Isaac

[Vahene]

I have this friend named Isaac, he's even got a younger brother.. so, he's a bit too strong for his own good, and the question is, should he be weakened up a bit, or changed, tweaked?

(i.e., Isaac's Greater, Isaac's Lesser--change? Or not? Discuss..)

...Personally, I have a mage and a rogue. I acknowledge the fact that the spell is way too powerful--both of them actually, as there is no save. At all. A reflex save would probably make the most sense, and personally, I don't think would be totally out of the question in my opinion, but then again, remember, I play a rogue. So, I'm a bit biased. Another option would be to tweak how many missles you get of energy.. but you're still without a save, which I consider to be the greatest problem of the spell itself.

-K

[Kell]

I played on a server where the spell was nerfed as an extension to magic missile. All bolts did no more then 1d4 damage.

At 20th lvl, that's still 20x1d4 damage. It's not that powerful anymore then, but 20x4=80. That's as much as a maxed blade barrier, sounds okay to me.

[whiteguyinblues]

This is the official description of IGM:

A number of energy missiles (one per caster level but to a maximum of 20) appear and randomly hit any hostile creature in the area of effect. If there are more creatures than missiles, only the closest targets will be damaged. If there are more missiles than creatures some of the creatures will be hit with multiple missiles (one missile per 4 caster levels but to a maximum of 7 missiles per target). Each missile deals 2d6 points of magical damage.

At level 20 a single char should only get hit by 5 missiles. Why does it get all 20?

I think it should be max 10 missiles for one target. Thats 120 Damage maxed, same as Maxed chain lightning.

If its given a reflex save? Would the character save VS each missile? If the spell is given that save, It might be enough.

[Armitage]

I think a reflex save is the better choice.

This is my thoughts on why.

With magic missile all hit because you have a small amount of missiles to control to the mage should be able to concentrate on making them all hit the target. Now with IGMS you have a far larger number number of missiles and because of the shear numbers it would be difficult to control all of them.

Now because the control is less them perfect if you had good reflexes you should be able to dodge most if not all of them.

Just my thoughts on why it should have a reflex save.

[Wyvern]

I recommend keeping it limited to one thread per spell. It will save a LOT of confusion and keep things within context.

[Rego Blin]

I would have to say leave it how it is, or just tweak it slightly, such as making it so the spell cant be maximized.

imo there are only 3 classes who should have a problem with IGMS, Fighter, Paladin and Barbarian.

Every other class available has one way or another to deal with IGMS, the part that I think many people forget is that the more of characters, summons, NPC's, etc in the immediate area that the mage is casting is will spread the missles over each of them.

For the sake of being specific i'll list various ways each class can do this.

Rogue: Scrolls and Items, no rogue should be without summon scrolls, or items that summon. Sneaking

Bard: Summon spells, Scrolls, and items

Ranger: Animal companion, and summon spells. Sneaking

Cleric: Summon Spells

Sorc/Wiz: summon spells, Familiar

Druid: Animal companion, summon spells

Monk: Sneaking, run speed with imp kd.

I think i got them all, theres also the PRC's, but they cant be taken without one of the above classes, so I consider them as part of them in this case.

I hear people say the spell is to strong, yeah the spell dishes out a heap of damage, but when you survive the first barrage the mage shouldn't get a second casting off before hes been kd'ed.

I've seen fighters, paladins and barbarians take a full IGMS and keep on comming, Clerics, mages, druids, and bards all have dispelling and with the exception of mages (whom has spell mantles) the other three can kd.

Rangers, Rogues and Monks. Monks are fast enough and usually have enough health to survive a hit to kd the mage, Rangers and Rogues should be stealthed and take out the mage before he even has a chance to cast the first spell.

Anyways, I gave examples, I said what I thought, so i'll leave it at that

Rego

[Brigadier Syndir Isendur]

A number of energy missiles (one per caster level but to a maximum of 20) appear and randomly hit any hostile creature in the area of effect. If there are more creatures than missiles, only the closest targets will be damaged. If there are more missiles than creatures some of the creatures will be hit with multiple missiles (one missile per 4 caster levels but to a maximum of 7 missiles per target). Each missile deals 2d6 points of magical damage.

I think that sounds about right. A max of 7 missiles per target, no save.

[Kell]

A number of energy missiles (one per caster level but to a maximum of 20) appear and randomly hit any hostile creature in the area of effect. If there are more creatures than missiles, only the closest targets will be damaged. If there are more missiles than creatures some of the creatures will be hit with multiple missiles (one missile per 4 caster levels but to a maximum of 7 missiles per target). Each missile deals 2d6 points of magical damage.

I think that sounds about right. A max of 7 missiles per target, no save.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

[Peregrinus]

Most people consider my option skewed on this but allow my thoughts.

First off, giving it a rflx save is a bad, bad, bad thing. IGMS is one of five damage spells that has no rflx save. I've personally seen some high level rogue's reflx saves, and when counting in evasion, it doesn't matter that I'm firing 20 missiles, statistically only one will do damage, and only half damage at that. The save DC from Falson (or any other properly built mage) would be 10+6+12 or 28. A Typical lvl 20 rogue will have a rflx save in the realm of +22 to 28 depending on race/build/equipment. If you give the rflx to it, you have to give it to ILMS, meaning only Negative Energy Ray, Magic Missiles, and Horrid Wilting, would be truly effective against rogues. Two of those spells won't do enough damage to even give the mage a snowball's chance in the hells, and horrid wilting isn't party friendly. Also, a rflx wouldn't help fighters/barbs, etc against it.

If you could script it so that you only get half the missiles against one target, that wouldn't be so bad, and probably a good fix, and I don't see any inherant problems with that.

However, keep in mind, nerfing IGMS would have almost no effect on PvP encounters, however, it greatly weakens evocation based mages in PvE. Against Raven, for instance, there are only a few spells that are even effective, any change to weaken the damage dice on IGMS will make it totally inneffective against Raven (as it can only do 40 damage to her to begin with if maximized). Adding a rflx basically makes it impossible for a mage to damage Talon scouts and other monsters with high rflx and evasion. The limiting the amount of missiles to 10 per target, while making Raven more difficult, would be tolerable, and wouldn't really decrease its effectiveness against the evasion/high rflx NPC enemies. since they normally come in groups of more than one.

Here's the rub, in PnP there's a spell called Disintergrate, it has the same damage curve as IGMS, is the same spell level, but only targets one creature, and does its damage all at once, as opposed to 20 times. However, if has a fortitude save that if you make the spell only does 5D6 damage. Personally, I'd like to see IGMS taken out and Disintergrate put in, but I'm betting most folks would complain that its even more broken than IGMS.

The simplest solution in my mind is make an items that gives the wearer magic resist 5. That doesn't sound like much, but realize, because each missile does its damage seperately, it nullifies 5 points of damage off each missile. So a maximized IGMS goes from 240 damage down to 140 damage, significantly more tolerable, but also doesn't make the spell entirely worthless. There is even a good RP reason to have such an item, the maximum damage of a magic missile is 5 per missile, training wizards in the tower of the staff would value such an item for combat training of wizards. It even gives you a place to sell the item, the tower of the staff in Dasar.

My two cents, as worthless as they are.

[JaeEleutheria]

Personally, I don't want any of the spells changed. At all. They work fine the way they are. Just use common sense and probably not throw Maxed IGMS in PvP. That is kind of mean.

That is my simple opinion.

[Kell]

Personally, I don't want any of the spells changed. At all. They work fine the way they are. Just use common sense and probably not throw Maxed IGMS in PvP. That is kind of mean.

That is my simple opinion.

If only everybody thought the same way. The thing is that in earlier days, that was exactly the point. People were playing pvp and they were playing, well, trying to play kinda fair. But after a whole lot of bickering and issuing, some mages (including myself) just said; screw you, if you want to use that and that feat against a mage like me and if you want to kill me and WIN, then I'll want the same thing. If you want to fight a mage, expect some heavy artillery. Easy as that, that's what mages are good at.

I mean, yeah, if we all reverted back to the; I like pvp and we're all in this for the fun, instead of the win, then yeah it might work. But the thing with pvp is that there's always ONE person who looses and who'll start whining about the others not playing fair.

I, for one, don't really care anymore about what is playing fair or not. I've been beaten to death while a mage cast a bigby's on me, and 7 others just started bashing me. And I've been in town unbuffed and suddenly another mage casts a maximised IGMS on me. Yeah, sure, that might have been because I was eos, but that does not mean I don't prefer fair and nice play so that it's fun for all parties.

I think that there are a lot of people who just don't care anymore. If the others are playing to win, then why would you cut them slack? If they use every dirty trick they have, why wouldn't a mage do the same?

That's why I do think that this spell should be altered. So that the guys who normally complain about this spell, have less to complain about. You'll see then however, that they'll find another lame spell to complain about.

How about Negative Energy Burst? Weakens a fighter, so that it gets impossible to come to the caster, who can then throw spells as much he wants to kill the melee guy? Or how about.. lessay.. extended fear, against a rogue. Just how -lame- is that! Rogues have no willsave, so when they get a fear against them, they are screwed. And extended, whoa, that lasts long when a lvl 20 mage casts it!

See? It always stays lame, one way or another and mages -will- always have the advantage of being able to play around with spells. There are disabling spells and numbing spells and all of them in some way are lame to use against certain, or most classes.

Alter it, so it's gonna -seem- more fair. But there will be another thing then that mages will find coming in handy.

[JaeEleutheria]

I guess that's why I don't think it needs to be changed. If you change it and then people start complaining about other spells, then what are you going to do then? Keep changing all the spells/feats/etc to be more fair?

I personally think that changing one spell to be more fair will not really help matters, but will hurt matters. If you alter this one spell to be more fair, then others will probably ask to alter some other spells and think that they will get that because this got changed as well. For example, I find Darkness rather cheap and would like that to be eliminated. And knockdown (don't get me started)... If you change one little thing, there will be others that will want other things changed as well, and in a fair community what really comes first? Then again I don't like change. I personally have just gotten used to this system and may get rather cranky if the system gets changed on me. I will go along with whatever the DMs decide however.

I do think though that if you're going to continuously "knockdown" a mage, and you expect them to be nice and not cast IGMS on you, that you're asking a bit much.

Although I would not complain if IGMS was replaced with Disintegrate, (have been studying the D&D books lately) but as I don't think Disintegrate came with NWN in the beginning, I don't think that will happen.

[Wyvern]

One thing to bear in mind is that changing doesnt necessarily always mean nerfing. Cutting the power of each missile from say xd6 to x/2 d6 is a nerf in my eyes. Limiting the number of missiles that can hit a single target for example, I do not consider a nerf. You still get 20 missiles, but with such a change, they may not all find a target. I personally hate playing the nerf game. And I also think balance is pretty much impossible. So I am curious to see how this (and other) discussions go.

[Wyvern]

Jae, in response to your post:

If you change it and then people start complaining about other spells, then what are you going to do then? Keep changing all the spells/feats/etc to be more fair?

It is a slippery slope. Hence why I said what I did in my previous post. Where do you stop?

For example, I find Darkness rather cheap and would like that to be eliminated.

Darkness in PvP is easily countered with any of the dispells, and ultravision negates it. If I have an issue with darkness is it in PvE, where the AI pretty much works like this:

If creature is in darkness then do nothing. It truely does suck. PvP, I see no real issue with it.

And knockdown (don't get me started)...

That is a whole seperate argument, that I would like to keep out of this thread. Mages hate it, melees love it because it is one of the few options open to them. But if you want to flame eachother on this one, let's start a new thread, eh?

I do think though that if you're going to continuously "knockdown" a mage, and you expect them to be nice and not cast IGMS on you, that you're asking a bit much.

I agree completely, you use what skills you have available to you.

Although I would not complain if IGMS was replaced with Disintegrate, (have been studying the D&D books lately) but as I don't think Disintegrate came with NWN in the beginning, I don't think that will happen.

Probably not. It is a bit late in the game to think about implementing new spells, which will require a hak update, at this stage of the game. We have enough potentially broken spells already, so I would rather not muddy the waters even more.

[Crimson Knightmare]

Several servers I have played on nerfed IGMS for common sense.. Lets take falson for example..

Falson Vs Evil Melevon..... IGMS... !!!! HAHAHA KILLED YOU AGAIN!

5 min later.. Falson vs Evil Melevon again... !!! HAHAHA KILLED YOU AGAIN!

3 days later.. Drevlin Vs random evil mage.. IGMS!!! Drevlin Near death.. O! Mass heal! Max life.. STunned from spell.. Evil mage-- Two IGMS.. Haha fool your a$$ is mine once again.

IGMS is the totally unfair spell even though im a known abuser of this spell.. Cmon 20 missles maxed on a person is 240 damage! A maxed fricken delayed blast fireball is only 120! Thats with a failed role against the save..

A server me and Jonny met on.. IGMS was nerfed so it was what Jonny.. 4-6 missles a person? and wasnt its damage set for when maxed on 6? Or was it still 12..

Another PVP server where my dad and some people me and Jonny know play at.. IGMS nerfed for common sense.

I say lets nerf it to have no save against it but the numbers of missles like Jonny read from wherever he got it.. to be like that..