I need your opinions to make a decision about Mislead spell. Vote and also give your reasons and arguments.

As always, your votes and arguments will be my main criteria to make the final decision; though, I don\'t guarantee that the final decision will necessarily match with the option which will have the majority of votes in the poll.

Please note that if you view the poll's result before voting, you won't be able to vote afterwards.

I think you should leave it as it is, but should you change it anyway then shorten it's duration. I think those who want's to abuse the spell, can do other things to cheat their way through.

BTW: I like aVENGERs suggestion in trufas thread.

Mislead spell's main problem is not the stacking bardsongs issue; the main problem is the "hidden clone" exploit. So, that solution is not relevant or reassuring at all (as it only refers to the first and less important problem).

You could create a special version of the True Sight spell that would be only used by enemies, and change the targeting of the effect which destroys creatures of the ILLUSIONARY gender from "Pre-Target" (2) to "Not-evil" (6). That would ensure that any Mislead clone cast by the party is destroyed regardless of its current location.

Yes, it's also a possible solution; but I'd say that it's not an optimal one. Apart from the fact that it would require me to edit and re-write (about) 500 scripts, it wouldn't solve the problem against enemies who do not have access to True Sight spell. Fighter type enemies and monsters would still remain vulnerable to the exploit if the clone is hidden and if they don't see it to attack.

Alternatively, you could assign a special script to the clone which would always make it follow its master and mirror his moves by using the Formation() script action. SimDing0 does something similar in his Quest Pack.

The player can even cast the spell in one area and then move to another area to attack enemies. The clone which has remained in a different area will be immune to all such solutions (even the revised True Sight spell won't affect it). We have to choose one of the two solutions which have been proposed in the poll.

By weird coincidence I had mentioned the Mislead spell to Sikret a few days ago (before Trufa mentioned it in his post). My idea at the time was to halve the duration to 1 round/2 levels, the reasoning being that even if someone tried leaving the clone somewhere before going into a battle their invisibility would not last long enough to be especially significant.

Something else (another problem with Mislead) is that, although the spell itself does not grant an AC bonus and a bonus to hit, you can cast Improved Invisibility on top of Mislead. You then gain a +4 AC bonus and a +4 to hit bonus for the duration of Mislead (the THAC0 bonus does not disappear after the first attack, which is how it works for II on its own).

If I decide to decrease its duration, I will do it more severely than that; because (as you agreed) even 10 rounds (the halved duration for a 20th level mage) is too long.

Now, what do you vote for, Raven? Replacing the spell or reducing its duration?

I'd probably vote to replace it; I don't think it's especially useful unless used cheesily.

Then again, there are already many useful 6th level arcane spells. Thinking of a replacement which is worth picking but is not overpowered will not be easy, although there is no rush to do this, I guess.

Yes, that will be a separate question which will require discussion (and probably a separate poll). At this stage we need to make the first decision of whether we want to replace the spell or not.

If we decide to replace the spell, we will also need to revise the apprenti's dialogue when they refer to making the Mislead scroll. Is there any other similar dialogue related to the Mislead spell? I guess not.

Well I'd miss the spell and the possibility to use RR (in a future game).

@Shaitan

Since replacing the spell is a more radical change than shortening its duration, I will not take that option unless the arguments in its favor outweigh and outnumber the arguments for changing the duration overwhelmingly. And if I replace the spell, I will replace it with a useful and interesting one (so that you never miss the old Mislead spell at all . do you now miss the Otiluke's Resilient Sphere or do you find Ray of Fragmentation much more useful?). We are still discussing the case; no decision has been made.

Nay I know I just wanted to push in the "right" direction As for your question: I do not at all miss Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, but I do like RoF

Well, if you use mislead the way it's intended (actually how is it intended to be used? it seems to lend itself to exploits) it's not more effective than improved invisibility, as basically all improved spellcasters have a truesight or oracle available.

Another thing to consider is that second generation mislead clones can attack as well (if you save your game after a clone has been made and load it up again, they can attack).

I would say it's main use at the moment is stacking bard songs, because if you're not doing that you might as well be using imp invisibility.

Seeing as stacking bard songs isn't an intended feature of the game, i vote to replace.

My vote is to shorten its duration AND prevent bard songs stacking. I would like to keep Mislead and 1 bard song combo for bards.
If you want to replace it, thet would be hard choice because if you give a good spell, there will be a very strict selection at lvl 6 spells. There are a many good spells on lvl 5 also. But I think there are not so many good spells on lvl 7.

Does it mean that you didn't actually vote? (perhaps because you had viewed the poll's results before voting?)

Anyway, the number of votes for the two options are (still) rather close to each other, though the arguments for replacing the spell do certainly outweigh the arguments for keeping it. I'll be looking forward to more comments and arguments for another week before making a decision.

Yeah, it seems I had unintentionally clicked on 'View Results' before I actually voted (so one of the null votes is actually mine). You could think of there being an extra vote for replacement, although as you say the actual arguments are as important as the vote count.

I dun think it'll make much difference to replace the spell becasue:

1. there r other ways for the bosses/minor-bosses to overcome the cheesy staff: grant them the ability to see through invisibility, just as what the tactic mod has already done long ago (yes, even a fighter-type could do it. to comprehend this, just imagine a very good "combat sense"). as for those supporting characters, well, if a player has to cheat even on them, s/he probably should just as well replace IA with ease-of-use.

2. the "staff of magi+cloak of non-detection" combo could do similar trick. (well to tell the truth, I only played the IA3 abt a yr ago. So if this combo is not what it used to be any more, pls ignore this. As I'll hv mor time quite soon, I'll try out the lastest IA asap.)

Welcome to BWL, arakein!



Cloak of non-detection is removed from the game since IA v4. Staff of the magi is nerfed in v5 and will be nerfed even further in the next release of the mod. Not to mention that the Twisted Rune battle is so hard that it can't be done till almost the end of SOA. As Raven once mentioned, we won't be surprised if some players never manage to win that battle even if they postpone it to the end of the game.

In my v4 run I used Mislead only with Haer'dalis to get ONE epic bard song. But it was double edge tool since Haer was invis, this mostly didn't hindrace any enemy, but was a big hindrace for me since I was not able to heal him(only with Greater Resto) and was not able to rebuff him. So I thought twice before I used Mislead, and had to plan memorized spells with Haer very carefully, to keep him able to rebuff himself.

Thanks for the comments, arguments and votes, everyone!

Mislead spell will be replaced with a new spell. I will create a new poll for the replacement in the near future. Topic closed.