Hardiness Targeted by Breach

[polytope]

11 hours ago, morpheus562 said:

We already have spells that weaken saving throws. Those exist and it makes sense for specific spells to be able to do that. Pierce Shield is doing nothing special there, so I'm not sure what point is being made by that.

The point is that Pierce Shield removes arcane spell protections, as Breach removes arcane combat protections, but also penalizes magic resistance (and PnP-wise saving throws too, which are dependent on a character's inherent skill, like Hardiness).

If Breach, as a special purpose removal spell for arcane protections cannot remove Hardiness - because that's a nonmagical special ability of high level fighters - then Pierce Shield likewise shouldn't be able to lower the magic resistance of monks or wizard slayers because that's due to their special training and conditioning, and doesn't have a magical origin as such.

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Breach punctures a hole straight through all of the temporary protections currently enveloping a target, "breaching" their defenses and leaving them vulnerable...regardless of whether said defenses are magical in nature or not. Now personally, I don't really care that much about it either way, since this is just a meaningless "conceptual" perception of the spell, but having Breach destroy Hardiness does make sense to me. Assassination, on the other hand? No.

Glad at least one other modder agrees with me, anyway, regardless of anyone's preferences for the spell's function I don't think changing either Hardiness or Defensive Stance is within a fixpack's scope, even if these seem similar enough to either share a sectype or no sectype. Fixes should be for obviously wrong things (such as Assassination, which is not a protection), not ambivalent and debatable cases (like magical protections versus what were called in 3rd edition extraordinary abilities and which are also protective).

20 hours ago, Guest Lowman said:

And, it seems to me, I don't need to understand magic, to know that this interpretation is only coherent in accepting end state (combat protections=gone), but incoherent in how it actually makes that happen, or what it's breaking down to expose vulnerability.

An example: It could be possible for me to send an Over the Air Digital Signal with a communication or system disrupting package/virus (after battering through a lot of encryptions) to a significantly advanced combat platform--let's say an M1A2; tanks are cool!  And, depending upon what's in that signal, I could effectively nullify the combat power of that tank or maybe many tanks.  If I tried to send my virus through the same method to Mike Tyson while we're in the ring, then it's going to fail.  He's going to introduce me to the sweet science in brutal fashion--my magic holds no sway here (although it might give us all the cancer, well after the fact).

The thing is, there are spells in game that already achieve such purposes: The wizard spell Luck gives a +1/+5% bonus to all actions, whether picking a lock, fighting, making a save, or presumably as in your example hacking a computer system. The wizard spell Detect Invisibility reveals both thieves/rangers hiding in shadows and creatures rendered magically invisible. The wizard spell Knock open locks on both doors and safes. Mysteriously achieving a desired end often is how magic "works" in game.

[morpheus562]

14 minutes ago, polytope said:

The point is that Pierce Shield removes arcane spell protections, as Breach removes arcane combat protections, but also penalizes magic resistance (and PnP-wise saving throws too, which are dependent on a character's inherent skill, like Hardiness).

If Breach, as a special purpose removal spell for arcane protections cannot remove Hardiness - because that's a nonmagical special ability of high level fighters - then Pierce Shield likewise shouldn't be able to lower the magic resistance of monks or wizard slayers because that's due to their special training and conditioning, and doesn't have a magical origin as such.

The difference is Pierce Shield explicitly states it does those actions. Breach explicitly states it removes only Spell Protections. Hardiness and the HLAs are not spells.

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, morpheus562 said:

Breach explicitly states it removes only Spell Protections.

To my eyes, it really doesn't do any such thing. I even checked Beamdog's description to make sure they didn't make any changes for the Enhanced Editions:

Quote

When this spell is cast at a creature, it breaches and dispels all of the specific and combat protections on the target creature. Here is a complete list of all the specific protection spells that are dispelled by Breach:

The first sentence makes no mention of spells, purely "specific and combat protections" (and note that it says "breaches and dispels", not just "dispels"). The second sentence, as it states, is a complete list of spells that it dispels, which does not at all preclude the possibility that there are other non-spell abilities not listed here that it could still breach.

In an effort for full disclosure, however, it must be noted that various potions with combat/specific-protection-like abilities (such as Potions of x Resistance) do not have their sectypes set; if Breach were intended to tear down non-spell protections, you would think that potions would be the most obvious inclusion here, and yet I checked every single one, and only the Potion of Invisibility had a sectype set (illusory). Coming from someone who uses IR which historically sets potions to not able to be dispelled (alchemical!) but also to have sectypes which makes them breachable where appropriate, that doesn't sit squarely with me or help my case, but it ought to be mentioned regardless.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[polytope]

30 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

In an effort for full disclosure, however, it must be noted that various potions with combat/specific-protection-like abilities (such as Potions of x Resistance) do not have their sectypes set; if Breach were intended to tear down non-spell protections, you would think that potions would be the most obvious inclusion here, and yet I checked every single one, and only the Potion of Invisibility had a sectype set (illusory). Coming from someone who uses IR which historically sets potions to not able to be dispelled (alchemical!) but also to have sectypes which makes them breachable where appropriate, that doesn't sit squarely with me or help my case, but it ought to be mentioned regardless.

Potions, like green protection scrolls, indeed lack secondary types even when these duplicate the effects of a specific protection spell (i.e. potion of freedom and Free Action). That's because potions in BG2 (with the exception of Superior Healing and the rogue's potion of frost giant strength created through Alchemy) are copied over from BG1, in the original BG engine opcodes only go up to #190, there is no sectype removal or Breach spell nor Stoneskin for that matter, and I'm pretty sure opcode #120 - protection from weapon types is restricted to creature's undroppable immunity items.

However, it is not IMO worth changing in the scope of a fixpack, (giving potions of invulnerability the combat protection sectype etc.) because potions are easily dispelled (less easily with my own revised Dispel Magic mod to make potions count at the user's level, but that's neither here nor there). On the other hand, if Hardiness is both unbreachable and undispellable it can't be removed period, that's a major change.

[morpheus562]

22 minutes ago, polytope said:

On the other hand, if Hardiness is both unbreachable and undispellable it can't be removed period, that's a major change.

No, it's not a big change at all. Enemy ai does not target HLAs for removal, and any removal is incidental in nature. With what you're proposing, we will need to add spell states to each of the HLAs so ai will now treat them as something that can be removed. That's a very big change.

[polytope]

Ultimately it's out of my hands, but I'd say that labeling abilities to make them detectable by AI is a more conservative fix than changing the functionality and spell interaction of those abilities.

[suy]

4 hours ago, polytope said:

then Pierce Shield likewise shouldn't be able to lower the magic resistance of monks or wizard slayers because that's due to their special training and conditioning, and doesn't have a magical origin as such.

No, because both Pierce Shield, Lower Resistance or Greater Malison have a fixed reduction of some stat (irrespective of if you have it increased from your normal, or not). Breach doesn't reduce your stats in fixed ways. It doesn't apply penalties, it cancels existing spells. The same way that Remove Magic. Which only removes magic. And doesn't dispel Hardiness because it's not magic.

Breach and Dispel Magic are "reset to normal" or "cancel temporary effects".

IIRC, Breach does cancel some potions (or at least I vividly remember experiencing it, but it was with SCS, so might not be in vanilla). I see it coherent that Breach is "reducing AC and saves to the defaults" because it cancelled a Potion of Invulnerability. A Dispel Magic would do the same (when successful, of course). It can also reduce magic resistance if you have it buffed with a potion or spell, again, because Dispel Magic does so. But it doesn't do it at all if you don't have it increased in a temporary way.

So, sorry, but I don't see the comparison appropriate at all. I think the valid point to discuss is if things like the HLAs are seen as magical or not. And in that regard, the game is much more consistent to not treating them as such. They IMHO look and behave like the innate abilities of classes, like Defensive Spin.

[morpheus562]

50 minutes ago, polytope said:

Ultimately it's out of my hands, but I'd say that labeling abilities to make them detectable by AI is a more conservative fix than changing the functionality and spell interaction of those abilities.

From my perspective and experience with this games AI, making this targetable by enemy AI is going to have the biggest impact on player experience compared to changing the secondary type. Additionally, if they are going to have HLAs remain being dispelled, Resist Magic will need the power level adjusted to level 9 to coincidence with it's actual power which is going to be another noticeable change many players will probably not like. Most players, myself included, had no idea these were dispellable and the change to remove the secondary type will go vastly unnoticed if it's made.

Edited November 6, 2022 by morpheus562

[subtledoctor]

21 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Conceptually, I don't think of Breach as being an anti-magic spell in the same way as Dispel/Remove Magic or Secret Word, Spellstrike et al. are. I think of it more in the vein of Lower Resistance, which will lower a creature's magic resistance regardless of whether that magic resistance comes from a spell, their equipment, or a class/race/other ability. Similarly, Breach punctures a hole straight through all of the temporary protections currently enveloping a target, "breaching" their defenses and leaving them vulnerable...regardless of whether said defenses are magical in nature or not. Now personally, I don't really care that much about it either way, since this is just a meaningless "conceptual" perception of the spell, but having Breach destroy Hardiness does make sense to me. Assassination, on the other hand? No.

You and @polytope are making excellent arguments as to why Breach should remove Defensive Stance and Defensive Spin. And probably Berserk Rage. I'm happy that you seem to agree with me.

  

EDIT - to address the argument that Defensive Stance,  Defensive Spin, and Berserk Rage are out of the box because they have other effects in addition to the protective effects:

Honestly it is super weird to envision the Breach spell as failing to work if a protection has any extra benefit (like the +2 damage from Rage) OR any extra drawback (like the movement penalties attached to Stance, Spin, and IWDEE's Iron Body). What kind of crazy spell is Breach that it can remove Stoneskin, but if Stoneskin slows you down a bit then suddenly Breach is powerless against it?? Sorry, this is just too weird as a concept.

Speaking of Iron Body, let's please note that in IWDEE both Emotion: Courage and Emotion: Hope are Breachable spells, even though they both give substantial offensive benefits that rather overshadow their protective effects. But it does not appear to have been done accidentally, so here is some fairly clear evidence of the Beamdog devs' intent with regard to Breaching protections that have supplemental non-protective effects.

So, how to square Emotion: Courage and Emotion: Hope? Are they Breachable but Rage is not because they are magic? If that's the case, then doesn't the original question boil down to whether Hardiness is magic?

Also Circle of Bone prevents movement, but it is Breachable.

Again, especially with IWDEE stuff put into the mix, I think there are enough inconsistencies here that it needs addressing. (And enough inconsistencies in Polytope's arguments that his answer is not sufficient. (No offense man, I just disagree with you on a couple small but not-insignificant points.)

EDIT 2 - and if the concept is, it removes any temporary benefit magical or otherwise that solely provides protection relating to AC or resistances or immunity, then why are illusionary protections out of the box? Seems like Blur falls directly into that bucket...

Yes I'm throwing a bunch of spaghetti at this wall, but I think it's worth figuring out what sticks and what doesn't. If there is a logically sound vision for what Breach does that explains its relationship to

• Defensive Stance and Defensive Spin
• Berserk Rage
• Emotion: Courage/Hope
• Circle of Bones
• Iron Body
• Blur

...then maybe it would give clear guidance as to how Hardiness should be handled.

Edited November 6, 2022 by subtledoctor

[polytope]

22 hours ago, polytope said:

If Breach, as a special purpose removal spell for arcane protections cannot remove Hardiness - because that's a nonmagical special ability of high level fighters - then Pierce Shield likewise shouldn't be able to lower the magic resistance of monks or wizard slayers because that's due to their special training and conditioning, and doesn't have a magical origin as such.

17 hours ago, suy said:

No, because both Pierce Shield, Lower Resistance or Greater Malison have a fixed reduction of some stat (irrespective of if you have it increased from your normal, or not). Breach doesn't reduce your stats in fixed ways. It doesn't apply penalties, it cancels existing spells. The same way that Remove Magic. Which only removes magic. And doesn't dispel Hardiness because it's not magic.

I don't see that as being the issue, commenters like Sam, and guests Lowman and Sigmundur said it was too conceptually implausible for a spell that removes magical protections to also negate a warrior's extraordinary but non magical short duration buffs and either way achieve the end state of vulnerability to physical attacks.

Lowering magic resistance is an entirely appropriate analogy, some creatures are difficult to affect with spells because of their supernatural nature unless softened by Lower Resistance/Pierce Shield. Monks and wizard slayers, however, are humans (or other non-magical races), knowing no magic but with skills and special training that achieves the same purpose and are equally susceptible to LR/PS increasing their vulnerability to magical attacks, the fact that they could still have some positive value of MR if it was high enough after the first cast is irrelevant. It's a similar issue with Detect Invisibility revealing both stealthy character who are non-magically hidden and those actually cloaked by illusion magic.

7 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

You and @polytope are making excellent arguments as to why Breach should remove Defensive Stance and Defensive Spin. And probably Berserk Rage. I'm happy that you seem to agree with me.

  

EDIT - to address the argument that Defensive Stance,  Defensive Spin, and Berserk Rage are out of the box because they have other effects in addition to the protective effects:

Honestly it is super weird to envision the Breach spell as failing to work if a protection has any extra benefit (like the +2 damage from Rage) OR any extra drawback (like the movement penalties attached to Stance, Spin, and IWDEE's Iron Body). What kind of crazy spell is Breach that it can remove Stoneskin, but if Stoneskin slows you down a bit then suddenly Breach is powerless against it?? Sorry, this is just too weird as a concept.

This really is material for a tweak collation rather than a fixpack, if you want it like so in your games, I've said so several times.

The fact that the dwarven defender gets a functionally better version of the Hardiness HLA from the beginning of the game is not an argument to make Hardiness unbreachable, that's power creep, nor is it necessarily an argument to nerf the DD ability within the scope of a fixpack rather than a kit mod because this overpowered EE kit does in fact work as intended.

[morpheus562]

2 minutes ago, polytope said:

Lowering magic resistance is an entirely appropriate analogy, some creatures are difficult to affect with spells because of their supernatural nature unless softened by Lower Resistance/Pierce Shield. Monks and wizard slayers, however, are humans (or other non-magical races), knowing no magic but with skills and special training that achieves the same purpose and are equally susceptible to LR/PS increasing their vulnerability to magical attacks, the fact that they could still have some positive value of MR if it was high enough after the first cast is irrelevant. It's a similar issue with Detect Invisibility revealing both stealthy character who are non-magically hidden and those actually cloaked by illusion magic.

This really is material for a tweak collation rather than a fixpack, if you want it like so in your games, I've said so several times.

Lowering someone's resistance to magic, whatever the means, is vastly different than preventing a warrior from using a natural ability. Spells lowering MR explicitly state they are doing this. Breach explicitly states it removes spells. Preventing breach from taking down HLAs does not violate the logic and precedent for spells to take down MR. Analogy is intrinsically flawed and doesn't hold water.

What @subtledoctoris describing is not for a tweak pack but a correction to the identified bug. There is massive inconsistency in how breach is handled, and it would be within scope for a Fixpack to address. Either all combat protections whether they come from magic, divine, or natural means get removed via breach OR breach doesn't take down natural abilities. One has to give. 

[polytope]

3 minutes ago, morpheus562 said:

What @subtledoctoris describing is not for a tweak pack but a correction to the identified bug. There is massive inconsistency in how breach is handled, and it would be within scope for a Fixpack to address. Either all combat protections whether they come from magic, divine, or natural means get removed via breach OR breach doesn't take down natural abilities. One has to give. 

Okay, but I dispute the idea that abilities which grant increased survivability/immunities but also other combat boosts, such as berserker's enrage or priestly Boon of Lathander should be considered protections at all. The Boon has the combination sectype in vanilla and I'd be inclined to leave it so. The dwarven defender is Beamdog's creation, like the blackguard, and should be left to them to sort out and decide if nerfing is appropriate, small chance of that, I guess.

[morpheus562]

2 minutes ago, polytope said:

Okay, but I dispute the idea that abilities which grant increased survivability/immunities but also other combat boosts, such as berserker's enrage or priestly Boon of Lathander should be considered protections at all. The Boon has the combination sectype in vanilla and I'd be inclined to leave it so. The dwarven defender is Beamdog's creation, like the blackguard, and should be left to them to sort out and decide if nerfing is appropriate, small chance of that, I guess.

I agree that developer intent with beamdog making defensive stance not removable by breach was conscious and shows the HLAs should be treated similarly. However, if your logic is to state breach takes down all combat protections then it needs to take down all combat protections. It really becomes a one or the other and changes need to occur so there is consistency in how breach works.

[subtledoctor]

3 hours ago, polytope said:

Lowering magic resistance is an entirely appropriate analogy

Well if that's the case then by your logic not only should Breach affect Defenstive Stance and Defensive Spin, it should also remove the Swashbuckler's and Kensai's natural AC bonus.

3 hours ago, polytope said:

Okay, but I dispute the idea that abilities which grant increased survivability/immunities but also other combat boosts, such as berserker's enrage or priestly Boon of Lathander should be considered protections at all.

Are you kidding? When's the last time you heard anyone talk about how great the Berserker kit is because of that sweet +2 damage bonus? The entirety of what makes Rage valuable in this game is that it combines Chaotic Commands (a specific protection removable by Breach) with a form of SI:Abjuration. "Not a protection." You lose all sorts of credibility with an assertion like that.

3 hours ago, polytope said:

This really is material for a tweak collation rather than a fixpack, if you want it like so in your games, I've said so several times.

I didn't mention those spells because I want it to be this way or that way - if that was my point you know damn well I would have made such a tweak a long time ago. (Actually I did, one of my mods already has an option to extend Breach to remove 'Combination' protections.)

The point was, I keep hoping to hear from you some kind of coherent interpretation of the design of the Breach spell, a statement of what the spell is meant to do, generally, that can encompass the specific instances of what it does with regard to Shield versus Defensive Spin, Hardiness versus Defensive Stance, and Emotion: Courage versus Berserk Rage. But you keep not giving any such coherent interpretation. Reading between the lines I guess your position is something like, "maybe it's not consistent or even coherent but that doesn't mean its current design is a mistake that needs fixing." I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but I'm trying to figure out what your actual position is.

And TBH that is a completely reasonable position! Maybe given the definition of what the FixPack should be addressing, Breach being a garbled conceptual mess does not rise to the level of something that needs to be fixed. I may disagree with how I want my game to be set up, but I completely see the validity of that position.

But... not to beat a dead horse, but if that's your position, then I don't see how it could possibly justify changing Assassination...

Edited November 7, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Bartimaeus]

I feel like I gave out a pretty good conceptual interpretation of Breach. With regards to Defensive Spin, I don't know what Defensive Spin is. I mean, I know it's a Blade ability and I kind of have a vague idea of what it's supposed to be (the Blade spinning around with swords really fast in a kind of defensive maneuver...right?), but with no description with which to interpret what it does, it's difficult for me to say for absolute certain whether it should or shouldn't be breached. The concepts of these spells and abilities do matter: while Clairvoyance also gives combat protection-like bonuses a la Shield, Breach doesn't do anything against it because it would make zero sense for Clairvoyance's concept of simply being a type of foreknowledge (likewise for the bonuses of Emotion: Courage being the result of one's enhanced emotional state). One could possibly stretch a similar kind of explanation for Berserker's Rage ability as well as some other edge cases. I don't really have a good feel for why the heck Rage gives all the protections it does though (...level drain?), so I'm not the one to do so as it's entirely fraught with more personal interpretation of something that is not described enough in-game, or at least not to my liking. The concept and bonuses for Assassination lend absolutely nothing to being any kind of protection that would be suitable for breaching.

If Defensive Spin is really just "Blade is spinning around really fast with their swords", then I'd probably say it shouldn't be breachable, because Breach, to my knowledge, doesn't punch holes through real walls, or one's armor, or weapons...or your skin, for that matter, and it doesn't stop you from moving around, so what exactly would Breach be puncturing here in practice to make the Defensive Spin stop? Though I have to say, Breach possibly setting a target's base AC to 10 for a limited amount of time is kind of an interesting idea for being able to deal with ridiculously high AC enemies, but...

Edited November 7, 2022 by Bartimaeus