Ring of Acuity spell slots for enemies

[gatperdut]

Lavok, with his Ring of Acuity which gives him extra spell slots, is a dummy who doesn't fill those up.

I imagine the same might be true for other such items equipped by enemies (few, if any, as they might be).

Edited January 18 by gatperdut

[DavidW]

Noted, but life is probably too short to care about it.

[gatperdut]

Hahaha fair enough. 

[RoyalProtector]

In my opinion that type of item shouldn't factor in at all. The enemies spells should be balanced manually regardless of such bonuses. If a spell caster was balanced in such a way that they get three casts of Horrid Wilting during the fight, no item should change that in any way.

(But that's just me).

[DavidW]

I’m generally keen for creatures to use their magic items - it improves verisimilitude - but in practice this is something the player probably won’t notice, and it’s a pain to code.

[jmerry]

5 hours ago, gatperdut said:

I imagine the same might be true for other such items equipped by enemies (few, if any, as they might be).

A complete list of those NPC mages in the main campaigns of the BG series:

- Edwin (all), wearing "Edwin's Amulet" for +1 or +2 slots at each level. They're filled.

- Ramazith (BG1), wearing "The Amplifier" for +1 level 2 slot. His vanilla version is a level 9 mage with 4/3/2/1 memorization; same as a level 7 mage with no boost from the item.

- Sunin (BG1), wearing "Evermemory" for double level 1 slots. His vanilla version is a level 6 specialist mage with 5/4/2 memorization; an unfilled level 3 slot, an extra level 2 spell, and no doubling at level 1.

- Winski Perorate (BG1), carelessly cloned from Sunin and not actually someone that can be fought. (His only purpose is to show up and kill you if you fail the Ducal Palace encounter)

- Kherriun (SoD), wearing a "Ring of Wizardry" for double level 1 slots. Her vanilla version is a level 13 specialist mage with 12/6/6/5/5/3 memorization. Fully accurate with the item included.

- Lavok (SoA), wearing the "Ring of Acuity" for bonus slots at levels 2, 3, and 4. In the version you fight, he's a level 21 mage with 5/4/5/2/3/4/3/2/2 memorization. Plenty of empty slots there.

- Nadinal (SoA), wearing the "Reaching Ring" for one extra slot at each of levels 5, 6, and 7. His vanilla version is a level 10 specialist mage with 3/1/3/1/2 memorization - lots of empty spell slots no matter how you look at it.

- Ribald (SoA), wearing an undroppable "Reaching Ring". His vanilla version is a level 16/14 fighter/mage with 6/6/8/3/2/3/3/1 memorization. Wait, you're saying that there are tables for how many spells a mage gets at each level?

- Jon Irenicus from the first pocket plane challenge (ToB), wearing an undroppable "Reaching Ring". Level 20 mage, 0/0/0/0/6/10/6/5/5 memorization. Rules are only suggestions for your enemies.

- Semaj from the second pocket plane challenge (ToB), wearing an undroppable "Reaching Ring". Level 20 mage, 4/5/3/4/6/5/5/3/3 memorization in both versions. Actually pretty close to living within his means; he only needs one more slot each at levels 7 and 9 to have those spells legitimately.

So, verdict. It's a pretty manageable list if you want to implement it. And the vanilla game really doesn't care about matching memorization to the spell slots an enemy should have, most of the time.

[RoyalProtector]

1 minute ago, jmerry said:

And the vanilla game really doesn't care about matching memorization to the spell slots an enemy should have, most of the time.

This is why it's probably pointless to try to implement this. Just set the spells appropriate for the enemy and the challenge level, with whatever modifications you deem necessary.

[DavidW]

I should say that SCS completely ignores extant memorization and just looks up the table.

[gatperdut]

2 hours ago, DavidW said:

and it’s a pain to code.

I can see how that'd be the case, thinking a bit about it.

With ignoring the extant memorization, you mean overwriting what slots the characters have with what they should have, based on level alone, yes?

[DavidW]

Yeah, the code that tells SCS how many spell slots to assign to a mage would have to look at what gear she was wearing. Like I say, life's too short - it's not the kind of detail players really notice.

[gatperdut]

Yep, got it now. You are right.