Guest Alkaid]

Ahh, I did indeed, I'm an idiot. XD

I think I thought it was a fix thing. 

As far as GoI goes, I basically don't use it myself. I never feel like there are any low level spells worth worrying about at the point you get access to it and you may as well just use spell deflection.

[Guest Alkaid]

I actually quite like the way the humanoid ones look, they're just a bit small and hard to see in big fights. Ah well, guess I'll just live it for now. I have some other stuff to bugfix right now, like energy blades not working properly lol. 

[Guest Alkaid]

Side note, with how your changes to Improved Haste works I think it might kinda break the intended functionality of Energy Blades giving 9/10 APR since it works by setting APR to 4.5/5 and applying Improved Haste (which used to double attacks).

Hm, in the original game that would have also made it a strong caster thing just to have equipped for the halved casting time... but I digress.

[Guest Alkaid]

Wait nope, I was wrong, it still works. I guess the Improved Haste functionality is still in the game. 

[Bartimaeus]

Is there something wrong with Energy Blades and/or Improved Haste or not?

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, Guest Alkaid said:

As far as GoI goes, I basically don't use it myself. I never feel like there are any low level spells worth worrying about at the point you get access to it and you may as well just use spell deflection.

Agree. It’s nice to avoid stuff like your own fireballs/webs I guess, and Confusion. But by the time you’re casting GOI enemy casters are casting Chaos and worse stuff. 

This is a case where having AoE deflection drastically changes the calculus. Globes basically just prevent low-level spells from chipping away at your deflections. 

57 minutes ago, Guest Alkaid said:

in the original game that would have also made it a strong caster thing just to have equipped for the halved casting time...

AFAIK no version of Haste has ever affected casting time... unless you mean in OBG1? (I don’t even really consider that to be a game under discussion - the engine is so primitive, and none of these mods are built to work with it, apart from some stuff in CDTweaks and maybe SCS?)

[DavidW]

1 minute ago, subtledoctor said:

unless you mean in OBG1? (I don’t even really consider that to be a game under discussion - the engine is so primitive, and none of these mods are built to work with it, apart from some stuff in CDTweaks and maybe SCS?)

No, SCS has never worked for oBG1. My embryonic, pre-public, pre-tutu version was written for BG1, but I rapidly decided it was too much of a pain. (Pausing the game can interrupt enemy spellcasting.)

[Guest Alkaid]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Is there something wrong with Energy Blades and/or Improved Haste or not?

There was something wrong with it, but it was from Scales making it 2APR base (4 with IH) due to getting caught in the 'dart' category weapon changes where they were reduced to 2APR.  I expected it to also get caught up in the Improved Haste changes, but I guess the way the game actually handles Haste is some hardcoded flag kinda stuff rather than applying a spell effect. 

 

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Agree. It’s nice to avoid stuff like your own fireballs/webs I guess, and Confusion. But by the time you’re casting GOI enemy casters are casting Chaos and worse stuff. 

This is a case where having AoE deflection drastically changes the calculus. Globes basically just prevent low-level spells from chipping away at your deflections. 

AFAIK no version of Haste has ever affected casting time... unless you mean in OBG1? (I don’t even really consider that to be a game under discussion - the engine is so primitive, and none of these mods are built to work with it, apart from some stuff in CDTweaks and maybe SCS?)

It could maybe be made more useful by adding small squads of low level mages to later encounters that primarily use level 1-5 spells. While they'll probably get deleted by big AoE if you choose to use it (like Horrid Wilting) or Wail of the Banshee type stuff they'd at least be throwing out a lot of low level spells to chew through the deflections through brute force. That sort of encounter redesign is more in SCS's sort of purview though.

Ah yeah, I was wrong. It halves scroll casting time, not spell.

[DavidW]

I think you're all underrating GoI at higher levels. It protects against the contents of Spell Sequencers; even at high levels, 3x Chaos or 3x Skull Trap is non-trivial.

[subtledoctor]

48 minutes ago, DavidW said:

I think you're all underrating GoI at higher levels. It protects against the contents of Spell Sequencers; even at high levels, 3x Chaos or 3x Skull Trap is non-trivial.

Well, GOI doesn't block Chaos,* and 3x Skull Trap would leave a Greater Spell Deflection intact. That's why I say, having deflections block AoE spells drastically devalues GOI. It's still better to have both... but if deflections don't block AoE spells then GOI becomes hugely important.

When thinking about overhauling/streamlining the system in its entirety (which is my end goal when participating in these kinds of discussions), I wonder whether it isn't worth streamlining even more than SR does, and eliminate Globes in favor of an all-deflection system. Or using them with some function other than opcode 102. 

...Thinking about possible alternatives: god, there are so many different kinds of protections for mages? Block elements/energy, block by spell level, block by sectype, block by school, block a certain amount of everything, bounce a certain amount of everything... What else is there to do? It would be nice to make globes something that support deflections in a more meaningful way... but not like Spell Shield? Jeez, I don't know. Until I can think of something better they can stay as they are.

[DavidW]

I meant Confusion for Chaos - but yes, I was also forgetting you're using mods that make Spell Turning/Deflection affect AoE. I can see that changes the game a lot. If you let Spell Deflection/Turning block AoE you certainly remove the main distinctive benefit of globes.