Update to PfMW, Mantles, and Absolute Immunity

[morpheus562]

I am looking at updating many of the combat protection spells to balance them out and provide reason to go with some of the higher level spell offerings instead of the traditional PfMW. I managed to figure out how to calculate a percentage a character can have to resist spell interruptions when they are damaged while casting. So far, I have the below functional and am looking for feedback and perspectives on how these should be tweaked further.

Minor Protection from Physical Damage (previously Protection from Normal Weapons)

When the spell is cast, it sets physical damage resistance for slashing, crushing, piercing, and missile damage to 50%. It is important to note that this spell will override and replace protections granted from previous castings of Minor Protection From Damage, Protection From Damage, Mantle, Improved Mantle, or Absolute Immunity. This effect lasts for the duration of the spell or until dispelled.

Protection from Physical Damage (previously Protection from Magical Weapons)

When the spell is cast, it sets physical damage resistance for slashing, crushing, piercing, and missile damage to 100%. For duration of the spell, the character will be immune to spell interruptions from physical attacks. Additionally, the user becomes immune to any petrification, vorpal, or slaying effects. It is important to note that this spell will override and replace protections granted from previous castings of Minor Protection From Damage, Protection From Damage, Mantle, Improved Mantle, or Absolute Immunity. Due to the nature of this spell, with the short casting time and duration, it is mainly used to buy the wizard a few rounds in the thick of combat. This effect lasts for the duration of the spell or until dispelled.

Mantle

When the spell is cast, it improves physical damage resistance for slashing, crushing, piercing, and missile damage by +60%. For duration of the spell, the character will have a 60% chance to resist spell interruptions from all forms of attacks. Additionally, the user becomes immune to level drain, psionic attacks, petrification, and any vorpal or slaying effects. This spell is incredibly powerful yet has a very short duration, and this combined with the very short casting time makes this spell useful only in the thick of intense combat. It is important to note that this spell will override and replace protections granted from previous castings of Minor Protection From Damage, Protection From Damage, Mantle, Improved Mantle, or Absolute Immunity. This effect lasts for the duration of the spell or until dispelled.

Improved Mantle

When the spell is cast, it improves physical damage resistance for slashing, crushing, piercing, and missile damage by +80%. For duration of the spell, the character will have an 80% chance to resist spell interruptions from all forms of attacks. Additionally, the user becomes immune to magical commands, level drain, psionic attacks, petrification, and any vorpal or slaying effects. This spell is incredibly powerful yet has a very short duration, and this combined with the very short casting time makes this spell useful only in the thick of intense combat. It is important to note that this spell will override and replace protections granted from previous castings of Minor Protection From Damage, Protection From Damage, Mantle, Improved Mantle, or Absolute Immunity. This effect lasts for the duration of the spell or until dispelled.

Absolute Immunity

When the spell is cast, it confers complete invulnerability to all damage, regardless of the source. Additionally, the user becomes immune to magical commands, level drain, psionic attacks, petrification, and any vorpal or slaying effects. This spell is incredibly powerful, hence the short duration. However, the casting time is also very short, making this spell incredibly useful in the thick of combat, where buying a few seconds can mean the difference between life or death. It is important to note that this spell will override and replace protections granted from previous castings of Minor Protection From Damage, Protection From Damage, Mantle, Improved Mantle, or Absolute Immunity. This spell lasts for the duration or until dispelled.

[polytope]

Interesting changes, my problem is that it will be easy for the party to remove Protection from Physical Damage, (Improved) Mantle, Absolute Immunity with weapons like Carsomyr, Staff of the Magi and arrows of dispelling. This also applies to late-game enemies that can dispel on hit.

Also, Stoneskins will be removed with each hit even if 100% damage resistant and so when the spell expires the caster faces a rapid death, come to that few mages in the pre-ToB portion of the saga have over 60hp, so if Mantle gives them 60% resistance they have ~150hp relative to physical attacks; a party or even a single strong fighter is likely to chop through that well before the spell expires. Then again, barring mods I think Mantle was always useless to enemy mages, +3 weapons are plentiful in the early game.

Edited October 28, 2022 by polytope

[morpheus562]

I do want to note, my other mod nerfs carsomyr so it has a perfect chance a hit will dispel. I'll need to do something similar with that staff.

 

[polytope]

I should have clarified, I mean it will be easier to kill mages with ProFD than ProMW even with a nerfed Carsomyr, because with vanilla ProMW there is a zero chance of hitting them and removing any protections with it.

[morpheus562]

Correct, and it will also make your mage easier to kill too.

[subtledoctor]

6 hours ago, polytope said:

come to that few mages in the pre-ToB portion of the saga have over 60hp, so if Mantle gives them 60% resistance they have ~150hp relative to physical attacks; a party or even a single strong fighter is likely to chop through that well before the spell expires

To be fair, with the unmodded version of Mantle you can chop them down a lot faster than that with a +3 weapon, which every player has by the time they face wizards casting Mantle.

[subtledoctor]

6 hours ago, morpheus562 said:

I do want to note, my other mod nerfs carsomyr so it has a perfect chance a hit will dispel. I'll need to do something similar with that staff.

Ooh - something I hadn't thought of before but now seems obvious: let spell protections block Dispel, including the Dispel applied by items.

[polytope]

12 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

To be fair, with the unmodded version of Mantle you can chop them down a lot faster than that with a +3 weapon, which every player has by the time they face wizards casting Mantle.

? That's just what I wrote in the following sentence, not sure why you felt the need to correct me.

Possible uses of vanilla Mantle I can think of:

• Blocks most damage-over time weapons (Gnasher club, Valygar's sword, Jhor bastard sword, poisoned arrows/bolts/darts/throwing knives) which are good for disrupting spellcasters.
• Blocks ranged weapons in the early game generally (except Melf meteors and Tansheron's bow), may make a wizard harder to attack in combo with either Fireshields or Teleport Field.
• Blocks early game speed weapons (Belm etc.) which are good for stripping Stoneskins rapidly
• Protects against the attacks of most low-level summoned creatures (which usually either hit as nonmagical or +1) if you're swarming a mage with them (but not elementals).

It was always a very lackluster defensive option though.

 

[morpheus562]

@polytopeOne of the constraints I have is that existing ai needs to use it appropriately. Sadly, my initial excitement over blocking spell interruptions was ill placed and it's not working as intended. Back to the drawing board on that one.

Blocking damage over time effects is going to be difficult to dynamically target, so that may not work within the limitations of the weapons. I'd need to have to map it out and think on it.

I'm not exactly sure how you would focus on early ranged weapons since you'll be getting mantle sometime in early/mid SoA. Same with speed weapons as it's the main hand that will be causing the issue. 

I'm also trying to get away from blocking specific weapon enchantment levels with these changes. 

Is there a way to have a character with these to have an increased chance to resist a dispel magic on hit. It seems like it's an all or nothing thing 

Edited October 29, 2022 by morpheus562

[polytope]

2 minutes ago, morpheus562 said:

Blocking damage over time effects is going to be difficult to dynamically target, so that may not work within the limitations of the weapons. I'd need to have to map it out and think on it.

Yeah, it's unfortunate since poison doesn't necessarily come from a weapon, the cleric spells Poison and Storm of Vengeance also cause it.

I'm curious how a mindflayer's physical attack (not their psionic spell like abilities) interact with the new spells. For most players or enemies it's death in 4 hits or less, and players get this through the Shapechange spell.

[morpheus562]

I took a look at it, and they all appear to use the same weapon. I could do a generic block on anything that blocks int, but that could be abused. I need to check, when I have time, if the iesdp lists an opcode that blocks specific items.

[subtledoctor]

56 minutes ago, polytope said:

Possible uses of vanilla Mantle I can think of:

• Blocks most damage-over time weapons (Gnasher club, Valygar's sword, Jhor bastard sword, poisoned arrows/bolts/darts/throwing knives) which are good for disrupting spellcasters.
• Blocks ranged weapons in the early game generally (except Melf meteors and Tansheron's bow), may make a wizard harder to attack in combo with either Fireshields or Teleport Field.
• Blocks early game speed weapons (Belm etc.) which are good for stripping Stoneskins rapidly
• Protects against the attacks of most low-level summoned creatures (which usually either hit as nonmagical or +1) if you're swarming a mage with them (but not elementals).

...And yet PfMW does all of this better, except for the low-level  summons thing. And is cheaper to boot. Which is the problem that  Morpheus is trying to address. And flawed though the proposal may be, I can't bring myself to criticize anyone who tilts at this particular windmill. (Well, except maybe temnix.)

The general concept of Mantle is not terrible... if you replaced PfNW with Mantle at 5th level and gave it a shorter duration, it would be pretty interesting, because then it would do all those things at a time when it would be really handy, and would be cheaper than PfMW. EDIT - poop, now i want to do this in my game.

Or, like, just shuffle them around. Mantle at 6th-level, Improved Mantle at 7th, PfMW at 8th, Absolute Immunity at 9th. SCS  will use  all of them but not two of them together, so it doesn't necessarily matter which one is at which level...

Or, how about this: maybe weaken PfMW? In a way that doesn't disturb the SCS expectation of 3-4 rounds of protected casting? Bartimaeus and I found out that hits through PfMW can actually be detected by op232 contingencies. So you could theoretically apply some kind of effects that weaken or disadvantage a wizard behind a PfMW, while preserving their ability to cast spells. Like, what if hits through PfMW didn't damage or interrupt a wizard, but they could slow him down? Or make him fatigued? (Maintaining that protection against a barrage of magical weapons strikes must be hard work!) Huh... this might be something worth considering...

Edited October 29, 2022 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

10 minutes ago, morpheus562 said:

if the iesdp lists an opcode that blocks specific items.

Op206 blocks items as well as spells. So do 318/324. So does... something else I just coded yesterday. Damned if I can remember what it was, though.

[morpheus562]

It's an interesting problem to solve for. Definitely lots of restrictions at play for consideration. I could simply alter only PfMW and PfMW, and leave mantles and absolute immunity alone. Definitely worth considering.

Edited October 29, 2022 by morpheus562

[polytope]

33 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

...And yet PfMW does all of this better, except for the low-level  summons thing. And is cheaper to boot. Which is the problem that  Morpheus is trying to address.

Are poisoned throwing daggers magical in your game? They aren't in mine, thus these penetrate ProMW but not Mantle.

More generally, Mantle does block most ammunition available to the player in the early stages of the game, +3 melee weapons are plentiful, +3 arrows are not.

I never said it was a good spell, it's a weak spell, but not entirely without uses.