polytope

Yes, but that was a bad call. Shadow dragons in 2ed way back when this was game was published had a breath attack that only temporarily drained levels. It's easy to understand why, every other level draining monster needs to get into melee range and successfully penetrate your AC to drain you of levels, shadow dragons have a ranged AoE auto-hitting breath, it was obviously felt to be excessively severe if that's also permanent.

My mistake, no consensus then, but even so, Assassination is clearly not a combat protection and the fixpack has a history of addressing obvious copyvover bugs (from cloning and cosmetically polishing a file but leaving a few important things unchanged). The protective HLAs have some commonality with wizard & priest spells classed as combat protections, i.e. immunity to instant death effects or damage resistance. There is not one other instance where a special ability that exclusively enhances a character's performance when attacking, rather than their defensive potential, has the combat protection sectype, neither a HLA (like Whirlwind or Smite) nor a special class/kit ability (Quivering Palm, Poison Weapon) nor even a wizard or cleric spell (Shocking Grasp, Slay Living etc., which usually have either the combination or "offensive damage" sectypes). Quite separate to the issue of whether abjuration spells like Breach should be able to strip a fighter or thief's HLAs is that Assasination is a really extreme outlier in terms of its sectype compared to the in game function of this HLA in any case. Stealth from rangers or thieves isn't dispellable, but the description of the Detect Invisibility makes it pretty clear how it's supposed to work: "When the wizard casts a detect invisibility spell, he is able to see clearly any objects or beings that are invisible, as well as any that are astral, ethereal, or out of phase. In addition, it enables the wizard to detect hidden or concealed creatures (e.g., thieves in shadows, halflings in underbrush, and so on)" I.e, anyone in the area who is trying to hide from the caster (magically or not) is revealed unless warded by Spell Immunity etc. It's a mystery how it works, just like the Identify spell (shouldn't it be harder to identify items made by different species? by those you don't share a language with?) but that's how it is.

That flail is really only supreme if you can stack it with other sources of physical resistance, i.e. a normal fighter with Hardiness and DoE takes 40% normal damage from hits (effectively 80% on insane), a barbarian would take only 20%, a fighter/cleric or even a high enough level ranger like Valygar would take only 15% with Armour of Faith. On Insane I think you're better off using stoneskinned character and summons to take hits from really damaging enemies, it involves a bit of micromanaging and SCS AI likes to switch targets to injured characters if they're close enough, but rarely switches targets more than once per round, so if you've goaded an enemy into attacking one character you're usually safe to charge in with a few others. About Celestial Fury, it's still good, but you'll probably be 15th level before you can even specialize with it, you'll almost be in ToB before your character has enough proficiencies to use it for maximum effect, and stun immune enemies become more and more common (as are high level enemy fighters with berserker/barbarian rage or potions of invulnerability/magical shielding) and you can get the Ravager halberd soon after completing SoA (well, soon if you've already done Watcher's Keep up until the final seal). I usually have two arcane casters (don't need to both be single classed) because it's so convenient to be able to throw a Ruby Ray and a Breach/Remove Magic in the same round, or Greater Malison and Emotion. The traumatized elf and bloodthirsty dwarf are incompatible iirc, unless you have another mod to make them get along, I never liked Aerie as a character anyway, but mechanically I think she's fine. Haer would also be a good candidate for using Celestial Fury, since he doesn't need 5 pips to be at his maximum potential with it, whereas it always feels awkward for a fighter who's spent the proficiency points to get grandmastery in one weapon to be wielding one of a completely different type that he's only proficient in.

Hi all For what it's worth I found the problem with energy drain to be not its unsavability but the duration, higher level characters (who ofc have better saves) will absorb more level drains before dying anyway, it's just very annoying to need to find a temple or rest twice to remedy it. I think a recovery period of about 1 hour/level drained (thus 1 for your average wraith, 4-5 for the very powerful vampires) seems reasonable... it's not like you'd kite them for that long. I also made a mod of NPP so that it would last for up to 3 turns but protect only from the first three level draining strikes, much like Stoneskin (on vanilla engine it involves three shell spells, and sectype/school removal, on EE still three separate subspells but at least removal can be done through 321), I also gave vampires a bit better abilities, I haven't published that one because there were other undead that also needed improvement and most players are happy with SCS anyway. I mean, NPP is almost like Protection From Magic Weapons against level drainers, they can still hit you for (usually) d6 + strength damage (only +4 for a regular vamp, might be +10 for a tough one) but their attack rates makes them fairly unimpressive and trivial to defeat since healing potions are so abundant by the time you encounter them. Yes, but this step of making vampires more like mindflayers, (while they have better THAC0 than mindflayers) was done in response to the abundant sources of immunity to level drain, I'd prefer it if such immunity were harder to acquire (and level drain temporary, as is already the case with shadow dragon breath for instance), unfortunately, most AI scripts will assume that the Amulet of Power, Improved Mace of Disruption etc. foil draining, if you replaced those with items that have different filenames (by default AMUL21, BLUN25 etc.) it would likely break some other mod unless you did so with very careful parsing of dialogues and scripts. With the "mindflayeresque" vampires in older versions you needed either a tank with an AC that dodged all but crits, or (more easily achievable) a F/M type under ProMW/Absolute Immunity, or just the usual extreme sorcerer cheese of Project Image -> Time Stop -> Imprisonment... Improved Alacrity storm for the ones that can't be imprisoned, like Bodhi (the last option was also the way to deal with bat swarms before that ability got nerfed a bit). Such powergaming actually makes the playthrough more dry, simplistic and repetitive in my view.

I've tried Spell Revisions but don't play with it anymore, IMO some spells were excessively nerfed while weak and unpopular choices were boosted to an excessive degree and it wasn't adequately balanced, sorry. The summoned Death Knight and Negative Plane Protection (it had such a short duration for a good reason) stand out in this respect. Spell Revisions Revised aims to address these issues but it is a work in progress. Rogue Rebalancing is good, but there are some collectable items you can acquire from the added content that are also overpowered, the new HLAs are reasonable at least compared to vanilla (at least the Time Trap is gone). More challenging mods which are compatible with SCS? I can't suggest any besides the post-underdark encounter added by Rogue Rebalancing (it's harder than most SCS content at that point). More challenging mods instead of SCS? Improved Anvil from blackwyrmlair.net, still the hardest after all these years, critics of that mod often complain that it sort of forces a specific party composition and that the repetitive grouping of certain enemies becomes tiresome, but the newest version (which I haven't really tried) has a lot of new options for single class clerics, and hopefully some of the repetitive encounters will be redesigned to be a bit less grindy... there are also some interesting and unique battles introduced though which get away from the sameness (the battles with Demogorgon and the dragon on the penultimate level of Watcher's Keep are much, much harder and have a lot more content than the SCS versions, there's a dracolich in a secret area in the underdark etc.).

Critical strike is certainly superior when Dual Wielding and for general per-round damage, GWW is only needed if you have a two handed weapon with an interesting on-hit procc... like the Ravager halberd. As for scrolls, I'd certainly save Stoneskin even though you'll be casting it at a lower level, it will still soak a few hits which will more than make up for your character having lower base hp than a regular fighter. Also Blur and probably Mirror Image (since Ilbratha is only once/day). I like having more than one fighter-type (if you have just one and they're debuffed then your party's physical damage potential nosedives until you can remedy the problem), on insane difficulty you'll be relying a lot on Stoneskinned characters (although your PC can become one if he has a scroll) and summons to take hits, but with scrolls of Blur etc. your AC might keep you pretty safe from physical attacks by all except bosses.

I think we at least reached a consensus regarding the Assasination HLA, in that it should not be considered a combat protection for the purpose of sectype removal, since the general trend among other offensive warrior and thief HLAs (Whirlwind, Deathblow and the Power Attack->Critical Strike->Smite trio) is to be typeless and schoolless, with the same being true of offensive melee-related special abilities of kits (assassin & blackguard's Poison Weapon, blade's Offensive Spin, kensai's Kai etc.). Note that no warrior or rogue HLA can be dispelled, only removed by Breach, whether or not you think that should be the case comes down to the interpretation of what a Breach spell actually does: Detect Invisibility spell reveals both creatures invisible due to an illusion and thieves/rangers non-magically hiding in shadows. Lower Resistance spell can reduce the magic resistance of a monk or wizard slayer, even though that's neither from a spell nor supernatural ability but a result of their training.

Generally yes, but it depends upon the character, Improved Alacrity or Planetar usable just once per day is worse than what a regular mage could do, but being able to fill your lvl 9 slots with Time Stops and still have accessible HLAs might be even more murderous depending on playstyle, i.e. Fighter Mages or even plain mages with Time Stop-> Shape Change (Mindflayer form). The main reason I didn't use this component last time I played was that every enemy mage beyond about lvl 20 has exactly the same list of HLAs which they'll throw at you, without, it's a bit more diverse and sometimes surprising.

Since you have a party with at least one other fighter it's not critical but I would say halberds, simply for the Ravager halberd in ToB: You'd mostly be using it with (Greater) Whirlwind HLA, so only three stars are needed (the main difference between mastery and grand mastery is attacks per round, which is always 10 anyway if you GWW). A mage dual classed to a fighter can still use scrolls of Black Blade of Disaster, which might also be worth saving for major bosses.

The player will make much better use of those spells than the AI will, especially the new cleric spells. Of the other ones you mentioned... Druids using static charge, well, except Faldorn (BG2) and Amarande they are usually encountered outdoors where Call Lightning would be a better choice. Lance of Disruption isn't much more powerful than Magic Missile, usually, on a successful save (18-27 damage for a 15th level caster), and it's crushing meaning it can be soaked by a single Stoneskin and resisted by barbarians, clerics or high level fighters etc. Vitriolic Sphere isn't really enough burst damage to kill your characters immediately unless 3xVS in a spell sequencer, if they can retreat, then they can be healed/dispelled, note that players can handle damage-over-time effects better than the AI by guesstimating how long they have to survive and counteract it. Protection from Energy does become a lot more useful in an IWDification playthrough, so prior to lvl 16 any character without spell protections might feel a bit more vulnerable, there is also the Limited Wish for globes on the whole party.

Decent build because you've given up only a small fraction of your hit dice potential to be able to use any item or a scroll that a mage could, in BG1 that's mostly wands, in BG2 you'll have: Amulet of Power for level drain immunity Staff of the Magi - SCS has a component to remove the invisibility, but not the dispel on hit or saving throw bonuses, very nice if you have the THAC0 to hit things with it. Wands again, but including the Spell Striking and Paralyzation ones, can be handy tactically, plus lots of powerful scrolls. I would probably have gone neutral and two-handed weapons rather than good aligned, so as to use the Soul Reaver along with the SotM, and to never worry about Unholy Blight spamming. Two pips in two-weapon fighting should be enough (SCS doesn't add a lot of AC boosts to enemies) I guess you'll have your next proficiency point at level 9, so lvl 12 before you'll be dual wielding and probably 18 before you're at least specialized in flail (unless you want the 5th star in longsword first, in that case lvl 21).

There should probably be a separate option to make planetar/deva/elemental prince summons specifically a once-per-day innate (as already the case for paladins) and other HLAs use regular 9th level slots. It would also be a bit more... believable, if that word can be used about having really powerful extraplanar allies coming when called.

But of course you don't cast Divine Protection if you see an enemy mage or lich attempting a Time Stop, easily recognizable as a slow-casting alteration spell, some people listen for casting vocals, I look for the casting graphics instead which for alteration is either a sharp blue sparkling or a wavy white-gold "tunnel" depending on whether you have vanilla or IWD casting animations. In most cases you can wait until the spell is actually complete if you're a decent distance from the mage before reacting with Divine Protection (Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting and Dragon's Breath have pretty slow projectiles). Like I said earlier, I think the 7th level version is okay, but not the 5th level one, particularly not when it can be recharged through Wondrous Recall.

Unfortunately, the answer is no. As other people have noticed, the enemy AI doesn't know how to use (for example) Mordenkainen's Forceblade, Antimagic Shell trivializes beholder groups (except those containing Hive Mothers!) if you're a fighter/mage, and they can't cope with Divine Protection either. If you want a longer version, the reviews on this blog explain the problem, it is not something for players looking for a tactically harder game: https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2022/01/SCS-BG2.html https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2022/06/IWDification-Mod.html

Off topic, but it's a bug that's annoyed me for a long time that short duration buffs can wear off during a Time Stop, I mean, the idea of the spell is that time is frozen for everyone except the caster, poison and such shouldn't continue to tick during Time Stops either, EE didn't fix it. Anyway, SCS AI does not exploit this, enemies will cast Time Stop but not specifically to wait for your protections to expire... It wouldn't matter though, because fast casting Divine Protection can be used on the fly as a reaction to what an enemy caster does, thus soaking up their most powerful offensive spells (Horrid Wilting, Dragon's Breath etc.) in exchange for the caster's 5th level priestly spells (remember with Wondrous Recall you have a LOT once caster level reaches 11), I could actually accept the 7th level variant, but not this one. In vanilla, the only way to instantly pop up a protection that could absorb a volley of such powerful spells was by the potion of Magic Shielding or Scroll of Protection from Magic, which are very rare resources. If we're going to talk about developer intent, the designers of IWD gave both spells a long casting time. The general rule in AD&D is casting time = level for Wizard spells or level + 3 for Priest spells with a few exceptions (Animate Dead, Sunray, Finger of Death, (Un)Holy Word, Power Word spells etc.), so the original CT was about on point. Buffs with a duration based on level like Aid aren't a strong argument about what spells with a fixed duration should do.

I previously noticed a strange problem if G3 Ascension Yaga Shura is installed without SCS tougher Yaga, but the Ascension demons component should be skipped for now yes... or play an older version.

Most players use Improved Alacrity and Time Stop with comparable casting time to duration ratios? I mean with the SCS tweaks these spells are very strong protecting from not only melee damage like Protection from Magic Weapons/Absolute Immunity do but spell damage also, so that a cleric whose defenses are dispelled by a lich which then throws a Dragon's Breath at him can respond with Divine Protection (like I said, CT = 0 with the Amulet of Power), even 3x Flame Arrow or 3x Lighting Bolt sequencers etc which usually happen too fast to react to can be absorbed. True, mindflayers (and level drainers, if you didn't have the amulet) can still kill you with attacks, but that's about it. Also, it's a spell for clerics, who unlike mages don't usually get this kind of fast casting comprehensive protection (ProMW, AI etc., even Stoneskin for all except druids), clerics have better armour options, much more hp (including hp boosting spells like Holy Power and Righteous Magic) and better physical resistance than mages (Armour of Faith, that flail etc.) it's contrary to the way the cleric class always felt and played. Enemies - in my game anyway - also seemingly fail to recognize that your cleric has become an impervious Mordy Sword when he casts these spells, and waste time swinging at him.

In game the spells are called Divine Protection and Greater Divine Protection, so that enemy priests (most of whom are unaffiliated with Lathander, even if you play evil!) can justifiably use those, both have casting time of 1 and duration of 3 rounds, which is a bit imbalanced with the Amulet of Power making both instant, in IWD(-ification), the spells Shield of Lathander and Greater Shield of Lathander would be casting speed 8 and 9, duration two and three rounds, respectively. Powerful for the AI controlled priests, but even more so for the player...

Besides Sunscorch and Vampiric Touch, the Command spell should probably also be given a fast projectile rather than none. Power Word spells besides PW:Blind have no projectile last I checked, but also no save and 100% probability off all effects in the block, so need not be modified (for this issue anyway).

If SCS does not want to duplicate the EET chapter increment code, the trigger for appearance of the rakshasas could be as simple as checking whether the party has returned from Spellhold i.e. GlobalGT("AsylumPlot","GLOBAL",50), or spoken to Elhan. As for the Raks AI, they lack help scripts to notice and assist each other if you manage to LOS them, because they didn't have any such scripts in vanilla and SCS doesn't know what allegiance in terms of shout ids to give them (this is a problem with many other creatures too, like the warden of the planar prison), and are lower level than most raks you'll meet in game, but otherwise they use SCS rak AI and spellbooks, although memorizing Ghost Armour is redundant for creatures which have a better natural AC.

Yeah, back in SCSII version 15 or thereabouts there weren't nearly so many bugged creatures/scripts and it was legitimately harder (besides the existence of other mods which further increase the curve, SCS is the best known though). It's like with the spiders and demiliches and whatever, I didn't install the component to give Ascension demons SCS scripts, it seemed unnecessary, so I never noticed this one. Unfortunately, the author is obviously busy offline, but fans keep asking for new releases... which leads to releases without playtesting, especially of late game content.

Off topic, but I reported that one years ago and DavidW said it was changed in the most recent version, this stands out as a really high priority fix if still happening. ETA: As for continuing the game without console cheats (that may or may not cause bugs, I can't say) try using a scroll of Protection from Magic on Liia?

I don't think it's quite that bad because the patches made on the basis of animation are cosmetic changes to their soundest, the modifications to statistics and inventory etc. check for actual .cre filenames and should only effect the shadow dragon. PATCH_IF animation = 4609 THEN BEGIN SAY INITIAL_MEETING @15 SAY BATTLE_CRY1 @16 SAY BATTLE_CRY2 @17 SAY ATTACK1 @18 SAY ATTACK2 @19 SAY DAMAGE @20 SAY DYING @21 SAY SELECT_COMMON1 @22 SAY SELECT_COMMON2 @23 END END I wouldn't have done this regexp global patching of creatures either, though, but it's not something new or rare. ETA: It also gives all shadow dragon breath attacks (SPIN893.spl) a more reasonable projectile, black dragons are supposed to spit a thin stream of acid, shadows more of a cloud. At any rate, I think it's probably good that the .pro not be shared? Temnix hasn't been active here for a long time and he and Artemius (the author of Shadow Magic) did not like each other at all. So I wouldn't expect good result in trying to combine those mods.

There are (Prismatic Spray, Sphere of Chaos etc., note that this bug interferes with each effect in the block in terms of not only saving throws but percentile probabilities too, they're rolled separately if pause on autocast or one roll is used if not). It's also not really cosmetic to have someone confused without associated string/visuals/portrait icon because you won't know what's wrong with them (depending on how they behave confusion can be mistaken for fear, feeblemindedness etc.). However, it only matters for spells without associated projectiles, which provide the needed time delay for the autopause to decouple from the effects in the spell's feature block, so fortunately stuff like Prismatic Spray always worked as intended. Sunscorch could simply be given a very fast projectile (I'm sure some other modder has already thought of this).

That mod does seem to touch the background baldur.bcs script (or bdbaldur/baldur25 for the expansions), but the relevant block should only cycle once in game, so it wouldn't seem to be a script related crash contrary to what I said earlier (in my experience bad scripts do take a noticeable interval, a few seconds, to CTD usually, engine level bugs on the other hand crash in the blink of an eye). I've noticed that the subspell - C0SPELS2.spl - does call opcode #272 on everyone in the area with a permanent timing mode, I do seem to remember problems with #148 and #272 on dead actors crashing the game (note that things like #272 supposedly only check unpaused game time), then again, timing mode 1 rather than 9 usually means it shouldn't matter for dead actors. We'll wait till the author gets here and has a look, I guess. So, another question, does this crash still happen if the game is paused immediately on one of your character's death? Does time actually have to advance in game before it triggers?