Protection from Normal Weapons is more balanced as a level 1 arcane spell. Discuss.

[Endarire]

Intro
Just as the thread title says:  Protection from Normal Weapons is more balanced as a level 1 arcane spell.  Also assume the duration of this spell is increased to at least 5 rounds + 1 round per caster level to.make it useful at low levels.

Why?
Spells in 2e are meant to be powerful.  Even though casters can get some use from this spell when they first get it - even if they don't power level a Sor for early access - the spell in the context of the Infinity Engine games seemed way too high a level!

Why spell level 1?
-Protection from Normal Weapons is most useful in the early game before pretty much every physical attacker uses a magic weapon.  Sure, animals - even in BGII - don't normally have weapons that strike as magical, but even if you learned Protection from Normal Weapons at character creation, how often would you actually cast it when Protection from Magic Weapons is 1 spell level higher and an early must-pick for a typical build?

-Level 1 arcane defensive spells in vanilla are few, but include Shield to notably boost AC & negate Magic Missile, Protection from Evil which effectively grants +2 AC/saves against most foes and makes Gate usable, and Protection from Petrification which is very niche but very useful against Basilisks, Beholders, and Flesh to Stone throwers!  (The Armor spell is sometimes worthwhile if you use Spell Revisions due to how Shield is nerfed/reworked in SR.)

-Note that level 1 arcane spells also include the classic Magic Missile for rarely-resisted damage, Find Familiar to get your friend & HP buff, and Sleep for sleep murdering anything not immune.  (In D&D, sleep murder is the best murder!)

-Even at level 2, Protection from Normal Weapons has some major competition.  Mirror Image in BG1 taught me to always learn and use Mirror Image!  It works against anything that uses targeted effects and doesn't use/spam True Seeing.  Yes, Mirror Images pop on hit, but they block magic and mundane attacks equally, and Mirror Image is very worthy of being an early pick for a typical Sor.  Level 2 arcane defensive spells also include Blur which helps with AC and saves to avoid being hit, Vocalize which neutralizes Silence, Resist Fear which neutralizes Fear, and Invisibility which is likewise an early game benefit and thwarted by more abilities than Mirror Image.  These are spells that are useful - if only in specific situations - throughout BGI & II.

-Level 2 offensive spells may be less of a star than defensive & utility spells, but we still have Knock/Battering Ram to reliably open any locked-but-not-plot locked object, Melf's Acid Arrow to kill trolls & disrupt casters even in Throne of Bhaal, Stinking Cloud to incapacitate foes with your Animated Dead, and Web, to make the floor all sticky and easily kill anything from range anything affected by it.

-Changing it to a level 3 spell seems too high since it's competing with Haste, Flame Arrow, Remove Magic/Dispel, Skull Trap, and Slow.  Would you rather cast Protection from Normal Weapons when you can cast another one of these spells, also knowing that Mirror Image, Shield, and other spells I mentioned are of a lower spell level?

-Spell level 4 contains Stoneskin, and I know many people love Stoneskin - and for good reason!  Mirror Image + Stoneskin + Haste were the buffs I found most useful and essential in BG1 for general purpose prebuffing and also for much of BG2.  Level 4 has other spells too like Confusion, but I normally just learned and cast Stoneskin from it with the occasional Polymorph Self for Gnoll (Flind) form for fire damage.

-Arcane spell level 5 (vanilla) contains Animate Dead, Breach, Chaos, Cloudkill, Domination, Lower Resistance, Spell Immunity, and more.  Spell Revisions changes Animate Dead to arcane level 4, moves Chaos to arcane level 7, and rewrites Spell Immunity into Dispelling Screen.  I doubt Protection from Normal Weapons comes even close to competing, Spell Revisions or not!

-Protection from Normal Weapons is self-only, making it most directly comparable to Mirror Image and Protection from Magic Weapons in terms of how effective a spell is to be reliably chosen.  Changing it to single target (like long range) would help a bit, as would changing it to affect all allies in area like Bless or Haste.  Even with it as a mass buff, Protection from Normal Weapons seems like it should be at most a level 3 spell, because Haste makes the stuff with or without the normal weapons dead that much faster, and helps us cross the maps faster due to doubled movement speed!

-To me at present, a single target spell, Protection from Normal Weapons is balanced as a level 1 spell.  As a group spell, it seems balanced as a level 2 spell.

Caveats
-Morpheus562 altered the spell (and Protection from Magic Weapons & Absolute Immunity) to grant physical resistance increases instead of immunity for Protection from Normal/Magical Weapons.

-I'm unsure how SCS would handle the changed spell level.

-Protection from Normal Missiles is still pretty weak.  Changing it to the Spell Revisions version which blocks all physical missile damage would improve it.

-Protection from Normal Weapons might be balanced as a level 2 spell if Protection from Normal Missiles is changed to Protection from Missiles.

-I know that not everyone enjoys playing with the most powerful options, nor enjoys the power level comparisons of abilities, but people will still make them!

Finally For Now
Thankee!

Edited November 9, 2022 by Endarire

[jmerry]

At level 2, Mirror Image has a duration of (3+level) rounds, only absorbs a maximum of five hits, and always has a chance to let hits through. Your proposed change is much better than that in a low-level environment - absurdly overpowered. Imagine if Tarnesh had a Melf's Acid Arrow and this improved version of PFNW instead of his standard Mirror Image and one of his Magic Missile spells. Immunity to normal weapons (and you don't have magic weapons yet), lasting long enough to cast all of his damage spells.

Not all spells should be balanced by how useful they are to player characters. Sure, you're unlikely to cast PFNW in its current level 5 form ... but it's the sort of spell that NPCs would do quite well with. Liia Jannath in BG1 has several instances of the spell memorized, and if she actually cast them she wouldn't have any trouble surviving the doppelganger attack.

[polytope]

It would be too powerful for players to have access to such cheap weapon immunity, some strong enemy human fighters do use non magical weapons.

Iirc no class besides the totemic druid (and the cleric beyond level 14) can summon creatures immune to normal weapons without expending a 5th level or higher spell slot. I.e. even the weak and awkward lesser elementals are summoned by a 5th level wizard spell, divine casters get from a 6th level slot either a fire elemental (druids) or an aerial servant (priests). Complete immunity to an enemy's physical attacks is much more powerful than a Stoneskin which can be chiselled through or Mirror Images which can be batted away, and even better than an AC which they can penetrate only with criticals, the fact that this spell is useless in many late game encounters is not really a justification to lower the spell level, which would trivialize many early game encounters.

I don't use the SCS option to change Protection from Normal Missiles to Protection from Missiles, it's good enough for a 3rd level spell as is.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Someone has not played BG1.

[subtledoctor]

1) It's all in the parameters.

PfNW at level 1, compared to Armor? AC 6 versus complete immunity from all attacks? That seems egregiously off-kilter. Or compared to Shield: AC 4 versus complete immunity to attacks. Again: egregiously off-kilter.

But, what if we change the parameters? What if we changed the duration of PfNW to just 3 rounds? Then this becomes interesting. It's like a low-level version of what Absolute Immunity is at high levels: gives you some breathing room, but you better make good use of it because soon enough the enemy will be cutting you down.

By the same token I've advocated for Mantle to take PfNW's place at 5th level, with a  ~3 round duration. Same idea, but works in mid-level play.

2) It's all about how opponents can counter each other.

Crucially, the other spell you get at 5th level is Breach, which can counter PfNW. If you move PfNW to 1st level, how would someone counter it? You can counter Armor or Shield or Blur by improving your thac0; you can counter Mirror Image or Stoneskin by hitting them several times. How would you counter PfNW at 1st level, if it retained its encounter-length duration? As mentioned above, what if Tarnesh used this? He is already hard enough to kill at 1st level, what if he was completely invulnerable to all your attacks and the attacks of the FAI guards? The game would be pretty short.

So, this just wouldn't work. Not because it couldn't work, but because the game as it is designed just couldn't account for the change.

EDIT - converting Pro Normal Missiles at 3rd level into Pro Normal Weapons would be kind of interesting. At least at 3rd level you have Dispel/Remove Magic as a potential counter. But I suspect in mid-BG1 encounters are not scripted to effectively to this and in many cases it would still be a win-button.

Edited November 9, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Endarire]

I had considered Tarnesh as an obstacle, but my counter for that was, "Don't fight him then."

I agree with the notion that making PFNW last a short duration (3-5 rounds) and have a short cast time (1) would be useful for emergency situations.

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, Endarire said:

I had considered Tarnesh as an obstacle, but my counter for that was, "Don't fight him then."

How?

I mean I guess you could skip the FAI, but what if a player actually wants J&K in their party? You would have them gated behind an insurmountable obstacle.

And anyway the idea of what the player would do in the face of Tarnesh is only an illustrative example, the much bigger issue is that the AI - already  pitifully hamstrung by its very nature - would have zero way of dealing with a player who is immune to physical attacks. It would be like playing on Story Mode. And I don't mean to rag on Story Mode - it's not for me, but at the same time this is a game of dice rolls, and it's nice that Beamdog added a feature that lets you ignore random dice rolls when you want to.

So if you want to ignore physical attacks in the early game, a far easier solution is to simply play on Story Mode until you get to the more interesting part of the game. Moving a spell to a different level is annoyingly complex. Believe me, I do it in several mods, and the experience has left me with a desire to do so as little as possible. if there is a different way to achieve a similar result, I would use the different way.

[ahungry]

Just going off quick wiki results:

Tarnesh is level 5 - he casts mirror image for (level / 3 + 2) clones - so (depending on rounding, I didn't go observe) ~4 clones?  The duration of the 4 clones is 3 rounds + 1 a level, so 8 rounds.

PFNW is 1 round/level, so for him, it'd be 5 rounds.

If you don't have a delayed encounter or many mod npcs, you'll likely have just you and Imoen (maybe Xzar and Montaron, depending on how you roleplay or powergame, or if you're genuinely running an evil party).

In the "good" RP appropriate scenario, you'll have you and Imoen, likely with a paltry 1 APR each (perhaps if melee oriented, 2 apr for you).  So your team ends up with a combined 2 APR - that should whittle down his mirror image in 2 rounds - by round 3 you can hit him.

I don't think PFNW is such an insurmountable hypothetical in an unmodded game - you just kite him for 2 extra rounds (in SCS, he will own a level 1 charname + Imoen due to pre-buff + smart horror usage anyways) or use some type of crowd control on him if you're playing anything else - not to mention Imoen's wand of magic missile would interrupt him for 10 consecutive rounds quite easily if he lost mirror image and gained PFNW in it's stead (this works less if suggesting it was the level 1 slot and not level 2 though).

If PFNW was unstackable with missile protection, so the user could only get one or the other up at any given time, I think it'd also be a fine suggestion.

Stating "increase your thac0" as a counter to Shield/Armor (or "whack down the mirror images") doesn't seem like a counter strategy either - it's exceeding rare to be able to just "increase your thac0" (temporarily or otherwise) by 5+ points at a whim - either the character will always be running as much thac0 as possible, or they can use buffs to get it up a tiny bit - as a level 1 spell, PFNW would be easily dispellable wouldn't it?  or does Dispel Magic not work on it? (if so, take my parting comment with a grain of salt).

[subtledoctor]

4 minutes ago, ahungry said:

Stating "increase your thac0" as a counter to Shield/Armor (or "whack down the mirror images") doesn't seem like a counter strategy either

I mean, if you can fight a warrior  in plate mail then you can fight a wizard with Armor or Shield. And for Mirror Images, in the early game it only  takes ~2 archers  about 2 rounds to bust through it.

11 minutes ago, ahungry said:

would interrupt him for 10 consecutive rounds quite easily if he lost mirror image and gained PFNW in it's stead

Notably, keep in mind that nobody in their right mind would use one or the other. You would combine PfNW with MI, and 80% of the attacks coming your way wouldn't even land to remove images.

Or at least the  player would do that. Enemy AI would not be programmed to do so, and again, that is the main issue. Giving this to enemy mages wouldn't matter very much - the player will very quickly be using Varscona and Ashideena etc. The bigger issue is when a 7th-level Charname casts PfNW and gets 42 seconds of immunity to most melee and ranged attackers in the game. And it only  costs a 1st-level slot and the game gives you that ridiculous Evermemory ring.

(Note, the PnP versions of PfNW and PfMW only protect against weapons - not things like bears or wyverns. But the BG games extend these protections to animal and monster attacks, which totally changes the equation.)

  I dunno. People design these spells and they give them a spell level. If you showed me the effects of PfNW and showed me competing defensive spells and BG1 gameplay, there's no way in the world I would set it to be a 1st-level spell. 3rd level could fit. 1st level, maybe if the duration was super short, like 1 round per  3 levels  or something. But there too, there's no way to have the AI make good use of it with such a short duration, which means there's no way to make it fun. So what's the point?

[jmerry]

The actual numbers on mirror images in the BG series: 4 clones at caster level 1-4, 5 clones at caster level 5+. Tarnesh is level 5, but doesn't have level 3 spells; he would actually make more sense as a level 4 mage. (And his THAC0/saves/thief skills look like a hasty respec from a mage/thief)

20 minutes ago, ahungry said:

... as a level 1 spell, PFNW would be easily dispellable wouldn't it?

Dispel magic cares about caster level, not spell level. If you want a decent chance of dispelling, say, a spell from a level 5 mage, you need to be level 5 or so yourself. (In the BG series, that is.)

[ahungry]

I only have the 1st edition book atm, not 2nd edition - it mentions a base rate of 50%, with a bonus of 5% for each level over the target, and a penalty of 2% for each level under - I think BG was 5% in either direction? (so per 1st ed, a level 1 casting dispel at a level 5 would still have a 42% chance of success, but with BG rules or maybe its 2nd ed rules, that's instead only 30%?).

Edit: I was probably thinking about other dispel solutions that target spell levels of X and below, and can't remove certain spells of a given level in my original comment.

Edited November 9, 2022 by ahungry

[Endarire]

What about making PFNW a level 1 spell with a flat 3 round duration, self only targeting, and a cast time of 1?  What about having subtledoctor's Magic Duels Revised's level 1 Spell Thrust bypass/remove PFNW?

How does changing PFNW to a level 3 spell with a 1 round per caster level duration change things?

Edited November 10, 2022 by Endarire

[Guest Aasimon]

On 11/9/2022 at 9:28 PM, jmerry said:

The actual numbers on mirror images in the BG series: 4 clones at caster level 1-4, 5 clones at caster level 5+.

The amount of images is determined by the caster wizard level, Near Infinity has an incorrect label that's been mistaking you. As the previous poster said, it's 2+level/3 (rounded down), so 3 images for the level 5 Tarnesh. Pretty weak compared to a level 1 immunity from normal weapons!