Spells with the wrong school

[DavidW]

Lots of spells are duplicated by innate effects (e.g, the charm person effect used by Erinyes baatezu) and the normal convention in the IE games is that these duplicates have the same spell school as the original. (This mostly matters for Spell Immunity.) The original games were pretty careless about this; it was fairly systematically fixed in the EE but there are still a few cases that I think they missed. Here's a list (based on manually sifting an initial auto-generated list):

BALTH07 // Greater Malison (Balthazar power): currently NONE, should be ENCHANTER
BHAAL2A // Draw upon Holy Might (Bhaalspawn power); currently NONE, should be INVOKER
SPCL212 // Detect Evil (paladin ability); currently NONE, should be DIVINER
SPIN552 // Disintegrate (Hive Mother ability); currently INVOKER, should be TRANSMUTER
SPIN553 // Charm Person (Nalmissra the succubus); currently NONE, should be ENCHANTER
SPIN920 // Minor Spell Turning (used by beholders); currently NONE, should be ABJURER
SPIN961 // Finger of Death (beholder spell); currently NONE, should be NECROMANCER
SPIN962 // Magic Missile (beholder spell); currently NONE, should be INVOKER
SPIN976 // Disintegrate (beholder spell); currently NONE, should be TRANSMUTER
SPIN997 // vampiric touch (Tanar'ri); currently NONE, should be NECROMANCER
SPIN998 // Silence 15' radius (Tanar'ri); currently NONE, should be TRANSMUTER
SPWM125 // Minor Globe of Invulnerability (wild surge); currently DIVINER, should be ABJURER
SPWM179 // Polymorph other (wild surge); currently ENCHANTER, should be TRANSMUTER

There are two I'm unsure of, and lean towards not changing:

SPIN839 // Confusion (Umber Hulk gaze); currently NONE, should be ENCHANTER
SPIN571 // Energy Drain (succubus kiss); currently NONE, should be NECROMANCER

 

These are from BG2EE; I haven't looked at the other games yet,

[subtledoctor]

12 minutes ago, DavidW said:

There are two I'm unsure of, and lean towards not changing:
SPIN839 // Confusion (Umber Hulk gaze); currently NONE, should be ENCHANTER
SPIN571 // Energy Drain (succubus kiss); currently NONE, should be NECROMANCER

Why toward not changing? Those seem like appropriate changes to me. I think someone who, for example, applies some kind of protection against necromancy should reasonably expect it to be effective against energy drain effects.

Put another way: are there any energy drain effects that are not coded with the NECROMANCER primary type? Is there any reason to think dev intent was to specifically differentiate this one? My hunch is, "no" to both questions.

Edited May 7, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Jarno Mikkola]

8 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Why toward not changing?

Easy, those are this creature only unique abilities. Are you saying those creatures are mages that use those spells and nothing else for cheese reason only you know of ?
I would also argue that a dragons breath weapons are not actually Invocation spells... but whatever. And same goes for the beholders ray effects.
And this:

27 minutes ago, DavidW said:

SPCL212 // Detect Evil (paladin ability); currently NONE, should be DIVINER

Is saying that a paladin is a mage as well ? In full plate and all that. What the cheese ? There's a reason why these spells were set to be innates. It's that the creature has a dimention that gives them this ability, that is kinda hard to protect from. Even with all the spell immunity's, that you can only have one up. Or you get striken with 1000 of damage of all types. Each second.

[DavidW]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

Why toward not changing? Those seem like appropriate changes to me. I think someone who, for example, applies some kind of protection against necromancy should reasonably expect it to be effective against energy drain effects.

My basic thought here is that mostly it only matters for Spell Immunity, and the Spell Immunity description specifically calls out immunity to spells, by school. When you have a creature that has the innate ability to cast a spell - like demons' various abilities or beholder eye rays - it's pretty clear - and pretty clearly evidenced in developer intent - that the innate version of the spell ought to be the same school. But it's less obvious when it's an innate ability that just looks a bit like a spell. 

A relatively clear example is SPIN975, PSIONIC_DOMINATION. Mechanically that's a clone of Domination. But it's fairly clearly coded as a psionic ability; notably, it bypasses MR. So I think it makes sense that it hasn't been given the Enchantment school.

With succubus energy drain, you could call it either way (and notably it doesn't bypass MR) but you can at least make the case that it's an innate effect that drains energy, not an innate casting of Energy Drain. (And PnP supports that fwiw.) In that case, SI:Necromancy shouldn't give you immunity to a succubus's kiss any more than it should give you immunity to a vampire's touch.

 

1 hour ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

There's a reason why these spells were set to be innates. It's that the creature has a dimention that gives them this ability, that is kinda hard to protect from.

It's pretty clear that's not the design intention. The vast majority of innate copies of wizard/priest spells are set to the same school as the wizard/priest version. And there's lots of evidence that Beamdog actively tried to fix it in the cases where it wasn't already correct.

 

 

[Jarno Mikkola]

I guess we disagree and that's nothing new under the sun. If you are fine with your explanation, and you are making the mod, I am fine with you making it.

[subtledoctor]

And priest spells themselves have arcane school designations, which I gather Jarno thinks is a bug. 

For a counterargument I’ll bring up specialist bonuses: enchanters get a +2 save bonus against enchantments, and necromancers get a bonus to resist necromancy spells. Now I guess you could say this should only affect spells, since these mages have expertise with spells. But then why does their bonus extend to priest spells, with which they are unfamiliar? I think necromancers should be better than other mages at resisting necromantic magic effects generally. 

To me the question is “is it magic?” and if so, what kind of magic. I care less about if something is a spell, as a spell is no more or less than a discrete application of magic. A succubus is inherently magical so I would give it a type; psionic domination is not. (Though even there my preference would be to give it a type if possible - can you bypass school immunity by setting the power level to zero?)

[CamDawg]

Presumably you're also compiling a similar list for secondary types on these as well, (and if not, add it to the list).

No change to the succubus kiss--it's a cutscene spell from one of the succubi in the WK maze (you exchange this 'kiss' for help). For the UH gaze, I'm also leaning to no. It's a save against spell and even the MM describes the effect as 'confusion, as per the spell', but it's also a passive innate ability--there's no casting, it just happens when you look into an umber hulk's eyes.

 

 

[Awachi]

Many of these innates are only "spells" because there's no other way the engine can implement them. If there's no casting involved, I'd say it's not a spell. 

[Jarno Mikkola]

4 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

And priest spells themselves have arcane school designations, which I gather Jarno thinks is a bug.

Priest spells could be prayers... but in this engine, that's not a thing, unless you count the bards singing / priest turn undead as such, ... and it's granted to them by their god, so them having arcane schools - do not matter that much in my eyes, so not a bug. As then you could say their caster level is not a thing and set them all to 30. See - as to who is actually casting them.

[suy]

2 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

and it's granted to them by their god, so them having arcane schools

Schools are not arcane. All divine spells have schools on the PHB and in game.

[Jarno Mikkola]

You should have quoted the same user I quoted... it was his...

[DavidW]

7 hours ago, CamDawg said:

Presumably you're also compiling a similar list for secondary types on these as well, (and if not, add it to the list).

No, but point taken.

 

7 hours ago, CamDawg said:

No change to the succubus kiss--it's a cutscene spell from one of the succubi in the WK maze (you exchange this 'kiss' for help). For the UH gaze, I'm also leaning to no. It's a save against spell and even the MM describes the effect as 'confusion, as per the spell', but it's also a passive innate ability--there's no casting, it just happens when you look into an umber hulk's eyes.

It depends on the game? In BG2, it's a single-target attack spell cast by ForceSpell; in IWD it's an aura.

The main thing pulling me towards including it is that it's confusing/annoying for players if things described in in-game text as 'confusion' do different things in different places.

[The_Baffled_King]

I think it's probably safest to begin my comment by saying this: I think that the comments I've read are perceptive, logical, sensible, and interesting in the abstract.

However, if oBG was inconsistent, but Beamdog systematically fixed most innates, then that's your dev intent right there for starting with the assumption that all innates should have a school, unless there's a legitimate question whether a specific innate should be excluded from the general rule for clearly identifiable reasons.

So, it seems to me that there's a "problem" with this debate: the strongest evidence in support of making these changes isn't explicitly detailed in the thread (for good reason). I will give an example of the evidence that isn't explicitly detailed:

SPCL211 // Lay on Hands (paladin ability); currently NECROMANCER

SPCL213 // Protection From Evil (paladin ability); currently ABJURER

Given the characteristics of SPCL211 and SPCL213 - and considering also that there are innumerable other examples that DavidW has not copied into the thread, so as not to waste his time or the time of those reading the thread - the ship on some of the points that have been taken sailed a long time ago.

I don't want to use NearInfinity to research Beholders, but I know how many eyes they have, so I'm guessing that they have other innates, which have schools? Equally, if DavidW has posted only a single Bhaalspawn power, I need know nothing about BG2 to know that there must be 5 more (carried over from BG1) which do have schools. This is probably a good point to mention that checking the other games might provide an answer (or reveal inconsistencies, which should maybe be considered in the round).

I'm not going to offer any opinion on which school should be assigned.

8 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

To me the question is “is it magic?” and if so, what kind of magic.

I agree that this is a very sensible, taking into account (as you do) that god-given powers have schools.

DavidW mentions that bypassing MR is a sign that a spell is not being cast. I agree. I would add that a lack of a casting animation could be another sign.

I don't know a ton about Umber Hulks, but I'm not aware of anything particularly magical or supernatural about them.

Succubi are different. For dev intent on succubi, how are they handled in BG:EE (Kirinhale) or SoD (if present)? I would say that there are potentially logical flaws with giving some succubi powers a school ("SPIN553 // Charm Person (Nalmissra the succubus); currently NONE, should be ENCHANTER"), but leaving others without. If they're a spellcaster, then that's obviously fine; otherwise, we probably need to be clear on why a distinction is being drawn. From a player's perspective, "half-magical" creatures will be frustrating, so it would be good to make a clear case for specific dev intent on it OR a very persuasive case for our interpretation (in the general context of dev intent for innates).

What is it that succubi are doing to charm? Are they casting a spell? Is it something that just happens when they look at someone (although, on that note, how are other abilities from creatures' eyes coded...)? I can see a difference with the succubi's kiss, on the basis that it might be something that simply happens every time one kisses a succubi - my out-of-product knowledge of succubi (sorry, just the Order of the Stick) tells me that this might be the case. So, perhaps there's a distinction between what something does and what it is.

Similarly, as far as the school is concerned, it's my understanding that negative energy can be necromancy, but it isn't necromancy by definition.

Note: I know that the ship on SPIN571 // Energy Drain (succubus kiss) has sailed.

[DavidW]

Yes, I agree with most of this: you're making explicit what was implicit in my post, i.e. that a ton of changes were already made by the BD devs along these lines so dev intent is clear.

The deciding issue with succubus kiss is that resources used in cutscenes systematically function differently. (I'd forgotten that it was a CS resource - I thought it was being used in battle). 

[The_Baffled_King]

1 hour ago, DavidW said:

Yes, I agree with most of this: you're making explicit what was implicit in my post, i.e. that a ton of changes were already made by the BD devs along these lines so dev intent is clear.

Don't do yourself a disservice; you did explicitly say that a ton of changes were made by BD (you didn't use the phrase "dev intent", but that's obvs fine). I was happy to ram your point home with examples; I wasn't saying that the examples were required for the OP.

2 hours ago, DavidW said:

The main thing pulling me towards including it is that it's confusing/annoying for players if things described in in-game text as 'confusion' do different things in different places.

Totally agree, but is it dev intent? Speaking as someone familiar with detailed game systems before I played BG, but not specifically with D&D, I found the lack of detail in the rules material for BG was rather frustrating - but it seemed that dev intent was for the player to discover things as they played. I feel that the problem with Umber Hulk is that it's natural (so far as I'm aware) but there's no real analogy to our world, so the average player doesn't automatically expect that an Umber Hulk's ability won't be magical.

I'll offer a counterpoint that exists in both our world and BG: poison. In our world, creatures deliver poison. This happens in BG, but there's also a clerical spell that does the same. But nobody is arguing that a wyvern's poison (or poison from the Dagger of Venom) should be made magic so that MR will function the same against Wyverns and the Poison spell.

I understand that the analogy isn't perfect, in the sense that this thread is about .SPL resources, and I've given an example about effs attached to .ITMs. But, really, the resource type used to deliver the eff should not be relevant - the burning question is whether Umber Hulk is natural (by Forgotten Realms standards) or not [Edit: Well, sort of - see below].

1 hour ago, DavidW said:

The deciding issue with succubus kiss is that resources used in cutscenes systematically function differently. (I'd forgotten that it was a CS resource - I thought it was being used in battle). 

100% for SPIN571. Just saying (for consideration of SPIN553) that the single most frustrating thing with succubi - or anything else - will be if we fix them so they work differently between games. I figured that's more important than Kirinhale or succubi in particular, and may give clues to dev intent, so I thought I'd pontificate about it rather than checking what Kirinhale does

EDIT: Well, the burning questions are really (a) do we have dev intent for Umber Hulk being natural; and (b) if so, do we have consistent dev behaviour for treating natural abilities delivered via effs on .SPLs as though they have no school, even if that's different to how the equivalent spells are treated. Really don't have the knowledge of SPLs to offer examples, though.

EDIT 2: Deleted a sentence from my first edit based on me misreading CamDawg's quote "even the MM describes the effect as 'confusion, as per the spell'" as being from BG source material, rather than the D&D Monster Manual. As for the quote, in isolation, I'd only take it as confirmation that the end result of looking into an Umber Hulk's eyes is comparable to Confusion - I don't think that the MM phrasing is a counterpoint to the other MM evidence.

Edited May 8, 2022 by The_Baffled_King
Dev intent + Correct my error in reading CamDawg's post