Demivrgvs

Fiends

In my game, I have a problem with Death Knight. sandard ennemy (255) just don't attack death knight. :/

 

I will try to test with others demons.

 

EDIT : In fact it seems that Ennemy attack Demon only if they have don't see the player before. (witch in theory never occurs)

 

But I should make more test. If some others can confirm...

I can't reproduce this issue...anyway, what I'm doing here would probably solve that if it's really there.

 

 

Protection from Fire/Elements/Energy

A note on Protection from Fire/Elements/Energy: it doesn't prevent the Balor's cast-on-death fireball (BALDEAD.SPL) from disrupting casting, even if the damage is prevented. This is part of SCSII "improved fiends", btw.

It's quite hard for me to keep track of all mod-added custom spells, and there's no way to take them into account until I know their name. I'll baldead.spl to the list asap.

Oh my, after checking again you're right...demon vs demon behavior is quite screwed up right now. I'll try to work on it today if I have some time (I need a longer pause from work than the ones I usually use to post here ).

 

That being said, if fixing this ends up being too much time consuming I may actually start to implement a V4-like behaviour for them (once summoned you have various checks, if you're "lucky" the demon is completely allied with you, else...well...you're unlucky ), at least it won't be wasted time.

 

The Glabrezu vs Pit Fiend thing is due to the Mirror Image the Glabrezu has -- this allows a few free shots before the Glab starts taking damage for real. For some reason, the Pit Fiend doesn't (can't?) dispel it and doesn't otherwise use any spells either (against other creatures the PF does use spells). From the trials I've run, a Glab has about 50/50 chance of beating the Pit Fiend. Didn't the vanilla version of the fiend have a Remove Magic it'd use right off the bat?

I'll add Remove Magic, after all SCSII Pit Fiend has it.

 

Gated Demons don't use most of their abilities against one-another because of their "goodbutred" status, which partially screw spell targeting system and scripts checks. Making them work as per SR V4 should also fix this, because they'd become either "ally" or full "enemy".

 

I'm using the instant-uninterruptible casting option for both fiends and celestials from SCSII, so while the Pit Fiend is one real tough customer up close, unless he manages to paralyze the Planetar, he'll just get outhealed, or if he's particularly unlucky, he'll get his head chopped off! Of course, this is managing the Planotar manually. If left to his own devices, he'd much rather cast True Seeing or Blade Barrier than Heal, heh.

Mmm, I'll test it again, when I made them ages ago I was almost sure Pit Fiend won most of the fights 1 vs 1.

 

By the way, awesome work with the mod, I'm loving it. It's great how low level spells are no longer 100% useless after certain point, and how now Ruby Ray, Warding Whip, Spellstrike, etc are no longer redundant. Summons work great, protection from X actually protects and so on. Keep it up!

I?m glad you're enjoying it.

Gated Demons

Are summoned demons supposed to attack everything? I can understand tanar'ri fighting baatezu, but Glabrezu will also fight Death Knights and even other summoned Glabrezu. This seems to happen across the board, with Pit Fiends fighting Pit Fiends, Death Knights fighting Pit Fiends and each other, etc. which leads to a weird situation in Sendai's enclave where a DK starts fighting the rest of the minions of Diaytha as soon as you enter the area.

I never had such issues, but I'll double check asap. Anyway, looking at the scripts SR's Pit Fiend should only attack Chaotic Evil demons on sight, and Glabrezus should attacl Lawful Evil ones.

 

Death Knight has no such block with its custom SR script, he's neither a tanar'ri nor a baatezu.

 

My first guess is that some other mod might have ruined SR summoned demons' scripts.

 

Note that I'm running with SCSII's "Improved fiends", among other things.

I had it too together with SR and didn't had such issues...I have yet to try the latest SCSII version though.

 

Also, Pit Fiends are kinda underpowered, compared to Balors (their stats are somewhat inconsistent, but I'm referring to the variants with ~40% physical dmg res) and especially Glabrezu, which they seem to have a hard time beating... not to mention Planetars. Gate is a bit of a waste of a 9th-level spell slot for the player, especially considering that you have zero control over the monster, and it's not much better for liches.

Those balors are probably unique creatures (eg like underdark's one) and thus they may be a tad more powerful. Anyway, Pit Fiends surely aren't underpowered considering I've made them hugely more powerful than in vanilla. Glabrezus have much worse stats, thus I don't know how a Glabrezu can beat a Pit Fiend 1vs 1.

 

Pit Fiends vs Planetars: I don't know, in terms of power they should be more or less the same I'll try a fight between them.

Symbol of Death

Ardanis, I'll put it here to share it with players and see if I'm really an idiot, but I've just realized that something you suggested was indeed cool despite my first thoughts.

 

I think that making SoD a sort of party-friendly Skull Trap would be both appropriate from a conceptual point of view (a discharge of negative energy) and effective. Skull Trap's damage currently goes up to 20-80, thus 50 on average with a save for half. Making SoD deal fixed 60 points of magic damage would keep a shade of its former "creatures with 60 or less hp must save or die", though a save to halve the damage is needed imo (with a -4 penalty).

 

The only "drawback" is that for mages it would almost be a copy of Horrid Wilting (which deals 70 points of damage on average, with a slightly bigger AoE), but for clerics this would indeed be a really cool 7th lvl spell (a "mini" Horrid Wilting).

Imprisonment

Out of mercy, enemy mages won't cast Imprisonment on the main character. If you're masochistic enough to want to change this, enter CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("DMWWImprisonPlayer","GLOBAL",1).

I gather that with SR's version of Imprisonment, this tweak should be safe to apply now ?

Semi-safe. On a normal game it's safe now, but if you play solo it's still game over if your only character get mazed or imprisoned.

 

That being said, this spell is quite broken if you ask me (its very concept): how can it be balanced a spell which eliminates any target bypassing spell resistance and allowing no save? Not to mention that in the current game there's almost no way to protect a character from it.

 

The demilich Imprisonment ability has been nerfed: it now grants a saving throw vs. death at -5, although it also causes level drain even on a successful save.

Does this apply to SR's Imprisonment also, or since it is an ability and not a spell, does it follow its own rules ? If the latter, would it mean that a demilich casting Impr on CHARNAME would result in a game over even with SR installed ?

Demi-liches don't cast Imprisonment, but a similar spell called Trap the Soul. SR includes its own version of such spell too, almost identical to SCS's one (the only difference is the save penalty, mine is -4 instead of -5) but semi-safe as Imprisonment. Unfortunately, SCS overwrite SR's Trap the Soul.

 

P.S if you want you can restore SR's Trap the Soul very easily: take spin788.spl file from SR's 'shared' folderand put it into the override.

More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning

Enemy wizards will assume Breach works this way (and so won't target characters protected by Spell Turning etc with a Breach), even if you don't install this component.

Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach)

Enemy mages will assume that Iron Skins works this way (and so will, e.g., cast Breach at it) even if you don't install this component.

 

Admittedly, it wouldn't be much of a problem for the first one as few people have liches in their party (although... ), however, the second one would be more of a problem, unless SR's Iron Skins are modified in the same way ?

Not installing SCS More consistent Breach (actually I think the tweak should be called More inconsistent Breach ) simply makes the game harder for players, because they have to rely on SR's Pierce Shield to fight liches and rakshasas. This tweak doesn't affect the AI at all.

 

You shouldn't install SCS Iron Skins tweak instead, because I've replaced Iron Skin with Stoneskin (druids can't use iron weapons and armors but they cast an iron version of Stoneskin?! ), making quite obvious they behave the same way within SR.

Pierce Shield

Quick question: was 'pierce shield' modified to remove combat protections because of liches/rakshasas and 'breach' immunity? I miss the MR reduction component, but I can understand the need for balance if the spell will include removal of all combat protections. Are there any CREs that required the vanilla 'pierce shield' to lower MR?

Yep, Pierce Shield was changed to grant players a Breach-like spell that works on liches and rakshasas without bending the rules (e.g. SCS has an optional component to make Breach ignore their immunities, but I really don't like it).

 

EDIT: isn't ravager immune to 'lower resistance'?

 

I just checked and it is. I knew there was a reason I liked the MR component of 'pierce shield'. What about adding a MR penalty to 'spellstrike'? In a vanilla installation, the spell is not useful (...though more useful in SCS where mages use multiple spell protections).

The Ravager is not immune to Pierce Magic if you need to lower magic resistance. That being said, I was asked to add a high lvl lower resistance spell with an AoE, and I'm trying to figure out if it makes sense in terms of balance, we'll see.

 

 

Spell Shield

I've temporarily restored 'Spell shield' in my installation to the vanilla version. I don't use it for Beholders, but I do use it for solo magic duels in SCS.

Spell Shield is seriously broken even for "normal duels", that's why SCS doesn't use it (and you're not a beholder, are you? ). That being said I'm not the police, thus do as you wish.

 

Will your non-AOE anti-magic attacks still work fine with the vanilla spell shield?

Non-AoE anti-magic attacks work exactly as they did in vanilla (though Secret Word now belongs to a different school).

 

 

HLAs

did you make the mage HLAs belong to specific schools, rather than being school-less? Will that conflict with HLAs for specialist mages?

Yes I did, but there' no conflict I know of, and without Refinements there aren't HLAs for specialist mages.

Animate Dead

... I just missed 'Animate Dead', and didn't want to lose 'Summon Shadow'.

I was planning to restore Animate Dead for mages too, but giving it as a 3rd or 4th lvl spell. I actually don't like much the same spell to occupy a different spell lvl when used by a different spellcaster (as it makes it unbalanced for one of the two classes), but I'm generally tolerating it. I really can't tolerate though TWO more lvls for the same spell, because it would force me to make it terribly weak for a 5th lvl slot, or outstandingly overpowered for a 3rd lvl one.

 

P.S Right now it's actually too powerful for a 3rd lvl spell. Skeletons and Greater Skeletons are fine, but Skeleton Warriors are really OP because of their 90% mr. I dind't removed them only because most player would kill me.

 

Flame Arrow

BTW, I've come around to enjoying your random flame arrows...

Eh eh, I'm glad you like them now. If correclty used they actually are more effective than before (e.g. a single FA spell can now destroy Mirror Image with its multiple arrows, or interrupt more than a mage spellcasting at once, ...). It's just a matter of knowing how to use them in a slightly different way than before.

I have no idea if this has been addressed before but my PC actually died in a cut scene because of Flame Arrow. It was right after I'd escaped Irenicus' dungeon and was watching the Archmage himself decimating the Cowled Wizards when he pops a FA and my PC died. I was like: "What?"

You probably should use this.

I've actually got the hotfix, I needed it so I could install SCSII 'Improved Mages' component, you see.

Yeah because your issue has nothing to do with that.

 

It's because of the multiple target Flame Arrow, it's a known "issue" I'll have to solve sooner or later. Sorry, I hope at least it doesn't happen too often, and that's the only curscen where it can happen.

Earthquake

The chance to kill, however small, always means that even 1000 hp PC is a subject to it. Therefore, unless we find a way to remove gameover-if-pc-dies feature (which we should not), PC must Death Ward himeslf if the spell is about to be cast. Otherwise it's a reload on failured %. Unlike the save, % is completely beyond player's control.

Just to clarify this considering both you and Dakk seem to have the same wrong assumption: death effect always allow a save, because you have to either fail the save vs unconsciousness or the fail vs the death effect itself.

 

That being said, I got your point, and I'll think more about it.

Flame Arrow

Is there a way to work the .SPL so that each flame arrow is cast sequentially? 5th level gives you 1 flame arrow, sent instantaneously after casting, 10th level gives you the same, plus one more at delay of 1 s, 15th the same, with another delayed at 2 s, etc. If the target is set when the arrow is thrown, you can have a spell used to manually select different targets.

 

The obvious downside is the flame arrow would cause a stuttering effect on the caster until all arrows are spent. At 30th level, it'll burn the whole round.

I could do that, actually I think Spellpack does that, but the AI couldn't handle such feature, and the spell wouldn't correctly work on a spell sequencer anymore.

 

 

Summoned Fiends

The only stumbling block left in my current installation for my next playthrough is trying to decide whether to use your summoned fiends or aVENGER's. They're both great, though I like to see all fiends upgraded, and not just those summoned by spell.

Actually SR and SCS fiends have been made to work together. SR handles summoned ones, while SCS handles all the others (and sometimes it assign better scripts to SR's ones too). There may be very small differences but in general SR and SCS fiends have almost identical stats with the very same abilities.

 

SR/SCS fiends follow a mix of AD&D and 3ed (the latter more than the former) while aVENGER's fiends instead are much more true to AD&D PnP. In terms of features aVENGER's work is probably more refined but I haven't tested them, and thus I don't know how they are in terms of gameplay and I'm not sure how they work along with SCS (e.g. SR/SCS fiends ignore Protection from Evil when gated by the AI).

 

 

Earthquake

It may well be my personal bias but I think a spell should not insta-kill 'sometimes'. Either often enough to recognize it as a true death type spell and therefore treat it accordingly or never. Because unlike other curable debilitating effects (confusion, charm, hold, etc.) death is irreversible when it affects PC or, as in the example above, NPCs.

Against opponents it may be fine to kill some once in a while (even if I personally don't like to kill enemies 'unintentionally' ), but when it is used against party and/or has no party-friendly flag it means a player has to treat it as a full power WotB - which Earthquake is not - otherwise they must take a gamble and reload when they lose.

I absolutely sympathize. The spell is somewhat "non-lethal" (well, for an earthquake;)) but it has the potential for non reversible NPC loss (=reload) if you don't stack up on the protection spells. If I understand Ardanis correctly, it should either be deadlier (so NOT buffing would be foolhardy) or have less permanent death potential. Right now it's "meh Earthquake, nobody ever dies from it" and then the giant miniature space-hamster goes buh-bye.

Ok ok I'll think about it, though I don't understand the "NPC loss = reload" thing considering Raise Dead magic is far from uncommon within the Realms.

 

I cannot make it more deadlier imo because it's a 7th lvl spell (it cannot work like a WotB + unconsciousness + crushing damage!), and the "sometimes it kill outright - sometimes not" part isn't so strange imo. Many high lvl spells inflict random damage that can occasionally kill in one hit, thus I don't see much difference, just imagine to replace 'death' opcode with 'outstanding crushing damage'.

 

 

Lightning Bolt

Back then I hoped to somehow "copy" Scorching Ray's projectile to make it work a la IWDII, but it cannot be done.

Scorching Ray? Is that one that works like the projectile for Aganazzar's Scorcher? Because that would be my suggestion, a short duration effect like that.

 

If nothing works I would agree that your revision is preferable to the old ping pong version

Sorry, Aganazzar's Scorcher is Forgotten Realms name for a classic spell which in the base manuals is called Scorching Ray, but they are the very same spell. Anyway, as I said I couldn't use its projectile.

Lightning Bolt

While the current incarnation of lightning bolt is an improvement over the old bouncing one it seems like it doesn't really have a niche. There are plenty of other good direct damage spells, and it doesn't really stand out in this regard. I liked the idea of it acting sort of like a thinner directional version of it's counterpart Fireball, but the bouncing in tight areas either made it too powerful or just plain annoying. Would it be possible to implement a version more like the one in IWD 2, where it deals damage to whatever it goes through?

Back then I hoped to somehow "copy" Scorching Ray's projectile to make it work a la IWDII, but it cannot be done.

 

Making this spell stand out has always been a concern of mine. In the same slot you have Fireball as an AoE damage dealer and Flame Arrow was way more powerful as a single target damage dealer (actually I ask myself quite often if FA is overpowered). Thus trying to make both LB and FA useful I've made the former more "user-friendly", and the latter more unique (and more faithful to its description and PnP version).

 

Long story short, I really have no idea how to make LB more appealing (we discussed a bouncing effect, but it would be really too similar to Chain Lightning), and if you have a good suggestion I'm indeed open to it.

 

P.S After SR's change the spell is now used by SCS AI, thus there's no way I'll revert it to its old vanilla behaviour.

 

 

Various

Just wanted to say Spell Revisions is great, I'm enjoying it. While I have a few dislikes (such as AoE anti-magic and randomness of Flame Arrows, which I removed), on the whole it's added/changed a lot of things I wouldn't have ever considered.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. Regarding the two things you don't like: 1) AoE anti-magic and 2) Flame Arrow randomness.

 

1) I don't like it myself, but it had to be implemented for SCS compatibility, and I cannot remove it. At least I managed to convince David to remove it from many of them (e.g. Pierce Magic, Pierce Shield, ...).

 

2) What's there that you don't like? You prefer it to always strike a single target? Anyway, I've done it for many reasons as stated above. The randomness itself makes it slightly less reliable on purpose because else there's no way Lightning Bolt can compare to this spell if both hit a single target.

 

 

Blindness

I've always considered Level 1: Blindness as overpowered, as it can make several nasty opponents a cakewallk (even with panic to make them run around when blinded, instead of standing motionless). I think it's duration should be measured in rounds, not turns (vanilla game) or hours (SR). I also wonder why it's been changed to necromancy? I considered the spell as creating an illusory blindness, not as actually physically affecting the eyes.

 

I changed both Blindness to 5 rounds, Deafness to 1 turn. Blindness is a level 1 spell - a debuffer at that level shouldn't last hours, especially when the effect is so pronounced.

I felt too Blindness was OP for a 1st lvl spell (mainly because the AI cannot handle it much), and proposed to move it at least to 2nd lvl (replacing its 1st lvl slot with Daze or something like that), but then we opted to not mess things up too much for V3.

 

Regarding its duration it doesn't matter that much in terms of gameplay if it lasts 1 turn or hours. David pointed out to me that a blinded AI mage is "dead" in both cases. Thus I kept the longer duration because it's deadlier when used against players, who instead generally survive long enough to be "annoyed" by its long duration (making Cure Disease much more appealing).

 

Making it work as a necromantic spell (a la 3ed) instead of illusion (a la AD&D) was "only" a matter of consistency: I don't think an illusion would be "curable" by Cure Disease.

 

Considering it's a save-or-else spell with no secondary effect I fear that reducing its duration to 5 rounds would make it completely pointless (and it would highly reduce Cure Disease appeal too). Why would I care to risk using a single target disabling spell that more often than not does nothing (it's quite easy to save against it) and when it finally works it lasts so little? I'd take Color Spray or Sleep over it anytime, wouldn't you?

I almost forgot to answer sorry...

 

Symbol of Death

For Symbol of Death it's more complicated imo...because you'd end up with a Wail of the Banshee at a lower lvl.

Perhaps no save penalty for 60+ then? Or small AoE, 10'? I would vote to change it to something else, but that would mean even more confusion for AI (it already mistakes Symbol of Disease for a Symbol of Fear).

I thought the same both about wanting to change it and then stopping myself from doing it for some reason. Still, that seems to me the only way to make it both balanced and appealing.

 

Letting 60+ targets save with no penalty may be almost fine for an 8th lvl spell (mage's version), though it would still make WotB look relatively unimpressive, but it would surely be really too much powerful for a 7th lvl spell (priest's version).

 

Regarding Symbol of Fear I replaced it because I really couldn't imagine it being used when Symbol of Stunning does the same and in a much better way (stun immunity is much less common, and a stunned target is much better than a panicked one who can still run away and sometimes even react). The reason the latter was so much more effective is that only the former was implemented as per PnP, because PnP Symbol of Stunning had hp limit just like its PW version.

 

Are you sure a change like SoFear->Weakness can cause any "confusion" to the AI? I don't think the AI effectiveness is affected by this, because the spell is still considered a "friendly mass disabling" spell, and I think it's all the AI needs to know in this case. Am I wrong?

Earthquake

Now, if it's a matter of effectiveness keep in mind that in V4 all those save penalties will be less powerful (-4, -2, 0) insteao of (-6, -4, -2). And if the death effect takes place too often we can adjust that.

Well, reducing death effect further will probably render it completely impractical to rely upon, and consequently even more frustrating when it does manage to kill an ally. That's why I suggested Hold, as the next closest effect type. Actually, I'd very much want to see an Imprisonment-like effect, curable via Freedom, but impris equals death and it's lesser brother maze can be resisted by Enrage (which makes as much sense as Death Ward protecting from falling into fissures).

Well, if the problem is the "Death Ward protecting from falling" I'm pretty sure I can find a way to "fix" it.

 

I'm not sure I understand what's the problem here...that it's hard to use this spell without risking to kill party members?

 

For the "friendliness" aspect, I actually suggested to make it at least not affect the caster (I think it worked like that in IWD), making it a great combo for an archdruid and his/her elementals bodyguard.

I don't mind at all it affecting allies, although what you say about self-immunity is very interesting.

I think I'll opt for it, and I'm seriously thinking about your suggestion about Free Action too.

 

 

Symbol of Death, Power Word Kill

Damage resistance, not magic. Since killing effect was unaffectable by Pro Energy spells.

Save at 60+ is fine (hmm, and what about PW:Stun allowing 90+s a save or be stunned for 1 round?), so let's keep it

Yep, I do thought about doing it for PW Stun.

 

Symbol too then? Affecting only >60s is rather useless. Even more so if Tweakpack's Maximum HP for NPCs is installed.

For Symbol of Death it's more complicated imo...because you'd end up with a Wail of the Banshee at a lower lvl.

Earthquake

I do understand the reasoning behind it killing things outright. But yesterday I was doing Vithal's quest in Underdark and fought SCS's upgraded earth guardian (who casts Earthquake among the other). On the first try PC died and I had to reload. On the next another man died, with no way to trace the source. On the third - invisible Vithal died.

I took the SPL apart and decided I don't like it much. First, it probably is much more annoying than useful, especially if we consider no party friendliness. Second, immunity to instant death doesn't suggest a creature can't fall few meters down the earth. Hold effect, with extra damage added, seems more in place here - like Implosion, whose animation you've used for the killing effect. Whether or not Free Action should block it, I don't know. I'm 50/50 on it.

 

If you do agree to change it to Hold, then I would suggest to slightly augment other effects as well, since Hold probably will end up being weaker than insta-kill.

Mmm...I'm not sure I like the Hold thing.

 

Now, if it's a matter of effectiveness keep in mind that in V4 all those save penalties will be less powerful (-4, -2, 0) insteao of (-6, -4, -2). And if the death effect takes place too often we can adjust that.

 

For the "friendliness" aspect, I actually suggested to make it at least not affect the caster (I think it worked like that in IWD), making it a great combo for an archdruid and his/her elementals bodyguard. A party-friendly earthquake instead probaly is too much.

 

Having Free Action protect the character from it would be an nice twist, and it would also allow Earthquake to be used more effectively without having to make it party-friendly. I'm not sure about it but it's indeed interesting.

 

 

Energy Blades

Decrease ApR to 5. This is primarily to eliminate the double movement speed caused by blades' Improved Haste effect.

I probably agree, not to mention that those 10 attacks per round are hugely exploitable during Time Stop.

 

 

Symbol of Death, Power Word Kill

It's been brought up before, and iirc repeatedly. Reduce current HP by 60, so no resistance can block the effect.

And why should I make them bypass all resistances?

 

Regarding PW: Kill I already planned to make it work similarly to V3's PW: Sleep. Creatures with 60hp die instantly, while those with more than 60hp are allowed a save to avoid death.

 

 

Breach

Desc needs to mention it also dispels druid's Storm Shield.

Elemental Prince

Description typo - Chan is not prince, she's princess.

I've just checked Planescape Compendium and you're right, it is a "she".

 

Storm of Vengeance

The only advantage it has over Fire Storm is party friendliness. The latter deals more damage, lasts longer, and even allows for some PF as well.

It's quite difficult to compare the damage output (mainly because of the poison effect that can be completely negated), but Fire Storm surely does more damage yes. Anyway I think it has another considerable advantage on top of party-friendlyness, which is the types of damage it inflicts. Fire Storm uses fire damage, which probably is the most common resistance, and a single 5th lvl spell can protect you from it. Storm of Vengeance deals THREE types of damage, immunity/resistance to those types of damage is less common, and to protect from it you need multiple spells.

 

That being said, if most players agree with you I think that making it lasts 4 rounds like most "storm" spells could be enough...but I may also think about your more complex suggestions.

 

 

Shroud of Flame

Are you sure we need another fire-based spell, especially on 5th level? Sunfire and Vitrolic Sphere, as a damage-over-time spell, would make it non-unique.

Mmm...now that you mention it Vitriolic Sphere and Shroud of Flame are indeed almost the same spell with different damage type. I suggested them mainly because looking at IWD/NWN/PnP they seemed the only two "feasible" replacement spells to fill the two slots. If I had to choose between the two spells I'd vote for the Sphere, because fire-based spells are already uber common.

 

P.S Actually the slot could be only one if we don't disable Spell Immunity after restoring Spell Shield. I was forgetting we planned to finally fix that damn spell!

In my game, your ogre got +++ profenciencies in flail/morning stars and it seems bonus affect the cre. (1.5 apE, thac08 or thac06 under berseker rage with your revisited grand mastery)

Afaik BG2 makes no use of the old proficiency system.

Actually I think the old proficiency system still work, but I may be wrong. The thing is that the Morningstar used by the summoned ogres shouldn't be considered a morningstar (the relative parameter is set to 'unknow - 0' instead of 'proficiencyflailmorningstar -100')... Draz, how do you check the stats to be so sure the cre is affected by it?

Reflected Image

After some tests, it 's seems the problem (be untouchable) occurs only one a character under reflected image AND luck (or stone luck with item revisions). No not very serious enfin if it's remain strange ^^

Ehm...I'll try it.

 

 

Monster Summoning III

It seems that description don't match exactly for ogre berseker.

- Ogre get a thac 8 while description says a thac0 11.

- And I think Hp are increase a bit at level 12 ?

- Ogre mage got +1 profeciency in spears ?

- But I thinkthe fact to install revisited grand mastery can also be the reason?

- Base 16, +3 from STR, +2 from weapon (as it also simulates the weapon proficiency); thus he gets 11 (though enraging grants further bonuses).

- no, because the .cre file is always the same ogregrsu (base hp 42 + 20 from CON)

- eh eh, I don't know why he has it but it's useless; his katana doesn't use weapon proficiency tables

- no, I've intentionally not used "normal" weapons for summons to be sure that the creatures stats remain as per description even if you install any sort of tweak which affects weapons (e.g. different Grandmastery tables)

Reflected Image

I don't understand, In my game, the character is almost untouchable. It is more noticeable if the attacker got a decentn umber of ApR. It is impossible for a character with 7ApR to hit notehr character under reflected image. Only secondary effect like elemental damage bypass (like what happens on a character protected by stone skin)

I'll re-test it asap and let you know.

Just tested it with both 5 apr and 10 apr, it works fine. Can you please test it again in your game (e.g. try to hit your own character)? Remember that if your target has decent AC it comes to play BEFORE the 50% miss chance. Thus if your attacker has 6 apr, but a couple of attacks fail the "to hit" roll, you are left with 4 attacks, each with 50% miss chance. On average 2 attacks should hit the target, but it may as well happen that all of them fail, or vice-versa.

Cure Disease

What about immunity to disease, much like Neutralize Poison does?

Mmm...isn't this spell already quite appealing for a 3rd lvl slot? It cures any disease (even a 6th lvl spell like Dolorous Decay or a 7th/8th lvl one like Symbol of Weakness), and it cures both blindness and deafness (which are relatively common). Neutralize Poison is a 4th lvl slot and is effective against a single opcode... Long story short, I'd vote against it.

 

I do recall we had a talk about Pro Poison scroll and various sources of blindness/deafness, them somehow not working out well (I have all logs saved, if you don't remember details either), so these may be better off not included.

I don't remember right now sorry.

 

 

Chaos/Confusion

Six rounds is fine imo. I wish these two spells were more different though.

Me too, though they both work as per PnP right now, and I generally prefer to remain close to PnP when possible...but have you any idea? Eveything I can think about to make Chaos not work as Confusion is something similar to what I did with Sphere of Chaos, but then we would have simply moved the "issue" from a couple of spells to a different couple of spells.

 

 

Death Spell

I think most of you wouldn't mind to let me replace it with Banishment. My only "complain" is that there already are tons of abjuration spells, and very few Necromantic ones.

 

 

Tenser Transformation

Darts don't benefit from additional ApR and futhermore, number of attack is reduced. (2ApR with darts if I use Tenser Transformation)

My fault. To make it non-stackable (with itself, or similar sources like Divine Power) I've made it "set apr". I'll think about another solution.

 

 

Reflected Image

I don't understand, In my game, the character is almost untouchable. It is more noticeable if the attacker got a decentn umber of ApR. It is impossible for a character with 7ApR to hit notehr character under reflected image. Only secondary effect like elemental damage bypass (like what happens on a character protected by stone skin)

I'll re-test it asap and let you know.

Greater Malison

Maybe make it bypass magic resistance could be better. I don't know what others think about this spell now but I don't use it very much personally. (in BG2/ToB, many creatures have magic resistance)

Mmm...for some reason a lot of players understimate the effectiveness of this spell. Unfortunately vanilla BG2 offered us a "double strength" version of the original spell (PnP, NWN, IWD and any other D&D material use SR's Malison), and thus SR's one tend to seem a huge nerf. Anyway, let's get to the point...I probably wouldn't vote to make a 4th lvl AoE spell bypass magic resistance (are there mid-low lvl spells with such a feature?) unless "it makes sense" for most players.

 

Just as I was writing my reply another suggestion for Malison come up in my mind...what about making it work as a sort of "curse"? It would become non-dispellable via Dispel Magic (though Break Enchantment should remove it). Would it make the spell more appealing/interesting, or not?

 

P.S To understand Greater Malison's power lvl you may confront it with Doom and notice that the former:

+ is a sort of Mass Doom (this alone generally cause the spell being 3 slots higher than the original if you see Greater Command, Mass Invisibility, and so on)

+ doesn't allow a save (PnP/IWD/SR Doom does)

+ lasts much much longer than Doom

- doesn't cause -2 penalty to hit/dmg (else they could have just called it Greater/Mass Doom )

 

 

Cure Disease

Have you not planned in the past to allow this spell to cure confusion ?

No, because 'confusion' is neither a disease nor a necromantic effect (it's an enchantment). But since V3 you can use Break Enchantment (the old Remove Curse) to dispel it, which also happen to use the very same 3rd lvl slot for priest (and even mages get it, though as a 4th lvl spell).

 

 

Reflected Image

I wonder if this spell is not bugged a lot. My character seems almost untouchable under this spell. (and same with cloak of mirroring with Item revisions)

Well, it grants 50% miss chance, which means that if coupled with a very good AC he/she may indeed seem almost untouchable. The spell's effect is indeed outstanding, that's why I've used a very short duration (only 4 rounds, +1 round every 3 levels to a maximum of 60 seconds at 20th lvl). If the spell seems overpowered to some of you we may try to find a way to "nerf" it without making it once again useless as it was in vanilla.

 

 

EDIT:

 

 

Death Spell

: I find really unfair to allow a level 12 mage to instantenely kill all level 8 cre. . I wonder if this number shouldn't be decrease a bit. (in fact I don't think it will make more incidence in the game,)

 

==> Thanks god, Semaj is not a level 12 mage in BG1 (o maybe yes it is ?)

==>With SCS, ennemy mage use frequently monster sumoning and make this spell worth to be memorized, at leat for this task witch is very good ^^

I do agree, in BG1 and against mid-low lvl opponents the 'death' effect is hugely overpowered (no save, large AoE), and then it suddenly become a useless feature (within SoA I always used it as an anti-summon and nothing else).

 

That's why for V4 I was actually going to suggest to remove the 'death' feature, rename the spell Banishment (or Dismissal), and make it an Abjuration spell. It will probably seem only a cosmetic change for 99% of you, and it surely won't affect much the spell-system (I'm almost sure SCS already uses it only as an anti-summon)...but it would be a much more consistent spell as it would make more sense for it to "dispel" non-living creatures (e.g. undead) and there wouldn't be the strange paradox of it not killing a lvl 9 grunt, but obliterating a lvl 16 greater elemental.

 

 

Chaos/Confusion

In my game, I have reduced duration to 6 rounds and I personally find these spell more balanced. ( it is surely worth to debate but I don't understand why nobody complain about a 10 round duration)

Probably for the same reason nobody complain about Hold lasting 10 rounds...because they consider it a "save-or-else" spell. I'm quite sure we already discussed this somewhere, and I said I was somewhat open to go for it (especially for Chaos' no-save part of the spell).

 

 

Pierce Magic

Casting time 6= seems a lot to me for just some % of MR. In comparaison Secret word remain a lot more attrative for me. (with a 1 casting time)

Eh...I do get your point (though the Lower Resistance part of this spell is not a small feature in theory considering there's a 5th lvl spell dedicated only to that).

 

The main problem is that there are really too many spell removals (Spell Thrust, SW, Pierce Magic/Shield, RRoR, KWW, Spellstrike) and making all of them interesting without overshadowing each other is a real pain. What was your suggested change? If it's to lower its casting time I'm not too much into it as I like spells to have casting time set as per spell lvl unless there's a "good reason" for it being lower/higher)...

Spirit Armor & Tenser's Transformation

...as I've said, priests can cast Divine Power + Righteous Fury without suffering any drawbacks, and that on top of their heavy armor and weapons.

Ehm... You do have a point here. Ok ok, you've seriously started to convince me...

 

Weren't you among those advocating for RP approach to resting? Doing it once per dungeon at most, or better yet once per day in some inn? And, again, fighter doesn't need to rest at all, unlike a wizard he's always ready for melee combat.

Well, that would rebalance mages A LOT, but I'm not sure I can assume players roleplay like I do. If they rest often and have even a minimum knowledge of spells nothing can beat a party of mages (not to mention a party of cheesy kensai-mages)

 

Long story short, if you're trying to say that a wizard can possibly compete with 40th level Sarevok, I fear you are wrong

Actually I'm pretty sure an archmage is much more powerful than an epic warrior, unless the latter has enough equipment to make him immune to most "disabling" spells, and survive a Time Stop + Alacrity. Anyway, we've discussed this so many times in so many topics that I should have opened a topic to discuss it once and for all!

Spirit Armor & Tenser's Transformation

What's the point of fighters if mages can use Spirit Armor + TT to be just as effective as them on top of all the other great spells?

The same as always, to block off grunts while wizards are busy with a boss?

Yeah, I know, but if a mage can become a fighter (same thac0, AC, hit points, ...) with only a couple of spells and without any drawback (e.g. he can still cast spells under TT) what can possibly add to the party a plain fighter that a mage can't do? You'd just use a party full of mages, with a couple of mages that act as tanks even better than fighters (because under TT they'd continue to re-cast MI, Stoneskin, PfMW, ...). Am I wrong?

 

The only "advantage" fighters would still have imo would be a "better" equipment (greatswords, heavy armors, ...), but is it enough to prefer having a fighter instead of another mage?

 

 

Spi, spi, no spirit armor here. And there is a typo in there, as one of the Level 4's needs to be Level 5.

As the title says those are only the most notable changes else I'd spend a couple of months only to update such post! You're right about the typo, hilarious.

 

And then just about the spell... as the spell is a 4th level spell and the -2 is way too much for BG1 random spell and the AC of 2 to be a bit too weak on level 40, I propose to making the spells AC increase as the caster levels up to the 50th level with the AC then being near -20.

I'm sure you already knew my reply when typing something like "-20 base AC". I'm open to discuss something like Ardanis suggested (adding 3-4 AC points) but I'm not going to add such a ridiculous amount of AC (21 points more than vanilla? really?).

 

And I know you love lvl50 mod just as well as you know I'll NEVER remove the lvl 20 cap used in PnP for tons of reasons (why not a Magic Missile that goes up to twenty missiles at 50th lvl?).

 

 

Ghost Armor

...as of now, it's hardly worth a slot two levels higher than Mage Armor occupies. It only provides +1 more AC and some stealth bonus, while the duration is much shorter.

I get your point, and you're probably right about it not being much more useful than Armor, though you may be forgetting that this is an illusion spell now (not affected by Breach), and that it can be cast on other targets (which is a huge plus over 1st lvl Armor). That being said a small improvement surely wouldn't make this spell overpowered.

Is there a reason my f*****g connection always destroys my post after spending twenty minutes on them?! I'm annoyed to hell to have to re-write everything, thus I'll cut it to the essential parts sorry.

 

 

Spirit Armor

Enchant Weapon brings forth a +3 weapon for a full day, so why can't the same level spell create for 10 turns a +3 armor, which also pretty often stings for ~20 damage?

Yeah, but you're actually suggesting to make it create an Elven Chain Mail +7 (no spellcasting failure, no encumberance, ...), not a "normal" +3 plate mail.

 

Anyway, on one hand I wouldn't mind to make this spell (and Ghost Armor too) more appealing, on the other I fear an even better AC may be really too much for a class which is actually supposed to have bad AC. What's the point of fighters if mages can use Spirit Armor + TT to be just as effective as them on top of all the other great spells?

 

I'd like to know what other players feel about these spells because I'm not convinced myself, at least not enough to tell you a "NO I won't follow your suggestion".

 

 

Barkskin

Change from '1 + 1/3 lvl' to '1 + 1/4 lvl'? Jaheira will need few more levels to provide the full bonus. And iirc rangers stop at 9th caster level, so they won't get to max this spell out. Yet, a cosmetical change it remains at most.

Actually the pace was intended to:

- have Barksink start with a +2 as soon as you get it 3rd lvl)

- have rangers max it out

If it's a matter of balance (e.g. too much AC too soon, or too good spell for rangers) then I'm open to discuss it. else I'd prefer to keep it unchanged.

 

 

Blur

Desc says 'penalty to attackers', not 'bonus to AC'. Perhaps it should be split into 'AC vs type' bonuses then? Since normal AC gets capped at -20.

Nice idea, will do.

 

Also, maybe change save bonus (+3 to vs spell) back to +1 to all? And give the 'vs spell' to either Armor or Ghost Armor? I think the latter, because it doesn't look great as of now, whereas the former has very long duration and is a 1st level spell.

No, there's a reason I made the change. I've used Planescape Torment version of this spell because its description gives a "reasonable" explanation for it granting a bonus against mind affecting spells, whereas I really cannot understand why a blurred outline should protect you from things like diseases or poisons, and even less from AoE spells such as fireballs.

 

 

Clairvoyance

Desc says +3 bonus, but it gives +2. We've talked something about changing it from '+2 for 1 turn', what was that? Imo should be either '+3 for 1 turn' or '+2 for 2 turns'. I think I was against +3 back then, but now I feel the first is better

"Long" duration may be needed for the 'immunity to backstab' to be effective, but the casting time is quite fast thus I kinda like the +3/1 turn solution too.

 

It too probably should be split into 'AC vs type', as the insight bonus iirc is supposed to stack with everything else (?), plus it's short duration doesn't allow for serious abuse.

I was saying the same within my Blur's reply.

 

 

Ghost Armor

- Give it +3 vs spells, see Blur.

- What about additional 5%-15% to stealth?

- And I'd consider removing the glow, it's an eyesore if used frequently.

-

- fine

- actually I do like what I managed to do, and at least a couple of players wrote me they love it

 

 

Acid Fog

Change damage from 10 to 2d8 or similar. Self explanatory.

Fine with me.

 

 

Lightning Bolt

Revert back to old graphics! For example, use 'lightblt.pro' - it doesn't bounce, although for a reason unknown isn't registered in ids, so needs to be ADD_PROJECTILE'd first.

Cool, I'd love to have it use the old animation. I'll look into it.

 

 

Flame Arrow

Was there any particular reason to split it into consecutive 146s?

To have a small delay between arrows, to have them indipendently select their random targets, and because that was the only way I found to code the spell.

 

When I began working on Lightning Bolts trap I at first was going to try this solution, but after it didn't work (SPLs were fired from the caster, not the ground spot), I was forced to find another way. Which had nicely revealed itself in a form of multicharged projectile (like clouds). The only problem was the PRO firing like a chaingun instead of the set number, but after a quick study I set the 4th bit (no overlap) true and it started behaving as it was meant to. It still requires as many files (SPL and several PROs) as Galactygon's solution (several SPLs and PRO), however, but at least it's simplier and fewer SPLs to load when working in DLTCEP or WeiDU.

Would I (or players) get any beneficial effect from changing the spell?

 

 

Farsight

Set the duration to 5 turns, for both arcane and divine version. I for one do use it on occasion, usually in beholder lair in Underdark - after rigging the place with unholy amount of traps and provoking eyeballs onto minefields

Fine.

 

 

Tenser's Transformation

If it disables spellcasting I will NOT use it no matter what, ApR bonus or not. It is not that much greater than priest's combat self-boosts, and it occupies a 6th level slot which already is higher than priest analogues.

 

If you're still inclined to find it overpowered then cut the duration in two, but do not block spells/innates.

As per Spirit Armor, I'd prefer to have players discuss this because I have many doubts myself.

 

 

Conjure Elemental

The arcane version. I don't like at all the failure chance, be it 5%, 15% or 95%.

I already removed it in my V4 beta.

Various

Hello. I have played with SR for a while and I like that some overpowered spells (Spook, Emotion, Chromatic Orb etc.) were toned down.

I'm glad you noticed some of the "less famous" changes, and you liked them. Emotion in particular was indeed OP (it was cheaper Hold Monster with a much bigger AoE) though only the most experienced players noticed that spell for some reason.

 

 

Disintegrate

2-12 damage per level is overpowered for a spell with a save penalty - even original ADHW doesn't inflict so much - especially since Disintergrate can be put into spell trigger.

 

I notice the 3rd edition version of Disintergrate requires an attack roll; may I suggest either making it a ranged attack like Sol's Searing Orb (or a ranged version of Harm, it still does comparable damage to SR Harm)? Or just reducing the damage a bit.

My first revision inflicted much less damage yes, but then most players seemed to agree that the damage should be high enough to instantly kill 90% of times (except SCS dragons or similar uber-tough creatures). After all, it did killed on hit in vanilla, though the save was so easy to make that almost every player skipped this spell (not to mention the destroy loot issue made it even less appealing).

 

For completeness:

- SR/SCS Harm deal 150 points of damage, while SR's Disintegration deals up to 40-240, thus 140 on average

- SCS/vanilla Harm allowed no save, while SR one allow a save for half damage. SR's Disintegration instead deals a relatively small amount of damage (5d6) if the target successfully save.

 

I can let players decide if this spell really needs to be nerfed (as long as it deals outstanding damage), but just so you know, a 3x Disintegrate on a sequencer won't help you much, because the save is made only once (I know it sounds strange but I'm almost sure), and thus on a successful save you'll deal 15d6, while on a failed save a single Disintegrate would have probably been enough. A 3x Chain Lightning is hugely more effective imo.

 

Regarding save penalties, V4 will almost surely use less powerful penalties for high lvl spells. I think I'll cap them to -4, because some spells like Wail of the Banshee went from too weak (vanilla's no penalty) to too powerful (SR's -6 penalty). Not to mention that I actually don't like much save-or-else spells because they either end the encounter in a second or they are completely useless, whereas even a small secondary effect (e.g. Disintegration and Finger of Death small amount of damage) can make those spells more appealing while allowing the main one to not be uber-effective. For instance, if it wasn't against PnP I would have probably suggested a "deafness" secondary effect for Wail of the Banshee, thus removing the necessity for the insta-kill effect to have an uber-high save penalty to make the spell appealing.