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SR V4 final


kreso

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Yes, you read it correctly. :)

Anyhow; a lot of bugfixing, desc updating and tweaking in progress. Should be ready soon.

Need some suggestion for 6th level Stone to Flesh spell. This is now worthless (it was always, tbh) given you can remove petrification with lower levels spells that do even more than that.

AI won't use this spell.

Any ideas? It shouldn't be offensive damage, nor disabling. My fisrt idea was Greater Heroism (Fear immunity, THAC0 +4, +4 saves, extra HP equal to caster level; max 20). Good enough for a 6th level slot? Can be cast on anybody.

 

One notable tweak (I'll update IR as well due to this, with a couple extra install options) in SR is that Free Action and Chaotic commands spells no longer overlap. PReviously they both protected vs Stun, Hold, Paralyze etc.

Now they're seperate. CC prevents stun, confusion, domination, psi attacks etc. It no longer prevents Hold, Paralyze and similar.

FA no longer stops stun.

CC also has shorten duration (5 turns), but will prevent all stun sources while active (previously it stopped only PW:Stun).

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Yes, you read it correctly. :)

Anyhow; a lot of bugfixing, desc updating and tweaking in progress. Should be ready soon.

Need some suggestion for 6th level Stone to Flesh spell. This is now worthless (it was always, tbh) given you can remove petrification with lower levels spells that do even more than that.

AI won't use this spell.

Any ideas? It shouldn't be offensive damage, nor disabling. My fisrt idea was Greater Heroism (Fear immunity, THAC0 +4, +4 saves, extra HP equal to caster level; max 20). Good enough for a 6th level slot? Can be cast on anybody.

 

One notable tweak (I'll update IR as well due to this, with a couple extra install options) in SR is that Free Action and Chaotic commands spells no longer overlap. PReviously they both protected vs Stun, Hold, Paralyze etc.

Now they're seperate. CC prevents stun, confusion, domination, psi attacks etc. It no longer prevents Hold, Paralyze and similar.

FA no longer stops stun.

CC also has shorten duration (5 turns), but will prevent all stun sources while active (previously it stopped only PW:Stun).

I really like the Free Action/Chaotic Commands change (after all, stun is a mental status, not a movement status!). Mind Blank could probably do the same if it doesn't already. No real opinion on Stone to Flesh - Tenser's Transformation is kind of a similar spell, and it's already at 6th level...but obviously, it more targets the mage themselves than other characters. So I'm not sure.

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Greater Heroism: meh. Pretty typical buff.

 

How about Spell Evasion - like the IWD thief ability? Allow a mage to grant it to anybody. Would be pretty handy for a warrior or mage to have that. Something like "Enhanced Cat's Grace"

- set DEX to 20

- bonus to Breath saves (?)

- spell evasion

 

Would be EE-only, but given this is pure bonus, who cares?

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Proposed change-log:

 

- Insects (all 3 spells ) make target berserk instead of panicked (1 round, save vs death to avoid) - I tought this was implemented....

- Ice Storm (both mage and druid versions) now slow movement by 20%, not 50. Spell was OP before.

- Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades now can work together

- Globe of Blades does 2d8 slashing damage per round, no save

- Haste now only gives +4 to movement speed (was +6 before)

- Haste fatigue had a spell power of 3, which would make people under Globes/Deflection etc.immune to it. Now it's set to 0.

- Protection from Missiles is now caster-only.

- Waves of Fatigue debuff duration shortened to 3 rounds

- Flesh to Stone will kill the target after 5 rounds have passed if not cured

- Imp.Haste is now +4 to movement speed

- Prismatic Sphere is nerfed, it can no longer autokill people with poison damage, nor it does any damage at all. It inflicts various debuffs instead. (Maze, confusion, blindness, I'll probably add a few more like stupor, stun etc.) All debuffs will last for 1 round. Spell power of all effects is set to 0, to avoid depleting deflection charges. It's now a sort of debuff fireshield.

- Mind Blank now covers all Stun sources, no longer stops Hold stuff nor does it prevent divinations from working. It still keeps it's PW immunity.

- Spell Trap lasts for 5 turns

 

Stuff done via code (EE only)

I can't post screenshots here. Bugger. But here. First screen shows how immunty to damage type or debuff should work. Second one shows what happens in SR.

This only happens if you install AoE deflection tweak. It "deletes" the spell name, so you get "Unaffected by effects from" message.

This is now changed, and the spell name gets correctly displayed. Not all is perfect however. Now casting a fireball in a group of hobgoblins will display;

x:Fireball;hobgoblin for each hobgoblin hit. It's not perfect, but imo much better.

 

Also on EE with Deflection, newly created subspells would still display damage animation even if the target was immune to damage type dealt. While EE 2.5 apperantly fixed this so spellcasting isn't interrupted, I've made it work as intended in SR.

 

Lastly, cloud-based spells like cloudkill and stationary AoE like Web will no longer deplete deflection charges or be blocked by them.

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"Lastly, cloud-based spells like cloudkill and stationary AoE like Web will no longer deplete deflection charges or be blocked by them."

"Flesh to Stone will kill the target after 5 rounds have passed if not cured"

"Waves of Fatigue debuff duration shortened to 3 rounds"

 

but why

 

(e): ok, but for real, Waves of Fatigue was already really short (though it does alternate between being a minor debuff and being crippling depending on constitution / how recently you've rested, which obviously makes it difficult to balance), I don't see that much reason to disable stationary AoE spells from being deflected (especially because the player is unlikely to deliberately have a Spell Deflection-ed character walk into such stationary AoE spells and waste SD charges...while the AI will now be highly vulnerable to spells such as Ice Storm if it isn't deflected), and Flesh to Stone...well, actually, I'm not sure about this one. FtS does have a pretty severe save penalty for its effect and spell slot, so maybe that's the right call, but it being so slow to take effect feels weird.

Edited by Bartimaeus
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Greater Heroism: meh. Pretty typical buff.

 

How about Spell Evasion - like the IWD thief ability? Allow a mage to grant it to anybody. Would be pretty handy for a warrior or mage to have that. Something like "Enhanced Cat's Grace"

- set DEX to 20

- bonus to Breath saves (?)

- spell evasion

 

Would be EE-only, but given this is pure bonus, who cares?

I won't code EE exclusives. Yet.

 

 

I really like the Free Action/Chaotic Commands change (after all, stun is a mental status, not a movement status!). Mind Blank could probably do the same if it doesn't already. No real opinion on Stone to Flesh - Tenser's Transformation is kind of a similar spell, and it's already at 6th level...but obviously, it more targets the mage themselves than other characters. So I'm not sure.

I can't change the stun mechanic w/o messing up AI mods. If I could, I would. Since Stun in BG2 is hugely more powerful than it should be, but alas...

+ 4 AC/Thac0, 20 HP and Fear immunity isn't enough to warrant a 6th level slot? Dual - classes would enjoy this immensly, even a mage built around physical combat/shapechanges. Mage/thief multis are also a contender. And it would likely put a mage above PW treshold.

 

"Lastly, cloud-based spells like cloudkill and stationary AoE like Web will no longer deplete deflection charges or be blocked by them."

"Flesh to Stone will kill the target after 5 rounds have passed if not cured"

"Waves of Fatigue debuff duration shortened to 3 rounds"

 

but why

Stacked Aoe is too effective at destroying Deflections.I could limit it to "clouds" only however...

Fts kills since you could get "stuck" if you get petrified and there is nobody to either save you or kill you. Same as Imprisonment, if you don't cast Freedom the imprisoned character will die.

It's not a "permanent" death, you'll just see the body appear.

Waves - 5 rounds is too much. The spell makes your mages pretty much use their offensive spells at full possible power, likely doubling their damage output. 18 seconds is enough. Just try this spell (trigger x3 Waves) under Alacrity in Yaga-Shura battle, and you'll see why this needs nerfing.

Sure you can get the same effect via Wish, but that's kinda random - and a 9th level slot.

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"Lastly, cloud-based spells like cloudkill and stationary AoE like Web will no longer deplete deflection charges or be blocked by them."

This is the right call I think.

 

Re: Waves of Fatigue: honestly I think you should forget about actually causing fatigue and just simulate the effects in a more controlled way:

- x-point penalty to Luck (-2?)

- set STR and CON to y (7?)

- maybe even add Slow on top of that

 

(This should be noticeably better than Slow, right? something like Slow+. Something like: Waves of Fatigue is to Slow as Improved Haste is to Haste.)

Edited by subtledoctor
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"Lastly, cloud-based spells like cloudkill and stationary AoE like Web will no longer deplete deflection charges or be blocked by them."

This is the right call I think.

 

Re: Waves of Fatigue: honestly I think you should forget about actually causing fatigue and just simulate the effects in a more controlled way:

- x-point penalty to Luck (-2?)

- set STR and CON to y (7?)

- maybe even add Slow on top of that

 

(This should be noticeably better than Slow, right? something like Slow+. Something like: Waves of Fatigue is to Slow as Improved Haste is to Haste.)

 

Well, there is an "Improved Slow" in PnP :D

. Thing is, this spell is rather unique now with it's stacking mechanic. Negative Luck is used on Malison already. Lowering STR and CON I just don't like, especially with vanilla strmod.2da files since even -1 penalty can be huge (i.e. from 19 to 18 is rather drastic for strenght).

 

(e): ok, but for real, Waves of Fatigue was already really short (though it does alternate between being a minor debuff and being crippling depending on constitution / how recently you've rested, which obviously makes it difficult to balance), I don't see that much reason to disable stationary AoE spells from being deflected (especially because the player is unlikely to deliberately have a Spell Deflection-ed character walk into such stationary AoE spells and waste SD charges...while the AI will now be highly vulnerable to spells such as Ice Storm if it isn't deflected), and Flesh to Stone...well, actually, I'm not sure about this one. FtS does have a pretty severe save penalty for its effect and spell slot, so maybe that's the right call, but it being so slow to take effect feels weird.

Ice Storm is still deflected :) . It's only 3 rounds, so I let it be.

But no worries, anything not 5th level or above will likely be thwarted by Globes. My main worries are Acid Fog and Cloudkill. There are very few mages immune to posion. And Acid isn't a common resistance either. But both of these spells are so canonical that I cannot envision ever changing them.

 

You're suggesting that FtS should kill instantly when petrification takes effect? (after 3 rounds, iirc)

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Stacked Aoe is too effective at destroying Deflections.I could limit it to "clouds" only however...

 

Fts kills since you could get "stuck" if you get petrified and there is nobody to either save you or kill you. Same as Imprisonment, if you don't cast Freedom the imprisoned character will die.

It's not a "permanent" death, you'll just see the body appear.

Waves - 5 rounds is too much. The spell makes your mages pretty much use their offensive spells at full possible power, likely doubling their damage output. 18 seconds is enough. Just try this spell (trigger x3 Waves) under Alacrity in Yaga-Shura battle, and you'll see why this needs nerfing.

Sure you can get the same effect via Wish, but that's kinda random - and a 9th level slot.

 

Hmm, I'm not sure I understand. How is a duration/stationery AoE effect more effective at destroying SD than, say, a Fireball? Just the fact that it's sticking around and basically creates a wall that SD-ed characters would be foolish to move into?

 

I obviously agree with Subtledoctor on the fact that Waves of Fatigue really shouldn't use the actual fatigue opcode (I just hate the idea of a spell that's mostly ineffective on the first cast and completely crippling on the second - the dichotomy between "a waste of a spell slot" and overpowered really just strikes me as a very bad spell design, and making the first casting even worse by shortening the duration is making me almost want to simply restore Chaos in its place instead), but I am also strongly against STR/DEX/CON stat penalties (and indeed, phased out virtually all of such penalties in both SRR and IRR due to their problematic nature - it's another dichotomy, same as Waves of Fatigue in my mind, where the stat penalty is often completely useless...or way too strong, ESPECIALLY if you aren't using 3rd edition style stats. 3rd edition style stats helps make stat penalties way more viable and balanced, but it's not the default, and I don't think most players use it even though I do, so...).

 

As for Flesh to Stone, yeah, I'm really not sure what the right call there is. It's a funky spell/effect, gameplay-wise...but it's also kind of iconic. It's whatever, I guess.

Edited by Bartimaeus
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Lastly, cloud-based spells like cloudkill and stationary AoE like Web will no longer deplete deflection charges or be blocked by them.

 

Balance wise, I think it makes sense. Too bad you can only be immune to each individual hit but not the whole ticking projectile.

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I'm not suggesting a stat penalty that stacks. I'm not suggesting anything that stacks. The spell replaces Chaos, and Chaos doesn't stack.

 

The way to do stat reductions right is to set the stat to some low value. You can't control what STRMOD.2da looks like but you can set STR to a value which will not give any bonuses.

 

As far as Malison already doing -luck: well, fatigue just imposes -luck so my suggestion is to make the luck penalty less central to what the spell does.

 

I mean I get the appeal of using the fatigue opcode - it's unique and very interesting. But literally everything I've read in favor of its current formulation is "it's great in triple sequencers." Maybe something like, an initial +6 fatigue that does not stack (subspell with 206) followed by +3 fatigue that does stack. Or whatever numbers work to make the initial casting meaningful, and subsequent castings less extreme in multiplying the effects.

 

Or actually do waves: +8 from round 1, no save; bump it +2 in round 2 if you fail a save; and bump it another +2 on round 3 if you fail another save. The first +8 doesn't stack but the rest do, so in a sequencer, you could end up with anywhere from +8 to +20, depending on six different saving throws. (Again, adjust the numbers as needed, I forget where the penalties start kicking in. But you can see what I'm getting at: a triple sequencer makes the result more drastic and forces you to make more saving throws to avoid extra-bad effects; but a single casting of the spell can hold its own against other debuffs.)

Edited by subtledoctor
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Since I'm doing an SCS release atm anyway, is there anything I should be tweaking based on changes from v4b15 (which was my baseline)?

 

I'm not going to make any substantial changes since I don't want to risk breaking things or delaying my official release, but I don't mind tweaking a library file or two if it's necessary.

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