Spells: Modified

[DM_Oromë_old]

Several standard NWN spells have been modified in various ways for the Untold Tales of Tolkien II. This includes spells for classes Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin and Wizard (Sorcerer).

This thread contains details of the affected spells and the changes that have been made.

DO NOT FILL THIS THREAD WITH POINTLESS POSTS!!

[Gloin]

DO NOT FILL THIS THREAD WITH POINTLESS POSTS!!

Give the man a chance to post the info please :P - Kev

[DM_Oromë_old]

- Timelocked Spells -

Timelocks have been added to several spells for different reasons, in the main they are in place to prevent abusive use.

Timelocked spells will not function until after the set duration, casting timelocked spells before this time will result in the caster losing their preparations. Each locked spell will send a message to the caster after it's lock has expired, only after the message has been received will the spell function as expected.

The following spells have been given a 30 second timelock:

Acid Fog
Ball Lightning
Blade Barrier
Bombardment
Bigby's Interposing Hand
Bigby's Forceful Hand
Bigby's Grasping Hand
Bigby's Clenched Fist
Bigby's Crushing Hand
Call Lightning
Chain Lightning
Cloud Kill
Cloud of Bewilderment
Cone of Cold
Creeping Doom
Delayed Blast Fireball
Destruction
Dirge
Drown
Earthquake
Entangle
Finger of Death
Fireball
Firebrand
Firestorm
Flame Lash
Flesh to Stone
Grease
Hammer of the Gods
Horrid Wilting
Ice Storm
Issac's Greater Missile Storm
Issac's Lesser Missile Storm
Implosion
Incendiary Cloud
Inferno
Mind Fog
Mestil's Acid Breath
Meteor Swarm
Phantasmal Killer
Scintilating Sphere
Slay Living
Spike Growth
Stonehold
Storm of Vengeance
Sunbeam
Sunburst
Undeath to Death
Vine Mine (each sub spell is locked independently)
Wail of the Banshee
Wall of Fire
Web
Weird

The following spells have been given a 240 second timelock:

Greater Sanctuary

[DM_Oromë_old]

- Spells with Durations -

The duration on some of the holding and mind spells has been halved in addition to the removal of the Extend Spell feat. The durations now work out at 1 round per 2 caster levels.

Spells with halved duration:

Bigby's Interposing Hand
Bigby's Forceful Hand
Bigby's Grasping Hand
Bigby's Clenched Fist
Bigby's Crushing Hand
Confusion
Fear
Hold Animal
Hold Monster
Hold Person

Some of the spells affected by this change do not use the timelock system, if DMs observe abusive use of these spells, they will become timelocked. I would prefer not to see this happen.

[DM_Oromë_old]

- Temporary Properties -

Spells giving temporary item properties have been changed to fit in with the much reduced power of the Untold Tales of Tolkien II item set.

Bless Weapon:
Damage has been reduced to 1d6 points of divine damage.

Dark Fire:
Damage has been reduced to 2d3 points of fire damage.

Flame Weapon:
Damage has been reduced to 1d6 points of fire damage.

Greater Magic Weapon:
Unchanged at this time; Exact change to be decided.

Magic Vestment:
Unchanged at this time; Exact change to be decided.

Shield of Faith:
Unchanged at this time; Exact change to be decided. (unlikely to change)

[DM_Oromë_old]

- Dispel and Breaching -

To make this read easier, when I use the word 'dispel' I am also referring to spell breach as they are based around the same system.

A difference in caster level between the caster of dispel and the caster of a spell effect is used along with a d20 roll to determine if an effect is removed or not. If dispel is cast from a scroll, the scroll innate level is used in place of the caster level.

Critical rolls are in place, 20 rolls always dispel, 1 rolls always fail.

A caster of dispel will receive a bonus to their attempts if they have taken spell focus in Abjuration spell school. Each stage of focus increases this bonus; Spell Focus: Abjuration, Greater Spell Focus: Abjuration and Epic Spell Focus: Abjuration.

The strength of the dispel dictates how many effects it will attempt to remove, this is further modified if the caster has reached epic caster level.

Lesser Dispel:
1 target, 1 area effect
Dispel:
1d2+1 target, 1d3+1 target (epic), 1 area effect
Greater Dispel:
1d3+1 target, 2d2+1 target (epic), 1 area effect

Lesser Spell Breach:
2 & Spell Resist Lowered by 3 target
Greater Spell Breach:
4 & Spell Resist Lowered by 5 target

Mordenkainen's Disjunction:
2d6+2 dispel, 4d4+2 dispel (epic) & 6 spell breach & Spell Resist Lowered by 10 target
1d4 dispel, 2d2 dispel (epic) & 1 spell breach & Spell Resist Lowered by 10 area effect

[DM_Oromë_old]

- Spells fixed -

Some people may have found that some of the standard NWN spells do not function as detailed by the descriptions.

The following spells have been changed to meet the descriptions given. Read in-game descriptions for the behaviour of these spells:

Horrid Wilting
Lesser Mind Blank
Mind Blank
Phantasmal Killer
Weird
Word of Faith

[DM_Oromë_old]

- Spells Changed Specific -

Bigby Spells:
Along with the timelock and halved duration, a reflex save has been added to all Bigby spells in addition to the tests already in place.

Epic Warding:
The amount that this spell can absorb has been reduced to a fixed 750 points of damage.

Harm:
The spell will only do 50% damage based on current hp.

Heal and Mass Heal:
When used on undead, these spells will now only do 50% damage based on current hp.

Issac's Greater Missile Storm:
The damage for each missile has been reduced to 1d6 points of magical damage.

Raise Dead and Resurrection:
This works as in Untold Tales of Tolkien. Chance of failure and even death.

Regen and Monsterous Regen:
It is not possible to stack these spells to gain a high regen rate. You are able to cast one of each regen effect per target. Total regen will be +9 per target when using both spells. Attempts to cast repeatedly on a target will result in the caster losing the preparations.

[DM_Oromë_old]

- Removed Spells -

The following spells have been removed:

Black Blade of Disaster
Timestop

[Visardi]

Lots of good changes here, time only will show how difficult sorcerers life will be from now on :D

[Visardi]

Some suggestions for Greater magic weapon and magic vestment: Instead of gaining bonus every 3rd lvl bonus should be gained every 4th lvl instead and duration dropped to 1 turn / lvl.

About spell timers, i think timers should be removed from spells below lvl 4, or at least the timer should be shorter like 10 seconds.

[GammaGm]

Can something be done with the spell clarity? It never ever works against dragon's fear aura, which one would hope it would. Its duration is way too short. Well either that or fear effects last way too long.

[Blackwind]

Dragons are the mightyist of creathers tho.

It does work but only lasts a short time due to being apotion

[Damazig]

Well, unfortunatly for me, I found out the hard way, reaching lvl 15 Mage I verify that Mage is indeed nerfed to hell, and can do nothing but Buff and stay away.

Even on PvP 1on1 I have realised that mages here are too weak, no matter what strategy...

With these rules, only NPC mages are any good for fighting, player mages will only do for Roleplay and Buff.

[Visardi]

That´s not awfully accurate, i also have lvl 15 sorcerer and ivé had no trouble at all with playing or even pvp.
When adventuring i admit that quite big part of my spells go to buffing but im still left with many attack spells to use when neccessary.
You dont need to blast every group of monsters with spells because when buffed you meatshields should take care of most things pretty easily (at least this is true for me), when you encounter some tougher monster this is where mages are very good, they can easily damage things than fighter cant even hit.
So let your "meatshields" do the basic bashing and you concentrate on hostile magic users and tough monster with your offensive spells.

About that 1 on 1 pvp issues you mentioned.
I have never lost in the arena with my sorc, even againts higher lvl wm i came out victorious, and that small arena really isnt favorable battle ground to a sorc =)
So you just have to figure some new tactics and you will be very tough opponent indeed, try asking people how they like fighting with Bharug, i dont think he would be their first choice of opponent :D

One more thing, make sure you memorize wide range of spells so you dont have to wait that 30 second timer to go off, this is very important.

[Zooropa]

If I´d play a mage, I´d use most of my spells bbuffing others and let them do the dirty work, didn´t even cast many buffs to myself. It´s far more efficient to give someone flames and greater magic weapon in their weapon, maybe keen edge too, than to just use 3 offencive spells. In another server I had a sorcerer, I usually buffed my party up, after that just looked if they needed healing/new stoneskin... Still had some spells left for tricky situations.

Mages aren´t supposed to be the ultimate meatshields anyway. If you feel you can only buff up and stay away... Well sometimes it´s the mages role! Hopefully you have buffed others than yourself only. Don´t feel weak, think how the group would do without you and your buffing... then you´ll see your effect.

[Visardi]

I have had a slightly different subject troubling me about these mage´s restrictions actually, the banning of metamagic feats.

I thought about this the first time i saw that they will be banned but i kind of a shrugged it off then. At lvl 15 im starting to see the first symptoms of this and decided to test this in trainer module, results were worrysome.

The damage output of a mage doesnt scale with lvls over 20 (some exceptions) anymore and without empower and maximise feats mage´s have VERY difficult time killing anything especially as they cant spam any spells.
I noticed the only way to actually kill things was with death spells, taking epic spell focus in necromancy and using wail, finger and horrid, and you can gess how boring this will be.
Another tactic was to use epic warding+acid sheath but this has very limited use and does not work against pc´s as well as vs. npc´s.

The point in the end is that i think metamagic feats should be enabled to epic casters, without them they really will be in trouble and driven to necromancy using death spells.

I want to remind that i did test this for nearly two hours fighting various foes of various difficulties and i have played magicians alot and im very well aware of their strenghts and weaknesses.

[DM_Olórin]

Visardi - Glad to see that you are seeing the reasons for our spell tweaks. The mage isnt meant to be the frontliner. Hes there to enhance the party and take out/weaken the real serious enemies with offensive spells. In the past mages used to blast everything and i mean everything. But now having a mage really means something when you meet the Dragon, or a bunch of epic level Giants.

Ive seen low level mages have a hard time soloing, and ive heard them complain about how unfair it is. Ive explained repeatedly to them that the mod is designed for party play and the spell reductions were done to encourage that. The mage players that feel its unfair tend to be the ones that have come from servers where magic is overpowered and its simply what they are used to. No blame is apportioned there of course, we are trying for a different style here slightly.

I can remember some of your posts voicing your objections to our "nerfing" of overpowered spells, quite a long time ago now, but as you can see the whole world is less overtly magical. Mages still have a vital role to play in any party seriously considering tacking a difficult quest. Its good to see mages being a bit more cautious in their use of magic and choosing their spells more tactically. In the old days most tactics seemed to consist of whats the most damage i can do with this or that spell. Magic was so commonplace it was seen as nothing, but make it rarer and its significance increases. After all mages are meant to be special and magic is not meant to be easy, nor is it meant to be the answer to every problem. Middle Earth was not abundant in deadly magic rays, zipping and zinging across the firmament. Sometimes the axe of a friend does very nicely. :P

Thanks for you input and observations though. Anything that you think is a real potential problem should be brought to the attention of the dev team. Cheers :)

[Argon Balros]

although sorcerers struggle soloing its also very easy for them to find a group as fighters like having mages along even if there lower lvl than the rest of the group.

[DM_Kev]

One thing mages should note is that you don't have to go buffing everybody in your party. Often the DM notices that the party contains characters who would probably manage perfectly well by themselves.

Perhaps consider carrying less buffs and more offensive spells. Though the choice is entirely yours. Some people have played mages to buff parties, thats all good and well.

But please, don't be afraid to play a mage who likes to blow things up! Our changes to mages has only been in order to stop them acting like 'front line troops' or meatshields and to encourage more 'intelligent' spell casting, e.g. not endlessly spamming the same spells.

If you want to run a mage who doesnt buff his friends, fine! If that is a characteristic of your mage, fine, provided it is supported in your roleplaying.

So go ahead, use those big nasty spells! Use IGM, use wail of the banshee, we are proud that this system will mean that they will be used responsibly. Thats what its all about. So go out there and have fun with your spelll casting classes :)

[Lum Levits]

I totally agree with the above post.

I tend to think some spell caster feel like we fighters expect to be buffed by them, hence lowering the number of offensive spells they can use.

Not saying I dont like to buffed from time to time. :) Just would hate to see a mage not using his/her character to have fun with because of the above example.

[Damazig]

Ok, when I first posted on this thread, I had already tested on a custom model with the same rules, and here is the result.

on pvp 1on1 at high levels:

With bigbys nerfed to half, with reflex saves AND their natural fail chance... the one stoping bigbys is now pretty much a high risk use spell, cause if it doesnt work (and there is a very high probability it does work) the other classes will be crawling up on the mages and that is the end. Even if the spell does work, and the other character is stoped, at lvl 20 it will only last 10 rounds. Now at lvl 20 fighter types have HUGE fortitude saves (there are lots of items on this server that greatly increase the saves) so forget death spells they wont work.
On top of that, most offensive spells will give only half damage to fighter types, and no dmg to rogues and monks.
With no Extend spell, acid steaths and elemental shields wont last long, and all the other player has to do is use ranged.
So now we go for the spells that usually saved mages in 1on1, the IGMs wich have no save. Well do the math, at lvl 20 one IGM will only do around 50-80 dmg (very little compared to what they were supposed to do), and you will have to wait 30 seconds to use it again... 30 seconds on a small arena agaisnt oponents that will KD instantly is a VERY long time. All this will only matters IF the Bigbys work... cause if it doesnt, you'll have to wait another 30 seconds to try and use one. Forget mind spells, cause everyone can use clarity potions... and no matter how many dispels a mage can carry, everyone else can carry alot more clarity potions than a mage will mem a dispel.

I have tested this for hours in a row, and only with alot of luck will a mage under these conditions be able to beat most of the high lvl oponents.

In party play, at high lvls a mage will have to carry a big number of protection spells, and even at lvl 20, most of the offensive spells that might help the group will only be able to be used 3 or 4 times. And all these still have the same problems refered in the previous 1on1 section, cause an IGM doing 50-80 dmg (average) dived by 3 or 4 creatures is nothing. So one goes for Firebrand, that I have seen many of the high lvl monsters take only half the dmg. Even hiting with two Firebrands ( that is 30 seconds later), most high lvl creatures will still stand. A lvl 20 ocupying all available slots with firebrand will only be able to cast 6 of them.

Up till now, Firebrand is what seems to do more dmg. Horrid wilting and Ice storm will hurt your party, so will fireball DB fireball and many others. So a high lvl mage WILL only do so much as buff. To all this I am not even hading the factor of playing an evil mage that doesnt always have a fighter bad guy to go around with.

I have played full days in a row in this server with my mage, I tested it in pvp with the same rules as the server for hours, and I can tell you mages are hugely nerfed, even in 1on1 they are very weak. Had to this the fact that you have to forget using a crossbow cause they will hit nothing, and the fact that creating wands is too expensive 20-40k gold and 1k XP for something that will only good for using in 3 or 4 encounters and then it is gone, and the fact that up untill now the only item with a spell use per day I found was a staff of ghostly visage (crapy spell, and doesnt last long).

Mages are RP matterial here, and buffing companions... wich most clerics can also do and still be able to hit and fight something, and also heal.

Although there wasnt much magic in LOTRs, most mages in the books were still the all mighty characters.

[DM_Kev]

The arena is a bit of fun and shouldn't be taken seriously. 1 on 1 in a small arena is not idea for a mage, we know. Thats why we now only allow mages to fight each other in the arena.

We performed tests with mages at different levels and found they can be effective as both buffing companions and as offensive characters.

You just need to take your mind off being superman - we did mention that this was not what UTT2 was all about.