DavidW

From the AI's point of view, undispellable Invisibility and Protection from Creature Type are functionally equivalent. And either way, there's a significant difference between how the player can react and how the AI can react. I can kind of work around it, but it's tricky, and I'm not sure I can afford the script space to do it properly. Up to you about PnP flavour, but I'm not entirely convinced. On my interpretation of PnP sanctuary, it's not okay to dump a fireball on a sanctuaried target, whereas that's straightforward (and the obvious counter to Sanctuary) in BG2 without the invisibility.

I'm ambivalent about whether it's a good idea but at worst I think it's not going to cause major problems; at best I think it's pretty good. As long as the spell doesn't actively hide the graphic, though, it's definitely more useful for players than the enemy, as PCs can see Sanctuaried creatures but the computer can't. In your place I might actually consider slapping on an Invisibility effect. Re prebuffing: I'll give it some thought. You're right that it's a bit of a pain to implement, but not horrendously so.

Can you clarify the motivation? I'd rather not, because I'd rather err on the side of transparency. The enemy wizards know what spells you're using, after all.

Until Ch.7 there're but four places with rakshasas - Sewers (easy to beat at low levels, iirc he doesn't even know PFMW), Ruhk the Transmuter in Windspear (he's almost alone), Ihtafeer's group (optional, as you can kill genies instead to complete the quest), Spellhold (he's almost alone).So I'm largely unpersuaded there's any need to think of letting low-level party to take down a rakshasa. And against Suldanessellar's guys we already have Pierce Shield and Spellstrike. As well as Shapechange into Iron Golem Yeah, I wasn't all that worried about Rakshasas. It was liches that bothered me more. (Plus, even high-level characters have a problem if they can't use Breach.) Returning to the general II issue, I think I'm basically resolved to at least try out the Ardanis solution in the next SCS release. Having thought about the coding a bit, I don't think it would be too tricky to make SCS sensitive to whether that option is installed, rather than just assuming it willy-nilly as I normally do for defensive-magic shifts. It's just a matter of (a) slightly prioritising Truesight when the option is installed, which I can do in SSL via IgnoreBlock trickery; (b) defining a SpellAntimagic option which gets compiled as SpellArea or Spell as appropriate; © giving mages/priests instructions not to actively target creatures with STATE_INVISIBLE active. It's not a hell of a lot of work to try, and I'm very keen on the virtues of experimental test for these things - theory only gets you so far.

Most of these solutions are (or, I suppose, should be: I don't know how you've coded them) blocked by Minor Globe (which in turn can't be dropped by single-target antimagic when II is active).You're right, though Spell Thrust do work against (M)GoI, removing the former and ignoring the latter (thus still dispelling SI even if protected by GoI), because both in vanilla (at least in my vanilla install it looks so) and SR it has 'power' set to 0 (a la Dispel Magic). Only if it has an area effect (and wasn't the whole point of this discussion to avoid there being one?)

Against a standard AI a first level guaranteed invisibility -spell, for a backstabber/Harm'er, whell yeah. The discussion is basically about enemy use of Sanctuary, not PC use. And my point is that area of effect magic still works against the Sanctuaried. (I can't recall whether SCS attacks Sanctuaried PCs with it.)

Indeed. But is Sanctuary really so effective then? What about area-effect magic?

It doesn't bother me, because it's not an effect that works on the protected creature, it's an effect that works on the caster. That is: one is not stripping Invisibility from the protected creature, one is granting the ability to see through invisibility to the caster. (In the same way, Detect Invisibility in PnP would not be blocked by (e.g.) Minor Globe, because it's doing something to the caster, not to the protected creature.) It doesn't bother me That's basically my maths. Old framework: you need TS running and then you need to drop SI:Div. New framework: you need TS running and then you need to drop Spell Shield. Overall it's a wash. Try it and see. That's exactly my point: the AI (player's or enemy's) can see the enemy, but the player can't. I was thinking about the vanilla versions, which (iirc) have zero duration. But not Minor Globe. Most of these solutions are (or, I suppose, should be: I don't know how you've coded them) blocked by Minor Globe (which in turn can't be dropped by single-target antimagic when II is active). That's a good point; I ought to bear it in mind in scripting. (Though again, Ardanis's modification of TS still works.) I'm really not keen on changing the vanilla spell system, or (even more so!) the vanilla powers of creatures, within SCS except minimally and as an a last resort. To do otherwise obviates the basic design principles behind SCS. (And no, I don't have any detailed logic beyond my own personal intuitions as to why I regard any given change as more minimal than any other - the nearest I can do is "what makes things you already see in the vanilla game have to be changed", though that's highly imperfect.) SR, of course, can do as it wishes with the spells, so this is only relevant insofar as compatibility is concerned. That's fine with me, even to the stage of being something I'm amenable to including. (Case in point as far as "what counts as minimal" is concerned.)

I think I'm with you on balance, though it's a neat idea. But what ill consequences it could create? What I have initially suggested was to make a divination spell (either by altering TS or by introducing another one and swapping names with TS) capable of only detecting-invis-by-script, without any kind of dispelling enemy's illusionary protections. Only caster can target the invisible opponent with spells, not their party. I'm reconsidering this. (Not least because my latest attempt to make antimagic spells penetrate II doesn't work.) I don't think it would work for any spell only to grant the detect invisibility opcode, because that opcode doesn't actually reveal creatures that are invisible to the player, it just allows them to target II creatures (and, I think, their AI to target invisible creatures). But I think adding it to one or two anti-invisibility spells might be a nice feature, and a neater way around my mage-targetting problem than the never-ideal antimagic AoE. I'd probably add it to Truesight without otherwise altering the spell; I'd also consider adding it (with, say, a 5-round duration - not as something that could be used in prebuffs) to Detect Invisibility. I'd leave it off Oracle and Invisibility Purge, since they're clearly described as instant magic attacks on an enemy's illusions, not as boosts on the caster. This slightly disadvantages mages relative to the status quo, largely because Truesight can be pre-cast. But I can live with that (especially as I'm going to be able to throw Spell Shield around now). Two problems: 1) (Vanilla) non-detection won't provide protection. I don't think this bothers me, ultimately: Truesight et al wouldn't actually reveal a genuinely invisible creature; it would just make an already-revealed creature targetable. 2) More seriously, the player can't give attack orders on totally-invisible creatures but the player's AI can. (This is a symptom of the fact that the invisibility detection opcode isn't really designed for PCs.) I think the only way to solve this is to replace See(XYZ) with See(XYZ)!StateCheck(XYZ,STATE_INVISIBLE) in PC scripts. That could be automated, though there'd be a problem if someone installed a new script after the relevant mod. But I think we can live with this.

I'm somewhat reluctant to do this, as it's not clear why SI:Div in particular should work this way. It is certainly a matter of taste - a quibble: this is not quite the same thing as being subjective We're talking about elegance in the sense used in maths or physics, yes? If so, take it from me: it's subjective. (I speak as someone who works in theoretical physics, and the philosophy of science, professionally.) That's not to say that there aren't often strong consensus views on given issues, though. ... or perhaps I'm misunderstanding. Is this intended as a point in philosophy of aesthetics? I'm fairly unsympathetic to realism as a philosophy of aesthetics (whatever its virtues in ethics), but I can see that an aesthetic realist would want to argue that matters of taste are objective. (Apologies for wild offtopicness.)

@Amanasleep: Contingency does feel a bit of a bridge too far for priests. I do use Harm and Slay Living, but it's fiddly to use effectively because it's very short range and requires a hit roll. I don't take advantage of that anyway, really - SCS isn't intelligent enough to pick on someone because they have both combat and specific protections running.

If you mean Non-Detection, then altering it doesn't (alone) help, as SI:Div is still out there. So the right comparison is with altering Non-Detection and removing SI. I don't really know what "almost a fix" means. (And I don't think there's any evidence that changing N-D is a fix according to the developer-intent definition of fix.) At some level this just becomes a matter of personal opinion: what seems more low-key (in terms of the feel of playing the game, as well as in terms of the in-game lore). I don't have an active justification. (I do have a relatively straightforward in-game justification: just assume that the relevant spells have a small area of effect. Of course this is what I tried to actually do, but we both know it works imperfectly for various reasons.) 'Fraid so.

The general point is that minimalism is defined - for me - relative to BG2 itself. I'm not particularly bothered by fidelity or lack of fidelity to PnP. And in BG2 you can see II characters. I think I'm with you on balance, though it's a neat idea. I think that's a good idea, sufficiently good that I might consider stealing it. (It does affect my AI scripts a little bit, but I can work around that.) I don't agree, actually. Of course it's seriously bad news for a wizard to be Breached, but contingencies and sequencers let the wizard get his defences back up quickly and keep attacking. No, you're right. Absolutely.

That's not the original state of BG2. "Indeed, my friends, none of you have any weapon that could hurt me" - Gandalf. Maybe we could make a rule that enemy priests always come prebuffed with some of the longest lasting protections, particularly Shield of the Archons, Death Ward, Remove Fear, and Chaotic Commands (maybe even Skeleton Warriors, since they last for hours--I know I'd cast one every morning if I thought there was even the slightest chance I'd meet danger that day!). If their first move was Sanctuary followed by Blade Barrier and Physical Mirror, they could end up pretty well protected when they cast Gate or whatever. I also believe that UnHoly Word doesn't break Sanctuary. In any event, I might suggest that normally prebuffed clerics start with Regeneration active, which could dramatically increase survivability and reduce the necessity for potions (and more importantly, spell actions) during combat. I use most of these, but ultimately it's still the case that one antimagic attack plus breach takes nearly all of it all down. ... I'm not theorising here: it's an experimental observation that enemy clerics (especially solo ones) go down very quickly in SCS, quicker than I'd like. (Though this isn't disastrous.) I don't think their spells casting time is the real issue, as they aren't much different from arcane's spells, My observations are that it matters (again, this is behaviour noted in playthroughs and testing - I'm not theorising). In two ways, in fact: (i) at lower levels, the difference is pretty key: 2 seconds for a wizard's 2nd level attack spell, vs. most of the round for a cleric's; (ii) wizards have certain instant-cast moves (stoneskin, sequencers, contingency) unavailable to clerics. Not for me: it's much too radical a change to the BG2 rule system. (And my comments about clerics are meant to illuminate certain aspects of the system, and also to invite suggestions as to how to use them better; they're not a crie de coeur and I don't feel something game-mechanical needs to change to work around this. In practice I'm resigned to not being able to use clerics solo without special arrangements; I can use them effectively as parts of groups.) Guilty as charged, at least where the antimagic system is concerned. (I'm very unkeen on saves for a spell like Breach, because you end up having to carry silly numbers of them; this is less of an issue with non-detection.) I could try to offer a defences of the scissor-paper-rock debuff system, but ultimately I just see it as quite core to the way BG2 antimagic works, so I don't really want to mess with that within SCS.Yep, but we're not speaking of antimagic attacks here but divination attacks, and Non-detection isn't a spell protection. If you want something that temporary shields II but goes down in a single hit you could make Non-detection go down against the first divination attack without a save. That would make it a sort of anti-divination version of Spell Shield. Perhaps it's worth getting the parameters clearer here. Remember that SCS, unlike SR (legitimately) put's a high value on minimalism: I don't want to change the spell system more than I absolutely have to. (I'm in general amenable to incorporating other people's spell systems, but - as discussed before - mage buffing and debuffing is a special case.) The change I've felt forced to make is the AoE for antimagic, which in turn is a workaround for antimagic spells actually allowing targetting of invisible creatures, which was my ideal. At the time I couldn't see how to do it (actually I think now I might, which changes things, but I haven't had a chance to run tests). Other changes have to be measured against that baseline. (As always I'm perfectly happy to try to play nice, e.g. with SR's proposed silent overwrite of SI, where it doesn't mess with my scripts.) Reasonably sure, yes. The balance between debuffing and attacking got tweaked many, many times in SCS testing; where it is now is largely a function of what seems to work in practice rather than of theory. It's doubtless not perfect (especially as the right level of debuffing is very situation-dependent), is probably a bit skewed towards high-level fights where most PCs will be heavily buffed, and could no doubt be refined. But I'm pretty sure I need access to a single-target buff-remover. (In late-game anti-mage fights, in earlier versions I wasn't using Breach enough, with the result that nearly all the party were immune to nearly all the enemy's attacks.) Pierce magic in particular is underused, but 6th level spell slots aren't (Death, PMW, Truesight, etc). 5th level is quite a convenient place for the relevant breaching spell to be: I think it makes really quite a big difference to have it at 6th level. I'm also reluctant to have to load up with two different lots of spells where previously I only needed one. (& yes, I could get around this by using scrolls. But to do that for this one situation seems - to borrow a term from earlier - inelegant, and also to load the PC up with useful antimagic scrolls.) On exploration of the issue, I'm starting to feel less confident that we really need to weaken Breach. Having said that, if you're really sold on breaking specific protections into Pierce Magic and leaving Breach for combat protections only, I can probably semi-incorporate that into SCS ("semi" because I'd cheat, and hot-swap Breach for Pierce Magic at casting time.) It would cost me two or three blocks, but that's tolerable. Well, the original opcode 221 cannot be used to take down only a limited amount of spells, but in theory we might be able to find a workaround if we really think such solution would be better than any other one. I'm persuaded by Ardanis's objection. Also, elegance can be subjective...

Sanctuary isn't terrible (and I probably underuse it). But the thing is, priests only have about one (at most) really good defensive buff they can put up anyway. They don't have the layered defences available to mages.

I'm not convinced it would make so very much difference. Breach takes most of them down anyway (albeit see the below discussion) and at high levels, GWW and Critical Strike make AC pretty moot.Well, GWW and CS are ToB things, but you're right, those abilities make AC much less relevant. Anyway even epic fighters should have a bunch of those HLAs not tons, and those few should/can be stopped by Stoneskin, or partially absorbed by Mirror Image. Put an outstanding AC on top of them and even GWW may hit very few times. No? ...maybe. Outstanding really would need to be in the -25 region, and not breachable. Even then, Critical Strike makes it irrelevant. Stoneskin isn't all that critical at high levels because of the easy availability of elemental damage (which fairly reliably disrupts spells even if it doesn't kill quickly). I'm fine with their offensive power. I have trouble keeping them alive long enough to use it - more precisely, I have trouble keeping them alive and their spells undisrupted long enough to use it. The long casting times for cleric spells just make things worse. (The short casting time is one major reason I use Unholy Blight so much.)With wizards, I can usually guarantee several rounds worth of offensive magic (or at least, make it a major hassle to prevent those several rounds). With clerics, it's difficult to prevent one PC fighter effectively nullifying the cleric after his first attack spell, and thereafter taking him down quite quickly. It's not so much of a problem with groups (the drow clerics do quite well) but there are plenty of BG2 fights involving a cleric as primary enemy (Nyalee's the clearest example) and they're very hard to script interestingly. Guilty as charged, at least where the antimagic system is concerned. (I'm very unkeen on saves for a spell like Breach, because you end up having to carry silly numbers of them; this is less of an issue with non-detection.) I could try to offer a defences of the scissor-paper-rock debuff system, but ultimately I just see it as quite core to the way BG2 antimagic works, so I don't really want to mess with that within SCS. Cool, I thought I was asking too much. As you say, I'd limit it to combat protections, perhaps removing a bunch of the current ones too. Specifically Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades may not be affected if they are crucial for your clerics. Actually I would even dare to say that making it work only against PfMissiles, PfNW, PfMW, and Mantles (what Galactygon is suggesting if I'm not wrong*) could be fine with me. Such solution would seriously improve the appeal of things such as "armor spells". Hmm. Let me come at this from a game-balance perspective and from SCS mages' viewpoints. I use breach to drop PMW (etc) and Stoneskin, but I also use it to get rid of Chaotic Commands, Protection from Magic Energy, elemental protections, and Death Ward. It would be quite inconvenient to do without these effects. I don't really need it to be able to take down fire shields, blade barriers, or Armour spells. (Indeed, from the perspective of defending spellcasters against the PCs, it would be helpful if it didn't take those down.) That cuts across sectypes, of course, so one would need to think about in-game justification. Can you remind me why Breach can't take down (say) 4 defences? Isn't there an opcode that strips one defence of a given type, and if so, can't one just do a shell spell trick and apply 4 copies of the spell? Like? Afaik Breach is mainly used to counter ProWeapon-like spells, is it heavily used against specific protections too? Yes, I use it quite a bit that way. Pro/ME, in particular, is heavily prioritised for Breaching, because it protects from Horrid Wilting. Perhaps I'm blind but how can Breach so heavily affect clerics? Example: it takes down Iron Skins and Blade Barrier, which collectively radically changes the difficulty of taking down a druid. The point is - "absurd" or not - that lone wizards are a major feature of BG2, and (contra your comment) they weren't "meant to be weak" in BG2. (Exhibit A: Irenicus. Exhibit B: Vongoethe. Exhibit C: Kangaxx. Etc.). So insofar as it isn't possible to protect them adequately in a given set of modifications, that's a problem. (The combat and movement system in BG2 makes meatshields all but useless as a way of protecting casters, and the chance of hitting a wizard with your axe isn't "very very low": as I've demonstrated, it's actually pretty high in mid SoA and later.)

With mods like aTweaks' scribe scrolls ability, only money will determine how many scrolls the party has. If we assume NPC casters have had years to accumulate wealth and resources, it's not a stretch for them to have 5-10 high-level scrolls. If enemy spellcasters fire off their scrolls in the first few rounds of combat, their chance of dropping those scrolls gets really low. I'd imagine spells that do not scale after level 12 are worth storing in a scroll, or a spell that the spellcaster does not know (this could be an excuse for lower-level wizards with connections of casting higher level magic). -Galactygon My experience with potions is that even when resources are expected to be used up quickly, PCs still rapidly acquire a very large number of them.

That's why any change to Breach that I'm happy with would have to be incorporated into SCS itself and allowed for in my AI (as with the changes to Mantle). Spell Shield. OK, but in that case the replacement spell does something very different from the original. (Unless Spell Shield actually grants immunity to Remove Magic in SR?) I'm not convinced it would help. By about 12th level, stoneskin (esp. when not supported by Mirror Image et al) goes down pretty quickly in combat, and that's without allowing for an extra Breach (unlike mages, clerics don't have any way to put multiple defences up at once, and scrolls don't change that). It might help around the edges, though, so I'll bear it in mind. It's been suggested before, but I don't find either spell failure or number of slots to be a serious constraint on my mage scripting, and I'm concerned about giving PCs too many resources (I dislike undroppable objects on principle).

I'm not convinced it would make so very much difference. Breach takes most of them down anyway (albeit see the below discussion) and at high levels, GWW and Critical Strike make AC pretty moot. Those buffs are irrelevant in the face of one Breach, and clerics basically can't shield themselves from Breach (very high-level clerics - but not druids - can use Shield of the Archons, but that still only buys half a round), don't have contingencies or sequencers to swiftly renew their defences once breached or hacked through, and don't have ultra-fast-casting-time protection buffs.? I was speaking of buffs not affected by Breach such as Divine Might (Champion's Strength is better later on) or Divine Power, but I forgot they weren't so great in vanilla. Are they so helpful as defences? If I'm understanding correctly, you're effectively telling me that N-D effectively (for my purposes) grants a saving throw vs. Truesight. Which is neat (technically as well as conceptually) but it doesn't to me obviate the need for players to be able to do something to remove the invisibility that doesn't rely on them waiting till the enemy fails a save (which at high levels is a seriously long time). (Again, I can believe that in a systematic SR install, with save penalties et al, that's less of an issue, but I need to consider the vanilla game.) I don't have strong views, but I could easily be persuaded that Breach should remove Stoneskin and pro/weapons spells but not as much else as it currently does. I'm less keen on it offering a saving throw for the same reason as above. It's something I'd want to implement as an SCS component if it's deemed a good idea. On balance I think it could be: it would make keeping clerics alive a helluva lot easier. Come to think of it, I could even see a case for restricting Breach to arcane spells. ... make me an offer. Oh, one leftover bit of business from earlier discussions of SI. I now see why to you it's relatively important whether SI is one spell or eight. I guess I've always seen the eight-spell thing as no more than a workaround for the difficulty in putting SI into contingencies (notwithstanding the fact that enemies have been doing it ever since the vanilla game). In-game, I'm happy to justify it as just reflecting the fact that SI is a delicate spell and a wizard wanting to contingency-ise it needs to do some extra, specific, research. (And I'm relaxed about the fact that those crude sorcerer types just lack the finesse to cope with SI in contingencies). I was coming around to your dislike of SI:Abj, but I've been reminded by other bits of this thread just how useful and relevant immunity to Remove Magic is, especially in these post-Taimon days. So for me, I remain happy with SI, with the sole exception being the annoying issue of targetting antimagic on II characters. I tentatively think I can improve on my extant area-effect solution to that last problem, but I need to do some tests. Little of this, I think, interferes with your proposal to modify SCS's use of SI via SR, except for one residual question: what do you do to simulate immunity to Remove Magic?

you're right, of course. The AI isnt as much a concern to me as the spell being used is capable of almost unlimited cheese when used by the PC. thats why im partial to advocating the removal of SI in favor of already established spells in D&D sourcebooks. like nondetection. What cheesy things are you thinking of? (Not that I'm ever really sure what "cheesy" means in these discussions either.) I'm fairly relaxed in SCS about being able to counter PC uses of SI, but possibly there are things I'm missing.

its abusive in the fact that it makes it a do-or-die situation to have a mage WITH the right spell selection at hand to deal with in a timely fashion. a cleric, no matter how epic would be wasting his true sight. its abusive because it requires a few key spells to be memorized at all times. im sure there are various ways to deal with without dispelling and/or targetting, but im seeing it from a solo-play point of view. I'm not much moved by that. The spells you need are the same spells you need to deal with any mage: a mixture of anti-magic spells like Secret Word, Ruby Ray etc. I agree, if you don't have a mage in the party, or if your mage hasn't bothered to learn any antimagic, you have a problem. That doesn't bother me. I've no problem with solo play, but I don't feel any obligation to go out of my way to make up for you not choosing to take a balanced party.

Is it because with vanilla's spells they can't reach a decent AC value? Well, primarily I'm reporting experimentally confirmed behaviour rather than theorising, but for what it's worth: a 12th level fighter with strength 18/00, specialisation and a +3 weapon (i.e., what you have about 1/3 of the way through SoA) with modest buffing hits 3-4 times per round at THAC0 2, and so lands a couple of hits per round even on a wizard with AC -8. An 18th level fighter with strength 21 and a +5 weapon (i.e., what you have by the end of SoA) and modest buffing hits at least 3-4 times per round at THAC0 -8, at which point even AC -10 is hit every time except for critical misses. Does SR allow an archmage to get to AC -25 or better? If not, I doubt it helps. My recollection of IWD2 (which admittedly I haven't played in many years) is that it does affect it: mages go down very quickly. In part, yes. Those buffs are irrelevant in the face of one Breach, and clerics basically can't shield themselves from Breach (very high-level clerics - but not druids - can use Shield of the Archons, but that still only buys half a round), don't have contingencies or sequencers to swiftly renew their defences once breached or hacked through, and don't have ultra-fast-casting-time protection buffs. I do find your tweak almost a fix (which I gladly copied for SR), because I really don't see why Breach should bypass Spell Deflection/Turning. I still think Fixpack's "developer intent" definition of "fix" is best; by that basis, this can't be called a fix as Breach's penetrating spell deflection is fairly clearly deliberate. Yes, agreed (putting aside SI:Abj, but I could always have disallowed that if it were the only factor). But I'd rather not have to require parties to have one of those classes present. At least from the current SR description of Non-detection (and truesight) I don't see how this is: N-D claims to protect against Truesight, which makes it functionally equivalent to SI:Div. Elsewhere on the SR forums you seem to imply that it doesn't protect against Truesight, but now we're back to II going down in the first couple of seconds due to a pre-cast Truesight. What I want is a happy medium where taking down II takes time and effort but isn't impossible. Can you clarify? Yes, and I need to think about how the availability of that fix affects things. This isn't exactly what I'm after in SCS. I want a situation in which the vanilla game's intended pattern of buff and debuff actually works effectively. So sure, there are ways to take an end run around a wizard's defences, but that's not what I want here. (You're welcome to say that I should want something entirely different, but for the purposes of this discussion, I'm taking my basic design goal as read.) This is the number 1 reason why I think SI:Abj is important, even if it doesn't block single-target abjuration antimagic attacks.

well, an example serves better in the context of defining cheats/abusing in the game than quoting the dictionary... Not really. The dictionary definition doesn't especially help, since this is a technical context. I already know that you think II+SI:Div is abusive, so requoting that example doesn't help either. What I want to know is what you actually mean by that term. (My experience is that 90% of the time it doesn't mean anything very coherent beyond "I dislike this", but feel free to prove that you're in the 10%.)

@Demi: Let's have a go at rethinking this from scratch (within SCS's parameters). I've been running through the problem this evening, and I can't myself improve on my original set of solutions, but this may be my own lack of imagination. Here's the basic problem. In BG2, Protection from Weapons spells (and, at lower levels, Stoneskin and MI) aren't supplements to hit points and AC: they're replacements for it. No mage can survive for any relevant period of time without them. Call these anti-weapon spells. In vanilla rules, Breach takes down anti-weapon spells, so one survives only until Breach is successfully cast. The version of Breach that's cast directly penetrates Spell Turning, so only invisibility is a shield against it. The version of Breach that's loaded into wands of spell striking can't penetrate Spell Deflection et al, so Spell Deflection and invisibility are both shields against it. SCS allows Spell Deflection to block Breach, even when cast directly. I'm very reluctant to lose that; anyway, for the sake of argument, let's assume it. (If you want to argue me out of it, go for it; I suspect you're in favour, though.) With that change made, taking down a wizard is a four stage process: (1) remove his Improved Invisibility, which stops you using Ruby Ray et al to lower his anti-spell defences (2) remove his anti-spell defences with single-target antimagic (3) remove his anti-weapon defences with Breach (4) cut him to pieces. This process can in principle be shortcutted by Dispel Magic. Pre-Taimon, this was basically ineffectual. These days, it's better, but still hit-and-miss at best. Now, here's the dilemma. A) If SI:Div is allowed, then in the vanilla rules there is no way at all to take down Improved Invisibility (short of the hit-and-miss strategy of using Dispel Magic). So the whole process can't get started and you're stuck at step 1. (That's the Tactics/IA situation). B) if SI:Div is not allowed, then any sane party has Truesight running as part of their pre-combat buffs (and even if they didn't buff, the cleric can throw it up fairly quickly). So step 1 happens almost automatically. Only steps 2-4 remain. In (A), things are annoying and boring. I don't like the Tactics/IA situation one bit. In (B), mages go down too quickly. (You can see this in SCS by looking at how quickly clerics go down: I'm just unable to protect them.) My ideal, unimplementable solution is for single-target antimagic spells to work even against invisible targets. In that case, you just hit mages with antimagic, in the presence of Truesight, till they're targettable, and then kill them. It takes long enough to cut through a wizard's defences that things are fairly even (I predict). In this situation, SI:Abj and SI:Div don't seem to me unbalanced: they're just one more step in the defence process. (I'm leaving out the legitimate irritation that SI:Abj doesn't seem to do what it says on the tin.) As I say, this is unimplementable. The nearest I can get to an implementation is the small area of effect used in SCS. That's imperfect, and you've noted above you don't like it; it's also the best I can think of to resolve the dilemma. At the moment, SR doesn't seem to help. Non-detection is penetrated by Truesight (as I understand it) so we're back in situation (B). If SI:Div is allowed, but area-effect antimagic isn't, we're instead in situation (A). Thoughts welcomed. I'm genuinely amenable to restructuring SCS's antimagic framework if there's a genuinely better (and not-much-more-disruptive-to-vanilla) solution out there. Area effects for antimagic is my least-worst solution, not my ideal one.

low cost, high effect. like SI:I On that basis, a high-level caster casting Remove Magic is cheap. the trick where you can make the project image immune to divinations is very abusive. That's an example, not a definition.