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ancalimohtar

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Everything posted by ancalimohtar

  1. It's a -6 penalty! Even fighters/monsters drop easilly with it. Definitely worth a 7th level slot. I'm also not keen on save or nothing, but this does damage even on a succesful save. A sorc has probably 5-6 disintegrates if he needs it, using level 6 spell slots. He has level 7, 8, 9 spell slots as well. How many fingers of death is the party cleric going to want to memorize in his top spell slots just to (potentially!) take out the mage 2 rounds earlier than the melee would have done anyway? I only disintegrate vamps, liches, and potentially mind flayers anyway--things I don't want melee touching any more than they have to, and things that are bugged and can't be breached. Plus, next version this'll probably be reduced to a -2 or -4 penalty, right? Haste doubles 6 to 12 HP/round, even tough I don't find it neccecary for this spell. It lasts for long time, you can prebuff with it, saves potions, lets your cleric do other stuff than healing you, can keep you alive even if disabled, stacks with itself and any other regen item/ability you have. 10x better than Heal for me, whose long casting time make it very impractical (altough this will be adressed). Of course, it won't keep an AC 6 character alive vs Fire Giants, but it will help -15 AC character live through them. As I said, as a level 6 spell for druids, it might be worth it to cast on one or two non-stoneskin characters in certain fights. May also be better for other party compositions. I just have minimal use for it. You know, certain summons can't be stunned nor can they be drained of intelligence I know you've been hinting this the whole thread, but it doesn't work. I tried Create Undead in the mind flayer lair in the Temple Sewers. First off, the Alhoon cast Death Spell or some other spell that kills summons--they got aced. Then I tried to be cute and send in a different summon first, THEN bring in the undead. The mind flayers straight up ignore the undead, and instead freaking teleport without error straight to Minsc, the lowest Int character, and the only character without stoneskin, who is HIDDEN IN SHADOWS, whom I kept at the entrance to the entire lair. So no, summons don't work with SCS.
  2. After looking at the SR v4 list of changes: Blade Barrier: Since my two divine casters are a fighter-cleric and Jaheira, I mostly considered the spells from a melee-priest/buffer point of view. I think it would be good to consider the usefulness of spell lists for various types of characters. Melee priests are quite common anyway, what with Jaheira and Anomen in vanilla. The problem with Blade Barrier is its party-unfriendliness. Maybe I'm being lazy, but unless I'm in a real slugfest of a fight--which doesn't really happen since hit points/damage are never the main obstacle at higher levels--I don't want to put my cleric on an island, surrounded by enemies. If he can survive tanking all those enemies as Blade Barrier slowly cuts them down, then they're not really a threat anyway, and my cleric is better off adding his damage to important targets, or strategically casting spells. On the other hand, making it not affect allies might be too OP. I could see this spell being useful if your cleric isn't great offensively, and would best serve the party whittling down mooks. Fire Seeds: More seeds--especially since they're party-friendly--would be good. This spell would be good for a non-melee cleric Harm: Cast time 6 would be better, I think. 75 damage on a save makes it good to cast on hard-to-hit enemies. PfMW blocks it? Entropy Shield: Without implementing component 3, it wouldn't be worth a level 6 slot. It would just be Reflected Image, a level 1 mage spell? Earthquake: Didn't realize targets for all 3 rounds are fixed at the outset, regardless of subsequent movement. That makes it MUCH more powerful, though a bit nonsensical. Even if the effect becomes dependent on area rather than initial targets, I think it could be useful situationally. I've just not had the opportunity to use it, since Jaheira isn't there yet Finger of Death: @kreso, the only time you would cast this at a mage is after his Spell Turning/Spell Trap is gone, but before his PfMW is gone. In other words, a thin slice of time before you Breach him. And once you get Pierce Shield, PfMW goes away BEFORE Spell Turning even. With the current state of antimagic, chopping them up is by far the best option. I guess with v4's Breach, you still leave Stoneskin on the target, so if you're short on melee, Finger of Death might be useful. Rarely using save-or-dies is more of a personal preference, I guess. Holy Word: Like I said, it's too situationally useful for the party (and if you're like me and you have melee who are evil, you're kind of screwed), but yeah for enemies who always outlevel you, potentially too powerful. Regen: As a level 6 spell, it might make more sense. Even so, 6HP regen per round is just not something I would value all that highly. Why would you pick this over Heal? Regen only makes sense if it heals more damage total, but Heal heals you fully, so you don't need any more HP. Therefore the only use would be to counteract damage in combat. And in combat, if anyone starts taking damage, I'm immediately stepping back to Stoneskin. If that gets interrupted or I'm out of stoneskins or it's a character without stoneskins, 6HP a round is not going to save him in the vast majority of cases. I mean, maybe situationally, or to be able to cast spells instead of drinking potions to slowly recover against a Lich's Horrid Wilting, but I think it needs some utility besides pure HP recovery. Shield of the Archons: Infinite spell levels is alright, but I'm still going to lobby for immunity to Dispel/Remove. Also, a minor thing, but I think unique names like "Shield of the Archons" and "Shield of the Tana'ri" make the spell more memorable and immediately recognizable rather than a bland name like "Divine Shield." After a few hours of staring at the combat log, "Divine Shield" is going to draw a blank from me for a few seconds before I recognize what it is. Summon Death Knight: Being evil-only finally gives evil clerics something unique. Otherwise being Good is way way better mechanically in BG2 Anyway, I'm still lobbying for a way for Clerics to protect themselves against Dispel Magic, as well as a way, somehow someway, for the party to protect itself against Int drain!
  3. In general, I'm underwhelmed by level 6 and 7 divine (especially cleric) spells. Level 6: Aerial servant and Wondrous recall are the best of level 6 I can imagine Blade Barrier being good though I never use it Bolt of Glory is underpowered. Even if used just for fiends, 55 avg damage is barely 3 hits, no way I'm wasting a level 6 spell for half a round of one character's swings--barely worth the time casting it. Not to mention Fiends all have SR, so you probably wont even do that damage. Against Undead and below it's not even worth considering. 36 damage is ONE hit from Daystar Control Undead is super underpowered (what am I going to do even if I dominate a vampire? He can't drain the OTHER vamps, better to just chop him up) Elementals might be better with a different party composition, I'm already quite melee-heavy. Create Undead is underpowered too I think, THAC0 can't compare with Aerial Servant. Anyone powerful enough to warrant summons is already immune to Fear. (Plus my cleric using aTweaks' cleric script immediately starts Turning and they explode. Wonderful.) Dolorous Decay is a spell best used by enemies on players. Players don't want to cause long, drawn-out effects on enemies that are going to die in 5 rounds anyway I tried False Dawn a lot on vamps. Blinds them, yes, but I didn't notice the damage, if there was any. What's the attack roll penalty if you're blind? This should affect mages with a full complement of protection spells (minus SI: Evo), right? If so, maybe I'll try it and see if it affects their AI. If they can still timestop and Gate and Breach me, I'm not sure it's worth it. Fire Seeds--do they hurt mages under PfMW/Spell Turning? Always leery of party-unfriendly AoE spells (especially when I have Party AI On and the druid can just decide to chuck them at whoever my melee are attacking) Harm: 1 round cast time, in the middle of combat, on a front-line cleric who has no mirror image or stoneskin, means he's going to get interrupted 90% of the time. If he's not a front-line cleric, sending him against something with enough hitpoints to make casting Harm worth it is a risky proposition. Maybe cast time of 5 or something. Does Harm/Heal reverse effects on undead in BG2 engine? I don't remember. Heal is good, but I've never prepared it because potions are a dime a dozen and 1 round cast time is again a luxury I can't afford Physical Mirror is a spell I wouldn't pick unless it was level 2. How many times are you going to have trouble with arrows in BG2? Maybe in the final fight against Melissan where, IIRC, Ilasera is a deadshot? Even then, she'll just aim her arrows at someone else, as I'm sure SCS checks for this. Party-wide would be interesting, though situational. Sol's Searing Orb, 100 damage to a vamp or something at level 15 is not bad, but it's a ranged attack. How much Dex does your Cleric have? (Also, does PfMW protect against this? Does Spell Turning? If either, it's useless against Liches) How about making it an AOE that only affects undead, and does something like 1d8 per caster level. Then I would actually use it. Level 7: Summon Death Knight: with aTweaks installed, it's bugged for me atm Creeping doom: Good in theory, though Jaheira can't cast this yet so I haven't tried it. If you cast (directly) it at a mage, does his Spell Trap/Spell Turning block it? Also, you have to Breach away his Fireshields, right? Earthquake: Party-unfriendly, but might be useful when I get it. Finger of Death: I never use save or dies Firestorm: A party-unfriendly damage-over-time AOE. Hard to justify really, even with the safe zone. I'd rather send my melee to chop up enemy mages than sitting inside the safe zone. Greater Restoration: good I guess, just make sure your cleric isn't the one dominated/held/paralyzed/petrified/feebleminded so he can fix your other characters (Un)Holy Word: If you have any party members of the wrong alignment, you're screwed. Very situationally useful, and requires lots of game knowledge to know which enemies have low hit dice. (How many do regular mind flayers have? No clue.) Nature's Beauty: Again, the good spell is Druid-only Regeneration: HP regen is underpowered. If Druids are going to get a line of Regen spells, HP-regen at this rate should be maybe a level 6 spell. A level 7 Regen spell should either prevent things like diease/feeblemind/ability-score drain, or remove them once a round or something. I hate mind flayers. Shield of the Archons, I feel like it's rare enemy mages are casting spells directly at my cleric. For a level 7 spell that's good for one fight basically, it's kind of a waste. I think it would all of a sudden become very desirable if it were to protect against Dispel/Remove Magic, as I posted in another thread Sphere of Chaos is good Sunray: Very good Symbol of Death: Can't imagine anything with fewer than 60 hitpoints that I would fear enough to waste a level 7 spell on, plus the 1 round cast time is rough Symbol of Stunning: would be good if it weren't for the 1 round cast time Symbol of Weakness: -4 to STR/DEX/CON is not that impressive. Enemies are powerful because of their special abilities. Vamps can still dominate and level drain, Mind flayers can still eat my brain, Spirit trolls can still Greater Command. Also in 2E there's not much difference in modifiers between below-average and middle-of-the-road stats. Going from 14 to 10 doesn't change anything much.
  4. Been playing with SCS, this is by far the better way of doing it. For one, you have to wait until they do something to even show up, so they still have like a round or so of "full" invisibility. Second, you can't miss. Third, I don't think they should all be AOE; this gives RRR and Spell Thrust a niche.
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