I think her belt save her all the bad effect include the death.

At sixth level, we are rich in great spells. I think that Improved Haste, PfMW, and PfME are often more useful than Mislead. Of all the great spells, I think that PfMW is easily the most unbalanced and that it has really distorted the play of the game. In virtually all tactical mods, you can expect the spamming of PfMW, sometimes through uninterruptible scrolls. This becomes a serious issue when the monsters have innate immunity to normal weapons (such as liches).

I kind of like Mislead as my favorite way of dealing with beholders. It also had a great possibility of allowing your bard to sing (a clone) and fight. (I don’t believe in stacking song effects with multiple clones, however.) Why can’t bards sing and fight at the same time? In my army, everyone fights. If Mislead goes, then bards become even less a desirable choice to me despite the love Sikret has shown Haer’ Dalis. I would suggest keeping Mislead and assigning it perhaps a shorter duration. Maybe 4 rds +1 rd/3 levels?

I don’t particularly like any of the proposed spell choices because they simply don’t compare to the other choices at level 6. The only one that I would find particularly useful is the second choice (+4 weapons). That’s probably a decent idea, as almost all of the weapons are +3 or less in SoA. Who wants to be frustrated with a monster simply because it must have a +4 weapon and you don’t have one?

The third option, strength, probably wouldn’t be so useful because the enemies will always successfully remove magic – up until the time you are high level and have items of permanent strength enhancement. (I really want to use my mages for direct offense in battles rather than putting back stripped buffs.)

This post has been edited by rbeverjr: Jan 10 2008, 02:49 PM

What if I make the Giant Strength spell undispellable for its duration? Will it make it a solid 6th level spell?

At first I didn't like the idea of such a spell because I thought it would devalue Giant Strength potions (I personally like the fact that many of these are limited in number and have to be used carefully). But since there are plenty of other powerful level 6 spells which a caster will have to forego to be able to memorise this spell I now think that's not such a problem.

I don't see the need for a flashy or powerful replacement for Mislead since except when used cheesily it was not such a powerful spell to start with in most situations. So power-wise I don't think this strength spell is too weak.

Btw, what was the intended duration of the spell?

Do you mean that even being dispellable it's ok? Do you think it's better to keep the idea as a dispellable spell or to change it to undispellable?



I was thinking of 2 turns (= 20 rounds).

Since it would be cast on fighters I think making it undispellable is a good idea, sorry I should have said that. By undispellable do you mean nothing at all can remove it? Or is it just Remove and Dispel Magic that can't remove it?

Will you script enemy mages or fighter-mages to cast this (especially if they're with a party - cast on the fighters)? If such a spell existed I believe there are situations in the game where it would make sense for enemies to have this spell memorised in preference to something else.

Unremovable by anything, yes.



Sure! If you can point to me which specific battles you have in mind, I can script enemies to use it. But before that stage, we should make the final decision about the new spell.

I still personally prefer to keep Mislead for the reasons I stated above. I don’t intend to cheat or abuse the spell. If Mislead must be replaced, then a non-dispellable strength spell as outlined by Sikret is a good idea, in my opinion. I’ll just depend on metagaming to insure that I have the +4 weapon when necessary.

What about a combination of the two options?

A temporary undispellable enchantment on an NPC to have him/her attack with their weapon as if they were made with a +4 weapon.

I propose for consideration as a level 6 spell, Improved Lower Magical Resistance. It will act as Lower Resistance does but affects enemies in an area equal to half that of a fireball (small area effect spell). It is also a sixth level spell; so, all creatures immune to level 5 spells and lower will be affected.

Edit: Oops, if this falls in the same category as decrease physical or elemental resistances of enemies, then please excuse my post.

This post has been edited by rbeverjr: Jan 15 2008, 08:11 PM

It would not fall into the lowering physical/elemental resistances category. However, it sounds a bit too powerful to me. But it's a nice idea; perhaps at some later time when a higher level spell is replaced it would be a good candidate.

As I said, I see no need to introduce a particularly powerful spell at level 6. There are already many good choices, the spell level doesn't need a boost with a great new spell.

Maybe that's why it would be OK at level 6... What is powerful compared to PfMW? Even Improved Haste is very nice. As far as I'm concerned, it's hard for any spell to compete with those 2 in my wizard's slots. Sikret's strength idea is good. The +4 weapon spell is OK. I'm not too concerned about what is decided because of the nice spells already at level 6. Except that if Mislead goes, I'm going to have to work out another good way to deal with beholders. Good means not having to rest very frequently while trying to clean out the cave.

Yes, the main goal is to get rid of the Mislead spell. However, since we can't just delete Mislead from the game, we want to replace it with some balanced and non-cheesy spell. Not to mention that new spells add fresh flavor to the game.

The idea of the undispellable Giant Strength spell comes from the fact that while those giant strength potions are relatively rare (specially the Cloud and Storm ones), their effects can be easily dispelled by the first Remove Magic.

Monster Summoning 4 can still be a valid choice, because it opens the possibility to add new types of summoned monsters to the game.

shadan's "Shadow Magic" spell is also fine, though personally I don't think that I will ever pick it for my sorcerer.

Improved Enchanted Weapon is too tricky: If I set a long duration for the it, it will be overpowered and will decrease the significance of artifacts and relics, whereas if I set a short duration, the spell won't be helpful at all, because it will disappear before you can kill the powerful monster who requires +4 weapons to hit. I'm not sure if we can find an optimum duration for the spell in the midway.

I will consider all suggestions and will open a final poll for this case in the near future.

What about to make potions to undispellable with Remove and Dispel Magic, but specific dispel (Breach, RRR, Pierce magic etc. can remove it)? Also if Remove Enchantment is implemented in the game, that would remove potions too.

Sikret, you maybe should consider to strengthen the illusion and divination school a bit.

This post has been edited by shadan: Jan 16 2008, 12:57 PM

Yes, I'm thinking of adding one or two good spells to the divination school.

Hum... I just had the idea to implement some sort of lesser RRoR. Lesser in that it cannot dispel level 9 spells (like RRoR does), but up to level 8. The advantage would be that it is an alteration spell, rendering it helpful against SI:Abjuration.
On the other hand it may be overpowered since you could use Spell Trigger to fire three of them at once.

Just a short, quick thought.

This post has been edited by Arkain: Jan 16 2008, 01:05 PM

Thanks, Arkain!

It could have been a nice idea; however, since we already have Pierce Magic in the collection of 6th level spells, we can't add a spell which is so remarkably better than Pierce Magic.

Yeah, I thought so too. But Pierce Magic has it's own advantage -> it lowers magic resistance, iirc. Therefore it's only disadvantage to the other spell would be it's school.
But then that's a big one against SI:Abjuration enemies...

Chaos weapon (Illusion) level 6
The target's weapons, shield and arms be invisible and two illusionory arms, weapons and shield appaered. When the target fighting the illusionory arms move different than his real arms, when he hit something or use his shield the illusion go to the real location, but the moment of attack that move differently.
The target get +4 thaco modifier like he is invisible (not stack with hide, and first invisible attack), if he use shield too he get +4 AC modifier agains melee attacks.

The duration is 1 turn / caster level and the divination spells (true sigh, glitterdust etc...) and the dispel/remove magic dispel it.

True attack (Divination) level 1
The casters next attack will get +6 modifier because he see it in the future. If the caster not attack or miss it the spell wears off. (ideally for arcane fighters and tensered wizards)
Casting time: 1
Duration: 1 round

Danger sense (Divination) level 3-4
The caster feel the danger in the last seconds so he get +4 AC against melee attacks.
Casting time: 3
Duration: 1 round / level

Eye of Soothsayer (Divination) level 6
The caster continuesly see next 2-3 seconds so he get +4 thaco, AC, and save vs spell in the duration of the spell. The only drawback of the spell there is a chance 30 - caster level % that he not see the true future so he get negative bonuses
if he get any injury in the duration of the spell the spell dispelled.
Casting time: 8
Duration 1 round / level

I have some good news. Quote from the progress report thread:



Also, note that Mordenkainen Swords (for mages) and Greater Swanmays (for vagrants) are equiped with +4 weapons; so meeting such a monster at high levels is not so catastrophic after all (even if you don't have +4 weapons).

This post has been edited by Sikret: Jan 19 2008, 02:10 PM