polytope

The issue, to me at least, is that another SCS spell tweak increases the power of Mantle (to block weapons of <+4 enchantment), thus there's no need to reduce the meteors all the way to +2 rather than +3 missiles, considering that even a +3 weapon is now impotent against any of the Mantle/ProMW line of spells, besides, it's weird for the meteors to have an attack roll bonus so much less than the effective enchantment level. That said, there are very few enemies that +3 Melf's Minute Meteors would be useful against compared to +2: Iron golems (+3 needed to hit) actually regenerate from fire damage, whereas stronger fiends (balors and pit fiends) are fireproof and have a low AC meaning a mage is probably missing a lot. I think greater mummies are the best target for MMM if these are +3 rather than +2, them and the extra tough vampires (vampire behaviour probably makes melee weapons a better choice though). The duration and scope of weapon immunity spells is balanced as is, any longer/more comprehensive in protection and these become tactically equivalent to faster casting and cheaper (at levels 6, 7 & 8 ) or extended duration (Absolute Immunity) versions of Time Stop.

The description of the Hardiness HLA says only this: "Calling upon hidden reserves of strength during times of danger, a warrior can use the Hardiness ability to gain 40% resistance to all forms of physical damage." there's no further clarification on how it enables a warrior to weather would-be lethal hits besides the intent - staying alive in battle. Breach foils temporary protections intended to protect the recipient from various sorts of harm, how it does so is just as mysterious as the actual mechanic of Hardiness (The fighter just takes hits better? He flinches away just in time to receive only a grazing wound?). The berserker in his frenzy is just that, frenzied (and afterwards exhausted), harder to kill yes, besides being more dangerous and proof against mind affecting magic but not because he's carefully protecting himself, this is why, to my mind, breachability of Hardiness makes sense and breachability of the enraged state doesn't. Actually, I really do think clerical Remove Fear being unbreachable is a bug, because it has not only identical functionality but description and concept to the wizard spell, although I could sort of see why a cavalier's aura of courage might be unbreachable (as his inherent immunity to fear is). I also think Protection from Evil being classed as a specific rather than combat protection is a bug (it penalizes attack rolls) although a largely irrelevant one in a basic game where sectype removal usually strips both or neither of these sectypes, and I've already discussed Blade Barrier and Assassination. So no, I do not base my idea of appropriate sectypes on the vanilla game files unless these make sense.

Is polyvorp near the end of your install order? The ravager halberd is the only weapon substantially incompatible, in that it will now have a 15% chance of vorpal if target below 50% hp and also the IR 15% chance of a fast acting poison, overlapping. The silver sword and axe only have description errors. You could uninstall polyvorp, and comment out (as above, editing with notepad /* ... */) the sections of polyvorp.tp2 referencing the halberd, beginning at lines 57 and 504 of the file, disregard the parts about EFF immunity beginning at line 125, that's harmless, then reinstall. If polyvorp was installed before mods that shouldn't be touched midgame, like Item Randomiser and SCS, the halberd will be awkward to change and perhaps too powerful, you could either use it as your disgression, not forge the upgraded version, or if you prefer I could simply: PM you the item file as it should be in Item Revisions and you can place it in your game's override folder, restoring it to the usal IR behaviour (the in-game description would still be wrong). PM you the item file as it should be modified by polyvorp (the description will be correct). This latter method has potential problems because it's a hard overwrite of item files, if for instances some other mod globally modifies halberd characteristics. The ravager halberd will only be used PCs, so enchantment labeling is irrelevant I guess (and irrelevant anyway on EE which can hot detect whether a target is hittable by script).

Yes, in both cases the weapon's proc is externalized as .spl, it could have been done without a spl, but polyvorp patches minhp1 type items (found on bosses who have defeated dialogue) to prevent bugs if they're below 50% hp. Coincidentally, both in IR and my mod, silver sword has a 10% chance, axe of the unyielding 5%, so it could be as simple as overwriting dvorpal.spl (although I dislike interfering with other people's mod files unless necessary) and then only the description needs updating (no save, but only possible for targets already under half their normal hp).

Yes, but after five pages we still haven't resolved the initial question of Breach vs Hardiness, clearly the topic of general sectype inconsistency in the EEs needs to be submitted for review to Beamdog. About the Ravager's awkwardly written script, it dates back to original BG before most spells had associated detectable states. I mentioned it only because he doesn't refresh his Blade Barrier in response to a Breach, which raises the question of whether BB should count as a combat protection (besides the obvious fact that it only damages, doesn't improve user's AC, soak hits or anything like that). Some other scripts in vanilla did check: SpellCastOnMe([GOODCUTOFF],WIZARD_BREACH) or something like that, as part of a trigger block to recast defensive spells. @subtledoctor when it comes to fantasy magic, not real world effects based on the principles of logic and causality, things like intent and mindset clearly do matter sometimes. How else do you explain the function of the Detect Evil spell? Or Detect Invisibility, which reveals both those non magically hiding from the wizard in the shadows, and also those magically invisible from a potion or spell? Even so, Detect Invisibility doesn't counteract blindness by default, although being blind the wizard is equally unable to see his enemies. Similarly, Breach doesn't calm down a raging berserker or barbarian, even though they're harder to kill while in their frenzied state and ignore many disabling effects and charm type magic.

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.

That doesn't precisely mirror the game's list though, because Protection from Evil is a specific protection but it penalizes attack rolls of evil creatures, thus would seem to fall under combat protections... possibly a moot point as Breach removes both, a Fallen Solar's arrows (FINSOL01.itm) dispel combat protections, but not specific, that's the only case I'm aware of in the original game where one can be removed by sectype, but not the other. My point about wizard Resist Fear was that it's already rather arcane, figuratively and literally, in that it has more in common for the purposes of a Breach spell with Stoneskin - which does something completely different - than with the cavalier innate that does the same job. You're right, I don't want to branch into a discussion of IWD spells if we can't come to an agreement on BG spells and abilities. Also, I think that in terms of defining what constitutes a protection in game we need to consider not only the functionality but the intent of the casting, if only the function of the spell is considered then any beneficial spell could be considered a protection insofar as it helps the recipient or user survive a battle. Example: Hardiness vs Improved Haste, for a warrior (with 0 base physical resistance) fighting an enemy with purely physical damaging attacks and without special abilities such as regeneration, energy drain on hit, or attribute drain (Mindflayers) etc. the spell is actually more protective than the HLA! Hardiness reduces the damage the warrior takes from blows to 60%, while IH halves the time it would take the warrior to down his enemy, thus resulting in halved damage taken from them on average. Yet nobody has suggested that Improved Haste should count as a combat protection even though it helps to keep your fighters alive. To be considered a protection, a spell or ability should specifically and exclusively thwart enemy attacks, not generally enhance the recipient even if such enhancement contributes to their chances of survival. The way that a Breach spell operates in stripping these effects must be considered in a kind of abstract sense here in dashing hopes of safety, of undoing failsafes. How does it work exactly? Who knows, it's magic. Like I said, a Knock spell will allow traverse down a corridor with a locked door, not a corridor blocked with boulders from a rockfall, a Disintegrate spell would do both, spells are often both highly specific and seemingly arbitrary. This is why a berserker's rage should not be breachable, from an in-character perspective the berserk warrior works himself into a battle frenzy (and PnP-wise cares little for his own life) even though he's harder to kill and shrugs of most disabling stuff while berserk, his intent was not to protect himself but to make havoc. The fact that players use berserker's rages as much for their immunities as their combat bonuses is tangential to how it should operate and interact with spells like Breach that remove protections. Incidentally, looking at the vanilla game Ravager's script, he recasts his Blade Barrier in response to either wizard or cleric Dispel Magic and wizard Remove Magic, Breach seems to have been forgotten. Is Blade Barrier anymore of a protection than Sunfire? The secondary type could have easily been inherited from Fireshield.

It gets even stranger though, because Breach in vanilla specifically lists Resist Fear as a protection it targets, clearly it can "debuff" a state of emotional fortitude, but in the vanilla game casting Emotion, besides the hopelessness effect on enemies gives the caster a personal resist fear buff for the spell duration, which is not a strippable protection. The cavalier's innate Remove Fear ability (SPCL222) didn't count either. Personally I have far more difficulty reconciling Resist Fear and Stoneskin as the same types of protections (which the cavalier innate isn't) than grouping Hardiness with Stoneskin.

Oho, well on those last three: Draconis's regeneration rate is pretty slow at 1 hp/2sec. He tends to use the combination of Invisibility + fleeing + healing spells to restore his health and so this regen is unlikely to be noticeable or really add to the dificulty of the fight. Demogorgon regenerates 6hp/sec, so far as I can see, with 10% physical resistance vs Balthazar's 5hp/sec, no physical resistance, both are substantial but still less than a hasted planetar's 8hp/sec & 10% PR, unless Demogorgon somehow gets hasted, via an unlucky Wish, perhaps? Vanilla Balthazar, as a monk, is immune to haste. To my mind, the best summon in the game becoming a lot more resilient is a higher priority for fix than the two easiest ToB bosses anyway. That said, Demogorgon's regeneration certainly can cause a bug if it keeps him above the minimum he needs to trigger the cutscene of his defeat since unlike Balthazar he has a minhp item, he has a fairly generous threshold of hit points less than 30 as a trigger though. Vanilla Balthazar, unlike Demogorgon, is not an optional battle and possibly a problem for certain playthroughs as he kills most summons on hit and his AC+regen may prove a hurdle for certain characters without a lot of magical firepower or good combat abilities, I'm thinking solo single class druids might have difficulty with it (most other classes and parties certainly won't, at this stage of the game).

Honestly, I thought I was done arguing with morpheus in this thread, but, since subtledoctor insists... No, because those are not temporary protections but bonuses continuously operative while awake and alert. Same applies to the basic dexterity modifier, along with that of eg. bracers of defence compared to Ghost Armor spell, magical rings etc, this AC is lost only if the character is completely disabled. I'm losing credibility? You're literally the only poster trying to hyperextend the analogy and argue that Assassination and a berserker's rage should be breachable, seemingly for the sake of contrariness. Rage is a substantial combat boost for the berserker and especially the barbarian, a +2 to hit is not minor in the early game (c.f. offensive spin), and still less is +4 strength which is what you'd get from DUHM at 12th level. Breach specifically removes temporary effects that are exclusively protective, but will not quell a berserker's battle rage (whereas PnP-wise Emotion:Fear could...), even though that rage incidentally provides him with useful immunities, it may or may not have been intended to strip other short duration circumstantial protections deriving from a character's inborn skill rather than magic (my belief is that it was). Your argument sounds like this; If anti-tank missiles are useful against: Armored main battle tanks Armored light tanks Armored personnel carriers Armored self-propelled artillery Why aren't these also useful against armored battleships? Well, because that's not what anti-tank missiles designed for, and it's a very different type of target, even if having some commonalities in being a military vehicle that has armor. We have been over this before, there is absolutely nothing protective in Assassination's function and since it has both the same sectype and same school as Hardiness and (Greater)Evasion, unlike every other melee enhancing HLA (and melee enhancing special ability generally), it's a pretty obvious copyover bug.

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

I don't see that as being the issue, commenters like Sam, and guests Lowman and Sigmundur said it was too conceptually implausible for a spell that removes magical protections to also negate a warrior's extraordinary but non magical short duration buffs and either way achieve the end state of vulnerability to physical attacks. Lowering magic resistance is an entirely appropriate analogy, some creatures are difficult to affect with spells because of their supernatural nature unless softened by Lower Resistance/Pierce Shield. Monks and wizard slayers, however, are humans (or other non-magical races), knowing no magic but with skills and special training that achieves the same purpose and are equally susceptible to LR/PS increasing their vulnerability to magical attacks, the fact that they could still have some positive value of MR if it was high enough after the first cast is irrelevant. It's a similar issue with Detect Invisibility revealing both stealthy character who are non-magically hidden and those actually cloaked by illusion magic. This really is material for a tweak collation rather than a fixpack, if you want it like so in your games, I've said so several times. The fact that the dwarven defender gets a functionally better version of the Hardiness HLA from the beginning of the game is not an argument to make Hardiness unbreachable, that's power creep, nor is it necessarily an argument to nerf the DD ability within the scope of a fixpack rather than a kit mod because this overpowered EE kit does in fact work as intended.

Yes, item descriptions are updated, although items themselves are modified through patch rather than overwriting. I assumed that players who didn't like this aspect of vorpal weapons would either use my own modifications or Item Revisions, which iirc also attempts to balance and standardize vorpal weapons. I've made compatibility allowances for Ascension, SCS, and aTweaks provided polvorp comes last in the install order, but I'm genuinely surprised that players want to combine my mods with Item Revisions or Spell Revisions (which I discovered led to a different bug with Revised Dispel Magic). Although I see IR turns the vorpal Ravager halberd into a poisonous halberd that dooms the target (?). Since the halberd should not be modified at all if not a vorpal weapon, the TP2 will need to be appended to skip if ~dvdoom.spl~ exists in the override, for now, a player's options are to either: Install IR before polyvorp, but firstly comment out this section of item_rev-> components -> main_component.tpa: // Ravager +4 COPY ~item_rev/itm/halb10.itm~ ~override/halb10.itm~ SAY NAME1 @1493 SAY NAME2 @1538 SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC @1495 SAY DESC @1539 LAF tooltips INT_VAR $tip(1)=RESOLVE_STR_REF (@1538) $tip(2)=RESOLVE_STR_REF (@4024) STR_VAR item=halb10 END // Ravager +5 COPY ~item_rev/itm/halb11.itm~ ~override/halb11.itm~ SAY NAME1 @1493 SAY NAME2 @1540 SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC @1495 SAY DESC @1541 LAF tooltips INT_VAR $tip(1)=RESOLVE_STR_REF (@1540) $tip(2)=RESOLVE_STR_REF (@4024) STR_VAR item=halb11 END Modifying it like so: If done this way, you will instead have a vorpal halberd balanced in line with other vorpal weapons in polyvorp. Install IR after polyvorp, then you will have the IR version of the halberd, which is poisonous rather than vorpal, as well as IR versions of the other vorpal weapons usable by players, only enemy melee attacks will be modified (This is no good for SCS or aTweaks players, who should install my mod last! IR should also come before SCS in the installation order). ETA: The current version of my Revised Dispel Magic mod is best installed before SCS, contrary to the modifications to demiliches and vorpal weapons which should come after, future versions (if any) should be more flexible regarding install order.

In P&P it's 4hp/round, in BG2EE it's 4hp/sec. i.e. 24hp/round base, doubled to 48hp/round due to the planetar's permanent haste, they're regenerating 12 fold what they legitimately should!

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

Potions, like green protection scrolls, indeed lack secondary types even when these duplicate the effects of a specific protection spell (i.e. potion of freedom and Free Action). That's because potions in BG2 (with the exception of Superior Healing and the rogue's potion of frost giant strength created through Alchemy) are copied over from BG1, in the original BG engine opcodes only go up to #190, there is no sectype removal or Breach spell nor Stoneskin for that matter, and I'm pretty sure opcode #120 - protection from weapon types is restricted to creature's undroppable immunity items. However, it is not IMO worth changing in the scope of a fixpack, (giving potions of invulnerability the combat protection sectype etc.) because potions are easily dispelled (less easily with my own revised Dispel Magic mod to make potions count at the user's level, but that's neither here nor there). On the other hand, if Hardiness is both unbreachable and undispellable it can't be removed period, that's a major change.

The point is that Pierce Shield removes arcane spell protections, as Breach removes arcane combat protections, but also penalizes magic resistance (and PnP-wise saving throws too, which are dependent on a character's inherent skill, like Hardiness). If Breach, as a special purpose removal spell for arcane protections cannot remove Hardiness - because that's a nonmagical special ability of high level fighters - then Pierce Shield likewise shouldn't be able to lower the magic resistance of monks or wizard slayers because that's due to their special training and conditioning, and doesn't have a magical origin as such. Glad at least one other modder agrees with me, anyway, regardless of anyone's preferences for the spell's function I don't think changing either Hardiness or Defensive Stance is within a fixpack's scope, even if these seem similar enough to either share a sectype or no sectype. Fixes should be for obviously wrong things (such as Assassination, which is not a protection), not ambivalent and debatable cases (like magical protections versus what were called in 3rd edition extraordinary abilities and which are also protective). The thing is, there are spells in game that already achieve such purposes: The wizard spell Luck gives a +1/+5% bonus to all actions, whether picking a lock, fighting, making a save, or presumably as in your example hacking a computer system. The wizard spell Detect Invisibility reveals both thieves/rangers hiding in shadows and creatures rendered magically invisible. The wizard spell Knock open locks on both doors and safes. Mysteriously achieving a desired end often is how magic "works" in game.

Yes, it says spells not abilities, but the description was written for the SoA version of the game, before HLAs were introduced and any ability could be considered a specific or combat protection, besides ofc. priest of Talos Storm Shield (oh, and a paladin's Protection from Evil). My point was that these descriptions are obviously both incomplete and inaccurate, referencing spells that were never implemented for instance. Because Breach and Dispel Magic don't do the same thing, one strips temporary protections, the other dispels magical effects. Other posters have been saying that it doesn't make sense for an offensive abjuration that normally is used to strip arcane defenses to also worsen a character's inherent talent for protecting themselves - again, in my view that's a tweak rather than a fix - but FWIW I found a counterexample spell from 2ed: This was vaguely implemented as Pierce Shield in game, but as you can see, not only does it negate Spell Turning, it worsens by 5 points the target's saving throw, which is reflective of skill in staying alive and dependent on class and learned experience (although also usually improved by magic). It's a similar story with Passwall in PnP, it allows the wizard to pass through both a magically evoked Wall of Stone spell and a wall built out of plain old stones. Why? It's magic.

For technical reasons those cannot be contingencied/sequenced which is a different topic as to whether the utility of these abilities is similar enough to protective spells to be stripped by spells supposed to remove specific, combat or spell protections. Storm Shield and Boon of Lathander can't be put in a spell sequencer/contingency either for priests of Talos or Lathander who dual to mage, yet these abilites are clearly magical, hence can be dispelled, with the Storm Shield even considered a specific protection in vanilla, and removable by Breach.

I'm aware of this issue with goblins, archers in the slaver ship (SLARCH1.cre) and in the oasis battle of ToB (AMTARC01), since the latter two use magical composite bows replacing these with another bow would result in less loot and gold for the party. Neither goblins nor Tethyrian archers even have melee weapons, so boosting their strength to 18 has little effect, albeit it's a bit implausible for the little goblins, that leaves just the slaver guards who use non magical shortswords, which you could replace with daggers if you think 18 str would increase their melee dps too far, but honestly they're really weak anyway, even with SCS.

Yeah, you clearly do just want to argue with polytope for the sake of it. It doesn't though, unlike Boon of Lathander and a berserker or barbarian's rage, Hardiness was designed purely as a protective buff rather than a multifactorial combat boost, and is removed by Breach, as other protective buffs consistently are, with the exception of blade's Defensive Spin and dwarven defender's Defensive Stance, both of which detrimentally affect the user's movement rate (the DD's stance being a much more powerful ability with a much less noticeable penalty, and designed by different authors too). Since the latter two do something other than protect these should possibly have the combination sectype, if any (I really don't see a justification for these being updated, typeless is fine). I see, you're saying that Resist Magic could be used as an additional "Spell Shield" to absorb protection removals... but only if the spell level of this ability is increased to 9, which is not the in-game default. Another thing to consider is that Resist Magic last only 4 rounds, and being a special ability rather than an actual spell can't be called through (Chain)Contingency or stored as part of a Sequencer/Trigger, it eats up a spell equivalent action for a minor buff that can't be cast well in advance. I'm skeptical about Resist Magic needing to be considered a 9th level equivalent spell protection just because it's a HLA for warriors, it's comparable in power to Minor Globe of Invulnerability, which grants total immunity to level 1-3 spells for 1 round/character level, Resist Magic grants 50% MR for 4 rounds only, but the highest level and most dangerous spells often disregard magic resistance (Imprisonment, Dragon's Breath etc.). Don't put too much stock in the descriptions of spells referencing other spells, which were clearly written at a different point in development time to the spell system actually being worked upon. The vanilla SoA/ToB description of Breach claims it will remove "Protection Circle", the vanilla description of Khelben's Warding Whip claims it will remove "Spell Invulnerability". As for what is considered a "specific" vs "combat protection" the game is quite consistent. Specific protections : Those which grant resistance or immunity to elemental or purely magical damage, and also those which grant immunity to debilitative (Resist Fear, Chaotic Commands) or fatal (Death Ward) effects and attack forms that aren't purely physical (Negative Plane Protection). Combat protections: Those which protect the recipient from physical, rather than magical attacks, those which do both (like Armor of Faith) seemingly are classified as combat protections. There is a much stronger argument for removing the combat protection subtype from Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades than from Hardiness, because those aren't mentioned in the spell description either and are damaging spells that don't actually improve the caster's survivability, but I would not think that such a change rises to the level of fixpack material rather than being a tweak for a spell pack mod. Other HLA's which modify melee attacks, either in frequency or effects: Whirlwind (SPCL900) - typeless and schoolless Greater Whirlwind (SPCL901) - typeless and schoolless Deathblow (SPCL902) - typeless and schoolless Greater Deathblow (SPCL903) - typeless and schoolless Critical Strike (SPCL905) - typeless and schoolless Power Attack (SPCL906) - typeless and schoolless Smite (SPCL909) - typeless and schoolless Other class/kit special abilities which modify melee attacks as above: Kai (SPCL144) - typeless and schoolless Poison Weapon (SPCL423) - typeless and schoolless Offensive Spin (SPCL521) - typeless and schoolless Stunning Blow (SPCL811) - typeless and schoolless Quivering Palm (SPCL820) - typeless and schoolless Looks to me like Assassination should be typeless and schoolless, the pattern is undeniable.

On the original ToB engine - back when these HLAs were designed - any innate usable by PCs must have a spell level of 1 (power level is separate and only matters in the feature block), otherwise it will not appear as a choice under the special ability button, and will crash the game if cast from script... but only if cast by the Spell() action, not for instance ForceSpell() which many monsters used to cast innate spell-like abilities that often had some value other than 1 in the spell level field. This explains why Resist Magic is lower level than you'd guess a HLA to be considered, and it would thus have needed to cast a separate lvl 9 subspell for that purpose.. The scenario of spell protection removal vs a fighter/mage with Resist Magic in addition to Spell Turning, Spell Immunity, Globes etc. is a scenario I've just never seen happen in game. Anyone capable of casting arcane spells has better ways of protecting themselves than the Resist Magic HLA with its 4 round duration and magic resistant set to 50%, not even incremented but rather set. Even most single class high level fighters pass on that HLA as a choice. That's not my argument at all, don't put words in my mouth. The casting animation is cosmetic and irrelevant for a fixpack, the SCHOOL is stored differently, as is the secondary type and these have real game mechanical effects. The casting animation and SCHOOL, WHICH IS A DIFFERENT FIELD IN THE HEADER of Hardiness and Resist Magic probably were inherited from some wizard or cleric spell turned to innate. And yet, regardless of which one was converted first, they have different sectypes, which seems to have been either a deliberate choice, or less probably, due to converting two different spells to innates one of which was an alteration and combat protection, the other coincidentally also an alteration and yet a spell protection (as Suy said, the 5th level priest spell Magic Resistance fits these criteria, and is really the only spell that does). Apply Occam's razor. I've already explained what the difference is, to me, a berserker or barbarian's rage grants him a lot of immunities but also better offense, thus is not purely a protective buff and doesn't fall under the purview of things removed by Breach. The Defensive Stance of the DD kit... I don't think it was very well thought out in the first place and few arguments can be based upon it, Defensive Stance arbitrarily didn't stack with Hardiness either, and there's no in-game explanation of why besides the obvious that it would be easy to get 100+% physical resistance through it. They wanted an extra tough fighter kit and this is the result, that's all. Perhaps we can at least reach a consensus that Assassination isn't a combat protection, it's too suspicious that it shares both sectype and an extraneous wizard school with Hardiness, Evasion etc, despite being an offensive ability, and this seems a pretty clear case of a copyover bug.

There is a big difference, much as Ironskins being misclassed as a spell protection on the original engine was fixed by EE and SCS long beforehand. Assasination cannot be considered a combat protection, since it turns all of a thief's melee attacks for that round into backstabs; a purely offensive buff with no protective side effect for the user. Both the combat protection subtype and transmutation school of Assasination were obviously inherited by copying it from another HLA, probably Greater Evasion or Hardiness. Hardiness can be considered a combat protection, because it makes the warrior more resistant to physical attacks, as do other spells and spell like abilities classed as combat protections. The arguments I've seen so far against Hardiness being strippable by Breach are that: It's an innate warrior ability that shouldn't be removable by abjuration magic, but it's already undispellable, only Breach, which makes creatures more vulnerable by removing temporary protections will work, likewise, the innate kit bonuses of an archer are effectively removed by a Power Word:Blind. A relatively low level spell shouldn't counteract a HLA, but, you know, a 20th level fighter could fail their save against Hold Person from a 3rd level cleric. Neither seem to be strong enough for the criteria of a fixpack, rather than being design choices for someone's tweak mod, and this proposed fix does have a substantial effect on how both the spell and the HLA can be used in game.

Fair point that the Resist Magic HLA was perhaps made by cloning in this fashion (although cloning a priest spell to an innate when the innate has far fewer effects in the extended headers seems like much more work than cloning another innate with one extended header and including the MR opcode in the feature block), but it still doesn't explain why Hardiness is classed as a combat protection contrary to most warrior HLAs which with the exception of Resist Magic are typeless, Smite, War Cry etc. Evasion was plausibly cloned from Hardiness i.e. a combat protection and erroneously (though irrelevantly) a transmutation, and other thief HLAs subsequently cloned from Evasion (these also are wrongly classed as transmutations), I do think there's a strong case to make thief HLA's apart from Evasion, Greater Evasion and Avoid Death typeless and irremovable.

I notice that nobody who thinks the Hardiness HLA shouldn't count as a combat protection has given an explanation of why the devs classed the Resist Magic HLA as a spell protection. It's not just that it has a sectype, it's that the sectype isn't the same and was deliberately chosen to be removable by different things. Now, you might dislike this and prefer unbreachable Hardiness, but it shouldn't be presented as a bug fix instead of a modification to change the function of the game to your tastes, i.e. falling under the category of tweak mods. That said, Assassination being a combat protection is obviously a bug, it should be typeless like (Greater)Whirlwind, Critical Strike, as I said some things were accidentally assigned the wrong sectype. Hello Suy, there is a commonality in the blade's Defensive Spin and the Dwarven Defender's Defensive Stance: both have a disadvantage of restricting movement rate (although the blade's spin is obviously worse and I think very few players use it because it disallows Offensive Spin for the duration), so Breach-ability would remove both negative and positive aspects (i.e. Breach your berserker right before his rage lapses so that he can re-enrage immediately and doesn't have to wait five rounds). Also, they were developed by a different design team. On that subject, berserker and barbarian rages increase the warrior's fighting power (moreso for the barb really, the berserker gets just a flat +2 THAC0/damage), spells like Chant and Haste also keep the recipient alive, but are not purely protective, I think that's the underlying metric as to what can be Breached. Another good example, the Priest of Lathander's Boon special ability is not removable by Breach, even though it improves saves and prevents level drain, because it has an offensive function in making the priest a better fighter, generally, spells or spell like abilities with such multipurpose function seem to be exempt from breaching. The exception I guess are Fireshields which are more useful for slaying attackers than for avoiding damage, then again, a Fireshield only harms attackers, and so possibly falls under the remit of protective spells. Incidentally, strictly by 2ed rules, Emotion:Fear should counter a berserker's rage, not scare him away, just snap him out of the rage prematurely so that he's fighting normally from then on, clearly wizard spells can negate a warrior's innate abilities. Guest Sigmundur's comment: Indeed the Hardiness ability is not, and should not be dispellable because it's not magic. But Breach is not the same as Dispel Magic, it makes the target more vulnerable by removing temporary protections, regardless of the source. If you conceptualize Breach as causing protective buffs to prematurely expire - rather than draining magic - it makes more sense. Another fifth level wizard spell, Lower Resistance, will lower a target's MR regardless of whether it was innate to the creature type, from a class or kit ability (monks and wizard slayers) or from a spell, potion or item. Should monks be immune to Lower Resistance? Tbh, the vanilla game enemy caster AI is written really, really badly in most cases, the complexity of the spell system and the arduous work of making AI controlled spellcasters able to evaluate and choose the most appropriate spell to counter the PC's tactics is not simple at all (look at the length of SCS mage's scripts compared to unmodded), so most enemy casters would just randomly throw their highest level, then second highest level, then third highest level etc. offensive spells without regard to protections. My, you are passive-aggressive.