On the discussion re: time traps.

Perhaps time traps are overpowered/cheesy. But so is time stop. So is improved alacrity. The most powerful class in BG2 (with or without IA) is still, IMHO, the fighter/mage (or fighter/mage/X without the level cap). My worry is that removing traps from the game simply means that arcane spellcasters become even more powerful relative to the other classes. So the rationale for choosing a thief or fighter/thief becomes even less compared to choosing a fighter/mage.

IMO, mages should be more powerful than any other class in the game - that' just how I see mages. The fact that a f/m can cast time stop it isn't all that great. I just finished the game with a figh/ill in my party and due to new exp tables in IA he had three time stops by the very end of the game, and I finished all quests there are. Most powerful enemies are immune to time stop. You'll probably want one or two slots for Apsolute Immunity anyway. And figh/mages (and especially pure class spellcasters) are a bit tricky to play in IA, they can be killed easilly if their protections get destroyed. Besides, a f/t can also cast spells with UAI which is ridiculusly overpowered ability by itself, far more cheesy than time stop IMO.
I don't consider improved alcatry cheesy, because enemies use it also. Every dragon has it constantly on.
I do agree that a f/m is extremely powerful in BG, with or without IA. But I believe the sorc is way ahead in terms of power over any class in the game. Well, maybe not over a f/t overly fond of using time traps .

I've played this mod for some time now, and I don't like the nerfing of the thief class. My recent party was:

Assassin Protagonist
Valygar
Keldorn
Edwin
Aerie
Jaheira

The Protagonist was useless in the tough fights.

Many enemies are immune to backstab and poison, and to trap damage. Also, most of the tough enemies are immune to Spike and Fireball trap damage and stun effect.

The Hide In Shadows is almost useless.

With a Time Trap, my Assassin dealt a small amount of damage in combat. Tough enemies have great physical damage resistances.

Detect illusion did not work against most enemy mages.

I don't know why thieves are so nerfed in this particular mod. Even the greatest artifact for a thief, the Grandfather of Assassins, has nothing much to offer.

I will start a new game, with a different Protagonist.

I wonder how I had missed this post of you, Kerkes! Sorry for the delayed response.

I, too, know what you mean, but in addition to what Raven mentioned, there are a few other points which are worth considering:

1- Blocking the exploits available in the vanilla game are primarily a part of IA's fixpack. It's not a part of IA's tactical content, because as you said any serious IA player will not even think of abusing those exploits.

2- Moreover, blocking such exploits are also part of IA's anti-cheat feature. Most of those exploits have no difference with plain cheats even though some people have tendency to deceive themselves and others by saying that anything which is doable inside the game without using the Console command is not a cheat.

3- Regarding your question "Who actually uses stuff like that (cheats & exploits)?", there are always mentally sick people who don't play a mod such as IA for the challenge it adds to their own game; they play it in order to challenge other players!

For example, the person reads somewhere that IA is not soloable without cheating; then he decides to spare several hunderds of hours to refute the statement. He uses all sorts of exploits which have no difference with cheating, also sometimes silently uses more explicit cheating methods without admitting and even spends many hours to use his imagination to forge artificial and false reports (we recently had such a case, as you remember). Blocking the exploits available in the vanilla game will discourage this type of cheaters from trying and will help others to detect cheaters and liars in a clearer way.

It's also important to note that when such a person comes to write all sorts of false reports and lies in the forum, it shows something very terrible about his personality in the real life, because it's not his character inside the game who logs into the forum to write lies. It's rather the person (the real person) who sits behind a computer desk to write them. I think these people are very interesting case- studies for psychologists.

I agree with that "wasted time on cheating" argument 100%. If a player has so much time and is intended on playing IA I believe it's far more enjoyable experience to use that time playing the real game (as intented) than to prove to you (Sikret) and others that the game can be won solo.
I also believe that some of the "cheese" tactics are incredibly creative and ingenious, in their own way. I wish that those players using them would use the creativity some of them certainly have to play IA without cheese. I think the result would be great.

On the discussion about abusing area structure:
I find it difficult "not to abuse it" on certain areas. Mind flayer lairs, Samia in Firkraag dungeon (this is the worst), Copper Corent Beastmaster fight (to an extent).

As far as I know liches are immune to 1-5 level spells. However they can be affected by dispel magic. Now, I see here an inconsistency. The problem is not that he can be affected by dispel magic because dispel magic affects not the creature itself but magic. The inconsistency is that breach and other similar low level spells do not affect him. They work excatly in the same way than dispel magic: they affect not the creature itself but magic.

Is it excatly the same in standard pen and paper AD&D? Or is it a specialty of BG2?

Hmmm... I don't know if it's the same as in standard pen and paper AD&D. I'll try to give a logical explanation for it though:

Dispel Magic, as you've noted, works on the magical protections from the outside. Therefore, what it contends with are the strength of the buffs/enchantments, and the immunities of the buffed creature don't matter... only the relative strength of the Dispel Magic as against the various buffs.

For targeted magic removal spells however (Spell Thrust, Secret Word, Breach, Pierce Magic, Ruby Ray, Warding Whip, Spellstrike), it needs to "go through" and reach/contact the creature it is targeted at. Perhaps what it does is to attack the buffs from the inside, hence relative spell level does not matter. After all, attacking protections from the inside is much easier than attacking them from the outside.

As far as I know, (almost) all creatures in IA that have immunities to spell levels are not immune to Dispel/Remove Magic, so this explanation could be valid. There is only one anomaly I know of (via repeated testings, the probability of it not being immune to Dispel/Remove Magic is virtually zero) ... but to reveal this would be spoiling. I think most people would not discover this fact anyway.

I can't help but wonder why you call attacking an enemy during Timestop a cheat - let alone an infamous one, as I've never heard it spoken of in these terms before. I would say it's cheesy, okay, but to say it's a cheat seems to be stretching even that notoriously ill-defined word pretty far.

Note that I'm quite happy with the change you're making (I certainly don't mind it), but I'm confused about your choice of words. Unless there's something in the D&D rules which suggests that the ability to physically attack an enemy during Timestop is due to an engine limitation, rather than intended by the developers?

Item no.10 in the "cheat and cheap" document mentions the timestop-melee trick as an example of a cheat. Halting an enemy's normal and intended behavior in this way is playing the game (and the mod) in an unintended way and something I would never allow to happen as a DM in a pnp game. Using timestop to cast spells is fine because most of your spells won't take effect till the normal time resumes. Casting timestop with the intention to use physical attack is something different; I don't actually see any difference between killing an enemy in this way and killing him by the ctrl-y method; they are practically the same.

It's not a cheat at all. But giving creature resistance to weapon damage during timestop for sure is. When duration of the spell expired you're will be able to hurt this creature normally with the same weapon, I presume. This is an outrage. In my opinion it's unacceptable by any logical means. The mod looks just great with all this new quest and improvments but please, this is too much.

Yes, but mage uses his/her hands when casting spells, making gestures, etc. He/She may use his hands for wielding a weapon, instead of casting powerful spell during timestop mage whacks his enemy with his sword, what's wrong with it?

This is distressing indeed... I think that by the time IA v8 rolls around everything in the game will be disabled except melee, damage spells, disabling spells, buffing spells...

I for one will certainly not be upgrading to v6 it looks like... v5 has some problems but v6 is looking like too much changes for the worse, which sucks because the expanded druid stuff sounds extremely fun.

Whats ironic is that in disabling so much fun aspects of the game in the name of anti-cheese, you end up crippling the versatility of the game and thus let the cheesers win in a sort of way.

The best thing to do, of course, would be to leave semi-cheesy things in the game and let the player self-regulate. There is no good reason not to do this other than Sikret's odd personal quest to make the player forced to play the game exactly how he likes to play it.

This attitude is what is keeping IA a niche mod rather than the unanimously chosen best mod ever... so many aspects of it are brilliant but it bogs itself so far down with these "anti cheese" measures...

And please, don't say that this just means i'm "not a tactician" (which is just a meaningless term of abuse around here).

Let me quote from my own post again:



I think this paragraph hits the nail on the head of this discussion. If a player doesn't really intend to (ab)use those cheats and cheesy methods (no matter whichever term you prefer to use to refer to them), he has absolutely no reason to worry. But if a player thinks that those cheats and cheesy methods are some "fun aspects of the game", then this mod is not for him for sure and he is wasting his time here.

The "Progress report" thread is not for this type of discussions; we have other threads in the forum (such as the 'Philosophical questions' started by Vuki) which can be used for such discussions.

EDIT: All related posts moved to the "Philosophical" questions topic.

nataben1314, thanks for keeping your criticism within the scope of your forum account this time. Please keep it up for the future, it is unnecessary (and violates the Terms of Use as well) to use special fake accounts (such as the account called "whyohwhy" which we removed long ago, and it was used by you). We are as good in detecting alternative BWL accounts as Improved Anvil in detecting cheaters! Furthermore, it is really silly to believe that using www.anonymouse.org for alternate BWL accounts is a good idea. This is directed to everyone who prefers using such methods -- please don't do it. Thanks!

I usually act as a technical (and not as a tactical) advisor regarding Improved Anvil, but there are things I find quite obvious and would like to emphasize. First of all, some players are very self-confident when stating that something which restricts players is necessarily wrong. They find it so obvious and natural. Their reasoning is usually the following:

(1) "those who cheat or play cheesily will do it anyway; while others who don't like cheats/cheese will not do it -- consequently, there is no need for anti-cheat methods".

Additionally, they often add that

(2) "everyone should enjoy the game in the way he prefers it -- if it is with cheats or cheese, then it's his or her call; it should not be prevented".

These statements are not baseless, but they follow a very black & white approach (I bet some people are surprised now, because they think it's exactly Improved Anvil which follows a black & white approach ). It is black & white, because it assumes that every player is completely determined and has no weaknesses at all.

We are humans, and we have weaknesses and doubts. For example, when there is an easier solution for a problem, do we choose the more difficult one? Not typical! It is natural that we choose the easier one, and we don't feel that we would be cheaters! Does this mean that if only a difficult solution exists, we retreat and give up?! No! And from this more difficult solution, we learn much more than from an easier solution. Yet, we usually prefer the easier solution even if the harder solution would give more experience and knowledge! (Principle of minimum energy ) On the other hand, if we're forced to do something in a difficult way, we have no other choice than doing it (we cannot choose an easier solution), and at the end, it has two very positive results:
(1) We learnt from something, we improved ourselves; from something which we would not have done if we hadn't been forced to do it.
(2) The feeling of success after hard work, after a challenge.

Consequently, the "self-regulation" suggested by nataben1314 (and some others) has its drawbacks as well. When humans are not forced to do something, they won't do it. It doesn't mean they cheat. On the other hand, if they are forced, they may accept it and at the end, it may prove to be very fruitful to them! Would university students study for themselves if there were no mid-term tests and closed book exams? Most of them wouldn't! Yet, at the end, they become engineers, doctors, economists etc.

Improved Anvil includes difficult battles (which need good tactical basics and require the player to constantly improve his or her tactical skills), and it applies anti-cheese and anti-cheat methods. The first one is obvious -- there is no improvement (and satisfaction) without learning and hard work! The second one makes sense as well, as it says a message to cheaters: "no, this mod is not for you if you want to cheat. If you want to enjoy it, you need to play fair and according to the strict rules of this mod!" This can even change the mind of some cheaters, who realize that "hey, I don't need these cheap solutions, I want to be as good as Raven, thetruth, etc."! Yes, Sikret strongly prefers a certain playing style in Improved Anvil, but he is the author of the mod, so he has all right to prefer (i.e. positively discriminate) that style in his own work!

So those players who think that restrictions are necessarily wrong should reconsider their approach.


"It closes many possibilities of the original game and disables fun..." is also something that I heard about Improved Anvil a few times (including nataben's present post). Again, this is not as obvious either as certain players think. As we know, rules always restrict something; there are no rules that increase freedom -- they always decrease it in a closed system. But there would be chaos and anarchy without rules -- they are required. Improved Anvil is the most challenging and powerful tactical IE mod (and much more than just a tactical mod, of course), and this difficulty (its urge for players to improve their tactical skills) must be implemented in some way. Rules are required. Without rules and restrictions, there would be no tactical challenges, no improvement. So while some (well-known, often cheesy) possibilities of the original game are closed, Improved Anvil opens a lot of new possibilities as well!

To sum up, just because you don't know about a particular possibility (e.g. a certain tactic), it doesn't mean that it does not exist! "I can't do a lot of things in Improved Anvil that I could do in the original game -- Improved Anvil disables so much fun!" -- this is a very very incorrect approach. It is natural that people want to use the good old' methods they learnt, so it is not a shame that new players want their good old' tactics in Improved Anvil -- but they must realize that they should discover the new possibilities of Improved Anvil and possibly develop new tactics! Sikret emphasized this countless times. Players should realize that Improved Anvil allows them to become the best tacticians of all Infinity Engine games and mods! This means that they can easily win any other tactical mod, so the experience and tactics they learn in Improved Anvil can be applied not only in Improved Anvil!

All in all, I think Improved Anvil makes the game more versatile (as opposed to what nataben1314 says), but players must discover the new possibilities and stop trying to search for their well-known old playing tricks!

So, nataben1314 (or shall I call you whyohwhy/temujin) I think that you are too narrow-minded, which is enough to completely prevent you from becoming a real tactician... However, it is never late to change your mind If you like the mod (which I assume you do, otherwise you wouldn't write so much about it), you need to defeat your own limits. That is, instead of trying to convince Sikret (in various forums and with various accounts), you should try to convince yourself.

Well, in addition to the good points Baronius made, I have already replied to both arguments countless times. The rebuttal of the first argument can be found in this post of mine. Quote:



The answer to the second argument has been spread in my various posts; just some quotes:



In other words, I can't really prevent a cheater from cheating inside his own house and while playing on his own computer, but the cheater also can't come here to tell me how to make my mod or to glorify his illegal victories by lying and pretending that he has won the game without cheating. I can easily detect when someone cheats while playing IA and I keep my mod's forum clean of such false reports and bluffs (fortunately, so far we had only one such liar here around).



Quite true.



Well said!

It is interesting that when you justify your decisions in a general, comprehensive way (like in your above posts and in the posts you linked to), none of those people who criticize Improved Anvil in terms of anti-cheat reply anything. They only keep repeating the same things ("oh no, one more thing blocked by Improved Anvil") each time they find a concrete element of the mod they can criticize. I hope they will realize that they might also be wrong, and they should reconsider their viewpoint (if they intend to play the mod).

Since I made several points in my previous posts, the most important thought regarding "self-regulation" might have not got enough attention. I will summarize it again: those who prefer self-regulation by all means assume that people are always capable of correct self-regulation. No, that is not true. Human mind is not simple. It often happens that you wouldn't do something if you weren't forced to do it, but then you feel satisfied and/or happy when it's done! (despite the fact that you didn't do it of your own free will).

Improved Anvil requires a lot of patience and time as Sikret forewarns in the Readme of IA ever since the beginning version, I would assume. Some players may get disturbed at the increased amount of time to complete the game compared to the regular ToB game. For me, if I get overly frustrated at a video game, I don't play it for a week or more, or even quit playing it all together. That is too much time to be consumed (for me) and then I don't get the satisfaction of:



what Baronius wrote and I have seen Sikret justify the same concept although maybe not the exact same words.

Although the above points are very true, they do not necessarily apply to everyone that plays this game/mod or any other game for that matter. Some players play BGII (or video game of choice) for relaxing benefits and or "cool downs" just like other hobbies. They may get too angry at IA and then have negative opinions towards Sikret or IA. We're only human and sometimes we misjudge out of frustration or anger.

IA has fantastic and brilliant scripting with mages where there is no slowdown in spell triggers or contingencies. Even with all of the classes for that matter. The attitudes of the enemies really make sense like thieves will not try to backstab a Barbarian over and over like in the original game. That kind of thing and other similar scripting actions bring IA to the realm of "making sense" in any form of combat.

IA has a very "fast thinking" playing style and may not be satisfying to some looking for a more relaxed game atmosphere. It just takes too much patience for me and it is not for my casual game playing. Maybe I speak for others of the same mindset...I don't know

I create DL (this was lonnnnng time ago) to criticize IA because I fear something exactly like this... you get bullied and intimidated (which is exactly the purpose of this comment... you would PM me otherwise) if you criticize it and treated unwelcomly (unless the "criticism" is "encounter x isnt difficult enough!" or "spell y is overpowered game breaking cheesy cheat!").

I'm really sorry for making a DL but I had to worry that exactly this would happen... you suddenly find yourself extremely unwelcome if you criticize the mod, and I'm guessing that nothing short of "gee I was so wrong... please forgive me, oh and please remove abilities x y and z from the game because they are game breaking cheesy exploit cheats!" will restore my standing so oh well...

Anyways, I'm sure you want to get in another word about this so you can "one up" me but I will not comment on this further...



Very eloquent, but if you stepped back for a second you'd see how odd this sounds. IA drastically diminishes the versatility in BG2 because it wants to be your loving grandparent, holding your hand and keeping your will strong so that you might become a great tactician!!! This is not very convincing. While anti-cheat measures are fine to me (I dont know much about this but according to you mod authors, it can bug entire games to cheat so I can see why an author would avoid this), the idea that any ability that can even in principle be used cheesily should be removed from the game is just ludicrous. It goes too far. This is what happens when your testing team consists only of super "tacticians"

Whats even more glaring is the fact that if you want IA to be the ultimate tactician mod... you are doing yourself a disservice to remove every ability from the game except a small set... BG2 does not have the strategic depth to allow such a small set of abilities to be tactically fertile. This is why all the "tacticians" in IA are just people who've played it over and over, since "tactics" boils down to "memorizing immunities and resistances so you know what to exploit in the next battle".



This is a silly trump card... of course sikret is free to do what he wants, I just wanted to suggest that the mod isn't reaching its full potential. Again this straman and making me feel unwelcome or something...I've said over and over this is my favorite BG2 mod and is so well designed in some areas its scary... I just feel like these decisions about "cheese" are relegating IA to a tiny niche area.




I never said they are necessarily wrong... stop erecting a strawman. I am just saying that drastically decreasing the number of viable playstyles in the name of anti-cheese essentially just lets the cheesy players ruin it for everyone. There are certain things that can ONLY be used cheezily. For example, fake talk is just an exploit and there is no doubt about that. However, IA ruins many things that can be used perfectly legitimately by most players.

I suspect a lot of players feel this way about IA... but people are afraid to say anything because of how unwelcome you make us feel.



so to sum up, if you dont like any aspect of the mod it simply cannot be because there is any flaw with the mod. The mod is perfect and not open to any substantive criticism. If you do not like any aspect of the mod, it must be because you "are not a tactician" (I swear the word "tactician" is thrown around here in such a ludicrous way that its almost hilarious). I'll let that speak for itself...

ps: I have no idea who temujin is... whyohwhy is the only DL I made and I dont have accounts at other forums besides sorcerers place which my nick there is nataben1314, and where I've always said good things about IA and recommended it to people.

anyways, I have officially been "outed" as an IA-criticizer so there is little place left for me here and I am destined to be treated inferior/unwelcome... I will definitely still download IA when I get my new computer and may even try v6... Sikret I want you to know this is still IMO the best mod ever for BG2 and you have done such a great job... I'm sorry for criticizing any aspect of it and I will now just lurk here for info but not post... thanks for all your effort and thanks to baronius too for the hosting and everything... this mod for all the flaws I think it has still blows stuff like tactics and SCS2 out of the water.

It's not ludicrous; it's exactly the main idea behind blocking cheesy methods, because all such abilities which can be used cheesily have the nature of being in principle cheesy. In other words, all such abilities can be used legitimately as well; but the fact that they can also be used cheesily is enough reason to either find a workaround to block their cheesy use and only keep their legitimate use if possible (this is what I have done with timestop and UAI) or to remove them from the game entirely (and this is what I've done with Mislead and Project Image). However, as Baronius mentioned correctly, Improved Anvil doesn't merely remove abilities and possibilities from the game; it also adds lots of new and non-cheesy abilities to the game. One should be careful not to limit his vision to the removed ones but also see the new possibilities added to the game.

IA's testing team are indeed a group of very skillful and competent tacticians; this powerful team of testers can make sure that no bug will remain undetected before the public release of the mod and also ensure that the battles are doable with non-cheesy and legitimate tactics and possibilities existing in the game (including those new possibilities IA adds to the game).



No, as I said above, IA doesn't merely remove this or that ability from the game; it also adds lots of new abilities and possibilities to the game. You are overcriticizing because you don't have enough information about the mod. Instead of trying to find out and learn the new possibilities IA adds to the game you just see the removal of those old (and cheesy) abilities.

This is again baseless talk and even an insult to IA-testing team. Among my testers there are great tacticians who can find the right tactics to win a battle even the first time they play it. In v6, I have added some very new and hard battles and my testers managed to find the right tactics to win those battles without needing to reload or to "memorize immunities". This is exactly why (contrary to what you believe) the term "tactician" is neither meaningless nor hilarious. Start to learn and improve your tactical skills and you will hopefully start to see for yourself.

Of course, playing the mod over and over will certainly polish a player's tactical skills in a general sense, but it doesn't mean that for every single battle, they will need to reload it countless times to find out and memorize how the battle should be won. Once a player's tactical skills are improved, he will learn how to find the right tactics in action without relying on meta-knowledge.



IA is aimed at the following types of players (either group can enjoy IA):

- Veteran BG2 players and competent tacticians who already know how to play without cheats and cheap methods and are looking for great challenges as well as new content in the game.
- Players who are looking for a stable and bugfree big mod full of new quests, tactical challenges and all sorts of new content without having to worry about bugs; such players even if not very skilled tacticians are ready to draw a learning curve and start to improve their skills.

IA has never been aimed at other types of players. If you like the mod (as you say that you do), why don't you try to be a member of the second category? You will start to learn and will enjoy playing the mod, I assure you of that.

nataben1314: let's forget the past then, now you use this account and it's fine. As opposed to the misbelief spread by certain internet users, BWL doesn't sanction anyone just because the user has a different opinion than the BWL mod developers and/or Council Members. There is no censorship, but content/editor guidelines exist (Sikret has a very nice summary about it here.) All in all, everyone is free to express his or her opinion (additionally, tactful wording is recommended, because otherwise the mod author might get a negative impression and won't be helpful). However, as I said, forum moderators (mod authors) are editors as well, so they may decide to ask a user to stop a discussion, if it brings no novelties to the discussion (e.g. the user repeats the same things again and again, or posts content that may mislead the readers of the mod's primary forum). That is, if a discussion is not fruitful according to the editor (moderator), the editor can stop it, and possibly filter the final content of the topic (e.g. move certain parts or the whole discussion to a different forum). In this case, if a user does not respect this decision of the editor, it means the user is violating forum rules (and will be warned). To sum up, don't be afraid to write your opinion at any time in an open discussion (or you can even start own discussions -- the "philosophical questions" thread is such an example -- unless the discussion type in question is restricted by the moderator).

Edit: (it doesn't deserve full size font, just a note) I decided to spend 2-3 minutes for it and visited a few topics of the G3 forum. When I have assumed you were "temujin", I thought it due to the similarities in the statements (e.g. he also said he had originally liked Impoved Anvil, but then for x, y and z reasons, he changed his mind; he also said something like "it is just a niche mod, but...", he used the same greeting formulas etc.) However, after that, I didn't encounter too many posts from him for a long time (unsurprisingly, also because I wasn't really looking for them lol), but now that I checked G3, I see that he can't be the same person as you (he really needs to visit a psychiater or psychologist, based on what I saw there). On the other hand, I had no doubts about you/whyohwhy: that time, out of curiosity, I asked some accurate information and the two accounts led to the same customer of the same ISP (maybe wavecable?). This may sound as an overkill, but we at BWL, admittedly, don't like when people register from secondary accounts for unacceptable reasons (this is why the Terms of Use prohibit it too)




Exactly. Sikret stated countless times that Improved Anvil is not for everyone. Perhaps I should have mentioned that not everyone can complete the "hard work" and "challenge" I mentioned. Either because the player has no patience and persistence, or simply even doesn't want to try it (because he or she is looking for a more relaxing type of IE mod, with easy battles, romances etc.)

It is a very incorrect decision to criticize a complex mod before you've actually played it to the end. It is certainly not forbidden (at BWL), but discouraged -- especially in case of Improved Anvil. It is like criticizing a book before reading it to the end. Yes, I know that if the reader feels "I can't enjoy this, this book is not for me" after the first 5-20 pages, he or she shouldn't keep reading the book. In case of a mod, this means that the mod is not for him or her and should not be played further. However, if the mod is much fun but has some disadvantages according to the player, the player is advised to play the mod for a longer time (preferably, to the end) before jumping into conclusions about it. Without playing a complex mod to the end, there is no way to discover its new possibilities. (And all or most of the new possibilities can only be found after more walkthroughs of the mod).

How am I to interpret this update (Here)?
1. They are immune to melee damage before being talked to (which seems okay)

or

2 They are always immune to melee during timestop (which makes little sense to me)

In the past I have used Timestop + melee to great effect in BG2.

Having said that I don't disagree with the decision to block melee damage inflicted during Time Stop (incidentally I had nothing to do with the decision). I seem to remember descriptions of the Time Stop spell in the earlier versions of D&D being unclear about what exactly the caster could do as far as inflicting damage on his enemies goes during TS; a strict interpretation I think would prevent the caster affecting enemies at all during a TS. This is certainly the case in more recent D&D versions (see here for instance).

I've no idea whether the timestop trick counts as "cheap/cheese" (I actually think the meaning of those terms varies a lot from person to person). And (if memory serves) it's actually used by the vanilla-game AI (Melissan, and I think Demogorgon, use it).

There's a good case that it's very unrealistic, though. If your character is actually allowed to attack enemies in melee while they're frozen in time, it's not clear why you do normal damage rather than just being able to cut their throats - which, I guess, is why it wouldn't be allowed in PnP. Shooting arrows might be a different matter though.

I was tempted to use it for one of the dragons in SCSII, and was put off by thoughts of how unrealistic it is that a 60-foot dragon has 18 seconds to maul you while you're held motionless, and you only take normal slashing damage!

I dont't think Time Stop+melee is a cheat, so I agree with Zarathustra. I have never used this in IA anyway for several reasons:
1. I have only F/I in my 4.2 run, and he got TS too late. Single class mages cannot attack efficiently and I didn't plyed multi or dual class mages in my v5 runs.
2. When I had TS with good melee character, most important enemies were immune to TS so it was pointless to use it against them.

I don't think as a cheat, but I agree with this change since it is good for classbalance imho. F>M and F/M become less powerful. However with this change maybe you should delete TS immunity from more enemies. I tried TS several times and I found too many enemies were immune to TS in v5, so I stopped to try and use it. It would be welcome if I could use TS with my mages more times effeciently, IF I cast spells only during the TS.

Yes I gotta agree with Sikret and others: TS really works in mysterious ways - calling it unrealistic is probably right. If I recall my old PnP my GM only allowed for spells during TS. And as David says in a TS a hit with a sword or the like IMO should hit as a vorpal hit - just let the picture remain in your head for a while and it seems ridiculous (sp?) to allow melee in TS.

My reasons for calling timestop-melee "a cheat" can be summarized as follows:

1- No reasonable DM would allow it in a pnp game.

2- It has practically no difference with ctrl-Ying the enemy (it's actually even worse than ctrl-Y, because with ctrl-Y, you won't gain the xp of killing the enemy at least)

3- It inflicts damage while the time is frozen which is not what timestop has been originally designed for (along with the lines of what Raven has pointed out above). Taking damage requires time. How can a creature take damage while the time is frozen for him? The spells you cast on him remain in suspension and wait for the normal time flow to take effect. Physical attack, on the other hand, takes place immediately which doesn't make sense at all. Remember that timestop is not "power word stun"; it hasn't stunned the creature; it has halted the flow of time for him.

Moreover, I have also modified vanilla scripts such as SHOUTDLG to require the normal time progress to turn true (such scripts will turn false while the time is frozen). This is very important for those enemies who are immune to Time Stop and have a dialogue to say. Ancient Dragon is a good example. Even when the enemy is immune to timestop, those vanilla scripts which forced him to initiate dialogue would halt the creature's normal behavior during timestop, because even though the enemy is immune to timestop, he would keep trying to talk with no avail (if for example, the SHOUTDLG script had a higher prioirty to the creature's combat script). Cheaters could abuse this possibility (by casting Timestop offscreen) as well. With the new changes to those vanilla scripts, enemies who are immune to timestop will be able to fight normally during timestop and will try to say their lines only when the normal time resumes. They are not immune to melee damage during timestop because they can defend themselves. I have not added a global effect to the timestop spell to grant immunity to melee damage; I have implemented different workarounds for different enemies. Those enemies who can effectively defend themselves during timestop would still take damage from melee weapons. Only those who can be killed easily (as if ctrl-Y-ed) will be impervious to melee damage during timestop (and even for them, the types of solutions I have implemented differs from case to case). As I said, it's just a hidden anti-cheat feature of the mod; players who play fair and square won't even notice it.

Hi all.

I believe TS differs from one edition to another, perhaps exactly due to that gray line - whether a caster should or should not be allowed to attack during it.

BG2 spells are based on AD&D 2E...


I'd say that pretty much includes going melee or having a mug of ale if the wizard so wishes.

Considering the arguments against it, it is not surprising they changed it for the 3rd edition.

Yeah, I'd say that the "act freely" portion of the description had been questioned countless times before they realised that it needed to be clarified that it doesn't include "attacking".

I talk to sikret in PM and he says I am OK to still post here, so I will try my best to redeem myself.

Of course the spell description also says that targetting with spells is forbidden in time stop, so I trust this particular cheat of targeting with spells in a timestop will be removed. Of course it is just a cheaters reading of the rules to say that casting targetted combat spells is allowed because they won't actually hit until the timestop is over. The rules clearly imply that this is not how the spell is intended. Note that it says that mages usually use the time stop for buffing, summoning, or fleeing, not unloading their attacking spells.

Of course its possibly to gerrymander a justification for allowing spell targetting in timestop based on the description, but its just as much a cheaters tactic as deliberately misreading the intent of the 2nd ed. description. Note too that the description says that you cannot even target others with a spell, so temporarily increasing resistances in the seconds after a timestop would not work because in such a situation they will still have been targetted with a timestop spell.

If engine limitations prevent timestop from being such that you can't target with spells in it, I would suggest removing this cheater spell from the game.

IT just occurred to me that using missile weapons (including MMMs and Energy Blades) would remain perfectly possible if Sikret's modification consists of making time-stopped enemies immune to damage. The missiles, like spells, would only strike the target once time resumes its general flow. Is this true, and if so, is it Sikret's intention? Because even a single-class mage can do some decent damage with those Energy Blades - at least to certain enemies...

Yes, Zarathustra! Once the timestop's duration expires, they will take damage.

As you know I am against this change but I am curious nonetheless, why is one part of the cheat (targetting with spells) allowed but the other part of the cheat (melee) not allowed?

Seems to me that it should be all or neither, don't you think?

That's already explained here and here. The vast majority of spells won't actually take effect during timestop and will remain in suspension waiting for the normal time flow to resume.

The spell description says that you cannot even target enemies with spells during a time stop.

Note too that in the very next sentence, the spell description states "A spell that affects an area and has a duration longer than the remaining duration of the time stop have their normal effects on other creatures once the time stop ends". Now, every spell "affects an area" in a a vacuous metaphysical sense, but clearly this is intended to rule out spells that target creatures versus area of affect spells. If every spell was meant to be able to be targetted and casted in the time stop, then the description would not make the "affects an area" statement.

The intent of the spell description is abundantly obvious. Making timestop not work for melee, yet still work for targetting spells would be to only block half of the cheat. Presumably (along the lines of what you have said earlier) legitimate players won't even notice the difference, since they would of course know the true intent of time stop and not use the cheat method of using targetting spells in a time stop.

As I said, I don't think that spellcasting during timestop is a problem, because the (vast majority of) spells will remain in suspension waiting for the duration of timestop to expire and will not affect the target anyway. Read what I wrote in the posts which I gave the links to again (specially the second link, read item no.3 in that post).

I have read your posts, but I don't think they respond to my main point, which is that the spell is clearly intended to rule out targeting spells regardless of whether the spell only takes effect after the timestop is finished. How do you respond to that point?

The conceptual reason for ruling out targeting spells is identical to that of ruling out melee damage. Also with missile damage. Because if you allowed those things, timestop would just be an instakill spell. As others have said, it makes no sense to have a dragon attacking a frozen in time person and do only slashing damage. Similarly, in principle (i.e. if you think in common sense roleplay terms) if someone was in timestop a mage could just bombard them with spells that instantly kill them the second that time resumes before they had a chance to dodge or move or anything. As for missile damage, an archer could just take 25 shots directly at a person's neck, or any chink spot in their armor, and kill them instantly once time resumed.

My overall point is that the intent of the spell description is abundantly clear, and you seem to just be resting your reasoning on a technicality. If timestop melee is a cheat, then timestop spell targetting is too, and they should both be blocked (of course nobody who isn't a cheater already would notice this anyways as you say).

Yes, I haven't based my reasoning merely on the spell's description in pnp. I have my own reasoning for it which has a lot in common with the spell's description in 3rd edition, but it's not completely identical with it. The point you made regarding missiles and ranged weapons is somewhat fair, but there is little I can do about it. The good thing, however, is that most bosses in the game are naturally well-protected against ranged weapons regardless of the timestop issue and can't be killed instantly even by a rain of missiles a mage (even an F/M) can shoot. An archer doesn't have access to timestop.

So if your reasoning for this is conceptual, yet you do not apply identical conceptual reasoning which would rule out targetting, then it seems sensible to conclude that one of two things is the case:

1) You think that timestop in melee is simply overpowered, and not a cheat Because if timestop in melee is a cheat, then the justification of spells hitting briefly after the timestop is over is, as I have established, just as much of a conceptual cheat and twisting of the spell description. In this case, it would be more respectful of your players intelligence to just say that you believe timestop/melee is overpowered and cannot be sensibly implemented into BG2, instead of calling it an "infamous cheat". A tactic being overpowered does not make it an "infamous cheat". If overpoweredness was enough to make something an "infamous cheat", then vagrants would be an "infamous cheat" kit.

or

2) you do think that timestop in melee really is a cheat, but you do not want to remove the other cheat (spell targetting in melee) simply because its a tactic you happen to enjoy using, so you keep it with a thin justification. I doubt this is it though, because Sikret is famous for hating cheats!

Well, I think that Sikret's concept of Timestop could simply be that all other creatures are "frozen" and cannot be affected directly at all. This means that striking a "frozen" creature with a sword should not leave any wounds.

However, this would be different for many spells, because after the caster casts them, these spells are suspended in time as well, and only resume upon normal time. The same rationale should apply to attacking with projectile weapons... the projectiles are suspended/frozen after the caster fires them, and only hurt their target(s) after normal time resumes.

Thanks, LZJ!

@nataben1314

It seems that you don't really read what I write, because I don't believe that my position in this matter is so difficult to understand. Stop trolling please.

I think this is becoming a bit of a play on words, tbh. I certainly approve of the decision to remove it from IA6. However, like DavidW pointed out earlier, Melissan uses the same tactics/cheat. Are you planning on removing that too, Sikret?

I don't know if this could be implemented in the game but you could say that after attacking a monster in timestop you dispel the effect on that particular creature and so you have to fight it during your timestop. If this could be done you would only get one free hit at that creature and then you would be back to normal.

I hope everybody can understand what I mean...

It's a nice idea, Gorwath. But unfortunately, there is a problem in implementing it. Creatures who are immune to timestop use a totally different kind of scripts in IA compared to those who are not immune. Now, if I want to implement your idea and make the attacked creatures immune to timestop (as soon as they are attacked), they will still behave suboptimally because of their inappropriate script-type. And I really don't have so much time to write two scripts for each creature so that he uses one of them when he is immune to timestop and uses the other one when he is not. It will take more than a year to implement it in that way.

There's one thing that I do a lot, and I was wondering if it is considered cheesy.

on fights where you get alot of room to work with, ie Kruin, Shadow Temple Liches, Sion's crew, etc. I like to draw aggro from a ton of melee enemies, pass that character my boots of speed, and run them in circles while the rest of my party deals with the remainder. If they switch targets, I toss the boots to the other guy and run them around more, and my old runner rejoins my original group.

Furthermore, I've found that the melee mobs choose a target maybe once per round, and if you have dragged them far enough, they will choose the same target (your guy with the boots on) So it sorta turns into like a starcraft fight where you're playing against some noob who sends like 15 zealots after 1 of your dragoons and you just run it in circles while the rest of your dragoons shoot the zealots down one by one.

Even against 1 very strong melee, ie mithril golem, I'm sure alot of people pull the 1 guy the mitrhil golem is targeting away and loop around your other party members who are just bashing away. The golem will chase you for a few seconds and get zero hits off. Then he switches targets, and you start to dance the other character. So, are these methods cheesy?

Yes, I'm afraid, "hit&run" (or running in circles) is the worst of all cheesy methods in my book. See the "Cheat & Cheap" document in the "Academy of Tactics"; I have even listed it among the 'cheats' rather than 'cheap' tricks (though I've also explained that it could have been listed among cheesy methods as well).

Start trying not to run and find better tactics. It may be easier said than done at the beginning, but this is the very idea of drawing a learning curve to improve your tactical skills.

Ok I'll stop running around just to waste melee mobs' rounds because I have to admit, their retargeting is not very intelligent. But its ok to run a caster away to free him up to cast without getting spam cockblocked right?

I wasn't sure, because I play alot of RTS, hence the obscure actions per minute references. One of the staples of micromanagement in RTS is dancing your targeted/damaged unit around so enemies are forced to retarget another one of your other units. It's noobish to let one unit tank damage until it dies, instead of micromanaging and spreading the damage around. Spreading the damage also allows each mass cure to heal well over 120 dmg each, and each wonderous recall to be worth over 240 hit points recovered.

But it turns out, according to this particular game's creator's rules, "dancing" is the ultimate cheese, so I will weed it out in my next playthrough. I guess those healing potions and such are in the game for a reason. I do notice a rather huge stockpile, and next game I play I will be sure to deplete them instead of letting them gather dust.

Also, is it cheesy to cast SI:abj just to waste an enemy caster's round? For example ancient dragon, demilich, etc? Or is it considered "strategy"

I think your scripts all prioritize removing SI:abj even if it's not protecting any useful buffs. A very common thing I do vs strong casters is sit there with sorc and blade spamming SI:abj while the rest just whale on the idiot and all he does is cast ruby ray over and over. You can get maybe 10 rounds of freebashing, and even more if you throw in a mirror image in between (one at start, and once more 10 rounds later) to goad true sight castings, more than enough to kill anything.

@ Crunk

You're right about use of SI. From my gameplay experience, mages prioritise removing it, even if there are no other buffs present. I don't use it like that however, because practically every mage has a nasty Chain Contingency or a Trigger with 3x Lightning in it so there is real "use" in casting SI and keeping it up to protect your other protections from getting removed, even more so for Death Ward.
I wouldn't abuse it, even there are some battles which could be made easier if you did.

If you cast a spell for the mere purpose of wasting the enemy's action in the next round, then yes, it is somewhat cheesy (though it's certainly not as cheesy as the discussed 'hit&run').



In v5, enemies give a very high prioirty to removing your SI (though some spells still have higher priority than that). In v6, the scripts have been generally improved a lot further so that enemy spellcasters behave more intelligently in deciding whether removing the SI is really needed at any given stage of the battle or not.