Spell changes

Big Bad Ergg · Post by **Big Bad Ergg** » Sat Mar 01, 2003 12:48 pm

I can respect your difference of opinion. And I won't go out of my way to ruin your fun.

Contrary to popular opinion, I am NOT Ergg, the Unjust!

Tinuvhiell · Post by **Tinuvhiell** » Sat Mar 01, 2003 8:55 pm

I don't think raise and ress should be something you can do on the fly. I can't imagine a priest managing a major spell like one of those in the midst of a raging battle. A brief stun after either doesn't seem like a big deal to me. So, now groups should consider that they need to protect their cleric and clerics should keep in mind without those big mean fighting walls they will probably die now.

Tinkerhell · Post by **Tinkerhell** » Sun Mar 02, 2003 7:56 am

Ok my turn on the soapbox of ranting +5.
Res & Raise dead penalties I have no problem with.
What I have a problem with (and have for a long time) is the availablity of res scrolls and heal potions. I think they should not exist. Res & heal are perhaps two of the top five things a cleric gets. I think it sucks when every 20th level person on the server has a stack of 10 res scrolls and can do my job better than I can because of it. Now before anyone says it, I know that not everyone has that many. But I have been on group quests a time or three when just about everyone did have that many. I also know at one point that heal potions could be purchased from a vendor in Kracc's castle. That's just way out of line.
Potions and scrolls of any other healing level is fine to have in game. Healing kits are GREAT! Love them (except as noted below). Raise dead as a scroll is just fine - apply those penatlies to scrolls also please. Obviously you should not have to respawn everytime you die just because you don't have a cleric in the party. The rest of the stuff needs to go.
Make it really worth while to have a cleric in the party again. Right now they are nice to have, but not awsome. I agree with Ergg that this is not pnp d&d but back in the day playing pnp you NEVER wanted to go out without a cleric. Even a low level one. Get a disease or slightly posioned & you were toast if you didn't have the priest around. 3rd edition nerf'ed poison, and diseases are way too weak to be of a threat. "oh you got bitten by that 20th level spider & your poisioned now. Well here. Slap this bandage on & that will fix you right up. What's that you say bubonic plague from those 25th level rats at the very bottom of sewer - heal pack will get rid of that in NO time. Who needs a cleric....

Oh as for the penalty for casting harm & heal - I disagree also. If you put that sort of thing on those spells I'd like to see the same on a wizard for horrid wilting, and power word kill.
Given how difficult it is to hit things for a cleric and the fact that SOOOO many high level enemies seem to be immune to harm (and I don't mean because of resistance or having a spell neg material protection spell or it's like cast on them - I mean immune straight out) I don't think harm is such a nasty spell. As for heal having that drawback I totally don't see the reason for that. It certainly was not the case in pnp.

As for clerics and pvp they are the class of choice because of implosion, storm of vengence, hammer of the gods, holy word and blade barrier. Harm is good but ya gotta hit. Clerics usually have a hard time hitting a well equipted fighter, and other casters can easily have an immuity to death magic. About the only time I'll try to harm someone in a pvp fight is if I have run out of other options or they catch me without my full compliment of spells. Clerics have MUCH better options available to them than harm.

Steps off the box....

ercoupe44 · Post by **ercoupe44** » Sun Mar 02, 2003 2:19 pm

One correction to Shadow's post. Harm is a touch spell. A cleric usually has a very easy time hitting most fighters with a touch spell, since they ignore armor; a monk on the hand, well that's a different story.

Also, I play a high lvl Wiz and I think that Horrid Wilting and Power Word Kill are nowhere near as powerful as Harm. I rarely use Horrid Wilting, it's good but I've got better spells. Power Word Kill only works if the opponent has less than 100hp. Almost everyone at higher lvls have more than 100hp. Harm can get you, even if you have 5000 HP.

Napsütés · Post by **Napsütés** » Sun Mar 02, 2003 7:17 pm

Horrid Wilting is an -awesome- spell. It's damage is so nasty that most times it kills me straight off.

Finger of Death? I know a Wizard that's DC is 32. Time Stop? Wail of the Banshee? Wierd?

Melthavion · Post by **Melthavion** » Sun Mar 02, 2003 7:55 pm

Harm isn't death magic...it goes right through DM resistance. ercoupe is right about the touch too, I don't think armor matters. Shadow is right about high level mobs being immune to Harm, because it IS such a powerful spell. There's no resisting it without making the mobs have a huge SR, which overbalances them to being immune to all magic. Perhaps if we put some counterbalance on harm then some of those immunities can come off. Or we can leave them with immunities and make harm TOTALLY useless... I disagree with Shadow's assessment of PvP uses of harm too. If you're solo, then sure, Harm isn't all that great. SoV and BB combo is the way to go. In party PvP, with a good fighter type or monk engaged with a foe, harm and one little min damage hit from the fighter puts them on the ground within one round. No chance to cast a heal, use a potion, or anything if the fighter hits the same round, and a good chance you won't in the next round either. Death magic resistance if far more common than negative energy resistance, and it renders all the spells Nasputes mentioned useless except TS and HW. This is the reasoning we made the changes we did. Like I've said before, we made it live to see how things go, and I'm sure we'll be making tweaks as we go along.

-Mel

DeathKnight · Post by **DeathKnight** » Sun Mar 02, 2003 8:10 pm

Horrid Wilting isn't all that great - most times it does about 80-90 damage, which shouldn't really kill any lvl 20 char, and Maxed Blade Barrier does much more damage usually. Finger of death? Even if the DC is 32 (which is only if you're a lvl 20, maximum specialisation in necromancy) it still has a save, and Harm doesn't. In the defile and talon I sometimes use finger of death just for the damage, because they usually save (they're immune anyway though). Time Stop - Storm of Vengeance stuns for longer; WOTB and Wierd, same as Implosion. btw DMs, why are the talonese and defilers immune to chain lighting? Shouldn't they also be immune to Blade Barrier then? (

to Nap)

Napsütés · Post by **Napsütés** » Sun Mar 02, 2003 8:35 pm

DeathKnight wrote: Shouldn't they also be immune to Blade Barrier then? ( to Nap)

Nuuuuuuuuu

Big Bad Ergg · Post by **Big Bad Ergg** » Sun Mar 02, 2003 11:39 pm

I have survived "The Sprinkler of Death!"

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

ercoupe44 · Post by **ercoupe44** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 12:08 am

Mel and Jeh,

I've done some testing with Timestop, and I'm not sure it's working exactly as you intended. It doesn't seem to work out to 30 meters, it seems to have about the same AOE as a fireball, not very big. For instance, I've tried being on the other side of a very short wall from my enemies, which if not for the wall would have been in melee range, casting time stop and then going around the wall and they are not affected. I don't think it was due to short duration either.

I have a suggestion on how I think it should work. Stopping the whole world is very annoying and not useful, but what if it just stopped that zone? So, if you were in town and cast time stop, it would affect everyone in town, but not those in Gnomish. I don't know if this is possible, but if it is, I think it's the way to go. If it's not possible to make it work for one whole zone, maybe you could just increase the AOE.

Also, I'm not sure what you did to the duration, but I don't remember it being constant before you made the change either, although it does seem shorter now. I think the duration should be, on average, what it was before. I agree it should be variable though.

I don't remember anyone ever complaining that timestop was all that imbalancing, just that it was annoying when it stopped the whole server. If I'm wrong about this, please let me know.

Bottom line; It is afterall, a 9th lvl spell. I think you've castrated it too much. Please reconsider, and if not, at least do some more testing to assure yourselves it's working the way you intended.

Thanks

Melthavion · Post by **Melthavion** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 12:26 am

ercoupe44 wrote:I've done some testing with Timestop, and I'm not sure it's working exactly as you intended. It doesn't seem to work out to 30 meters, it seems to have about the same AOE as a fireball, not very big.

Hmm...I'll look into this. I meant for it to be 30 meters in radius, or a sphere about 6 tiles in diameter centered on the caster...if it's not working that way then something is indeed wrong with it.

ercoupe44 wrote: I have a suggestion on how I think it should work. Stopping the whole world is very annoying and not useful, but what if it just stopped that zone? ... I don't know if this is possible, but if it is, I think it's the way to go.

I think it's probably possible, not sure how complex that would be. I'll look into that too if I can't get the AoE to work right.

ercoupe44 wrote: Also, I'm not sure what you did to the duration, but I don't remember it being constant before you made the change either, although it does seem shorter now.

It was constant at 9 seconds. It's not necessarily shorter now.

ercoupe44 wrote: I think the duration should be, on average, what it was before. I agree it should be variable though.

It is variable between 6-12 seconds now, which averages to the constant 9 it was before.

ercoupe44 wrote: I don't remember anyone ever complaining that timestop was all that imbalancing, just that it was annoying when it stopped the whole server. If I'm wrong about this, please let me know.

No, that's mainly the issue. Very annoying to be cruising through the road to Morell only to be frozen because someone is casting TS on mobs in Talon Hold. The only time it was really imbalancing (and causing server stability issues) was in PvP combat and some mages were stacking about 6 of them on their enemies in quick succession.

ercoupe44 wrote: Bottom line; It is afterall, a 9th lvl spell. I think you've castrated it too much. Please reconsider, and if not, at least do some more testing to assure yourselves it's working the way you intended.

We will look to see if it's not working right. If the AoE is as short as you describe, then that was unintentional and will be fixed. Other than that, I don't see how we castrated it at all. It still has the same effect, and you have an equal chance that it might be the same duration as before, shorter, or even longer than before.

Thanks for the notice that the AoE might not be working right, we'll definitely look into that.

-Mel

ercoupe44 · Post by **ercoupe44** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 1:48 am

We will look to see if it's not working right. If the AoE is as short as you describe, then that was unintentional and will be fixed. Other than that, I don't see how we castrated it at all. It still has the same effect, and you have an equal chance that it might be the same duration as before, shorter, or even longer than before.

Well, if everything is indeed working as it should, then I agree that you didn't castrate it. But, I do think the Area of Effect is too small. My feeling is that it should affect an area big enough that I can't run out of it during the duration, even the 12 second duration, and even while hasted.

Regardless of the outcome, I appreciate you guys taking a look at this, and responding so quickly.

Thanks Again

ercoupe44 · Post by **ercoupe44** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 3:06 am

OK, I just did some more testing, this time without a wall in the way . The Area of Effect is much bigger, but I still don't know if it's as large as you intended, or as large as I would like it to be. I still think it would be cool if it could affect the entier zone that you're in.

Now, back to my original concern, with the wall. I wonder if the wall is blocking it like it would other AOE spells, such as fireball. That would certainly explain what I was seeing. I hope that's not the case, or at least that if it is the case, that it can be fixed. Of course, this all could be in my imagination. Maybe I'm crazy. That sure would be a simpler explanation.

Melthavion · Post by **Melthavion** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 4:33 am

When you're defining effects in NWScript there's an argument for Line of Sight, I may very well be I have it flipped the wrong way and walls are blocking it....

Guardsman James · Post by **Guardsman James** » Wed Mar 05, 2003 2:44 pm

I'v had a problem with res also.
Casting it stuns for what seems like a couple of rounds.
Then my character tries to cast it a second time.