Rebalancing spellcasting and other aspects of clones/images?

[subtledoctor]

I'm trying to come up with a way to restrict a spellcaster to casting, say, 3rd-level spells. (Actually I would like to apply this to a clone for a Simulacrum-like spell... but first step is to figure out whether it can be done at all.)

I'm not coming up with anything. (But I may just be tired.) Anyone have any ideas? Or, if not ideas to reach that exact goal, ideas to reach a similar goal?

[subtledoctor]

Maybe... at install-time, populate SIMULACR.SPL with opcode 172 effects for every spell of 4th-level and higher that exists in the .IDS table? Does that sound crazy?

 

In the vanilla 8th-level Simulacrum spell, include permanent immunity to opcode 172 effects for the caster. Then the simulacrum should inherit the immunity, and thus resist the spell loss, and thus cast normally.

 

Am I crazy? I feel like this sounds crazy. Is there a more elegant way to achieve it?

[Jarno Mikkola]

Summoner/cloned characters level based level drain effect applied to the clone. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Ouh and make sure the clone is immune to restoration spell. So opcode #216.

[agb1]

#42 (0x2A) Spell: Wizard Spell Slots Modifier

Parameter #1: Slot Amount Modifier

Parameter #2: Spell Level

Description:
Alters the number of wizard spell slots available to the targeted creature(s), as specified by the 'Slot Amount Modifier' field, at the level specified by the 'Spell Level' field. Wizard spells are used by Bards, Sorcerers and Wizards in IWD2.
Known values for 'Spell Level' are:
0 Double spells
1 Level 1
2 Level 2
4 Level 3
8 Level 4
16 Level 5
32 Level 6
64 Level 7
128 Level 8
256 Level 9
For a 'Spell Level' of 0, the amount of spell slots is doubled for the level specified by the 'Slot Amount Modifier' value and all levels below. The target creature(s) must have at least 1 slot at the selected level to have their slot count changed. If the resultant slot count is negative, the creature is given 12 slots.
'Statistic Modifier' can be positive or negative.

You could exploit the "if negative" behavior to avoid having to read each level; just set level 4 through 9 to -100 (which will reset to 12), then set again to -12 to reduce to zero.

[subtledoctor]

If you lose slots, but the slots are filled, don't the memorized spells remain? With a clone there is no 'spellbook,' only what you can see under the memorized spells button. So I really want to eliminate *memorized* spells.

 

Jarno yeah, level drain is an option. But not ideal because I don't want to reduce other stats/characteristics. It's a good idea though.

[agb1]

What about level drain and then level restore?

[Jarno Mikkola]

Jarno yeah, level drain is an option. But not ideal because I don't want to reduce other stats/characteristics. It's a good idea though.

What stats are you talking about... cause the level drain only effects the summoned creatures hit points and usually if you get some thing to cast more spells into melee range, you are doing something wrong and maybe the less hit points is a good thing cause it pretty much should be dead in my books, not be the party tank that infinite hit points gives it the ability to be.

[Ardanis]

I think there was an opcode to wipe memorized spells starting with the highest level.

 

Maybe... at install-time, populate SIMULACR.SPL with opcode 172 effects for every spell of 4th-level and higher that exists in the .IDS table? Does that sound crazy?

 

Since you like to have you mods installed late anyway, I think it should accomplish the task. Not very elegant maybe, but certainly easily doable.

[subtledoctor]

Okay, if nothing else occurs to me then I think I'm going to try to code this up, maybe this weekend. Something along the lines of:

- 6th level: uses the Simulacrum effect for a 60% strength clone, and the clone is limited to 2nd-level spellcasting

-7th level: uses the Simulacrum effect for a 60% strength clone, and the clone is limited to 4th-level spellcasting

- 8th level: vanilla Simulacrum. 60% strength clone, full spellcasting

- 9th level, new spell: use Project image opcode for 100% clone with full spellcasting, but do not (necessarily) render the original frozen/invisible.

 

The broad idea is, Illusionists can apply the principles of the Shadow Monsters/Shades line of spells to their mirror image clones, making more useful, semi-substantial clones imbued with progressively more powerful magical abilities. And do away with the semi-useless Mislead and the weirdness of Project Image being kind of more powerful than the higher-level Simulacrum.

 

Not sure what to do about invisibility with respect to these... maybe keep them separate. So Illusionists would have two "lines" of spells:

- Invisibility

- Invisibility 10' Radius

- Improved Invisibility

- Shadow Door

- Mass Invisibility

And then the illusionary summons:

- Reflected Image

- Mirror Image

- Shadow Monsters

- Demi-Shadow Monsters

- Clone Spell #1

- Shades

- Clone Spell #2

- Clone Spell #3

- Clone Spell #4

 

That would give Illusionists something useful and unique at every level!

[agb1]

Having illusionary summon spells that also confer invisibility to the original caster (or others) would be a nice hybrid option for higher level versions or HLAs.

[subtledoctor]

Yeah - rather than giving 2nd/4th/full spellcasting, you could do something like

- 3rd-level spellcasting clone

- 3rd-level spellcasting + caster imp. invisible

- full spellcasting clone

- full spellcasting + caster imp. invisible

 

Theoretically you could also mix in disabling the caster's spellcasting - idea being, the clone casts spells instead of the caster, sort of like vanilla PI. And then the very high-level variant would allow simultaneous spellcasting by both. (I'm not sure how feasible this is to implement, though.)

 

You could also do more fun stuff - maybe at high levels the clone would be shapeshifted into a pit fiend... but in appearance only - it would have the physical and magical characteristics of a regular clone.

 

There are many, many ways to skin this cat. I lean toward simple versions, at least in a first pass. Can always make it more complex and interesting later, as I get more comfortable with the code.

[subtledoctor]

I think there was an opcode to wipe memorized spells starting with the highest level.

Circling back to this: I just found opcode 244, which I guess is what you were talking about. it's the effect in the Nishruu attack, draining memorized wizard spells. The problem with it here is similar to the problem with using level drain: since we can't know who is casting the Simulacrum spell or how many spells they have memorized, this doesn't let you control the outcome. There's no way to drain just enough spells to leave the ones that are 3rd-level and below, or something like that. Especially since so many people tend to mod their spell tables.

[Grammarsalad]

Okay, if nothing else occurs to me then I think I'm going to try to code this up, maybe this weekend. Something along the lines of:

- 6th level: uses the Simulacrum effect for a 60% strength clone, and the clone is limited to 2nd-level spellcasting

-7th level: uses the Simulacrum effect for a 60% strength clone, and the clone is limited to 4th-level spellcasting

- 8th level: vanilla Simulacrum. 60% strength clone, full spellcasting

- 9th level, new spell: use Project image opcode for 100% clone with full spellcasting, but do not (necessarily) render the original frozen/invisible.

 

The broad idea is, Illusionists can apply the principles of the Shadow Monsters/Shades line of spells to their mirror image clones, making more useful, semi-substantial clones imbued with progressively more powerful magical abilities. And do away with the semi-useless Mislead and the weirdness of Project Image being kind of more powerful than the higher-level Simulacrum.

 

Not sure what to do about invisibility with respect to these... maybe keep them separate. So Illusionists would have two "lines" of spells:

- Invisibility

- Invisibility 10' Radius

- Improved Invisibility

- Shadow Door

- Mass Invisibility

And then the illusionary summons:

- Reflected Image

- Mirror Image

- Shadow Monsters

- Demi-Shadow Monsters

- Clone Spell #1

- Shades

- Clone Spell #2

- Clone Spell #3

- Clone Spell #4

 

That would give Illusionists something useful and unique at every level!

I was going to suggest something like this.

 

It struck me: why would the illusion, created from (presumably) shadow magic have access to (e.g) full strength fireballs, when the canon suggests that shadow magic isn't quite compatible with evocation spells. Alternatively, why would the creature have access to any non illusion spells at all ( even if not specifically a shadow creature, but merely a ' normal' illusion?)

 

My first thought was perhaps be a bit crazy: to (e.g) remove all non illusion spells from the creature or replace spells from other schools with shadow variants. Giving the creature a set list--assuming i understand correctly-- is an excellent way to go about it. You can carefully balance the spells to be reasonable

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

Want a wrench? Here's a wrench:

 

INT is supposed to "protect" from Illusions. If you're going to expand the effectiveness of illusions/phantasms, you should also incorporate protections/immunities.

[subtledoctor]

@Fiann, I could pretty easily give a bonus to saves vs. illusion spells (in the EE 2.0 engine, anyway) for high INT scores. Problem is, I think there is there is only one offensive spell in the school of Illusion that forces the target to make a save (Spook?). Clones' magic counts as normal magic and there is no way to treat it otherwise.

 

Well okay there is a way: clone every single spell, and then make a second clone of every single spell, and put these second clones to be in the Illusion school. Edit the original spells to have two opcode 326 effects: one checks the gender of the caster and casts the second illusionary clone spells if the caster is an illusionary creature.

 

But, that would be incredibly bug-prone and way more work than it's worth...