Assorted Optional SRR Stuff for Base SR

[Bartimaeus]

27 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Only suggestion I have is, the vast majority of enemies don't generally have 2-3 combat protections and 2-3 specific protections. So in lots of cases, this will function like a 100% guaranteed full-power Remove Magic.  For a 3rd-level spell I would probably limit it to 1 combat protection and 1 specific protection, with no scaling.

You're only considering it from the player's perspective, but remember that enemies will use Remove Magic as well, and in serious battles, the player is like to have a *lot* of both active. I was never satisfied with whatever I could come up with for these reasons, and why I ultimately prefer the lame-brained saving throw implementation, . It was more designed on just a "if someone wants to test this and provide feedback on it, then we can see where we can go from there" basis.

27 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I think the script/behavior that leads casters to cast Detect Invisibility/Invisibility Purge/True Seeing more or less takes care of this in most instances.

I recall it...mostly working when I tested a few different scenarios, but oddities could occur, especially if you pay strict attention to the order of spells that SCS cast (IIRC, SCS spellcasters would sometimes break SR's "rules" but the practical effect was that they would ultimately still cast mostly the same spells, but perhaps in the wrong order).

27 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

(Unless Breach could also target invisible enemies, in which cast it would very much change mage battles. I very much hope Breach would NOT get this flag...)

Hell no, I just provided it as a separate option because...why not? If you're serious about reducing the importance of mage battles, the option is there. In my opinion, neither options should be enabled by default, which is why they aren't, .

27 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Also, a balance consideration: if the player does not install "Deflection Blocks AoE," then this can bypass Deflections and the like.

I am almost a hundred percent certain that Dispel Magic and Remove Magic always bypass spell e.g. Spell Deflection regardless of whether or not you have that component enabled. Although Dispel and Remove Magic would be perfectly fine to patch with that component, they seem to have been deliberately excluded.

(e): Yes, the description of Remove/Dispel Magic literally explicitly states Spell Deflection won't protect the caster from the Remove/Dispel Magic (but won't take it down either). It seems to be deliberate, for better or for worse.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Lord_Tansheron]

16 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I think just giving Blindness a short duration is fine. Forcing a caster to meaningfully change/limit their spell options for 3 rounds, even if they are not totally hobbled, is a very good effect from a 1st-level spell. Ditto for applying melee penalties to warriors.

It's ESPECIALLY egregious for melee as they usually don't have alternative actions (like casters do) so it's a hard disable, period. You can walk away and they stand there doing nothing. Even at one turn, to have a lvl 1 spell disable a target for a minute straight seems disproportionately powerful to me. Spook is already borderline in that respect, and at least there's lots of enemies immune to fear - far fewer enemies are immune to blind.

18 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

No - it lets you hit invisible enemies with Secret Word to dispel their Spell Deflection, but then they are still invisible so you cannot target them with Lightning Bolt or whatever. You'll still need to make them visible to do much.

Maybe it's just the way I play the game, but when a caster's defenses are stripped, they're DEAD - not to Lightning Bolts or whatever, but to an entire party clobbering their heads in. Invisibility has a hit penalty, but that won't stop most attackers from effectively locking the caster out from ever casting again the moment the dispellers connect. Invisibility adds a buffer to that, generating extra time in which they can actually do something dangerous.

Granted, maybe it's my settings specifically that make a lot of caster battles - especially at the high end - devolve into "did you remove all defenses instantly? yes? I'm dead. no? game over." So I guess I might be biased here.

[subtledoctor]

7 hours ago, Lord_Tansheron said:

Maybe it's just the way I play the game, but when a caster's defenses are stripped, they're DEAD - not to Lightning Bolts or whatever, but to an entire party clobbering their heads in.

I didn't explain it well.

Current SR, enemy has Imp. Invis. + Stoneskin + PfMW + Deflection:

• cast Detect Invisibility to be able to target enemy
• cast Secret Word to remove Deflection
• kill enemy with spells OR cast Breach and then party clobbers enemy

If you can cast Secret Word through Invisibility, à la SCS:

• cast Secret Word to remove Deflection... but note, you still cannot harm the enemy - can't target with spells (including Breach), and party can't clobber
• cast Detect Invisibility to target the enemy with spells
• kill enemy with spells OR cast Breach and then party clobbers enemy

So, the order is a bit different (and in the second case, either order will work) but the overall amount of effort/time needed to make the enemy vulnerable is the same. It basically just helps the SCS AI a bit.
 

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I am almost a hundred percent certain that Dispel Magic and Remove Magic always bypass spell e.g. Spell Deflection regardless of whether or not you have that component enabled. Although Dispel and Remove Magic would be perfectly fine to patch with that component, they seem to have been deliberately excluded.

(e): Yes, the description of Remove/Dispel Magic literally explicitly states Spell Deflection won't protect the caster from the Remove/Dispel Magic (but won't take it down either). It seems to be deliberate, for better or for worse.

Yes but in the case of the normal Dispel or your variant Dispel, the target is protected by either high level or good saves. AT least it's a dice roll, in any event. Whereas if Dispel becomes "Guaranteed removal of 1 or more combat protections" and it goes through spell protections, then nothing can save them. It goes back to vanilla behavior where you can remove their combat protections without heed to their spell protections, and every mage fight just becomes "Minsc clobber!"

Maybe remove 1-3 combat & specific protections, but offer a saving throw?

Edited September 23, 2021 by subtledoctor

[Bartimaeus]

Maybe, I'm really not sure. Could never come up with something that felt satisfying and effective from a player perspective without seeming weak or outright terrible from an enemy perspective (or the opposite: getting it strong enough for enemies means getting it too overpowered for players), which is why I never developed it any further from that point. The issue of Dispel/Remove Magic will probably never be resolved to everyone's liking...

On an unrelated note, does anyone know the current state of SR translations? I believe it's...French and Russian that are currently enabled as alternative languages? Don't quote me on that, but there's at least one other language enabled. What do you do when you want to majorly update a spell's description, either because you changed its function or because it was simply incomplete or inaccurate - like that of Non-Detection? Do you let the translation stay enabled even though it's out of date? With IRR, I knew early on that I was going to add and change enough that updating their translations would be...prohibitively difficult for me, and a ton of upkeep for probably very little benefit given the small playerbase, so I immediately disabled them, and basically the same thinking applied to SRR. So how would that normally work for updating the official versions?

Edited September 22, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[subtledoctor]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

What do you do when you want to majorly update a spell's description, either because you changed its function or because it was simply incomplete or inaccurate - like that of Non-Detection?

Ideal: set the new text as we want it, put word out that we need some translating done, and wait to publish until the translations are done.

Less ideal: just update the English version, publish, and if/when the new text gets translated then publish small point updates.

Alternative less ideal: put the new English text into the other languages' .tra files. Pros: it is very easy for a translator to find what needs translating if and when someone gets around to it; and in the meantime, even if that description is in the wrong language at least it will be accurate. Con: the descriptions will be quite jarringly inconsistent for players in those languages in the meantime.

Now is probably a good time to update what text needs updating (Nondetection is crying for it... it's on my to-do list) and put word out. By the time we sort through updates and pull requests and have something like 4b19 ready, maybe the translations will get done.

[subtledoctor]

An idea I just had, maybe for my own other mod: maybe make Dispel Magic a mini-Breach but with a saving throw, and have Spell Deflection boost your save(s). That way Deflection grants some amount of protection even against spells that can bypass it (AoE, or whatever).

[grodrigues]

@subtledoctorcomments on the PR are in the PR itself (having problems posting to G3).