[solved] How to set AoE projectile to affect the caster?

[critto]

Hello, everyone.

I've been trying to figure out something. Let's say we have two spells: the shaman's writhing fog (SPPR250) and the wizard's Web (SPWI215). I'm trying to understand what is the difference between projectiles (writhing.pro and web.pro). Why does Web affect the caster and Writhing Fog doesn't?

I've compared the projectiles and spells, didn't find any meaningful difference. Would appreciate some pointers.

Cheers,

critto

PS: sorry, posted it here by mistake instead of the "Modding Q&A" section.

Edited June 16, 2020 by critto

[DavidW]

'ignore center' flag on the projectile?

[critto]

Wow. Thanks for the help. That wasn't obvious at all. "Ignore center" is really ambiguous. Neither does IESDP's "bit 4: Do not affect direct target" sound very clear.

[critto]

Following up on my previous question. Is there a way to dispel an AoE spell based on its specific projectile (not with ZoSA via clearair.2da)? I would like to enforce having only single instance of an AoE spell active. Since it applies a list of effects every round to the creatures inside the AoE, I can't use the #206 opcode to apply total protection from the spell's effects.

[DavidW]

One-round 206? Ends in time for the next pulse, but blocks rival copies?

[critto]

True, it protects from any rival copies as well. It's a decent solution, although I'd preferred to dispel the previous instance upon casting a new one.

[DavidW]

Can you say more about the use case you have in mind? In cases I can think of, you'd get weird behaviour if you dispelled the previous instance, e.g. if both party and enemies used a spell or if the new one and the old one only slightly overlap.

That said, if you do want to do it, I think you can just use the Zone of Sweet Air opcode, but with a custom 2da in place of CLEARAIR.2da. At least, the IESDP thinks you can (I don't think I've ever tried it myself).

[critto]

It's an AoE cloud-based party-only healing spell. I want to prevent abuse by stacking multiple castings, but the solution you've proposed already solves this. A player could cast multiple instances, but only one heal would apply per round due to the #206 opcode. Having the previous version dispelled would be a more intuitive way for the player to understand the limitations. But, of course, simply blocking multiple applications via #206 and leaving the rest for the player to figure out by trial and error is good enough if there are no cleaner alternatives to achieve this.

[DavidW]

See my suggestion above (which possibly you missed, since I edited it in a couple of minutes after originally posting).

[critto]

Yep, looks like I missed the second part of your post. AND the footnote in the description of the #273 opcode, despite having read it numerous times. I'll give it a go and see what happens.

[critto]

Well, it works. A bit hacky, though. You can't simply put a #273 opcode inside the spell itself, because it dispels its own projectile. I've had to wrap it into a #148 opcode (cast spell at point) in order to achieve a workable solution.