polytope

Is it really? Improved haste is only efficient on a fighter, and it is a single target spell.

That effect can be dispelled, or its target disable...

 

It's also a level 6 spell...

One level 3 haste is, to me, more efficient than a single improved haste (unless playing a solo F/M)

I think about it this way; level 13+ fighters probably have 3.5 apr (with 2 weapon fighting), assuming you have 3 such fighters in your party (or equivalent) that's 10.5 apr in total (okay, your cleric and thief can contribute in melee, but maybe you only have 2 fighters, or not all of them are using 2 weapon style, so let's assume it balances out).

Casting Haste raises each fighters apr to 4 (as it's always a whole number with vanilla haste) or 12 in total, a net increase of 1.5 apr.

Casting Improved Haste on one fighter raises apr to 7, a net increase of 3.5 apr... That alone is more than twice as useful as hasting all your fighters in terms of damage (discounting movement rate and attack speed factor for the moment, though they are relevant in many fights). However, regular Haste is not stackable, whereas you can IH each of your fighters to get 21 apr in total, a net increase of 10.5 apr.

I suspect Improved Haste and Whirlwind are the main reason so many ToB creatures have way more hp than they should, per 2nd ed.

Slow & Haste

Also, using any opcode besides 16 for haste won't correctly set STATE_HASTED for AI purposes, same problem I run into when trying to change the overpowered blindness effect.

Yeah, I do feared that not using the original opcode could be a problem, but at the same time it would be the best way to do a "clean job".

 

Regarding the repeating EFFs issue, as far as I remember even if Blade Barrier works through multiple 146 sub-spells you still get 2x rate. I'll try to find some time to test it.

Effects like the tick of True Sight and Melf's Acid Arrow aren't doubled by haste, because it uses a genuine timer rather than a per-round basis. I believe haste cuts the combat round in half, which you can check by setting an auto-pause option for end of round (which triggers every 3 seconds in hasted combat, rather than 6, if using default framerate). Also inspite of the hardcoded 5 attacks per round cap a creature can have up to 6 apr under regular haste (provided they had 5 before casting).

The balance issue of the Regeneration + Haste can certainly be solved with multiple delayed 17's. Improved Haste is the real game-breaker, and comes with it's own hardcoded stat for AI purposes - possibly it could be balanced with a shorter duration or even a mild damage penalty (you can use the Kai opcode with a negative value to avoid wraparound bugs) to reflect that striking twice as frequently necessarily means striking less accurately and forcefully.

I think there's also a particularly huge issue that needs to be mentioned: haste opcode causes all repeating effects to take place twice as fast, which can lead to some serious problems like Blade Barrier (or any aura-like effect) triggering twice as much per round. That can be almost game-breaking depending on which repeating EFFs are affected imo. The other side effect of this is the one you mentioned about regenerating and poison effects. The latter almost never affected my games, but the former can be actually quite OP if applied on chars with very high regeneration rate (e.g. even 7th lvl Regeneration spell becomes a monster if coupled with haste).

　

Now, long story short I'll just list what I was going to suggest and why:

- first of all, I thought about getting rid of the hardcoded haste/slow opcodes. I hope this doesn't clash with Detecable Spell system because it's pretty much mandatory for everything else

- with a custom sec type we could finally make Haste and Slow properly counter each other

- Haste should grant a lower movement rate bonus compared to improved haste imo (e.g. if Improve Haste remains +100% then Haste could grant +50%).

- if possible I'd like Haste and Slow spells to affect recipient's attack speed factor

- Slow should affect non-warriors characters too (chars with 1 apr are unaffected by the current Slow spell)

- Haste and Slow spells should not affect repeating EFFs, regeneration rate and poison hp loss rate

SR already changes Blade Barrier and Insect Plague to work through multiple 146 sub-spells, so haste won't affect them, no? I suppose the same could be done for the Regeneration spell, using multiple delayed instances of opcode 17 in place of the regular opcode 98.

In the case of "natural" regeneration and poison, I don't think a doubled rate is unbalancing or unrealistic because (1) the latter adds a "risk" to haste, normally an excellent spell (2) natural or equipped-item-regeneration is usually pretty slow (3) haste is mentioned to speed up your metabolism, presumably including rates of both healing and disease.

Slow is actually a considerable debuff for characters with only 1 apr, because they're probably spellcasters and it doubles the casting time of any spell.

Also, using any opcode besides 16 for haste won't correctly set STATE_HASTED for AI purposes, same problem I run into when trying to change the overpowered blindness effect.

Looking at the video, I believe Stworca is using "Fiends cast as normal wizards" option, which isn't recommended as many of their abilities such as Fire Storm, Symbol Stun and Blade Barrier have a long casting time and are easy to interrupt, considering most fiends lack defensive buffs.

Btw. DavidW, I've found a more reliable way to simulate innate casting than SpellNoDec + casting speed bonus, as even spells with an alleged casting time of zero can sometimes be disrupted by damage (or silence, miscast magic effect etc.).

Have the creature ForceSpell() an innate (casting time 1) which does nothing but display the casting graphic/animation, then in the same block ReallyForceSpell() the actual spells - the ReallyForceSpell() action is normally carried out under timestop or disabling effects, but will not be if the creature first has to force cast another spell in the same scripting block - although ForceSpell() does seem to be possible for unconcious creatures, STATE_SLEEPING would need to be checked for.

He uses Melissan's version of Stoneskin, which (it turns out) can be taken down by anti-spell attacks (e.g. Spellstrike) but not by Breach. But it's certainly not "immune to any dispel methods". (It's possible that some other mod was messing this up, but I think it's more likely to have been in-battle confusion).

 

Having said that, I don't actually like Melissan's Stoneskin, for all that it's in the vanilla game. I hadn't realised it wasn't affected by Breach but was by anti-spell; now I do, I'll probably tweak it for the next version.

Theoretically, Mel's stoneskin (once you're aware of this) is easier to remove than regular stoneskin, as it can be dispelled by Secret Word rather than Breach (expending a 4th level rather than 5th level slot), I'd support changing it to a combat protection.

Flame Arrow

Am I the only one who think this spell starts really too much weak (at 5th lvl it only does 4d6 fire dmg to 1 target) and ends up slightly too powerful (a 3rd lvl spell inflicting 20d6 dmg?)? What about having the caster get more arrows sooner (e.g. 1 arrow every other 2 lvls above 1st, or 1 arrow every 3 lvls?) and then cap a little bit earlier (9-12th lvl)?

You could increase the missile fraction of damage (to distinguish from fireball), but for a creature hit by multiple flame arrows in a round allow a second saving throw for the fire portion. This would make FA a bit stronger against groups of creatures, but not overpowered against a single creature.

Ghost Armor

I'd personally rename it Phantom Armor (its PnP name) but it's not a big deal. Is this spell appealing? Does it need a small boost?

It's mostly useful for illusionists who cannot cast Spirit Armor, but I think it's fine as it is.

Non-detection

Non-Detection currently doesn't grant complete protection from Detect Illusion, Oracle and True Seeing, it does only in case the protected creature is invisible via thief hide in shadow ability, but not via invisibility spells. Using a custom secondary type we should be able to make it work more similarly to PnP (e.g. it will also protect other illusionary protections such as Blur or Mirror Image). When affected by DI/Oracle/True Seeing the protected creature will be allowed to make a save, a successfull save means the divination fails, while a failed save means Non-detection is breached and DI/Oracle/True Seeing are able to detect the protected creature.

The save penalty would need to be increased according to target's level, otherwise, this is a cheaper version of SI:Divination - a high level wizard with buffs could easily have a save vs spells of -6 or so.

Protection from Missiles

Quite a few players reported this spell to be really too much powerful, especially within BG1. Should I nerf it by making it grant immunity only against non-magical missiles as per vanilla, but granting a huge AC bonus vs missiles?

The 2nd ed version is actually mentioned as reducing missile damage by 1 pt per die (about 15%) even against magical missiles, which could be added.

The vanilla spell is actually reasonably powerful if used in the right combination. I.e. a mage with ProMW + ProNM + teleport field is very difficult to attack. The problem is not that ProNM is underpowered but that elemental arrows are too effective at interrupting mages - currently only the fire arrow allows a save against the elemental damage.

RR's AI does use Deafness actually.

 

Therefore I'd prefer it is stays either party friendly or single-target, whichever is more convenient for you.

For the same reason I'd vote for "Neutralize Poison" to be reverted to curing blindness - I think various AI scripts still try to do this.

Chill touch/Shocking Grasp:

I think the main problem with melee spells is it puts your wizard right on the front line. Of course there's nothing wrong with that if you're a F/M or even bard, but then your going to have (hopefully) some pretty good weapons on you, and probably dual wieding, right? So you could tailor chill touch to these classes by making it dual-weilded (Your wizard has two hands, don't they?). As for Shocking Grasp, if my mind serves, BG1 this spell didn't need an attack roll, which is a much better implementation IMO.

The standard "create magic item" opcode always uses magic weapon slot and can't equip a character for dualwielding, there is another code (143) which can, but is bugged and actually replaces whatever was in that slot permanently.

Chill touch - make it work as a "melee hit effect" (i.e. monks' stunning blow) - so a character isn't "stuck" using CT if they run into something it cannot hit.

Shocking Grasp, Ghoul Touch (the latter is supposed to be single target paralysis, but with a sickening "aura" that can get multiple enemies) etc. There is a way to make these usable only once but allow multiple attempts to hit a creature (that they would vanish on a miss is their biggest downside in vanilla) - rather than using expendable charges include a "remove item" 112 opcode under each touch attack's melee header so that it will remove itself on a successful hit.