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Limiting and/or countering Time Stop


toxin

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I wanted to share my thoughts on Time Stop, In accordance with my duty as OP guy :D

 

First, I think it is ridiculously OP. If a high level enemy casts it, you have practically lost. He can do something like Dispel + Dragon's Breath + Comet and you're done for. If you throw Improved Alacrity into the mix it's even worse (maybe gating in a couple of Pit Fiends to finish off what's left of your party). Considering it will easily take you more than one round to remove the contingency defenses, it's just a question of whether the AI happens to choose TS you're basically screwed. Personally I hate relying on chance like that, where if the AI chooses strategy X I win, but if it chooses Y I lose. Of course the same is true when used against the AI, especially considering DB and Comet which bypass MR (AKA the game's cheesy way to make fights harder).

 

The way I see it, TS is flawed for two reasons:

1. It is similar to sequencer/contingency spells in that it essentially allows you to "trade" a single spell with multiple others, except all the sequencers limit the level of spells you can trade - even the 9th level contingency. Considering TS also allows you to choose the exact spells you want to use (after casting it), exactly who you want to trigger, and exactly where you want to position yourself, I think the level should be even lower, say 7th. Of course I have no idea if this can be technically done :)

2. It shouldn't stack with Improved Alacrity. I mean TS was clearly intended to provide you with 3 rounds / spells, and IA just makes it ridiculous, especially considering powerful spells with short casting times (e.g. PWK). Again, no idea if this is technically feasible.

3. There is no way to protect yourself from its effects. How about some sort of "Temporal Anchor" spell that protects the party from TS effects? Having witnessed Demogorgon quickly destroy my main character during a session of TS, I know the opcode is there...

 

What do you think?

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Problem is, enemies scripted with Time Stop cast the next 2 rounds of spells on the assumption that they are untouchable. If you give immunity to Time Stop to Charname, he'll be able to just whale on the enemy while the enemy thinks they are immune.

 

Since Time Stop grants a Mage complete immunity from everything for 2 rounds, my solution is to simply replace the spell altogether with a combination of Absolute Immunity and a custom Globe of Invulnerability that blocks 9th level spells.

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Interesting, that could work... Provided of course that custom globe is susceptible to something like Ruby Ray of reversal and above (otherwise I don't see a big difference from the current situation). And/or perhaps make that custom globe susceptible only to 9th level spells (as those should be just as powerful as the TS [or whatever it's renamed to be]).

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Interesting, that could work... Provided of course that custom globe is susceptible to something like Ruby Ray of reversal and above (otherwise I don't see a big difference from the current situation).

Well, you want it to be close to the current situation. Close enough that the AI can still function effectively. And this alternative is still very different from Time Stop, since here you can 1) cast Protection from Energy or the like, to counter what the enemy is doing with his two rounds of free casting; or 2) run away (!)

 

I'd say, something like this should be very very short duration, just like Time Stop, and vulnerable to Spellstrike. That would be balanced IMHO.

 

As for Improved Alacrity, I'm working on changes for that as well. I'm thinking, create an .eff file that hits the caster with a zero-duration Alacrity effect. (So you can cast immediately after the effect is applied, but it doesn't give you a duration for spamming infinite MMs with the RoV.) Then for 5-10 rounds, apply the .eff ever 3 seconds, or maybe every 2 seconds. Voila: alacrity without the cheese. Make it an innate abilithey, so you can only use it once per day.

 

That's very theoretical though, it needs to be tested.

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Technically, many tweaks wouldn't really "mess up". They would cause enemies to behave slightly odd. It's easy enough to test what you want - the Lich in WK (final seal guardian; forgot his name) is scripted to use Alacrity. Change the spell, CLUA him in and see what happens.

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Thread-o necro!

 

Here's a simple idea to address Time Stop: make it last 3 rounds, and apply a Slow effect to the caster during that time. Like, you can move and cast through stopped time but it's sluggish.

 

Or even not a full Slow effect, just a 2-3 point casting time and movement rate penalty. As if stopping time makes magic sluggish.

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Or even not a full Slow effect, just a 2-3 point casting time and movement rate penalty. As if stopping time makes magic sluggish.

This doesn't fix the spells that have instant casting time, as they don't suffer casting time penalties... And the casting time max by the by is still the 9, so this doesn't effect them either.

 

In vanilla BG2EE, there's 679 spells that have the instant casting time. Yeah, these are not unintended SPCLxxx.spl nor SPWIxxx.spl's that a player would be able to use, but still.

And there are 383 spells that have the spellcast time of 9.

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Problem is, enemies scripted with Time Stop cast the next 2 rounds of spells on the assumption that they are untouchable. If you give immunity to Time Stop to Charname, he'll be able to just whale on the enemy while the enemy thinks they are immune.

 

Since Time Stop grants a Mage complete immunity from everything for 2 rounds, my solution is to simply replace the spell altogether with a combination of Absolute Immunity and a custom Globe of Invulnerability that blocks 9th level spells.

 

 

Thread-o necro!

 

Here's a simple idea to address Time Stop: make it last 3 rounds, and apply a Slow effect to the caster during that time. Like, you can move and cast through stopped time but it's sluggish.

 

Or even not a full Slow effect, just a 2-3 point casting time and movement rate penalty. As if stopping time makes magic sluggish.

 

I kinda prefer that first option. Presumably, the AI thinks that it is immune for the time that it takes to cast the given spells while under TS. Thus, if the cre is slowed (or delayed), and it's sequence continues after TS has been cast, then it will continue to 'assume' that it is untouchable and thereby act 'dumb' in those following rounds...

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