Dependency on SI: Abjuration

[MachoGrande]

Too much of SCS in BG2 is spamming remove magic on the party. The only defense is spell immunity: abjuration.  In fact, SCS is barely noticely in BG2 if the majority of your party can cast SI: abjuration. The big fights just spam the party with remove magic and the party members who can't cast SI: abjuration just die immediately. It's not an increase in difficulty, it just makes you cast the spell immunity spell.

Example.

Firkraag. Buff up with the normal spells to kill him. Melee gets strength, fire resist, improved haste. Ranged same. But SCS Firkraag spams remove magic all buffs are removed, he easily kills melee and his breath attack obliterates. Completely unwinnable battle no matter what you try, unless you reload 50 times. Extremely difficult encounter.

SI:Abjuation domination.

Your mage buffs to be immune to fire, however you want to do it. Cast mirror image, Stoneskin, SI: Abjuration (immune to firkragg now)  Firkraag is a joke and easily killed however you want to do it. (I just hit him with a few lower resist and then spam with skull trap)

 

Really, it seems all SCS in BG2 is spamming remove magic on the party.

[subtledoctor]

Use Spell Revisions.  Poof!  No more SI:Abj. 

In the absence of SR, Firky should probably throw up a Globe of Invulnerability... and maybe use Breach instead of Remove Magic, if the player's mage has SI:Abj. up.

[MachoGrande]

Firkraag battle was just an example, and I don't want to use that mod. What puzzles me about the SCS guy is that he has coded almost every fight in BG2 to spam the party with remove magic with every enemy out-leveling the party substantianly and tries to insist that SCS "plays fair" but now has the inquisitor dispel magic buff enabled by default. The mage/priest dispel magic spell will NEVER work in SCS, ever.. The inquisitor dispel, even in the unmodded game, was the only time dispel ever worked. SCS guy nerf the shits out of the Inquisitor class without giving anything back, and doesn't tell you that. Again, I can play with my feet if I want the game to be harder. SCS is supposed to be AI im[provements.

Edited July 19, 2020 by MachoGrande

[DavidW]

@MachoGrande

1) "SCS plays fair" means that the rules for enemy spellcasters basically conform to the rules for PC spellcasters. It doesn't mean that enemies who are higher level than you don't get an advantage from being higher level. & SCS doesn't make them higher level for the most part: that's just how the basic game works.

2) Most of the feedback I get from players is that Firkraag is if anything a bit too easy. If you need to reload fifty times, you're doing it wrong.

3) If an enemy lowers your defenses, try putting them back up again. You're not required to restrict buffing to the pre-battle phase, and they don't have infinitely many dispel magics (and each round when they're casting dispel magic is a round when they're not casting something else.)

4) While mostly this is just opinion and taste, this claim isn't true:

5 hours ago, MachoGrande said:

but [SCS] now has the inquisitor dispel magic buff enabled by default.  ... SCS guy nerf the shits out of the Inquisitor class without giving anything back, and doesn't tell you that.

It's not enabled by default. It's where it always has been: as its own component. The description of that component is completely clear as to what it does, both in the readme and in the description the WEIDU installer gives you. I assume you either used some third-party installer that preselects components, or weren't paying attention at that point in the install process?

@subtledoctor

Firkraag (and other large creatures) don't use globes of invulnerability for aesthetic reasons: the globe animation looks silly overlaid on a large sprite.

[subtledoctor]

Ah that’s true. I recall that from many years ago, it does indeed look very silly. It would nicely block Skull Trap cheese, though. (I have been toying with having Shield block Skull Trap in addition to Magic Missile. It would go some way toward putting Skull Trap and Fireball on an equal footing, and Skull Trap is after all a directional explosion of energy with the same damage type as MM. I can justify in my mind...)

5 hours ago, MachoGrande said:

spam the party with remove magic with every enemy out-leveling the party substantianly and tries to insist that SCS "plays fair

Enemies have what level they have; you can go look at the files yourself. (How nice that this game engine is an open book, thanks to the hard work of modders!) SCS plays fair in that it tries to have enemies use their abilities and advantages intelligently. If you were higher level and could easily dispel enemy buffs, wouldn’t you? Of course - you make similar decisions hundreds of times in every game. (That’s why you like Inquisitors, and that’s why people like Carsomyr.)

All SCS does is enable enemies to make similarly sensible decisions, and you have to deal with it. IMHO that is great. SCS doesn’t (to my knowledge, outside certain components) artificially inflate enemy experience levels. It seems your beef is less with the AI, and more with encounter design. In which case your vitriol is misplaced.

Put shorter, with SCS enemies will exploit advantages just like the player exploits advantages. If you don’t like that, then... don’t use the mod? 

(EDIT - as I’ve said elsewhere I don’t like that Dispel/Remove Magic don’t abide by the typical rule that spell effects stop scaling at 20th level. But that again is down to the game design, not SCS (and it could be addressed with a separate mod).)

Edited July 19, 2020 by subtledoctor

[argent77]

2 hours ago, DavidW said:

Firkraag (and other large creatures) don't use globes of invulnerability for aesthetic reasons: the globe animation looks silly overlaid on a large sprite.

Just chiming in, the globe overlay opcode supports custom animations in EE games. So it is possible to adjust globe size based on some criteria (e.g. foot circle size via opcode 326), or just leave it out for large creatures.

Examples:

Spoiler

 

 

(I leave it to you to decide whether it's an improvement.)

[DavidW]

That’s interesting. Will consider - thanks!

EDIT: the problem, of course, is that I am still trying to support non-EE games. Though I suppose it's not the end of the world just to remove the animation on non-EE.

I assume that larger sphere is created manually - there's no autoscale option I'm missing?

[argent77]

Yes, the animations in the screenshots are quick drafts I created with NI's BAM Converter. The Scale2X scaler option for double-sized animation looks good enough, but quality degrades quickly for bigger sizes.

[Guest Ludwig]

Sorry, just noticed this thread after posting in the main release thread. Please feel free to disregard/delete my message there. But as I explained it there as well, I agree that there is a big reliance on SI Abjuration, bigger than how it should be. I think this is due to the way enemy dispels seem to be working with %100 success rate on you. I've never seen it not work when enemy cast the dispel/remove magic on me, maybe I was just unlucky but it is very low probability as my char was nearly always high levels. Did anyone else experience this?

[Lilaina]

A simple solution is to send the arcane spell caster with spell immunity and other protections ahead and absorb at least the initial remove magic. In general you should spread your party out so that not everyone is hit by AoE effects. You can also stack fire protection items on one fighter type to keep them safe if dispelled. Ranged weapon users can stay in the edges and rebuff with protection from fear and a fire resistance potion if necessary.

Also, later in the game and ToB especially single or dual classed clerics will reach such high levels that buffs from them are quite hard to dispel, so you don't necessary need immunity to abjuration at that point.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Lilaina

[DavidW]

I’d also add that if you’re thinking only in terms of making yourself immune to RM in the first place, you’re restricting yourself unnecessarily. If your buffs are brought down, put them up again (at least the most significant ones). Enemies do, after all.

[MachoGrande]

Are you trying to saying that spamming remove magic every single encounter on the party is something that is regular?

 

Edited July 25, 2020 by MachoGrande

[MachoGrande]

listen, "DavidW" has an ego.

[DavidW]

6 hours ago, MachoGrande said:

listen, "DavidW" has an ego.

Thank you for this helpful contribution.

[Bartimaeus]

8 hours ago, MachoGrande said:

listen, "DavidW" has an ego.

Lay off the liquor, laddie.