Does the order of effects for spells matter?

[RoyalProtector]

I was making a poison in NearInfinity and it seemed to work when I was level 3. But when I reached level 4, it stopped working as intended.

I noticed that the only thing changing besides the duration of the effect of the poison is that the order of some effects was different.

So essentially, the poison decreases movement speed, constitution and AC. When those things are closer to first in the order of effects, they work. Everything works.

But at level 4, it had those effects on the end of the list for whatever reason. And only the poison damage worked.

Is this a known quirk or do you think I'm probably missing something?

[RoyalProtector]

After remaking the spell using the level-3 version as a base, everything works. What is going on?

[subtledoctor]

Yes order of effects matters. Depending on what the effects are. You said the effects didn't work when certain effects were moved to "the end of the list" but you didn't say what other effects are present that ended up in front of them. So it's hard to say what is going on.

But as an example: some spells have an op206 effect at the end of the order, referencing the spell itself in the resource field. This allows all of the spell's effects to occur, but then prevents them from occurring again, so the effects will not double up. But if you move the spell's main effects to after this op206 effect, then the 206 effect occurs first, blocking application of the spell; and therefore, the subsequent effects are blocked. So that is a case where effect order matters. (Similar issues occur with, e.g., op321 and op318 effects, which generally want to be first in the order.)

[RoyalProtector]

Yeah, I see now what happened:  an effect that made the target immune to the poison for its duration was not the last effect, the other effects I mentioned were added after that one. Since those effects are added in order, it makes sense why it wouldn't work. The target became immune to the spell itself, making everything added afterwards useless. Thanks