16 replies to this topic

[Apsis]

Yup. Thats all there is, suggestions;

-Nerf and prevent the effects of charms from stacking. Yes i am looking at you clot and heart charms, and all the other oddities, dirty rat, cockroach etc. And most importantly cranium rat charm which is very common and gives +1 int, making all important stat checks trivial. Another thing that bugs me (heh!) is Kasseg cerebral thingies, also in line with CRC.

-Upgrade Nordoms bolts. Seriously this guy deserves some good +2 ones.

-Spell tweaks: I think something is very wrong with wizard spells in general making mages look like losers. To begin with, mages need some sort of protection from physical attacks. There's cloaak of warding spell but it needs a big brother too (around lvl 6 or so). Also high level spells are so easily resisted, like a deva, an aasimon, a phoenix and a dragon attacked a glabrezu the other day and it just flinched! I read somewhere in this forum about removing spell cutscenes but it just isnt worth it if involves too much work.

-Some sort of missile attack from enemies; like thugs with throwing daggers. There are some items that give AC bonus to missile attacks but i dont remember being hit by any. (hmm ice knife counts maybe?)

[ghostdog]

My only gripe with spells is the fact that level9 spells are almost worthless, since when you get them you're obviously going to use them mostly against high level fiends and their magic resistance makes them almost immune. There's nothing more annoying than casting celestial host with my 25-intelligence mage and having it nullified 90% of the time. I'd really like a tweak that bypasses magic resistance (at least with level 8-9 spells). The high magic resistance takes away all the fun of casting those spells.

It was actually funny that during the expanded deionarra quest, my mage killed the greater Glabrezu mainly with magic missile (which actually managed to land some hits) , while almost all high level spells were worthless.

[Daulmakan]

I'd really like a tweak that bypasses magic resistance (at least with level 8-9 spells). The high magic resistance takes away all the fun of casting those spells.

I concur with this. I'd definitely install such a tweak.

[Apsis]

So, namely Celestial Host, Abyssal Fury, Mechanus Cannon, Meteor Storm, Ignus' Fury and Deathbolt should ignore MR (and maybe save penalties at higer levels?). Its more of a fix really, i assume the issue is overlooked since the spells have no D&D counterpart to form a basis for a solution.

[Qwinn]

On the magic resistance thing: Yeah, I'm very much with you in that it's terribly frustrating as a mage. I'd -like- to do something about it as a fix, not a tweak. I don't think I can justify just arbitrarily picking various spells and removing their MR, though.

But, perhaps, the 2nd edition D&D rules can come to our rescue (along with scient). One thing I remember from my old rulebooks is that the MR roll is supposed to be adjusted by something. I forget if it's either the level difference between the caster and the target, or if it's just the caster level compared to a specific number (12, I think?).

Either way, it was supposed to add or subtract 5% based on the difference.

If it's caster vs. target level, then if the target is level 10 and your TNO is level 15, the target would add 25% to his MR roll. If it's just comparing to 12 or something, then the target would add 15% to the MR roll.

I don't have the old rulebooks anymore, but I know some of you do. Daulmakan, you do, right? Can you give us what the rules are on adjusting MR rolls? If scient is willing, I think this would be a very good way to address the issue. At least, it should -help-.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 January 2010 - 08:37 PM.

[Qwinn]

Oh, forgot to mention... I tested this extensively just now, and definitely none of those rules were implemented. With magic missile (which does multiple MR checks per cast), even with a 15th level mage casting at a level 1 creature who has 100% MR, they are all always resisted.

If anyone knows, how'd the other IE games handle it?

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 January 2010 - 08:42 PM.

[Qwinn]

You sure you're not thinking of 3rd spell resistance (which is a relative caster level check)? 2nd ed magic resistance is absolute (and annoying).

Pretty sure. I never owned the manuals for 3rd edition+.

EDIT: Here's a reference to it:

Magic resistance was changed so that a mage above 11th level would not impose a 5% penalty per mage level above 11th on an unwilling subject the mage was casting a spell on.

http://en.wikipedia....geons_&_Dragons


So that indicates I saw it -somewhere-. Was it in 1st edition and removed for 2nd? That would suck if so. It would really help us here.

Looking at that link, yeah, looks like the books I had were 1st edition, and they removed that for 2nd edition. Damn.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 January 2010 - 09:16 PM.

[Qwinn]

Still, I think it remains a good idea for how to handle the problem, it just can't go in the Fixpack. But I think a "Magic Resistance: 1st Edition Rules" tweak would be fitting and a good way to address the problem. Now we just have to beg scient to do it

Qwinn

[ghostdog]

That tweak sounds good.

:PLz scient!:

[scient]

I think I know the check that handles MR compare. But what exactly am I doing? Layout how tweak mechanic should work and I'll look into it.

[Qwinn]

The (1st edition D&D) mechanic would be: For every level of the caster above 11, consider the target's MR reduced by 5. So if target has 50 MR, and you cast at him with TNO as a 15th level mage, his MR is treated as 30.

An alternate way to implement that might be easier might be to add 5 to the target's random roll, rather than adjusting the MR. So, target is still considered as 50% MR, but when caster is 15th level, add +20 to the random roll, rather than subtract 20 from the MR. That way you don't have to worry about MR going into negatives (not that it should matter, but).

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 20 January 2010 - 08:11 AM.

[scient]

The (1st edition D&D) mechanic would be: For every level of the caster above 11, consider the target's MR reduced by 5. So if target has 50 MR, and you cast at him with TNO as a 15th level mage, his MR is treated as 30.

An alternate way to implement that might be easier might be to add 5 to the target's random roll, rather than adjusting the MR. So, target is still considered as 50% MR, but when caster is 15th level, add +20 to the random roll, rather than subtract 20 from the MR. That way you don't have to worry about MR going into negatives (not that it should matter, but).

Qwinn

The MR would never be permantly modified (or at least it shouldn't). What I could do is adjust it for compare against roll or something like that. I'll look into it and see what best method is based on this. Hopefully, this shouldn't be too hard to do but I understand now what you want.

Edited by scient, 20 January 2010 - 08:20 AM.

[Daulmakan]

The BG2 Tweakpack has a component that imposes saving throws penalties when the caster is several levels higher than the victim of the spell. Mayhaps you guys could take a glance at that and switch it to -MR% instead?

[Thagdarf]

Just a suggestion, not related to any rules anywhere. You could also give spells -5% magic resistance per level, or per level above 1st. Would still give 9th level spells either -45% or -40% to the targets magic resistance, while lower level spells like Elysiums Tears on level 3 would give either -15% or -10%, hardly noticeable.

It should keep most spells have at least a decent 50/50 chance to work against opponents of roughly equal difficulty compared to the spell used.