Protection Against Dispel Magic

[subtledoctor]

>Well, GOI has an area of effect! So there actually is a way to protect your party members without Dispelling Screen.

 

Uh, what now?

 

[Bartimaeus]

Another Enhanced Edition change? That would definitely merit discussion if implemented into SR, .

Edited October 5, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[subtledoctor]

I'm like 99.9% sure GOI has said "AoE: 5 foot radius" since roughly 1999. I quoted the vanilla description; you quoted the SR version.

 

On reflection, lots of vanilla spell descriptions are full of blatant lies, so maybe the spells don't actually work that way. But the description always said "5 foot radius" and the graphic is a big colorful sphere about 10 feet in diameter, so I just always assumed that if you stood someone close enough to a mage with GOI, that other person would be protected from low-level spells.

 

I don't think I've actually used GOI in about 15 years, so it's no wonder if I have it wrong...

 

Anyway, it would be a major change to allow GOI (especially MGOI) to block RM. I doubt it would increase the fun of mage battles, and it certainly wouldn't lessen their complexity. I had an idea that in PnP these protections and removals don't really exist, instead there's just Dispel Magic - but (in 3E) there's also Greater Dispel Magic. What if we deem the 3rd-level spell to be something like "lesser dispel magic" and cap its effective caster level, so high-level enemies can't destroy all your buffs with a crappy 3rd-level spell? And, if they really want to flex their magical muscles and dispel you, they could (and your could) use a much higher-level slot to cast Greater Dispel, which could function more like the Inquisitor ability?

 

Maybe a more fundamental reconsideration of the system is in order. Here we've got protections and removals, and there's a whole aspect of them that is more or less destroyed in SCS games (the idea that certain Deflection spells can block a certain number of spell levels... that's actually a pretty great idea but it never comes into play). SR has removed SI:Abj from the chess game; it has merged Turning and Deflection because they are functionally identical with SCS; it has merged Dispel Magic and Remove Magic because the latter has clearly superior behavior and puts the payer and AI on a more even playing field; and with AoE Deflection it starts to veer into the realm of GOI (only difference now is, the former protects against a certain amount of spells, the latter protects against limitless spells of certain spell levels).

 

What if we put together a more thorough overhaul?

 

Just to be clear from an SCS perspective: I will code (indeed, basically have coded) SCS v32 to match the spell system in SR v4b15 if it’s installed.

What if, rather than talk about adjustments to SR, we try something more distinct. I've been turning over ideas for a while now about trying to streamline the whole "mage chess" system... rather than apply band-aids, what if we just make a new mod to overhaul it from the ground up? Could we make SCS work with it? I gather there was supposed to be a system where others could hook into SCS and make adjustments, but that it has been non-functional (which is why kreso made Revised SCS). Will something like that be available in v32?

 

In short, if we made a new mod wholly designed to overhaul the mage battle system, could we hope that it might be made compatible with SCS? Or is the idea more or less dead in the water? (If the answer is "that's a nice idea for a mod but it would have to be used as an alternative to SCS, no in conjunction with it" then I'm honestly not going to spend another minute on it.)

 

An off-the top-of-my-head rough idea is derived from reading things like:

http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27291&page=1&do=findComment&comment=235577

http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=25435&page=2&do=findComment&comment=233082

http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=25435&page=2&do=findComment&comment=233089

http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27577&page=7&do=findComment&comment=240390

 

Something very roughly like:

- Put 'defensive' spells into two categories: "buffs" and "protections." Buffs give you actual mechanical benefits (increased strength, haster, stoneskins, protection from fire, whatever), while protections exist solely to protect your buffs.

- Protections all work the same way: AOE Deflection that blocks varying amounts of spells. No Turning, no Invulnerability. (Probably Trap can be an exception as a 9th-level super-spell.)

- Spell removals don't actually cancel protections; they 'burn through' them just like any other spell. But removals burn through them much more effectively. Spell removals will work against Deflections of all levels - no more of the situation where Spell Thrust or Secret Word simply fails against protections of too-high level (currently, a Flame Arrow is more effective against Deflection than Spell Thrust is, notwithstanding that Spell Thrust is purpose-built for that kind of application). The power of protections is measured solely by how many spells they can absorb, and most attacks against them hook into that system. (High level removals, like Ruby Ray, could behave as in vanilla and simply remove protections.)

- Debuffers consist of, basically, of Remove Magic and Breach (and Pierce Shield/Spellstrike). This is a bit tricky because Breach is higher level and should be better; but RM is an AoE spell and, as evidenced by this thread, superior in many ways. Obvious answer is to have Deflection block RM. And for non-mages, Dispelling Screen.

 

So, a mage can have buffs (Haste, Stoneskin), which are protected by Deflection, which is protected by Spell Shield. An attacker can use any removal to eliminate Spell Shield, then either use removals to eliminate Deflection or just burn through it with other spells, and then Remove or Breach the buffs.

 

A fighter lackey can have buffs (Haste, Chaotic Commands), which are protected by Dispelling Screen. An attacker can eliminate the Screen with RM, and then RM the buffs; or can simply Breach the buffs directly and bypass the Screen.

 

Eh, I think something like that would be a bit closer to the simplicity of PnP, while also giving the space to operate in the world of BG2 wizards, while also being something the AI could handle with hopefully not-too complex scripting. I could mod the spells to work, as long as SCS could adopt the right behavior (don't cast RM if target has Deflection, etc.).

 

Man, this stuff makes me tired.

Edited October 5, 2018 by subtledoctor

[Bartimaeus]

Sounds way over my pay grade, to be honest. I don't dislike these ideas (though it's probably a case of needing to see it in action to understand if it actually works better), but it would be way beyond my time, patience, and physical condition to even begin to implement (I have bad very early onset arthritis that makes even playing games - especially these ones with lots of mouse clicking - painful, never mind many hours of modding). It's also probably beyond the scope of current SR, at least with the author MIA. Still, neat to think outside the box when you've been inside the established tried-and-true BG2 box for so long.

Edited October 5, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Ulb]

Man, this stuff makes me tired.

Sounds really good though and right down your alley. I'd love such a mod and I'd love to see it work with SCS.

[Azoth]

Still no map/chart like this on what does what and in which case ?

Bleh....I hate Google Drive. Try here.

[subtledoctor]

probably beyond the scope of current SR, at least with the author MIA.

100% agree. The idea would be, leave SR as-is, and create a new mod that could work on top of SR - "Revised Mage Duels."

 

Implementation wouldn't be very hard.

- Decide how many spells Deflection should absorb at each level*

- Set Deflections to be AoE

- Set Deflections to block Remove Magic (and Breach)

- Remove MGOI/GOI from the game

- Patch removals to delete their removal effects; add an empty effect with a power 2-3 times the level of the removal spell.*

- Patch Remove Magic and Breach to work against more or less every buff - all combat protections and specific protections.

- Dispelling Screen stays as it is now

- Pierce Shield = Pierce + Breach

- Spellstrike = Pierce + Breach + Remove Magic

 

It's the AI side that is outside my control. It would mean:

- AI should not stack Deflections (but can stack them with Spell Shield, Dispelling Screen, and Spell Trap).

- AI should use RM and/or Breach against all combat and specific protections.

- AI should treat Deflections like Spell Shield: look to use Removals to take it down, but don't shy away from casting regular spells against the target. (See kreso's test of this behavior in one of the linked threads.)

- AI should not cast RM or Breach against targets protected by Deflections. (It can cast RM against nearby targets, though; since RM is AoE, it will burn away 3 levels from the Deflection.)

 

* So for example, maybe we set Minor Deflection to block 6 levels of spells. Flame Arrow would burn through 3 levels (getting halfway to destroying the deflection), whereas Spell Thrust would burn through 6 levels (destroying it outright). "Medium Deflection" at 5th level might block 8 levels; in this case Secret Word will destroy it utterly... and Spell Thrust would still be pretty effective, weakening the deflection enough that the next spell or AoE to hit the mage will destroy the deflection. Etc. We could easily play around with these numbers to balance things. I think it would make sense to increase the Deflections and increase the power levels of SW and higher to triple their level. Something like:

- Minor Deflection: block 6 levels

- Normal Deflection: block 10 levels

- Greater Deflection: block 18 levels

- Spell Trap: absorb 30 levels

 

...and:

- Spell Thrust: destroy SS; if no SS, burn through 6 levels (kill Minor Deflection)

- Secret Word: destroy SS; if no SS, burn through 12 levels (kill Normal Deflection)

- Pierce Magic: destroy SS; if no SS, burn through 18 levels (kill any Deflection)

- Ruby Ray: destroy SS; if no SS, burn through 21 levels (kill any Deflection) or remove Trap

- Pierce Shield: destroy SS; if no SS, burn through 24 levels or remove Trap; apply Breach

- Spellstrike: destroy SS; if no SS, burn through 27 levels AND remove Trap; apply Breach or Remove Magic (have to think this one through)

 

Btw does anyone know whether the "power level" of an effect in a .SPL is limited to 9, or can it work with any integer? I believe it's a 1-byte field so it should accept integers up to 255... I just don't know if higher numbers will burn through Deflection levels as expected. (If not, it can probably be simulated with subspells... this is easy enough to test anyway.)

 

Given the nature of divine magic and clerics' typical role in a party, I'd say that SotA could be a party-wide [Medium Deflection + Dispelling Screen]. That would be pretty interesting and unique.

 

If RM is given a power level to work this way, Breach should have a power level high enough (8) to affect Rakshasa since RM no longer will. (As Demi said, everything is connected - change one thing and there are consequences in other part of the system. So we'd have to look out for this kind of side effect. But it shouldn't be hard to run them down.)

 

Now if only there was a way to implement Minor Deflection and Spell Thrust as at-will cantrips in a way the AI could make use of... but I fear that it truly not feasible.

Edited October 5, 2018 by subtledoctor

[DavidW]

On getting SCS changes made:

 

It is not the case that SCS has hooks to let third parties edit it, other than for their own private use. Revised SCS is an unauthorized mirror, albeit one I don't really object to pending v32 releasing, since I was difficult contact at the time. But I don't want third parties tweaking SCS. However, SCS has quite a lot of features to let *me* customize it for different mods.

 

Getting me to include compatibility with a spell system modification requires one of four things:

1) I want to use this myself;

2) Lots of players are already using it;

3) Someone else does most of the work;

4) I'm feeling randomly helpful and it's not too difficult.

 

 

Here (1) doesn't apply (I'm fine with the vanilla system) and (2) doesn't yet apply, but 3 and 4 are possible, though I'm reluctant to put very much if any time into supporting anything until it's released and stable. (I recognize there's a chicken-and-egg problem, though.)

 

 

Looking at your description, it *seems* (correct me if this is wrong) that there are two changes from default SCS behavior:

 

 

1) Use spells on spell-deflection creatures to burn through their defenses

2) Don't use dispel magic on people protected by deflections. (I'm not going to use Breach anyway.)

 

I'm already experimenting with (1) in SCS v32. (2) is fairly easy to do: you need to set a detectable state (let's call it DO_NOT_DISPEL) in the spell with 328/318 (I assume you know how that's done?) and I will check for that in the dispel block. There are a few other contexts where that would be useful, so I can do it anyway, which means I don't specifically need to detect your mod.

 

Did I miss any AI-side changes?

[kreso]

For me, solo runs with wizard is too hard with scs installed when most high level Liches, Fiends, Dragons etc spam dispel magic. 1 time protection of dispelling screen is not enough. I think it could be tweaked to protect the caster at least 2 times or another spell can provide protection against dispel magic. Any thoughts?

Solo run wizard isn't an option with SR, I'm afraid. This is by intent. You could probably do it by endless Wish spam, provided you'rre zealous enough.

 

 

So how can a mage protect himself from dispel magic spam then? I like scs not only because of difficulty but also the chess battle between arcane casters. With SR there is little to no chess battle beause of how easily buffs can be stripped. If solo is not a thing with SR, then it is unfortunate.

He can't. You can use Spell Trigger/Contingency etc. if you like. But come demons with never-ending dispel spam, you're very likely going to die. Again, this is by intent.

 

 

Dispel Magic removes your combat protections in one cast. That include stoneskin, prot from elements, prot from energy, other skins, remove fear etc. You can't live if these are dispelled against a high spellcaster with summons helping him. How is this balanced? You can eat a Ruby ray but still live just fine because it dispels 1 protection. You have other defences if Greater Spell Deflection removed. Globe of Inv and Spell Deflection will be more than enough to continue fight. But if you eat remove magic you are practically dead.

Imo, it's far more balanced than a solo mage laying waste to dozens of high-leveled demons....

Things such as Deflections aren't affected by Dispel Magic and keep you safe even from area damage. So you can cast PfMW and keep your mage intact.

 

 

I don't have this issue in normal scs runs tbh. Because SI: Abjuration is good enough to counter dispel magic. With spell revisions, i am prone to be bodied by any caster who casts dispel magic. You can't play the chess game with them because they don't have to. All they need to is spam dispel magic. I feel like Spell trap, spell deflection, etc is useless with SR because what will they protect when your most essential buffs are gone?

The whole "chess" thing is way overrated. There's no chess battle is BG other than Durlag's tower. Enemies don't just spam dispels. Spell trap/deflections are in fact made to protect you even when your buffs are gone.

But you’re now giving a reason: triple-RM sequencers are overpowered in the SR ecosystem. If that was true in the vanilla game I’d have some time for it, but it looks from the discussion here that it arises in SR because SR removes SI:Abjuration. The whole point of SR is to rebalance the spell system; I’m not going to impose further changes on the SCS side.

 

SR significantly reduces the ability of solo spellcasters to protect against multiple Remove Magics. If that’s intentional, fine. If it’s not, SR should rethink its spell system. Since Demi and others have been complaining about SI for years, I assume they’re happy with the consequences of its removal, but in any case I work with the spell system I’m given.

Triple-RM sequencers are far less of a problem than 5+ demons backed up by a Lich named Odamaron, his simulacrum, his vampire apprentices and a few Planetars tucked in a very small area.

 

 

I am not underleveled. In fact i am over lvl 20 when facing most of the Liches. I can solo ScS without a problem. Timestop is not an issue when your buffs up because Lich can dispel X amount of your buff in a given time. Not all of your buffs. Especially when you can cast spell shield after timestop ends. With SR all of your buffs are dispelled by a level 3 spell which you can't prevent from in any way.

Liches in SCS are what, 29lvl mages? And dispel magic's success is based on caster level difference, right?

 

So what does it mean? Do i need to hit exp cap to fight them? There are a lot of liches triggered as encounter in SoA when you past level 15. You have no chance but to fight. In fact, only in temple ruins, you encounter 2.

Use summons or run in circles. No AI can cope with it, unless it's Improved Anvil's golems with "kill summon on hit" effect and 4x movement speed. Or, skip Temple Ruins. You're near level cap anyway.

3rd option (which I endorse) - play with a party. SR isn't designed around omnipotent solo mages, fighter/mages etc. Truth is, the nerf to SI:Abj is implemented for 2 reasons;

 

1) give non-casters some kind of protection so you can buff for 2 minutes without worrying about loosing your buffs in first combat round

2) make mages slightly less omnipotent.

 

1) was partially achieved, at least in early - to - mid BG2

 

 

I am just not sure if these fights are even doable with a solo arcane caster without ProUndead OR 9lvl spells

Unless you're abusing some items like Boots of Cheese, they shouldn't be for a solo character several levels lower than the Lich in question.

I don't see a problem with that.

 

 

I’d also recommend reading (at least the first page of) the “revised SCS” thread; it’s clear from there that at least Kreso, and probably also Demi, were just fine, rightly or wrongly, with SR making solo play very difficult.

Yup.

 

Speaking of Liches in Umar, here's how I've killed one with a 12th level party.

 

 

 

Looking at your description, it *seems* (correct me if this is wrong) that there are two changes from default SCS behavior:

 

 

1) Use spells on spell-deflection creatures to burn through their defenses

2) Don't use dispel magic on people protected by deflections. (I'm not going to use Breach anyway.)

1) yes. Unless it's Shield of Archons or Spell Trap, these have unlimited layers and need to either be removed or waited out.

2) not really; Dispel ignores them, so imo it's fine (i.e. not unrealistic or stupid). When casting Dispel, AI should only check for buffs on PCs. Breach is a no-go, ofc.

 

Edited October 11, 2018 by kreso

[subtledoctor]

 

Looking at your description, it *seems* (correct me if this is wrong) that there are two changes from default SCS behavior:

1) Use spells on spell-deflection creatures to burn through their defenses

2) Don't use dispel magic on people protected by deflections. (I'm not going to use Breach anyway.)

1) yes. Unless it's Shield of Archons or Spell Trap, these have unlimited layers and need to either be removed or waited out.

2) not really; Dispel ignores them, so imo it's fine (i.e. not unrealistic or stupid). When casting Dispel, AI should only check for buffs on PCs. Breach is a no-go, ofc.

 

You missed the context. He was responding to my idea for a mod (a post-SR meta-mod) which would allow Deflections to block Remove Magic.

 

On getting SCS changes made:

...

Looking at your description, it *seems* (correct me if this is wrong) that there are two changes from default SCS behavior:

 

1) Use spells on spell-deflection creatures to burn through their defenses

2) Don't use dispel magic on people protected by deflections. (I'm not going to use Breach anyway.)

 

I'm already experimenting with (1) in SCS v32. (2) is fairly easy to do: you need to set a detectable state (let's call it DO_NOT_DISPEL) in the spell with 328/318 (I assume you know how that's done?) and I will check for that in the dispel block. There are a few other contexts where that would be useful, so I can do it anyway, which means I don't specifically need to detect your mod.

More or less correct. In fact I suppose (1) isn't even really necessary - if something like this is going to happen anyway in SCS v32, great; but even under the behavior of SCS v30, as kreso mentioned in one of the linked threads, I can sort of simulate that on my side by having the lower-level Deflections deceive the AI, presenting themselves as Spell Shield. So SCS sees someone with SS up and determines that it's worth lobbing a Spell Thrust or Secret Word to take it down; but it also sees someone without any Deflection up, so it doesn't shy away from using spells like Flame Arrow or Disintegrate or whatever. The result seems to be pretty organic.

 

(2) Seems fairly easy, as you say. I can certainly patch the spells to set a stat/state/spellstate. However there is still other side of this proposed mod:

 

On getting SCS changes made:Did I miss any AI-side changes?

The 3 major changes I'm proposing to code are:

1) Remove Magic doesn't penetrate spell protections

2) Eliminate MGOI and GOI in favor of AoE Deflections

3) Simplify the list of spells affected by Breach, RM, and Break Enchantment

 

Your post addresses (1) and (2) but I gather (3) is potentially a more substantive change. In short, my proposal is:

- Break Enchantment dispels any bad spell effect affecting yourself or an ally, excluding poison/disease/etc. (This is more or less already the SRv4 behavior.)

- RM and Breach both dispel an identical list of spells, to wit, any good spell effect affecting an opponent. I'm actually not clear on what the current behavior is with these spells (one of the reasons I'm proposing to create a mod to simplify it). I gather RM uses opcode 58 "dispel effects" while Breach uses opcode 221 to dispel anything with the "combat protections" or "specific protections" sectype. On my end, I would sync these up such that any spell subject to opcode 58 would be given the "specific protections" sectype, making it Breach-able. On the AI end, the work would be to recognize that.

 

As a "for instance:" if I'm not mistaken, under SRv4 Fire Shield can be dispelled but not Breached. I would change that, and so the AI should (ideally) know to use Breach against Fire Shield.

 

As I think about it, maybe this doesn't even require an AI change. I'm ignorant of how SCS detects what is breachable in the first place. Can it detect sectypes? Or do you have to maintain a discrete list? (The former would make a lot more sense... this stuff is so easy on the EEs now - so simple to just patch every spell with the "combat protections" sectype to apply a "this is a combat protection!" spellstate.)

 

So tl;dr: the AI changes required by my mod would be 1) don't cast RM against spell protections of the spell protections wave a flag saying "don't cast RM against me!" and 2) use RM and Breach against an identical set of enemy buffs.

[DavidW]

I think I'm going to say, "wait for SCS v32 and then have a look at how the AI works and see if you can do what you need within it or if you need changes". (v30 and below uses a discrete list of breachables; v32 uses spellstates.)

 

I strongly recommend against trying to "deceive the AI", because then you're hostage to AI changes. (If you're working within the intended functioning of the AI, changes are unlikely to cause problems; if you're trying to hack the code, it's much more likely that the hack will stop working when the mod updates.)

 

I haven't gone through your list in detail, but one quick observation: RM doesn't just remove "good" effects, it removes anything (at least in vanilla BG2, and I think in SR too). So one aspect of RM scripting is to be careful not to dispel bad effects.

Edited October 11, 2018 by DavidW

[Bartimaeus]

Yes, RM/DM, if successful, will dispel literally any ongoing effect that is marked as type 1 (dispel/no bypass magic resistance) or type 3 (dispel/bypass magic resistance) resistance. This is probably why SR tried (and failed) to merge Dispel Magic and Remove Magic, because DM could easily accidentally dispel enemies' own buffs if incorrectly targeted.

[kreso]

Dispel magic in SR works just as Remove magic, affecting only enemies. I think what DavidW wants to say that AI needs to be careful around dispeling ongoing debuffs affecting party like Malison, Insects, Slow etc. I vaguely remember some code piece in SCS based around how it's "embarrassing to dispel own debuffs".

[DavidW]

Yes, exactly.

[Hicuty]

Solo run wizard isn't an option with SR, I'm afraid. This is by intent. You could probably do it by endless Wish spam, provided you'rre zealous enough.

 

Tbh solo runs are easier with SR until you encounter monsters with remove magic spam. It is weird that remove magic kills it.

Edited October 11, 2018 by Hicuty