Subtledoc's Random Tweaks

[subtledoctor]

As I play through SoD and get ready for a BG2 playthrough (for the first time in probably 10 years), I find myself going in and tweaking this or that little thing.  Nothing major, just nerfing a spell here, making this item a bit more interesting, etc.  These little tweaks would be nice to have in a single installable mod; but they don't belong in any of our existing projects.  (Some of the spell tweaks are in Tome & Blood, but I'm going to remove them because they are really out of place there.) 

So, I have started to gather them together.  If anyone is interested, feel free to use any of them.  If anyone has ideas for very small tweaks like this, feel free to discuss it here and maybe I'll add some more.  By "small," as an example, think along the lines "the Luck spell is underwhelming - it should affect the whole party!" Bam - there it is.  I'm just collecting a lot of teeny-tiny ideas like that.

This is EE-only.

Here's what's in this mod so far:

(NOTE: each of these is a separate, optional component. You can install all of these, or a few,  only one if that's all that strikes your fancy. Up to you.)

-- Allow Cure spells to bypass Spell Deflection - sets the power level of Cure Wounds and some similar spells to 0, so that you can cure someone who has a Spell Deflection spell up.

-- Improve Color Spray - add a chance to Blind someone hit by this spell, regardless of their level.  So it will never be totally, 100% useless.

-- Improve Sunscorch - SR-only: damage to non-undead is halved, from 1d6 per 2 levels to 1d3 per 2 levels, up to 5d3 max. Damage to undead is 1d6 per 2 levels on top of that, so up to 5d3+5d6. No saving throws are allowed relating to the damage. On a failed save vs. spells, the duration of blindness is increased from 1 round to 3 rounds.

-- Improve Faerie Fire - the AoE is expanded and it can now be used quite well to turn hidden enemies visible.

-- Improve Blur - adds a missile avoidance effect to the Blur spell, which avoids the damage (of the "missile" damage type) from one projectile each round. Basically the same as the tweak to the Gloves of Missile Snaring, below.

-- Change Protection from Petrification - this spell becomes "Mirrored Eyes," giving you an extra chance to save (you get to roll two saving throws instead of one, and you escape the effect if either roll succeeds) against any effect using the GAZE projectile.  This includes e.g. vampire Charm, umber hulk Confusion, and Aec'Letec's Death Gaze.

-- Improve Luck - give this spell a party-friendly AoE and make it last 5 rounds instead of 3.  It's actually still pretty underwhwelming...

-- Move Mirror Image - moves MI to 3rd level.  It's silly to have two illusionary protections at 2nd level, and MI is noticeably more useful than Blur.  A 'Stoneskin Lite' deserves to be 3rd level, I think.  (Note: if you also use Tome & Blood's "Revised Invisibility" then you can use Nondetection to protect your mirror images from being dispelled by Oracle/True Sight/etc., so this becomes a more durable protection.)

-- Improve Stinking Cloud - SR-only, this will make the effects of nausea last for a few rounds even after someone exits the cloud. So you can use it as a curtain, where enemies will have to pass through it to reach you and when they get to you they will be at a disadvantage. Maaaybe this could make it competitive with Web.

-- Nerf Web - instead of being Held if you fail your save, you become Slowed (half movement, slow spellcasting, AC penalty) and have your APR set to zero.  And your movement is set to 30% regardless whether you save (so, 15% movement if you fail the save).

-- Change Aganazzar's Scorcher - into "Melf's Fiery Missiles," which is like Magic Missile but with extra missiles and a chance to do fire damage in addition to magic damage.

-- Improve Glitterdust - SR-only, this removes the saving throw to avoid the inability to go invisible, and adds an AC penalty.

-- Improve Decastave - targets struck by the decastave must save or be deafened for 3 rounds.  Part of my effort to give every spell-summoned magic weapon unique characteristics.

-- Improve Barkskin - this turns Barkskin into a once-per-round Stoneskin... sort of like what SR Reflected Image is compared to Mirror Image. The "Skin of the Forest" leather armor in BG2 can optionally have the same effect, on a permanent basis.

-- Improve Goodberry - instead of creating actual consumable berries, it is abstracted away. Upon casting the spell, all nearby allies are assumed to have eaten berries; any intoxication and fatigue are removed, and they regenerate 2 hit points per round, for one round per level of the caster (to a maximum of 10 rounds). This can only be cast outside combat.

-- Improve Slow Poison -adds a very short immunity to poison damage - just three rounds - for convenience, to help you finish out a fight against those spiders or snakes or what have you.

-- Improve Alicorn Lance - The damage caused by this spell is increased from 3d6 to 4d6, and the damage type changed form 'piercing' to 'magic.'

-- Tweak Haste and Slow - SR-only and EE-only: instead of the last one cast being applied (overwriting each other), Haste and Slow effects will now cancel each other out, resulting in a net neutral effect if you are affected by both.

-- Tweak Exaltation and Spiritual Clarity - gives all the effects of Exaltation to Spiritual Clarity (curing more conditions, though the duration lasts only half as long) and improves the spells' casting times: to 4 for Exaltation and to 1 for Spiritual Clarity.

-- Change Moonblade - removes the casting failure on hit (that's Phantom Blade's thing!) and instead can cast Faerie Fire and Slow undead on hit.

-- Improve Hold/Control Undead - these now bypass magic resistance, in order to be useful against undead with pesky magic resistance.

-- Tweak Shadow Monsters/Demi-Shadow Monsters/Shades - this turns the summoned creatures into actual illusions, in the technical sense; it also makes them stronger but makes most of the damage they do resistible if the target makes a saving throw.

-- Improve Otiluke's Sphere - removes the Hold2 effect, but adds effects to disable all UI buttons and spellcasting.  You still cannot interact with the world outside the sphere... but you are awake, and you can e.g. go into your backpack and drink potions.

-- Tweak Fire Shield/Acid Sheath - SR-only, this allows the Breach spell to work against Fire Shield and Acid Sheath spells.

-- Improve Neutralize Poison - this spell becomes "Remove Afflictions," a combination of Slow Poison, Cure Disease, Remove Paralysis, and IWD's Unfailing Endurance. It removes poison, disease, blindness, deafness, Hold, and fatigue. If Spell Revisions is installed first, this also extends immunity to disease for the same duration as the spell's immunity to poison.

-- Change Phantom Blade - the damage done by this weapon is changed from 1d10 slashing to 1d8 stunning/nonlethal (representing 'psychic damage') plus 1d8 magic damage applied via effect.  The extra damage vs. undead is removed (use Moonblade) but the casting failure on hit remains.  The spell's school is changed from Evocation to Illusion.

-- Change Sunfire - this becomes “Missile Storm,” which unlike Sunfire is party-friendly. It fires TWO maximum-strength (5-missile) Magic Missile spells at every enemy within sight range of the caster.

-- Improve Waves of Fatigue - SR-only: instead of applying actual fatigue (the effects of which can be frustratingly variable), this will apply a Luck penalty and remove Haste effects on the targets; and if they fail a save vs. polymorph/petrification, it will also penalize their saving throws, APR, and spellcasting speed.

-- Improve Wondrous Recall - instead of restoring two random spells up to 4th level, it restores ALL spells of 1st and 2nd level.

-- Tweak Blade Barrier - SR-only, his allows the Breach spell to remove Blade Barrier.

-- Improve Mantle - this becomes "Iron Skin" which applies stoneskins just like the 4th level spell; but while those skins are there, the extra elemental damage of weapons will not “go through” the skins to hurt you.  It also gives 5 extra "skins" compared to the 4th-level spell. (The druid spell is renamed to "Stoneskin" to keep the difference clear.)

-- Improve Holy Word - the vanilla spell only applies deafness to high-level enemies, which is useless against non-spellcasters. Now it also applies Slow.

-- Move Symbol: Fear - this is moved to 7th level.

-- Tweak Moment of Prescience - SR-only, this makes the Breach spell unable to remove Moment of Prescience.

-- Move Shapechange - this is moved to 8th level.

-- Move Black Blade of Disaster - this is moved to 8th level.

-- Move and Improve Energy Drain - this is moved to 8th level, and a save-or-die effect is added.

-- Make all spell-summoned weapons set base APR to 2 - what it says.  Spending a spell slot on a Shillelagh or a Moonblade should make you appreciably more effective in combat.

-- Improve the Ring of Danger Sense - adds a 1-point AC bonus, and immunity to backstabs.

-- Improve the Gloves of Missile Snaring - these give you a 3-point bonus to AC vs. ranged attacks, and let you deflect the missile damage (but not elemental damage) of one missile attack each round.

-- Tweak detonating weapons - weapons like the Club of Detonation that can create Fireballs on-hit will now trigger the IWD priest spell "Produce Fire" instead.

-- Improve Skin of the Forest armor - this leather armor will now act like a permanent version of the modified Barskin spell described above, absorbing one physical attack each round.

-- Improve Cloak of the Gargloyle - IR-only, this cloak will provide five Stoneskins, instead of the original AC bonus. This will be the same as Item Revisions' Gargoyle Boots and Potions of Stone Form.

-- Nerf vampires' Level Drain - this adds a saving throw vs. Death to resist level drain from melee attacks.

-- Improve Bard Harps - Azlaer's Harp will cast Aid in addition to its Resist Fear effect, and Methild's Harp will cast Remove Curse in addition to Remove Paralysis. A bit more reason to carry these around.

-- Tweak Planetars - I always thought Planetars were weird in concept: celestial beings that bend to the will of mages, but even the holiest priests cannot receive their aid? This makes superficial changes, giving them genie animations and calling them "Noble Djinn/Efreet," and changing their swords into swords that do fire or electric damage instead of the vorpal effect. So mostly window dressing, except for that slight nerf to their weapons.

-- Increase dragons' hit points - dragons are huge. Bigger than giants. For their sheer girth, they should arguably be a lot more durable, regardless of scales and magic and other protective characteristics. This component will let you increase their hit points by 50%, 100%, or 200%.

Edited March 4, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Bartimaeus]

Lots of interesting ideas. My favorites are:

1. Move Mirror Image: way too powerful for a 2nd level spell, and too close to both Reflect Image and Blur. Unfortunately such a staple at 2nd level that I don't think most players would want this, even though I think it totally makes sense, .
2. Improved Otiluke's Sphere: always wanted something more like this, but always figured that it would have been implemented already if it wasn't problematic for AI and I didn't want to do a bunch of testing to see how they handled it to make sure.. Although now that I think about it, even if that were the case, you could make an exception for PC characters while still basically holding other types of creatures, so perhaps I'll revisit this someday.
3. The kill effect for Energy Drain is good - I might steal that for SRR, because Energy Drain really just doesn't make any sense for where it is.
4. Mantle: Really interesting idea, but very radically different from its initial design. Do you keep its duration at 4 rounds, or..?
5. Ring of Danger Sense: I kind of dismissed this at first, but then I realized that I don't think I've ever actually used vanilla OR Item Revisions' Ring of Danger Sense (especially because of its location in the Planar Sphere), and now I'm rethinking it...

Edited February 25, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Grammarsalad]

These are great. I really like almost all of the changes you made here. Two things, though. I agree that the change to protection from petrification is probably too strong (like the original, the spell is both too strong yet too limited). I also think the change to luck is a bit too much. Personally, I'd rather extend the duration to something like 3 rounds +1/level (which I'll do in my tweak if you don't like the idea).

Edit: for some reason, I thought luck was a 1st level spell. As it's a 2nd level spell, I'm fine with the change 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Grammarsalad

[subtledoctor]

Re Otiluke’s: yeah, actually probably should add the Hold2 back for the AI. Should be doable. The only complication is that, while the EE and SR versions both separate out player vs. AI effects, to have players skip the saving throw, they both do so in completely different ways. Still, worth doing. 

Re Mantle/Iron Skin: at the moment it lasts 2400 seconds, just like Stoneskin. I had the idea from Temnix’s recent mod, in which he changes PfMW to only protect against magic weapons. It’s genius, but it could destroy AI wizards, who expect a period of immunity. I figured the easiest solution is to have them cast Mantle or Improved Mantle instead. 

Problem there is, Improved Mantle is a higher level spell than PfMW; and Mantle sucks. I looked to see if SR could fix this for me and save me the trouble, but SR turns Mantle into Prismatic Sphere. Which, no offense to Demi, is even worse than Mantle because it doesn't actually protect the caster at all. (And the benefit of the retaliatory damage works way better for the player, than for the AI.)

What to do? How to give mages some breathing room without giving them full ‘Protection from Magical Attacks?’ I’d long toyed with the idea of an ‘Improved Stoneskin’ and it just came to me: make it Stoneskin plus the benefit of Mantle. Better than Stoneskin because +1arrows (and SCS MMM) won’t tear down skins; better than Mantle because it gives you some protection against +5 weapons, by way of skins. Still not as good as Absolute Immunity, and I’m not worried about Improved Mantle because SR fixes that for me. I think this is close to hitting the sweet spot. You don’t even hace to worry about stacking stoneskins - the most recent application will apply, and will be the one you want to apply. (Maybe slightly inefficient if the AI pre-buffs with both, but I won’t lose any sleep over it.)  EDIT - 'Iron Skin' has changed, now instead of "Stoneskin + Mantle" it is an improved Stoneskin - 50% more skins, and immunity to weapon-delivered elemental damage as long as you have some skins left.

Re Energy Drain: I still think it’s underpowered, even with this improvement and SR’s improvement. But it's still a move in the right direction IMHO. Btw you can just install that component right over SRR. 

Btw @Luke I’ll probably like to use this space to do something interesting with the Shadow Monsters series of illusory summons...

EDIT - as for the Ring of Danger Sense, my thought has been to give it Evasion, like in IWDEE.  Save vs. Breath to avoid various AoE spells.  The current AC bonus and backstab immunity is still pretty underwhelming.  I haven't gotten around to making it work yet - was focused on the Gloves of Missile Snaring, which are tricky - but that's the plan.  (And I'll probably change IR Potions of Evasion the same way, to give a saving throw instead of outright immunity.)

EDIT 2 - as far as Pro Petrification/Mirrored Eyes, I think you're right, it's too good for a 1st-level slot.  Another idea is to make it a general bonus vs. Alteration spells and effects.  I forget the name of it, but there's a spell or ability from some edition... "Sound Body" or something like that.  Maybe give a simple ~+4 bonus to saves vs. Petrification/Polymorp, or to saves vs. spells in the Alteration school... or maybe something more exotic, similar to Evasion: an extra save vs. Pet/Poly to avoid any transmutation effect.  It would be sort of like having "advantage" on saving throws vs. Alterations.  Not a sure bet against basilisks, but then again a 1st-level spell shouldn't be a sure bet against 9HD monsters, right?

Edited February 16, 2021 by subtledoctor

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, I hate Prismatic Mantle too, which is why I nerfed the "prismatic" triggers for SRR and restored the +3 weapons immunity...but I think I might like this idea more (although I'm not sure that I would go for 8 hours - I knew it should be longer than 4 rounds right away, but 8 hours of blanket immunity to <=+2 weapons? That is...really powerful seeing as most enemies simply aren't regularly equipped with +3 weapons outside of stretches in ToB). Unfortunately, again, not an EE player - I'm pretty sure this idea requires that "once this particular effect expires, apply this other effect to forcibly expire the rest of the spell" opcode, right?

[Luke]

9 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Btw @Luke I’ll probably like to use this space to do something interesting with the Shadow Monsters series of illusory summons...

I'm working on a mod that aims at revamping all Monster Summoning spells (mainly the AI) and this is how I tweaked those series of spells:

 

I set their GENDER to ILLUSIONARY => On one hand, they're not automatically killed by Death Spell and are not subjected to the Summoning Cap (i.e., you can summon an 'unlimited' number of them, which hopefully makes sense since they're not conjured matter). On the other hand, they're instantly killed by Remove Magic, True Sight/Seeing, Thief's Detect Illusion mode and the like (which also makes sense...)

I gave them two weapons: a real weapon and a 'fake' one (which deals non-lethal damage). After that, I added the following script to their CRE file (along with their main combat script):

Spoiler

IF
	Die()
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		DisplayString(Myself,~Illusion Dispelled~)
		ReallyForceSpellDead(Myself,ILLUSION_DEATH)  // SPIN835.SPL (No such index)
		Wait(1)
		DestroySelf()
END

IF
	Allegiance(Myself,EVILCUTOFF)
	AttackedBy([GOODCUTOFF],DEFAULT)
	Global("Illusionary","LOCALS",0)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		SelectWeaponAbility(SLOT_WEAPON1,0)
		SetGlobal("Illusionary","LOCALS",1)
END

IF
	Allegiance(Myself,GOODCUTOFF)
	AttackedBy([EVILCUTOFF],DEFAULT)
	Global("Illusionary","LOCALS",0)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		SelectWeaponAbility(SLOT_WEAPON1,0)
		SetGlobal("Illusionary","LOCALS",1)
END

 

So basically, as soon as they're attacked by any means, they'll switch to the real weapon and deal real damage (instead of non-lethal damage...). This is how the game treats illusionary monsters in the BG2 Circus Tent...

 

As far as their HP are concerned, I decided not to give them the same amount a real monster will get. In particular:

• those summoned by the level 4th variant (Shadow Monsters) have 2/5 HP of the real ones (for instance, a level 3 Lizard Man will have 2/5 of 3d8+1, that is: 10 – yeah, that's pathetic, but you can summon an unlimited number of them...
• those summoned by the level 5th variant (Demi-Shadow Monsters) have 3/5 HP of the real ones.
• those summoned by the level 6th variant (Shades) have 4/5 HP of the real ones.

Finally, all arcane classes can summon 3 (fixed quantity, instead of using 'Caster Level') illusionary monsters chosen randomly from a 2DA (this is achieved via opcode #331). Illusionists instead can summon '3 + 1d2' illusionary monsters (this is achieved via opcode #177 + another opcode #331).

[subtledoctor]

Nice!

But, you may be making too much of the difference between "nonlethal" damage and other types.  Nonlethal damage hurts you every bit as much as other damage types.  It only cannot take the very last hit point you have.  An illusion that drops you to the brink of death and lets you get killed by a kobold is still pretty dangerous.  I think the werewolves in the circus tent do no damage until you attack them.  I might suggest adjusting what you've done: have the damage type always be nonlethal; but go from doing only a little damage, to doing full damage.

EDIT - actually now that I think about it more, the whole "gets more dangerous if you attack it" idea might need some re-thinking.  The AI is too dumb to make a judgment call.  The AI will always attack your illusionary summons, which means the summons will always do full damage.  That brings me back to the idea of giving the summons an on-hit effect: whenever someone is hit by an illusion, give them a saving throw to notice that they didn't get hurt as much as they should have.  Something like that.

Another thought I has was that those spells should summon more powerful-seeming monsters than regular summon spells.  As in, not actually summoning powerful monsters, but just putting the animation of powerful monsters onto whatever gets summoned.  Like, with Shades, have it summon a dragon!  But, it would only hit as hard as a troll.

  

12 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, I hate Prismatic Mantle too, which is why I nerfed the "prismatic" triggers for SRR and restored the +3 weapons immunity...but I think I might like this idea more (although I'm not sure that I would go for 8 hours - I knew it should be longer than 4 rounds right away, but 8 hours of blanket immunity to <=+2 weapons? That is...really powerful seeing as most enemies simply aren't regularly equipped with +3 weapons outside of stretches in ToB). Unfortunately, again, not an EE player - I'm pretty sure this idea requires that "once this particular effect expires, apply this other effect to forcibly expire the rest of the spell" opcode, right?

Oh, there is no such opcode.  That would be amazing, but it's not so easy.  Instead I hacked together a couple of other EE-only opcodes.  One to repeatedly try to cancel the original spell (in the non-EE engine you would need to use a custom sectype for this part) and one to prevent that cancellation from happening as long as the caster's stat 88 (STONESKIN) is nonzero.  (The second one came from IWD and AFAIK there is no way to reproduce it in the ToB/ToBEx engine.)

As for the duration... I suppose that's a good point.  Not sure what the best way to balance it is.  Reducing the duration of the skins suddenly makes the spell kind of inferior to 4th-level Stoneskin.  There's also an exploit: the weapon immunity persists as long as you have Stoneskins up; so you could cast this spell and then cast normal Stoneskin and the immunity would be extended to 8 hours anyway.  That doesn't matter if Stoneskin and Iron Skin last the same duration.

Could let the Stoneskins last as long as the 4th-level spell, but have the weapon immunity fade away after some number of rounds.  But, then the duration of the spell is split into two values, which could be confusing.

Have to think about it.  There may be some other tricks I can use...

Edited February 26, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Grammarsalad]

16 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

...

EDIT 2 - as far as Pro Petrification/Mirrored Eyes, I think you're right, it's too good for a 1st-level slot.  Another idea is to make it a general bonus vs. Alteration spells and effects.  I forget the name of it, but there's a spell or ability from some edition... "Sound Body" or something like that.  Maybe give a simple ~+4 bonus to saves vs. Petrification/Polymorp, or to saves vs. spells in the Alteration school... or maybe something more exotic, similar to Evasion: an extra save vs. Pet/Poly to avoid any transmutation effect.  It would be sort of like having "advantage" on saving throws vs. Alterations.  Not a sure bet against basilisks, but then again a 1st-level spell shouldn't be a sure bet against 9HD monsters, right?

Yup, it shouldn't be a sure thing. That's definitely better and overall more useful alternative. I just now checked out your iwd styled spell evasion. Very cool. I'm going to have to use that (lol, I'm always 6 steps behind you). 

The idea of the spell is to resist alterations to the body, so maybe it would also make sense to have the same effect against poisons and disease (as they alter your body at the cellular level). 

[Grammarsalad]

5 hours ago, Luke said:

I'm working on a mod that aims at revamping all Monster Summoning spells (mainly the AI) and this is how I tweaked those series of spells:

 

I set their GENDER to ILLUSIONARY => On one hand, they're not automatically killed by Death Spell and are not subjected to the Summoning Cap (i.e., you can summon an 'unlimited' number of them, which hopefully makes sense since they're not conjured matter). On the other hand, they're instantly killed by Remove Magic, True Sight/Seeing, Thief's Detect Illusion mode and the like (which also makes sense...)

I gave them two weapons: a real weapon and a 'fake' one (which deals non-lethal damage). After that, I added the following script to their CRE file (along with their main combat script):

  Reveal hidden contents

IF
	Die()
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		DisplayString(Myself,~Illusion Dispelled~)
		ReallyForceSpellDead(Myself,ILLUSION_DEATH)  // SPIN835.SPL (No such index)
		Wait(1)
		DestroySelf()
END

IF
	Allegiance(Myself,EVILCUTOFF)
	AttackedBy([GOODCUTOFF],DEFAULT)
	Global("Illusionary","LOCALS",0)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		SelectWeaponAbility(SLOT_WEAPON1,0)
		SetGlobal("Illusionary","LOCALS",1)
END

IF
	Allegiance(Myself,GOODCUTOFF)
	AttackedBy([EVILCUTOFF],DEFAULT)
	Global("Illusionary","LOCALS",0)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		SelectWeaponAbility(SLOT_WEAPON1,0)
		SetGlobal("Illusionary","LOCALS",1)
END

 

So basically, as soon as they're attacked by any means, they'll switch to the real weapon and deal real damage (instead of non-lethal damage...). This is how the game treats illusionary monsters in the BG2 Circus Tent...

 

As far as their HP are concerned, I decided not to give them the same amount a real monster will get. In particular:

• those summoned by the level 4th variant (Shadow Monsters) have 2/5 HP of the real ones (for instance, a level 3 Lizard Man will have 2/5 of 3d8+1, that is: 10 – yeah, that's pathetic, but you can summon an unlimited number of them...
• those summoned by the level 5th variant (Demi-Shadow Monsters) have 3/5 HP of the real ones.
• those summoned by the level 6th variant (Shades) have 4/5 HP of the real ones.

Finally, all arcane classes can summon 3 (fixed quantity, instead of using 'Caster Level') illusionary monsters chosen randomly from a 2DA (this is achieved via opcode #331). Illusionists instead can summon '3 + 1d2' illusionary monsters (this is achieved via opcode #177 + another opcode #331).

Oh, this is cool.

It's been a while so I don't quite remember the details, but I've done similar things with illusory monsters for the Phantasmal Force series of spells. 

The "real/fake" weapons in particular is a nice touch. I think I just gave them "fake" weapons

One thing I did was give them all a contingency effect that killed them if a nearby enemy saved vs spell (the save had higher penalties for higher level versions, I believe). The idea was to simulate the "disbelieve" mechanic.

I think I actually increased their hp total to compensate (if you fail to disbelieve, you are in for the fight of your life). Edit: looking, I guess this was just for higher level versions. The first level summons just had a single hp

 

Edit: subtle, I found some notes from a convo we had about it. See the second and third posts here:

https://github.com/UnearthedArcana/B_Spells/issues/184

Here's the actual spell (should work but tested more than a year ago):

https://github.com/UnearthedArcana/B_Spells/blob/master/B_Spells/data/components/Setup_New_Spells.tpa#L1222

 

Edited February 26, 2020 by Grammarsalad

[Luke]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

The AI is too dumb to make a judgment call.  The AI will always attack your illusionary summons, which means the summons will always do full damage.

Yeah, you're right, but it's not always bad: I mean, non-intelligent creatures (e.g.,Carrion Crawlers) or Fighters/Paladins/Barbarians/etc should not be able to recognize an Illusion... Only super-intelligent creatures (e.g., Balors) should ignore them...

Edited February 26, 2020 by Luke

[Grammarsalad]

10 minutes ago, Luke said:

Yeah, you're right, but it's not always bad: I mean, non-intelligent creatures (e.g.,Carrion Crawlers) or Fighters/Paladins/Barbarians/etc should not be able to recognize an Illusion... Only super-intelligent creatures (e.g., Balors) should ignore them...

That's...a good point, as least re C. Crawlers. I'll probably revisit the spell and make "dumb" creatures immune to disbelieve. My plan had been to make exceptionally intelligent creatures automatically disbelieve (e.g. int 19 creatures vs 1st level illusions)

Edited February 26, 2020 by Grammarsalad
Clarity

[subtledoctor]

13 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, I hate Prismatic Mantle too, which is why I nerfed the "prismatic" triggers for SRR and restored the +3 weapons immunity...but I think I might like this idea more (although I'm not sure that I would go for 8 hours - I knew it should be longer than 4 rounds right away, but 8 hours of blanket immunity to <=+2 weapons? That is...really powerful seeing as most enemies simply aren't regularly equipped with +3 weapons outside of stretches in ToB).

I'm going to think out loud for a minute.  This highlights the basic problem with the Mantle spells:

• Players have a ton of high-enchantment weapons, and enemies generally do not.  So mantle is feeble against the player and powerful against the AI.
• Now salt this with my preferred simplification, which is that weapons with enchantment of +2 to +4 all count as +3 for purposes of what they can hit.  So generic swords +2 could hit through vanilla Mantle.  (Note to self, switch this to use opcode 344.)
• Now pepper with Temnix's mod, giving enchantment bonuses to all monster weapons according to their hit dice, so the natural weaponry of an 11HD creature could hit as +3 weapons... but enforces the fact that they are not weapons, so they can hit through PfMW.
• Finally, stir in SCS scripts, which can detect and react to the enchantment value of attackers' weapons.  Presumably they will cast Mantle if it detects attackers with +2 weapons, and will not cast Mantle if it detects attackers with +3 or better weapons.

Juggling all that, how do you design a Mantle spell? 

PfMW and Mantle are now quite differentiated: Mantle will leave you vulnerable to +3 or better weapons, but immunize you to up to 10HD creatures.  PfMW will protect you against any weapons up to and including a Holy Avenger... but will leave you vulnerable to all monster attacks including summons.  (And, when I'm done here, shapeshift forms! )

My first thought is, a mage should be able to cast both PfMW and Mantle at the same time.  Currently they have opcode 206 effects stopping both from affecting the caster; that should be removed.  But on the other hand, even if those 206 effects are gone, will SCS scripts allow both to be cast?

My second thought it, PfMW on its own will be okay here.  If you send a spider or an elemental at a mage, or you shapeshift into a polar bear, the mage will (correctly) determine that the attacker does not have enchanted weapons, and so the mage won't cast PfMW.  What will SCS cast?  ...Possibly PfNW, which would be bad.  Therefore, note to self, high-HD animal weapons should probably be given an enchantment of +1, and the SCS code that sets weapon enchantment spellstates should include a check to see that the "magical" flag is set.  Then the SCS mage would, quite properly, cast Mantle or Improved Mantle against your summons.

What if the player games this, sending a spider against the mage, watching him cast Mantle, and then charges the mage with a +4 axe?  Well, if the Mantle included a Stoneskin effect, there would still be some protection.  He would be protected from the spider's poison, and the stoneskins would buy hims some time against your axe.

But... but... what have I really done with that change?  Wouldn't any mage have Stoneskin cast anyway?? All I've really done is tie the duration of the Mantle to the presence of Stoneskins.  Which would be meaningless if we reduce the duration, and overpowered if we don't.  So maybe my Iron Skin spell is useless.  So what to do? 

How about going in a different direction?  What if it gives the caster protection against weapon-applied environmental damage while the stoneskins are up?  Or even more... hmm, what if you added a zero-second protection from secondary effects to every weapon with secondary effects, as long as Iron Skin is effective?  So a Fireball would burn you, but a Sword of Flame would not, and Foebane +5 would not drain your hp, and the Dagger of Venom would not poison you, etc.  That might be possible...

Edited February 26, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Raduziel]

12 hours ago, Luke said:

I'm working on a mod that aims at revamping all Monster Summoning spells (mainly the AI) and this is how I tweaked those series of spells:

 

I set their GENDER to ILLUSIONARY => On one hand, they're not automatically killed by Death Spell and are not subjected to the Summoning Cap (i.e., you can summon an 'unlimited' number of them, which hopefully makes sense since they're not conjured matter). On the other hand, they're instantly killed by Remove Magic, True Sight/Seeing, Thief's Detect Illusion mode and the like (which also makes sense...)

@Luke Do you mind if I borrow this idea for DoF?

[Luke]

11 hours ago, Raduziel said:

@Luke Do you mind if I borrow this idea for DoF?

No, I don't. I mean, it's a reasonable thing to do given the nature of these creatures (i.e., they're not conjured matter) and how Remove Magic/True Sight/Detect Illusion work...

[Raduziel]

11 hours ago, Luke said:

No, I don't. I mean, it's a reasonable thing to do given the nature of these creatures (i.e., they're not conjured matter) and how Remove Magic/True Sight/Detect Illusion work...

Thanks, much appreciated.