April

Found one more thing.

Eagle Bow is actually set to apply strength bonus to thac0 and damage.

Hey, found a few issues.

Firstly the Werebane +2 dagger dagg09b.itm when using its ability to switch to melee form the item that is set to be removed is dagg09 instead of dagg09b. This causes the dagger to be multiplied.

Also the lore value of the dagger is not set to 0 which causes it to become unidentified when switching from melee -> ranged form.

The cloak of the wolf is set to polymorph the character who uses it into wolfwe02.cre. This is probably fine in BG2, but BGEE doesn´t have that .cre file which causes the game to crash.

I'd change the Sol's searing orb description something like this if it's still a 3 round duration. "When the spell is completed, it creates a glowing gem. This gem must be thrown at an opponent within 3 rounds, or it will become too hot to hold."

mages have more than 1 type of protection ability

Speaking about enemy mages: Stoneskin won't help vs. elemental damage + it is stripped away quite fast; Mirror Images don't last long too + they can be dispelled by true sight; Invisibility doesn't protect well enough against melee attacks (and is dispelled by anti illusion too). So, enemy mage without PFMW-like buff is as good as dead - he'll always have an improved hasted fighter or two swinging at him. And I've explained in previous post why do I think different levels of PFMW that differ only by +X enchantment is not a good mechanic.

And a mage with stoneskin and mirror image without PFMW is still a better tank than a fighter, the supposed tank class. If he's got two improved hasted fighters hitting him then it's retarded if he's immortal IMO and he's got a ton of escape tools anyway. Shadow Door anyone? Mislead? Minor spell trigger invisibility + mirror image? I seriously don't see the need for PFMW in it's current incarnation in the game. Change absolute immunity to work like PFMW+PFNW and high level mages should still be incredibly difficult to kill.

Also, with the projected nerf to improved haste that's coming fighters will get worse at breaking stoneskins anyway.

You should give those drow shops some guards then imo and make them impossible to steal from like the adventurer's mart. Right now they're all easily stealable and I seriously don't think a drow out of all beings on Toril would be gullible enough to trust his fellow citizens let alone foreign visitors not to steal from him if given the chance.

As it is all equipment put on those drow are essentially free if you have a party member with pickpocket.

Don't forget Iron Golems and Adamantite Golems, one of which guards the axe in the keep.

It's just kinda annoying, is all. To get to the Axe of Unyielding, you have to fight trough a bunch of high level demons, who require the axe to hit. I'd rather remove the axe from the minotaur, add it in the drow shop in Ust'Natha, remove the Psion's Blade from the drow shop and add it to the Githyanki Captain in the same floor as the minotaur. Kind of makes sense imo.

Any chance you could be convinced to change the De'Arnise axe to +3 or add a +3 axe somewhere later in the game?

Axes and morningstars are the only weapon classes where when you have completed all SoA content you likely won't have a weapon above an enchantment of +2. Even katanas are easier to find, at least you can get Celestial Fury before moving on to ToB content. Azureedge requires either being a paladin or 20 reputation, which isn't very probable if you decide to include Korgan in the party.

Otherwise you could also take a look at the Orb of "insert damage type here" line of spells from 3rd edition. They are quite boring but stable spell choices.

Vitriolic Sphere is pretty much an Orb of Acid already, isn't it?

Nah, in 3rd ed Vitriolic Sphere is more like an improved damage aoe Melf's Acid Arrow, especially the version from Spell Compendium (6d6 damage, reflex save for half, if save is failed 6d6 damage next two turns, otherwise only thing that happens is the initial 3d6 damage). The IWD version however is mostly single target however which is why I wanted an edited version of it as a single target 5th level spell to close that gap.

Orb of Acid is a direct damage spell instead: a 1d6 damage/lvl(max 10d6) single target ranged touch attack with no save. Also 4th lvl while Vitriolic Sphere is 5th.

Doesn't IWD2 have a Mordenkainen's Force Missile animation? Any chance you could use that?

http://www.planetbal...rcemissiles.jpg

I think the 5d6 to secondary target damage is applied to the main target as well making it 50% stronger than 2x MM in a sequencer.

Edit: or not when I read it more carefully, have misread it all this time...

By the way:

FORCE MISSILES

Evocation [Force]

Level: Sorcerer/wizard 4

Components: V, S

Casting Time: 1 standard action

Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)

Targets: Up to four creatures, no two

of which are more than 30 ft. apart

Duration: Instantaneous

Saving Throw: None

Spell Resistance: Yes

Sparking bolts of blue magic, like giant magic missiles, streak from your out-stretched hand to strike your foes and explode in sparkling bursts.

You create powerful missiles of magical force, each of which darts from your fingertips and unerringly strikes its target, dealing 2d6 points of damage.

The missile then explodes in a burst of force that deals half this amount of damage to any creatures adjacent to the primary target.

The missile strikes unerringly, even if the target is in melee or has anything less than total cover or concealment. A caster cannot single out specific parts of a creature.

The spell can target and damage unattended objects. You gain one missile for every four caster levels.You can make more than one missile strike a single target, if desired.

However, you must designate targets before rolling for spell resistance or damage.

Doesn't seem that OP to me if it would be implemented this way. One bolt/4 levels with each bolt hitting for 2d6 points of force damage + 1d6 damage in aoe around the target (probably around the same area as flamestrike in BG). To reach 15d6 damage the caster would have to reach level 20.

From 3.5 spell compendium.

Vitriolic Sphere

Moving Vitriolic Sphere to 5th level could be fine, but I'm not sure I'd pick Beltyn's Burning Blood if I move the former. BBB isn't a really canonic spell (I try to stick with either PHB or Forgotten Realms books), and a Necromancy spell dealing fire plus acid damage is kinda strange imo. If I had to add one more Necromancy spell I would start from extremely canonic spells such as Enervation before starting to think about other ones.

I guess Mordenkainen's Force Missiles could fill the slot of 4th level single target damage, if it's relatively AI friendly. Otherwise you could also take a look at the Orb of "insert damage type here" line of spells from 3rd edition. They are quite boring but stable spell choices.

Non-conjured summons

Unless I forgot something Mordy is the only Evocation summon. Ball Lightning could be considered a sort of "summon" in terms of implementation, but it has really nothing in common with a real summon other then you having control over its movements.

 

Are you instead referring to illusionary summons?

I was referring to the previous post by Urdjur, but I probably didn't think that line through very well. Illusionary summons are fine because they are not really summons but illusions that trick the opponent into thinking its hurt when it really isn't placebo style. No actual conjuring is involved.

Conjurations bypassing magic resistance

Flame Arrows too is supposed to conjure real flaming arrows which bypass mr. I don't remember where this has been discussed, but while conceptually I do agree that conjured webs, arrows or things like that should bypass mr, I did not implemented it because of "compatibility issues with the AI". SCS mages do check for mr before casting these spells and do not use them if the target has high mr, thus making them bypass mr would only be an advantage for players.

Well, this is a case for DavidW, not the maker of SR tbh. In the same way he has to manually add your new spells to SCS to account for them (most recent example is that sunscorch is used by SCS24), he would simply have to remove those mr checks for the affected spells when SR is installed. As it is now, if SR is installed and SCS isn't, the result is that the player gets several new spells the AI doesn't use making it a pure advantage for the player anyway.

I find it hard to believe this spell really conjures a dragon to just breath one time before dismissing it. Not to mention it would just summon a decapitated head of a dragon. I do think the dragon's head is just a cosmetic thing, and the only real reason HLAs such as this (or Comet) bypass magic resistance is that developer wanted them to be the ultimate spells. For the same reason Dragon's Breath is party friendly, even if something like that is pretty much impossible to explain.

The way I think about Dragon's Breath is that a flat gate spell is created above a random red dragon somewhere, then quickly lowered so only his head gets "transported". Then a feather is conjured and starts tickling the dragons feet making him cough which triggers the breath whereafter the gate is cancelled and the confused dragons head returns to its body. Doesn't explain the party friendly part though.

Having read through this thread I agree with most in the initial post but would like to add Beltyn's burning blood as a 4th level spell for consideration and add the proposal for Vitriolic Sphere be set as 5th level as it is in 3rd ed to better spread single target offensive magic out in the spell levels.

Also making the snowball spell party friendly with a lower damage would be a lot better than having it not party friendly with higher damage for the sole reason that it would make it usable by the ai, which is the same reason I want to spread more single target damage spells around. Although 2nd level spells isn't in the same desperate need as 4th and 5th for ai friendly spells so it could go either way I guess.

Also regarding evocation summons, summons seriously shouldn't be evocation spells imo, that's the domain of conjuration spells.

Regarding conjuration spells, in 3rd ed conjuration spells that do not summon a form of energy (ie stuff like Flame Arrows are out because fire = energy) bypass spell resistance because when the melf's acid arrow hits the enemy it's no longer magical, the magic resistance simply dissipates the inertia that made the acid arrow hit the target in the first place which doesn't stop the damage from working. If this 3rd ed rule would be incorporated it would go a long way to giving mages tools other than 9th lvl spells to work against magic resistance. If you think about it the reason why the Dragon's Breath HLA bypasses magic res is probably because it summons the head of a dragon who is then compelled by the spell to breath fire, and spell res doesn't stop dragon fire, ie it should really be a conjuration spell.

Request:

Any chance you could introduce SR versions of the Iwdification spells Beltyn's Burning Blood and Vitriolic Sphere? If possible it would also be nice if Vitriolic Sphere was made 5th level like in 3rd ed instead of 4th as in IWD. The reason for this request is that with SCS installed enemy mages are too focused on defense and simply don't have a lot of offensive magic memorized, a large part of this is the fact that there are no party safe 4th and 5th level damage spells even with SR installed. Including these spells and having them be used by the SCS AI would make enemy mages a lot more lethal while also reducing their ridiculous amount of defensive spells slightly (since memorized copies of Beltyn's Burning Blood would indirectly reduce the amount of stoneskins memorized.)

In my v7 install the Shadow's got the immune1.itm in a quickslot, making it non-effective. If it works now then that's a bugfix.