Wand tweaks

[mercurier]

1. Externalize wand effect to spells

Demi proposed some wand tweaks 11 years ago, with both pros and cons:

Quote

At the moment wands use "normal" effects to reproduce the original spells, though many of these spells are slightly customized when fired from wands. I'm instead working to completely change them to use actual spells (.spl files), though obviously custom ones.

This means wands' spells will be correctly flagged as arcane/divine spells with appropriate school, secondary-type, and so on, granting the following advantages/features:

- they will be correctly handled by spell protections (Spell Immunity/Deflection/Turning/Trap)

- if we ever decide to make wands' spells improve with caster level it will be possible

- we can make WoMM fire more than one missile

- we can make Cowled Wizards correctly responds to arcane spells fired from wands

- ...

 

Ironically the one change that really needs to be done is the only one that would have a temporarily drawback:

- Breach and Pierce Magic casted from the Wand of Spellstrike weren't flagged as Magic Attack causing them to not correctly work against spell protections

Fixing that may probably cause incompatibility problems with SCS's "antimagic attacks" component, though avoiding it is just a matter of not installing either this IR's item or that SCS's component.

 

 

Recently SCS has externalized Wand of Spellstrike's effect so the major con is no more. So I think it's probably a good time to necro this design. In addition to the benefits mentioned above, externalizing enables more sensible saving throw types vs. different wands if combined with SR (e.g. save vs. breath for Wand of Fire, save vs. spell for Wand of Paralyzation, etc.). It will be even more interesting if further combined with revised saving throw tables (available in some mods), which will be leveraged by both PC and SCS to adjust saving throws of party members and classed critters, making choosing which wand to use against whom more of a tactical move.

 

2. Standardize wand price

Using the formula given in 3.5e, wand price = spell level * caster level * 750. So the Wand of Fire would cost 3 * 6 * 750 = 13500 before shop markup.

A quick glance got me feel that applying this tweak would raise wand price by 20%~50%, which would, IMHO, balance wand recharging a little bit (though I am personally against it). On the other hand it will slightly boost the fortune of players who don't use wands and just sell them out right. Anyway, it's more of a cosmetic change.

 

3. Wands variants of higher caster levels

Wand of Fire at caster level 10 that does 10d6? Yes! Might be achieved through a macro (and an 2DA for possible CLs for each wand) that adds variants to stores that sell wands already.

 

What do you think?

[Bartimaeus]

1. IR already uses externalized spell effects. Not sure why that would change what kind of saving throws wands use - changing wands to use saving throws from their normal type (i.e. mostly vs. spell) would just make the vs. wand saving throw type completely useless, since there'd be...no wands that make you save against it.

3. Don't understand why wands would be affected by caster level. They're not cast by the spellcaster - they're charges prepared in and cast by the wand. Logically should not be affected.

[Desolate Dancer]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

3. Don't understand why wands would be affected by caster level. They're not cast by the spellcaster - they're charges prepared in and cast by the wand. Logically should not be affected.

I agree. A given item should not scale with the user character's level since the item's power should only be tied to the item itself (its enchantment level).

Case in point however, I had an idea some time ago: why not make different enchantment levels for wands too? My idea would be to have +1, +2 and +3 wands, and perhaps some unique wands could have a +4 enchantment (e.g. Wand of Wonder, Rod of Absorbtion) in their name field. So let's posit the following example:
- Wand of Magic Missiles +1 fires 1 magic missile (caster level 5) costs
- Wand of Magic Missiles +2 fires 3 missiles (caster level 10)
- Wand of Magic Missiles +3 fires 5 missiles (caster level 15)

Following the above example, Monster Summoning should represent I, II and III spells by the same name for the 3 enchantment levels. Cloudkill should have a duration of 2, 4 and 6 rounds. Sleep, Paralysation should have an incremental duration or penalty save, whichever is more feasible.

[mercurier]

1. Yes I agree that externalizing wand effect would make save vs. wand useless, but I don’t think it will bring out significant drawback. If you take wands as devices that store spells (aka a condensed pile of non-copyable scrolls), then externalizing will be the natural approach to make those spells behave properly in terms of saving throws, magic protection, etc. Saving against wand of fire/cloudkilll/Paralyzation with the same ST type looks weird to me as these effects apparently requires different character traits to save against.

 

2.

Sorry if I didn’t state it clearly. The caster level of wand is actually borrowed from 3e where a wand can have different versions as if the hosted spell is casted by different caster levels. It is not the level of the character who use it,  which won’t impact the effectiveness of wands.

For example, regular wand of fire do 6d6 damage, which is equivalent of a level 6 mage casting fireball (lv3 spell). A more potent (and expensive) version could do 10d6, mimicking a level 10 mage’s casting. IMO the CL attribute is easier to interpret than “enchantment level of wand”, as by knowing CL you will know exactly what effect to expect if you are familiar with the spell it hosts. 

[Desolate Dancer]

On 9/26/2019 at 3:55 AM, mercurier said:

Sorry if I didn’t state it clearly. The caster level of wand is actually borrowed from 3e where a wand can have different versions as if the hosted spell is casted by different caster levels. It is not the level of the character who use it,  which won’t impact the effectiveness of wands.

For example, regular wand of fire do 6d6 damage, which is equivalent of a level 6 mage casting fireball (lv3 spell). A more potent (and expensive) version could do 10d6, mimicking a level 10 mage’s casting. IMO the CL attribute is easier to interpret than “enchantment level of wand”, as by knowing CL you will know exactly what effect to expect if you are familiar with the spell it hosts. 

Well yes indeed I also believe that CL attribute is a better (and standardized) way to interpret a wand's power, but there's a very important advantage of the +X descriptor: it is quick and easy to tell which item is better. When you move the cursor over the item, it will be in the name of the item, therefore you can make minute decisions e.g. which to sell, which to buy, which to drop etc... The CL would look out of place in the name field, which means that the only way to differentiate would be the open the item description and this takes time.

Tbs, I was once working on a standardization to provide a CL to all items with enchantment level, mostly to all weapons, armors and shields so that there would be a general rule for all their possible traits:
- on hit effects
- equipped effects
- charged abilities
- per day abilities

[Endarire]

I like scrolls and wands of higher CL than base so they’re useful longer.

[subtledoctor]

On 9/25/2019 at 9:55 PM, mercurier said:

Yes I agree that externalizing wand effect would make save vs. wand useless, but I don’t think it will bring out significant drawback.

I agree with this. You should be comfortable knowing your chance to save against a Fireball is your chance to save against a Fireball. I don’t see how it being cast from a spell, wand, or scroll changes your chance to partially dodge it. (And if you think they should be different, then explain why there is a “save vs. wands” but not a “save vs. scrolls.”)

Edited August 12, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Bartimaeus]

15 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I agree with this. You should be comfortable knowing your chance to save against a Fireball is your chance to save against a Fireball. I don’t see how it being cast from a spell, wand, or scroll changes your chance to partially dodge it. (And if you think they should be different, then explain why there is a “save vs. wands” but not a “save vs. scrolls.”)

Because a scroll is cast as per normal spellcasting, while a wand is not.

(e): Also, I personally am against changing the wand saving throws simply because they're a part of balancing different class types' saving throws (and there's no way to remove the saving throw altogether, so...).

Edited August 12, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[subtledoctor]

16 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Because a scroll is cast as per normal spellcasting, while a wand is not.

That is excellent hair-splitting. You should be a philosopher. 

Personally I don’t think preserving the saving throw is worth (IMO) unbalancing gameplay. It’s not like saves are balanced anyway. All that matters are saves vs. spells, and to a lesser extent saves vs. death/poison.

Anyway, my answer is, of course, to mod all saving throws after IR is installed. It balances them better, and align saves vs. wand-based effects with the equivalent spells. 

[Bartimaeus]

You asked! One is subject to casting speed, school restrictions, class usabilities, being interrupted, caster level, while...wands aren't. In contrast to your position, I actually wish the saving throw wasn't called "vs. wand" but rather "vs. item", and that all activated (i.e. non-cast) item abilities used it instead.

Edited August 12, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[subtledoctor]

TBH I tend to go the other way: the saving throw should be entirely independent of the delivery mechanism, and instead differ by spell school. Invocation -> save vs. breath weapon, necromancy -> save vs. death, alteration/abjuration -> save vs. petrification/polymorph, and enchantment/illusion -> save vs. spells. In an ideal world, split saves vs. poison from saves vs. death, and cannibalize the useless “vs. wands” to handle poison/disease instead (be a rough stand-in for system shock rolls). 

[NdranC]

23 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

TBH I tend to go the other way: the saving throw should be entirely independent of the delivery mechanism, and instead differ by spell school. Invocation -> save vs. breath weapon, necromancy -> save vs. death, alteration/abjuration -> save vs. petrification/polymorph, and enchantment/illusion -> save vs. spells. In an ideal world, split saves vs. poison from saves vs. death, and cannibalize the useless “vs. wands” to handle poison/disease instead (be a rough stand-in for system shock rolls). 

As a fan of newer DnD editions I tend to agree with this yet I personally struggle with the idea of modding a game too hard to the point of being unrecognizable from the original "spirit". This is obviously a personal choice and a shifting line but there is something to be said for both sides.

One of the issues IR and SR has going on for it is not being able to control or know what the greater balance of the rest of the game looks like to make spell or item changes. Including but not limited to kits, HLAs, stats, the combat encounters, etc.

I was recently making the point that the change to items from setting an attribute to giving a flat bonus to said attribute doesn't work very well without 3e DnD style attributes. In vanilla+IR that belt that patched a strength hole on a character but didn't help an already strong one, now in theory should help both but in practice the already strong one becomes busted while the weak one remains unaffected do to how all strength bonuses are staked towards the end.

[subtledoctor]

Yes - I used to give that +STR mace to Minsc and he used it for like 75% of SoA. It was just too good. 

With some clerics spells that set STR to 18/50 or whatever, in FnP we have them giving a straight +1 if your STR is already 18 or higher. I probably am now able to do the same thing for items... I could try to do it in my random tweaks if people are interested in a hybrid effect...

[pochesun]

16 hours ago, NdranC said:

I was recently making the point that the change to items from setting an attribute to giving a flat bonus to said attribute doesn't work very well without 3e DnD style attributes. In vanilla+IR that belt that patched a strength hole on a character but didn't help an already strong one, now in theory should help both but in practice the already strong one becomes busted while the weak one remains unaffected do to how all strength bonuses are staked towards the end.

My 2 cents. I dont think BG should be a "perfecly balanced game" (whatever it means) in regard to battle abilities. It also should not strive to be one. Its not like some Blizzard game (like Overwatch) when they try to "perfectly balance" every hero and every aspect of the game  - with BG its just pointless and imho confronts the whole DnD concept. There are things in the game that should be busted (like some epic relic items) and there are creatures that are godlike are legendary (like dragons and protagonist : insert your charname here  ). 

In real DnD (though i am not a savant or somthing) people pick bards not cuz they are "busted", in terms of battle potential they are usualy inferior to any mage. No, people pick bards cuz they are "busted" in another way: they can recount adventure stories, sing you a soothing madrigal song or just be a good pal who telling funny jokes. With BG you just cant balance everything out. Of course, the other side of the coin is there  will be always mundane or "super non-busted" things like cursed items  and this aspect of BG is also super cool. 

[NdranC]

40 minutes ago, pochesun said:

My 2 cents. I dont think BG should be a "perfecly balanced game" (whatever it means) in regard to battle abilities. It also should not strive to be one. Its not like some Blizzard game (like Overwatch) when they try to "perfectly balance" every hero and every aspect of the game  - with BG its just pointless and imho confronts the whole DnD concept. There are things in the game that should be busted (like some epic relic items) and there are creatures that are godlike are legendary (like dragons and protagonist : insert your charname here  ). 

In real DnD (though i am not a savant or somthing) people pick bards not cuz they are "busted", in terms of battle potential they are usualy inferior to any mage. No, people pick bards cuz they are "busted" in another way: they can recount adventure stories, sing you a soothing madrigal song or just be a good pal who telling funny jokes. With BG you just cant balance everything out. Of course, the other side of the coin is there  will be always mundane or "super non-busted" things like cursed items  and this aspect of BG is also super cool. 

I also agree with this but to a limit. Do to the nature of mods, we are changing things for what we think it's better. IR changed attribute settings items because it felt it was worse for the game but the end result arguably just shifted the power balance without spreading it (easily fixable by using 3e stats). As a player it sucks when you have a cool idea but the game doesn't do the bare minimum to reward you gameplay or your build choices. There is so much suspension of disbelief I can do to my gameplay before I just can't justify playing unfun and unrewarding playstyles that look like they could be possible if only we tweak the numbers a little. We don't have to make everything perfectly balanced but maybe striving for closing the gap to make playstyles viable would increase the levels of fun for people that want to try something new.

That being said my original point was an open ended one about the personal struggle I face when modding videogames too much to the point of becoming unrecognizable.