Protection Against Dispel Magic

[Bartimaeus]

 

An AoE projectile that's the minimum size might work, too. Are other single target spells affected like this, like trying to cast Barkskin on an SD character? That would be silly if we had to convert every buff to use the same minimum size AoE projectile to make them work for SD.

 

On the subject of annoyances like that, Haste not granting movement speed for Free Action characters is pretty annoying, too, but I don't think there's anything to be done about it.

Except not if you have AoE deflection installed.

 

I don't think this has anything to do with SR; it's vanilla behavior AFAICT. I don't think it's a big deal for most spells - any mage that can protect himself with Deflection can buff himself just fine. If you really need to add some buffs from an external source (Barkskin, Chaotic Commands... not much else) it can be done before you put of the Deflection. But healing spells are different, and more likely to need casting mid-combat while the Deflection is already up.

 

Plus Deflection spells have kind of a long duration; they fairly often hang around for a long time after a battle is done, when I would like to be healing and moving on. Another solution might be to simply drop all Deflections' duration to 1 turn.

 

As far as Free Action, I'm agnostic. It is such a powerful protection, immunizing you from some real game-ending possibilities, that I think it's worth sacrificing Haste for. From a risk-reward standpoint, I think that is a perfectly fine decision to be faced with.

 

The AoE Spell Deflection subcomponent only works by manually specifying each spell you want to be deflected by SD, so you simply wouldn't specify buffs.

 

Yeah, nothing to do with SR, but something it could fix if it really wanted to. The GoIs have this same problem, though, so I'm not a hundred percent sure I would be in favor of "fixing" it anyways, unless you can make it consistent with GoI.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[subtledoctor]

I mean, any reason why cure spells, specifically, need a power level? Why shouldn't they behave just like Dispel in this way? Bioware went in this direction between BG1 and BG2 when they made cure spells bypass MR. Seems to me they should equally bypass spell protections. (Or, alternatively, should not bypass MR.)

 

The main concern is, would setting their power level to zero have any unintended consequences. Shouldn't, right? You only cast them on allies, aside from one instance in the Temple quest. So there shouldn't be any tactical consequences... _right?

[Bartimaeus]

I mean, ironically, I've used them against Spell Deflection-ed mages before, but only a very rare few times as an emergency SD depletion method. I just don't like it because it's then inconsistent with other spells. What if I want to cast Negative Plane Protection on an SD-ed mage? Shall we set all targetable buffs to power level 0 as well? I am not against that, necessarily, assuming there aren't any other repercussions from it, but I would like it to be consistent.

 

(e): Although this would be a problem if there were any dual-use spells. For example, if Cure Wounds spells ever did damage against undead while Cause Wounds spells healed them, but you could work around that via race-targeted .effs if it were to ever happen, and it's not currently a problem.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[kjeron]

What if I want to cast Negative Plane Protection on an SD-ed mage? Shall we set all targetable buffs to power level 0 as well? I am not against that, necessarily, assuming there aren't any other repercussions from it, but I would like it to be consistent.

Power level 0 effects cannot be removed with opcodes 229/230.

[Bartimaeus]

So that's right out, then. Thanks. It would then become a case of only instant effects (such as the Cure Wounds spells) being an exception. I'm not certain that I'm in favor, but if people feel strongly enough about it, most likely what I would do is simply add notes to the Cure Wound spells' descriptions to say that they are not affected by spell immunity (e.g. Globes) or spell deflection.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Ulb]

Maybe this is a silly question, but isn't the deflection opcode spell level specific? So, what's stopping you from setting spells that are supposed to go through deflection to spell level 11?

[Bartimaeus]

...I wonder if that would actually work. Make targetable buffs have a power level of like 11, and then make Breach (and Pierce Shield) target sectypes up to level 11. Although, that would mean if you used a targetable buff on an enemy (such as mages' level 1 Protection from Evil), it would be ridiculously powerful, haha. That's an exploit someone would have to know about to use, almost certainly, but it would still be there.

 

(e): Wait, I'm a dummy: it would not, since SD wouldn't protect up to that level, which is the entire freaking point. Whoops, .

Edited October 17, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Ulb]

You could/might even be able to set up a second "dummy" spell that's being cast from the first spell and does nothing but "burn" the appropriate amount of spell levels when cast on enemies, if you really wanted to prevent people from failing to burn off spell protections by spamming Protection from Evil at enemies..

[Jarno Mikkola]

...if you really wanted to prevent people from failing to burn off spell protections by spamming Protection from Evil at enemies..

In that case, they can only blame themselves, as the spells projectile hits only friendly targets. It being a protection spell and all, just like you can't target a hostile Fire Elemental with Protection from Fire. That would be a trick.