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Protection Against Dispel Magic


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Hicuty: It sounds more like you have an issue with SCS than SR, especially since not playing with SR wouldn't solve this issue anyways.

 

When an enemy has a real penchant for Dispel/Remove Magic, I will sometimes send in a single character or creature that has some kind of buff on it while my other characters remain out of sight to draw out the dispels. You can't really do that for the lich in the wall encounter, though - nowhere to hide, and no way to summon a creature in advance. And from a non-meta-gaming view, there's no way to even tell there's a lich in there. An encounter specifically designed to mess you up.

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I don't have this issue in normal scs runs tbh. Because SI: Abjuration is good enough to counter dispel magic. With spell revisions, i am prone to be bodied by any caster who casts dispel magic. You can't play the chess game with them because they don't have to. All they need to is spam dispel magic. I feel like Spell trap, spell deflection, etc is useless with SR because what will they protect when your most essential buffs are gone?

Edited by Hicuty
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The real problem is that the way Dispel Magic works is stupid. The fact that Bioware created SI:Abj as a band-aid over that stupidness doesn't make it not stupid.

 

The fact that DM should be nerfed, and the subsequent fact that there's no good way to do so, has been discussed at length in the SR forums.

 

Maybe the answer isn't to try to nerf DM, but just to stop it being spammed.

 

 

 

- Then Lich ... released 3 dispel magics in a sequencer as well as ...

Slightly OT but wtf is this?

Davidw can we get some kind of setting in SCS to prevent enemies loading sequencers with three of the same spell?

Why? Its perfectly legal, last time I looked.
Perfectly legal according to the DM as embodied by the game's source code. But show me a group of D&D players who don't apply some house rules. Show me the DM who governs precisely according to the PHB and DMG and never permits exceptions or tweaks.

 

What we do here is create house rules. That's what mods are. Shit, the unmodded games are full of them. So if I feel like changing what is legal, or customary, or whatever, and the answer that comes back is "can't - because of SCS" then you should be prepared for the inevitable follow-up question which is "can SCS be flexible or offer options as to how it handles this issue?"

 

I mean, is there a list of possible sequencers somewhere? Is it done algorithmically? I read in numerous places that SCS creates "sequencers" on the fly in response to detected pre-buffing by the player, but IIRC you have said that isn't true. Is this kind of thing user-accessible? Can it be made user-accessible without eating up an inordinate amount of (valuable, rare) free time?

 

Because hicuty does have a point: the vanilla game sets up this "mage duels" situation which is imperfect but kind of cool in concept. SCS makes AI mages better at operating in that system, and SR makes the system itself work better. Until SCS realizes wait, it can do better by just smashing the system to smithereens with repeated spammage of a stupid 3rd-level spell. And just like that, it becomes less fun instead of more fun.

 

Maybe Dispelling Screen can cast an undispellable subspell that sets the detectable state for SI:Abj for 3 rounds or so, just to slow down the spamming.

 

Frankly maybe the real answer is to just allow GOI to block DM. That's always been an utterly nonsensical exception to the rules as written IMHO.

Edited by subtledoctor
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Hmm. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I've never thought (M)GoI was particularly good for the player, especially against SCS targeting, so this gives it a greater purpose - doubly so because it would also protect against players' Inquisitor spam and such*. It would also only apply to the mage, so it also doesn't really step on Dispelling Screen's toes per se. And funnily enough, it would also make Spell Thrust serve a little more of a purpose at 3rd level in BG1, since it would be equivalent in level to Dispel Magic and serve as your way to dispel BG1 mages' MGoI - without it, you could conceivably not have any way to fight a MGoI mage if you only have access to 3rd level spells.

 

I'm tempted to try it out, but it would no doubt just mess up SCS's AI something fierce.

 

*Actually, can someone explain how opcode 102 works exactly to me? SR's MGoI specifies it against levels 1-3, but then also manually specifies immunity to AoE spells that are of 3rd level and lower? Why is that necessary? And does opcode 102 protect against innate/special type spells, too...including externalized to .spl item effects?

Edited by Bartimaeus
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I very vaguely recall that there were very good reasons why GOI could not be made to block DM. Probably along the lines of "it'll break SCS!" as you say.

 

Best I can think is, make GOI set the detectable state for SI:Abj so SCS won't use DM against it. But it will use ST/SW/PM/etc. to remove the GOI, and then it can use DM to remove buffs. Of course even then you might still have a Dispelling Screen up, so DM still wouldn't work... eh, this might take things too far in the other direction. :(

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I'm with Hicuty, getting dispelled too often can be frustrating, and in BG2 you'll have no choice but face casters much higher in level than you.

 

What about simply creating a "dispelling screen, personal" that grants immunity to dispel for 5 turns flagged as SI: Abj like in older versions of SC? not cumulative with normal dispelling screen and maybe as an optional component, if someone doesn't want it.

 

Or in alternative, adding immunity to dispel to Spell Shield (the first spell protection that is brought down, so it doens't become to difficult to tear down a spellcaster's protections).

Edited by Wyrd
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Replying to Subtledoctor:

 

At a technical level: v30 of SCS hardcodes its sequencers deep in the core AI code. V32 will externalise it to some degree, but not much, and the externalizations are for my benefit - there are far too many ways to break it for me to want to expose it to end users.

 

At a conceptual level, I don’t make changes - even optional changes - to SCS without some kind of rationale. I’m not going to add an option to block repeated spells in sequencers without a reason, any more than I’m going to add an option to block sequencers being used on dwarves without a reason.

 

But you’re now giving a reason: triple-RM sequencers are overpowered in the SR ecosystem. If that was true in the vanilla game I’d have some time for it, but it looks from the discussion here that it arises in SR because SR removes SI:Abjuration. The whole point of SR is to rebalance the spell system; I’m not going to impose further changes on the SCS side.

 

SR significantly reduces the ability of solo spellcasters to protect against multiple Remove Magics. If that’s intentional, fine. If it’s not, SR should rethink its spell system. Since Demi and others have been complaining about SI for years, I assume they’re happy with the consequences of its removal, but in any case I work with the spell system I’m given.

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I'm with Hicuty, getting dispelled too often can be frustrating, and in BG2 you'll have no choice but face casters much higher in level than you.

 

What about simply creating a "dispelling screen, personal" that grants immunity to dispel for 5 turns flagged as SI: Abj like in older versions of SC? not cumulative with normal dispelling screen and maybe as an optional component, if someone doesn't want it.

 

Or in alternative, adding immunity to dispel to Spell Shield (the first spell protection that is brought down, so it doens't become to difficult to tear down a spellcaster's protections).

So our ideas here are:

  1. Leave everything as it is.
  2. Don't let DM/RM be an exception to (M)GoI, thereby protecting you from its effects. The effect is that your GoI must be dispelled by normal antimagic (Secret Word et al.) before DM/RM can be cast upon you.
  3. Make Dispelling Screen single target (self-target only?) and not be dispelled if DM/RM is cast upon you. Same as above, but with DS instead of the GoIs.
  4. Spell Shield also gives protection against DM/RM. Same as above, but with SS instead.

 

I don't particularly like #4, since it rather creates too much overlap with Dispelling Screen when it already feels like they're too similar spells at the same spell level. #3 I do not feel too strongly about either way - I feel like the design of the spell is fine as-is, and I already like using it to protect fighters and priests, especially because SRR's Remove Magic has a smaller radius than SR's, which means less chance of the party getting mass dispelled multiple times in a row. As-is, it also makes sense as one of the very few protection spells besides Mirror Image and Stoneskin to take as a sorcerer, outside of triple-firing sequencers. #2 is the one I like most for reasons I started earlier, I think. Like subtledoctor said, there may be other reasons some people discussed in years past to discourage this change, though.

Edited by Bartimaeus
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The protection spells should be stacked to a clear ... let's say power and levels. This means that say invisibility can be dispelled even if you have a dispelling screen on... cause you would be impossible to be seen othervise. But say Protection from Magical Items wouldn't be dispellable this way.
Still no map/chart like this on what does what and in which case ?

 

And to me, DM/RM's are way too powerful for the opponent simply cause of the mechanics used in them, so I would restrict it to cancel spells spells lower than 5 ... and PfMWs, if it has no other protections. But that's more clear if the table would be there...

 

Stacking spells effects are in my oppinion the most effective way to realize all of this protection stuff, and counters.

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So our ideas here are:

 

 

  1. Leave everything as it is.
  2. Don't let DM/RM be an exception to (M)GoI, thereby protecting you from its effects. The effect is that your GoI must be dispelled by normal antimagic (Secret Word et al.) before DM/RM can be cast upon you.
  3. Make Dispelling Screen single target (self-target only?) and not be dispelled if DM/RM is cast upon you. Same as above, but with DS instead of the GoIs.
  4. Spell Shield also gives protection against DM/RM. Same as above, but with SS instead.

 

2. It sounds great. That would make GoI a decent spell pick.

3. Dispelling screen can still be aoe but caster get the benefit of immunity for a duration.

4. That could be an option but i liked other 2 more:D

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The protection spells should be stacked to a clear ... let's say power and levels. This means that say invisibility can be dispelled even if you have a dispelling screen on... cause you would be impossible to be seen othervise. But say Protection from Magical Items wouldn't be dispellable this way.

Still no map/chart like this on what does what and in which case ?

 

And to me, DM/RM's are way too powerful for the opponent simply cause of the mechanics used in them, so I would restrict it to cancel spells spells lower than 5 ... and PfMWs, if it has no other protections. But that's more clear if the table would be there...

 

Stacking spells effects are in my oppinion the most effective way to realize all of this protection stuff, and counters.

DM/RM are definitely...strange for their spellcasting level vs. their level of power. Useless against higher level characters, even a single one, while overwhelmingly powerful against lower level characters, particularly if there are lots of them. To do something like you suggested, though, in restricting what spellcasting level spells DM/RM and dispel, would probably mean removing the dispel magic opcode altogether and trying to emulate it using sectype stuff. I guess you could reserve the dispel magic opcode for friendly characters only, to dispel enchantments cast upon them and such. Not completely sure how I feel about that idea - might be more trouble than its worth. I'm reading about 3rd edition's Dispel Magic, and it seems like a fairer implementation of the spell: if you want to try to dispel *all* magic on a character, it has to be single-targeted...OR you can make it a mass target to dispel just *one* spell per character. That makes way more sense, but it would be a feat to create in the Infinity Engine.

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Hmm. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I've never thought (M)GoI was particularly good for the player, especially against SCS targeting, so this gives it a greater purpose - doubly so because it would also protect against players' Inquisitor spam and such*. It would also only apply to the mage, so it also doesn't really step on Dispelling Screen's toes per se. And funnily enough, it would also make Spell Thrust serve a little more of a purpose at 3rd level in BG1, since it would be equivalent in level to Dispel Magic and serve as your way to dispel BG1 mages' MGoI - without it, you could conceivably not have any way to fight a MGoI mage if you only have access to 3rd level spells.

 

I'm tempted to try it out, but it would no doubt just mess up SCS's AI something fierce.

 

Yep.

 

I very vaguely recall that there were very good reasons why GOI could not be made to block DM. Probably along the lines of "it'll break SCS!" as you say.

 

Best I can think is, make GOI set the detectable state for SI:Abj so SCS won't use DM against it. But it will use ST/SW/PM/etc. to remove the GOI, and then it can use DM to remove buffs. Of course even then you might still have a Dispelling Screen up, so DM still wouldn't work... eh, this might take things too far in the other direction. :(

This wont work: on SR installs SCS doesnt check for SI:Abjuration. Edited by DavidW
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I am not underleveled. In fact i am over lvl 20 when facing most of the Liches. I can solo ScS without a problem. Timestop is not an issue when your buffs up because Lich can dispel X amount of your buff in a given time. Not all of your buffs. Especially when you can cast spell shield after timestop ends. With SR all of your buffs are dispelled by a level 3 spell which you can't prevent from in any way.

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So our ideas here are:

  1. Leave everything as it is.
  2. Don't let DM/RM be an exception to (M)GoI, thereby protecting you from its effects. The effect is that your GoI must be dispelled by normal antimagic (Secret Word et al.) before DM/RM can be cast upon you.
  3. Make Dispelling Screen single target (self-target only?) and not be dispelled if DM/RM is cast upon you. Same as above, but with DS instead of the GoIs.
  4. Spell Shield also gives protection against DM/RM. Same as above, but with SS instead.

On point 3 I was suggesting of creating two different spells rather than replacing the current Aoe Dispelling Screen:

Dispelling Screen: Personal - only affect caster and Dispelling Screen (AoE) - works like the current Dispelling Screen

 

In alternative (I don't know if it can be implemented), when you cast Dispelling Screen you can choose wheter is Personal or AoE. ScS mages would use the personal version of course.

 

 

 

Seems like OP is severely underleveled, you just can't solo a SCS timestop using enemy without having timestop yourself, buffs or not

Imho it's not just a question of solo mages (who indeed suffers from this change, bg 2 is full of high level wizards), if SCS mages use x3 dispel magic sequencers, a standard 5-6 party will get dispelled even with Dispelling Screen active.The lack of a reliable source of protection from dispelling in the current SR is big change compared to vanilla that has a big effect on gameplay and its worthy, imho, at least an optional component (a la nwn deflection).

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