Lich immunity to L1-5 spells

[CamDawg]

16 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Magic Resistance: In P&P, a character can disable their magic resistance. It is not a free action/automatically done, though - it's a decision that takes up a turn to disable and re-enable. Additionally, one's own spells are never subject to magic resistance while targeting yourself.

Also relevant: this was deliberately changed from BG to BG2. Healing Viconia in BG was also an adventure in RNG, and the devs changed that in BG2.

Otherwise, we've largely wandered into the realms of rules lawyers and house rules.

[subtledoctor]

On 8/16/2020 at 4:45 PM, DavidW said:

I'm not sure I see the distinction between "actual game rules" and "a quirk of the engine". ... You could, sure, ask whether it's a bug that the opcode works that way.

Straw man argument.  I didn't say it's a bug - I only said it's a quirk of the game engine in that it has no grounding in the PnP rules that the engine purports to represent.  There is a clear distinction between those rules and this engine - the actual AD&D sourcebooks are available for review, and there are a number rules enforced by the BG2 engine that are found nowhere in those books. 

Some of the differences are of course based on technical limitations - a perfect translation of the rules was and is just not possible (no matter what Larian claims).  But other deviations are not based on technical limitations, but were clearly the product of considered decisionmaking.  Like, say, making liches immune to (some) low-level spells.  Or giving rakshasa lowlifes holed up like rats in a hovel access to magical powers that were, per the sourcebooks, reserved for the grandest "maharajahs."

On 8/16/2020 at 4:45 PM, DavidW said:

I like option (3): just recognize that liches in Baldur's gate have a special ability similar to, but not identical to, Globe of Invulnerability that protects them from externally-applied spells of level 5 or below, and call it a day.

I don't particularly mind the added immunity; and I'm not proposing to actually change anything.  I am however sympathetic to the voiced opinion (voiced however ineptly) that the most common characterization of liches' abilities is inaccurate.  When someone says (and this is how it is said, over and over again) "liches are immune to spells of level 1 through 5," I think it is reasonable to take away from that statement a belief that liches are immune to spells of level 1 through 5.  You and I know that spells with target mode 5 or 7 in their ability header can bypass spell level immunities, but such an exception is not, at all, implicit in that characterization.  Whereas, most players understand the way that Globes of Invulnerability work: there is this globe, see, and magic works fine inside the globe, but low-level magic from outside the globe cannot penetrate it.  It is a common spell, all players are exposed to it, and hey what do you know it is a perfectly accurate characterization of the way liches actually work!  So maybe that's a better characterization than the more-common-but-imprecise one.

On 8/16/2020 at 4:45 PM, DavidW said:

If you mean 'what would happen if someone wrote that mod and then installed SCS v33 on top of it', it depends how it's coded. SCS handcrafts most Rakshasa levels, iirc, so a reduction in their spellcasting would probably be overridden.

Yes.  If I were to make a "PnPized Rakshasa" mod, it would not be anything more complicated than a bunch of REMOVE_KNOWN_SPELL/REMOVE_MEMORIZED_SPELL for every spell over 3rd level.  That encounter near the druid grove irks me every time I do it, but not so much that it's worth more effort than that.  But if SCS comes in later and gives them their high-level spells back then I won't bother.

On 8/16/2020 at 6:09 PM, CamDawg said:

Healing Viconia in BG was also an adventure in RNG, and the devs changed that in BG2

I am aware, and I won't even get into how Viconia is not supposed to have magic resistance.  But as annoying that may have been, it annoys me equally when I try to heal someone in BG2 but my Cure spell gets blocked by a Globe of Invulnerability or Spell deflection.   A drow can cast Mirror Image, and their resistance allows them to get the benefit of an ally casting Haste or defensive Harmony. That lich can cast Mirror Image... but does not get the benefit of an ally casting Haste or Defensive Harmony.  For... reasons!  So much for consistency.

Edited August 22, 2020 by subtledoctor

[CamDawg]

12 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

But as annoying that may have been, it annoys me equally when I try to heal someone in BG2 but my Cure spell gets blocked by a Globe of Invulnerability.  So much for consistency.  That lich can cast Mirror Image, but does not get the benefit of an ally casting Haste or Defensive Harmony.  For... reasons!

 

5 hours ago, CamDawg said:

Otherwise, we've largely wandered into the realms of rules lawyers and house rules.

[DavidW]

21 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Straw man argument.  I didn't say it's a bug - I said it's a quirk of the game engine, with no grounding in the rules that the engine purports to represent.  There is a clear distinction between those rules and this engine - the actual AD&D sourcebooks are available for review, and there are rules enforced by the BG2 engine that are found nowhere in those books.

But what do you mean by "quirk" here, if you don't mean something like a bug? The "rules" are not AD&D, they are the developer-intended rules for BG2. Those rules quite clearly include an ability to be immune to spells of a certain level, excluding your own self-targeted spells. As you said yourself in that quote I gave above, this is a CRPG, not a PnP campaign. The opcode represents those rules fine. 

24 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I am however sympathetic to the voiced opinion (voiced however ineptly) that the most common characterization of liches' abilities is inaccurate.  When someone says (and this is how it is said, over and over again) "liches are immune to spells of level 1 through 5," I think it is reasonable to take away from that statement a belief that liches are immune to spells of level 1 through 5.  You and I know that spells with target mode 5  or 7 in their ability header can bypass spell level immunities, but such an exception is not, at all, implicit in that characterization.

But all that means would be that people are misdescribing the game. The "Immune to L1-5 spells" is, to the best of my knowledge, nowhere stated in in-game text. If (some) players make a mistake in describing the way the game works, that's on them. 

(I don't concede that they are making a mistake, though. I think most people have a tacit 'except your own spells' clause in mind. Certainly in many years of dealing with SCS feedback this is the first time I've come across the 'why can liches self-buff with L1-5 spells' complaint. I'll concede that they might be surprised that friendly spells don't affect protected creatures.)

27 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Yes.  If I were to make a "PnPized Rakshasa" mod, it would not be anything more complicated than a bunch of REMOVE_KNOWN_SPELL/REMOVE_MEMORIZED_SPELL for every spell over 3rd level.  That encounter near the druid grove irks me every time I do it, but not so much that it's worth more effort than that.  But if SCS comes in later and gives them their high-level spells back... then I'm just not going to make that mod.

Don't make it, then. SCS wipes memorized spells and reconstructs them from scratch. It pays a bit of attention to how many there are, but not reliably enough to be worth your time. Edit mage/override/bg2/level.2da, if you want to change things for your personal playthrough.

30 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

But as annoying that may have been, it annoys me equally when I try to heal someone in BG2 but my Cure spell gets blocked by a Globe of Invulnerability.  So much for consistency.  That lich can cast Mirror Image, but does not get the benefit of an ally casting Haste or Defensive Harmony.  For... reasons!

It's perfectly consistent. The consistent description - as you well know - is exactly that implemented by the opcode: you are immune to spells that you don't cast on yourself, and not to spells that you do cast on yourself. That's perfectly clear. I'm not sure what it means to ask for 'reasons' beyond that - it's not as if there's an underlying physics to derive the rules of magic from. Take it up with Mystra if you don't like it.

[subtledoctor]

On 8/17/2020 at 12:12 AM, DavidW said:

The consistent description ... immune to spells that you don't cast on yourself, and not to spells that you do cast on yourself.

But I've never, ever heard anyone describe liches that way.  All of the forum posts, all of the wiki's, they all say

Quote

All liches are naturally immune to non-magical weapons and spells of level five or lower.

I can see a newish player watch a lich cast Shield and Mirror Image and Improved Invisibility and have a moment's pause, thinking "hey but I thought-- "

If they look up liches in any published game manuals, they will see no proper explanation (they will likely see nothing, I don't think monster descriptions are in any manuals).  If they go back to their dusty PnP books, they won't see anything about spell level immunity for liches, and if they check out descriptions of other instances of spell level immunity, they will not see anything about exclusions for self-targeted spells.  I'm simply saying, I see this being communicated to players inaccurately in many places, and I don't see it communicated accurately anywhere.  And I'm sympathetic.

Quote

The "rules" are not AD&D, they are the developer-intended rules for BG2. Those rules quite clearly include an ability to be immune to spells of a certain level, excluding your own self-targeted spells. As you said yourself in that quote I gave above, this is a CRPG, not a PnP campaign. The opcode represents those rules fine. 

This is circular: you say the game rules are defined by the source code, and look, the code is perfectly accurate in representing the game rules!  When I say "rule" I mean something stated openly, communicated to a player without the need to download Java runtimes and hex-editing applications to inspect the application's code.

Edited August 22, 2020 by subtledoctor

[Jarno Mikkola]

14 hours ago, DavidW said:

I like option (3):

MINE.

just recognize that liches in Baldur's gate have a special ability similar to, but not identical to, Globe of Invulnerability that protects them from externally-applied spells of level 5 or below, and call it a day.

Alright then, how is one supposed to Breach the creatures protections ? Aka, apply a special level 5 spell that shouldn't be able to on a creature that's immune to level 5 spells, casted on by anyone else that themselves.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Jarno Mikkola

[DavidW]

@subtledoctor: as I’ve said, I’m not convinced there’s a misconception: I think people on forums mostly understand they’re speaking in shorthand, and in reading dozens (hundreds?) of new-player-confronts-SCS threads over the years, I’ve never come across the confusion you mention. And the same could be said (mutatis mutandis) about Globe of Invulnerability, where again there is no hint In in-game descriptions or PnP lore about this, but where people seem to understand.

But: for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that wikis and forums contain a widespread misconception about liches. Are you seriously saying that the way to respond to that is to mod the game so that the misconception comes out correct, rather than to edit the wikis?

@Jarno Mikkola: in the original game you just can’t breach liches: it doesn’t work on them. SCS makes Breach into a special case, trading increased complexity for better gameplay. Until recently I wasn’t worried about this causing confusion because the component name explicitly calls out the change. But as of v32 the breach change is included by default and you need to study the readme carefully to find out about it, so I should probably note it in in-game documentation. Thanks.

[Guest the_question]

7 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

see a newis

the_question

passwrod123

thx jarglo

 

need make new patch so stupid n00bs--geeks learn protection system spells, itam, tautology second order predicate calculus. here is codes:::

 

LAF RES_NUM_OF_SPELL_NAME STR_VAR spell_name = CLERIC_HARM RET CLERIC_HARM_RESREF = spell_res END
COPY_EXISTING ~%CLERIC_HARM_RESREF%.SPL~ override
  SAY NAME1 ~Protection from Multiple Hitpoints~
BUT_ONLY IF_EXISTS

LAF RES_NUM_OF_SPELL_NAME STR_VAR spell_name = CLERIC_GOODBERRY RET CLERIC_GOODBERRY_RESREF = spell_res END
COPY_EXISTING ~%CLERIC_GOODBERRY_RESREF%.SPL~ override
  SAY NAME1 ~Protection from Utility~
BUT_ONLY IF_EXISTS

LAF RES_NUM_OF_SPELL_NAME STR_VAR spell_name = WIZARD_FIREBALL RET WIZARD_FIREBALL_RESREF = spell_res END
COPY_EXISTING ~%WIZARD_FIREBALL_RESREF%.SPL~ override
  SAY NAME1 ~Protection from Incombustibility~
BUT_ONLY IF_EXISTS

LAF RES_NUM_OF_SPELL_NAME STR_VAR spell_name = WIZARD_DEATH_SPELL RET WIZARD_DEATH_SPELL_RESREF = spell_res END
COPY_EXISTING ~%WIZARD_DEATH_SPELL_RESREF%.SPL~ override
  SAY NAME1 ~Protection from Life~
BUT_ONLY IF_EXISTS

LAF RES_NUM_OF_SPELL_NAME STR_VAR spell_name = WIZARD_CARRION RET WIZARD_CARRION_RESREF END
COPY_EXISTING ~%WIZARD_CARRION_RESREF%.SPL~ override
  SAY NAME1 ~Protection from First Instar~
BUT_ON

 

i'm put mirror your mod with this fixes my mirror you mrod mirror this fixes mror you'rmrid.

tnx a lot,

tnx!

[subtledoctor]

On 8/17/2020 at 7:21 AM, DavidW said:

And the same could be said (mutatis mutandis) about Globe of Invulnerability, where again there is no hint In in-game descriptions or PnP lore about this

GoI says:

Quote

However, any type of spell can be cast out of the magical sphere

Admittedly that is not as good as I remember (better to say something like "any type of spell may be cast within the sphere"), but at least it includes a "however" implying exceptions.

On 8/17/2020 at 7:21 AM, DavidW said:

Are you seriously saying that the way to respond to that is to mod the game so that the misconception comes out correct

I'm pretty sure I specifically did not recommend taking any overt action.  I used what I thought was a clear-enough rhetorical device, giving two choices: the first one involves a drastic change that would break things (and note, it would actually make liches more different from their common descriptions, thus increasing the chance of misconceptions); the second involves an extraordinarily minor change, involving extremely little effort, that would remove all possibility of misconceptions, and not change a blessed thing about the game itself.  I thought the content and structure of the two proposals made it clear that the first is not, in fact, recommended.

Here's a shorter version of the second proposal: if Bioware insisted on adding this spurious house rule to toughen up liches (clearly needed because of the monty haul campaign they created), they might have spared ten seconds to invent some kind of lore behind it. 

HOWEVER: I again find myself sympathetic to the other side of my own stated position.  Maybe somebody does want to make a mod removing liches' immunity.  I don't know if you noticed, but PnP-centric mods are rather popular around here.  Are you seriously saying that someone with an eye toward fidelity to the tabletop game shoudn't make that mod?

Edited August 22, 2020 by subtledoctor

[DavidW]

2 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

GoI says:

Quote

However, any type of spell can be cast out of the magical sphere

Admittedly that is not as good as I remember (better to say something like "any type of spell may be cast within the sphere"), but at least it includes a "however" implying exceptions.

I don't think it does, really. That's just the difference between 'this spell makes you immune to L1-4 spells' and 'this spell makes you immune to L1-4 spells and shuts down your spellcasting.' The description is pretty much straight out of the 2nd ed Players' Handbook, and the PnP version does make the caster immune even to their own L1-4 spells, at least on my reading.

 

2 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Here's a shorter version of the second proposal: if Bioware insisted on adding this spurious house rule to toughen up liches (clearly needed because of the monty haul campaign they created), they might have spared ten seconds to invent some kind of lore behind it. 

I don't understand how a house rule can be 'spurious' (and, at the risk of repetition, I don't see how that can be squared with your own statement, in the readme for Might and Guile, that the criterion for tweaks is game quality, not PnP fidelity). But notwithstanding that: sure, I guess BG2 would have been marginally improved by some bit of lore in the game about lich immunity, but it's really low down my list of things I wish the developers had time for. (And since lore implies .tlk entries implies translations implies a long lead time, I'm super-unsurprised they didn't.)

 

2 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Are you seriously saying that someone with an eye toward fidelity to the tabletop game shoudn't make that mod?

Why would I say that? People can make whatever mods they like. I haven't said a word as to whether it's good that liches have L1-5 immunity or whether the game would be better without it. If someone doesn't like it - whether for PnP fidelity reasons or something else - absolutely they should make that mod. Of course, they'll need to put up with somewhat suboptimal AI, or else write their own - lich immunity to L1-5 spells is fairly firmly baked into SCS's mage scripting.

[DavidW]

I've split this discussion off from the 'Jarno confusions' thread, since it's become an interesting (if a little heated) discussion in its own right.

[subtledoctor]

On 8/17/2020 at 1:33 PM, DavidW said:

at the risk of repetition, I don't see how that can be squared with your own statement, in the readme for Might and Guile, that the criterion for tweaks is game quality, not PnP fidelity

I’d say the primary difference is that changes in a mod are documented (hopefully) and installed knowingly and voluntarily. Liches’ spell immunity is 1) a deviation from the written source material; 2) undocumented by the people who designed the change; and 3) inaccurately documented by after-the-fact fan efforts. If someone didn’t know better,* they might end up in an argument on the internet claiming liches can’t cast Improved Invisibility on themselves.** I feel some sympathy for someone under such a misapprehension. 

That’s why I said “whaaaat?” when I read that PnP liches have no such immunity (and found that PnP rakshasa have no 4th+ level spells). I never encountered a lich in PnP campaigns; playing BG2, I just assumed that stuff was accurate. Changes deserve clarification; if we expect such from modders, then I certainly expect it from paid developers.

Edited August 22, 2020 by subtledoctor

[DavidW]

2 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Liches’ spell immunity is 1) a deviation from the written source material; 2) undocumented by the people who designed the change; and 3) inaccurately documented by after-the-fact fan efforts. ...Changes deserve clarification; if we expect such from modders, then I certainly expect it from paid developers.

The developers of a CRPG based on a pen-and-paper tabletop RPG have an obligation to explicitly document every point at which they deviate from the pen-and-paper rules??!  I... don't know where to begin with that.

[DavidW]

Incidentally, in support of my view that fans and fan sites aren't actually confused on this: baldursgate.fandom.com's entry on the lich says

Quote

All liches are naturally immune to non-magical weapons and spells of level five or lower.

 But then in the very next sentence it goes on to say

Quote

Being formidable spellcasters, liches have access to level 9 spells and typically open battles with Protection From Magical Weapons, Stoneskin and Spell Trap to make themselves nigh-invincible.

(My emphasis.)

[CamDawg]

Earlier today I was out in the paddock and the sky went dark and a chill wind blew across the lands--I suddenly broke out in goose pimples and started sweating.

1 hour ago, DavidW said:

The developers of a CRPG based on a pen-and-paper tabletop RPG have an obligation to explicitly document every point at which they deviate from the pen-and-paper rules??!  I... don't know where to begin with that.

Now I know why.

Edited August 17, 2020 by CamDawg