Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Ideas and suggestions for game mechanics and rules.
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Blindhamsterman
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by Blindhamsterman »

what about a simple spell removes x amount of gold based on special requirements like identify does atm?
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by Zelknolf »

Curmudgeon wrote:Spell components have been debated before and turned down by the community as an excessive burden on player time, and must also consider their load on server resources - we have too many PCs at present carrying too many items around as it is without forcing them to add a collection of dozens of spell components.
I don't think anyone is suggesting adding 250 different breeds of sand and lint for daze and sleep spells. Every resource out there says that's just flavor text, and should be assumed to be available to any mage in possession of a spell component pouch. This is more about the diamond dust canonically required to cast stoneskin and restoration, or the powdered silver required to bless water-- the stuff that actually costs money (and costs enough of it to deter casual use of the spells).
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by Rotku »

I was adding a post here talking about spell component pouch for smaller items (even mentioned fine sand required for Sleep), but it seems Zelk bet me to it - so I'll just say I like the idea in general. BHM's idea of deducting Xgp for spells seems straight forward enough.
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by danielmn »

yeah, the items I previously made didn't include the whole bats ears, rat tail kind of thing. I already considered those to be a part of the component pouch. Only the components that actually cost coin....silver powder, inscence, X gp worth of a certain stone ect. were made. But that was just me fooling around in my own spare time, believe that was during the riotnrrd period of spell fixing/adding. Use them or no, no biggie to me.
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Blindhamsterman
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by Blindhamsterman »

whichever way we go, it'd add a level of balance (though it'd probably require that steady sources of at least minor income were available to all - else most of the even half decent spells would be uncastable, i know I for one often spend huge periods of time with like 5-20gp to my name for example)

I'd definitely love a system like Dan had in mind where expensive items (maybe only use stuff worth more than 50gp) were required for the canon spells, and assume everything worth less is covered by your component pouch.
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by NESchampion »

The suggestions about a low DR for Endure Elements and maintaining the 30' spell cones are sound suggestions; the points raised about how handling all these things at once to cut down on doubling back is sound advice as well. For now I'm going to let this brainstorming thread sit.
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t-ice
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by t-ice »

The single most "way out there" 1st level spell is Sleep. (Assuming the usual nwn2 implementation hasn't been altered already) Total HD is a rather trivial tweak, what matters is that sleep is essentially a area-effect "save or die" spell (albeit with limited HD range). At level 1. The problem of course is that we really oughta have a way for a sleeping creature's buddies to slap him awake. Right now a sleeping critter will almost inevitably be Coup de Graced, whereas by the right rules the spell would usually only hinder a group of targets, if even one reamins awake. All the same naturally applies to Deep Slumber.

Getting AI buddies to waken asleep critters is not easily solved to exactly match what it should be, though. Perhaps adopt the pnp duration of 1 min per level, and then one might have a script run a periodic check on the sleeper to cut the duration of the sleep effect to 1 round if there's a creature friendly to the sleeper within ~15 feet. Or if that's too complex, simply cut the duration of Sleep to 2 rounds across the board. If it's a lone creature, 2 rounds is enough to run to the critter and CdG it. It'd still be more powerful than intended (though would take some skill and party coherence to use at max potential). But at least you couldn't wipe out entire hostile groups with a single 1st level spell. Or something somehow that prevents the low-level wipeout effect of nwn2 sleep.

Cutting EE to DR5 sounds like a good idea. It also should only protect against fire and cold, not electricity, acid and sonic. Subdual effects of hot/cold environments does sound to me best left for the DM to manage for each adventure, though.
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by Brokenbone »

Hah, I actually hadn't thought about the idea of "just cold and heat." I guess electrical could be stretched to be thought of as a weather effect, but PnP EE would not be something you'd trust to hold off a lightning bolt, from a thunderstorm type situation. Acid and sonic are almost surely not "on the table" in terms of weather you could reasonably expect to encounter. "Wow it's really loud out today?", or "Boy this mist is really eating away at all my soft tissue?"

The Sleep business... yeah, hadn't noticed NWN2 is 4HD +1d4 extra HD, PnP is plain 4HD. I do see though that the "bigger deal" is that the AI doesn't do any slapping awake. Come to think, I have no idea how you wake up a partymate either. Smack them in subdual? Smack them without subdual (and possibly that gets interp'd as a coup de grace and they go to -6 and bleedout?)? I wonder... But anyhow, I guess while this one in terms of effect looks fairly close to PnP except for the +1d4 HD, the call it "lack of countereffect" like plain old slapping by the AI is I suppose kinda worrisome.

Looking at the Deep Slumber wiki entry, half a page of bugs are complained about, including that even though the spell talks about 10HD, it's actually 10+d10 with lots of other issues. Wiki isn't gospel, but usually posters somewhat know what they're talking about when going right down to line of code level detail.
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by Zelknolf »

Brokenbone wrote: Smack them in subdual? Smack them without subdual (and possibly that gets interp'd as a coup de grace and they go to -6 and bleedout?)? I wonder...
If we ever assembled a sound and complete "Aid Another" action, waking a sleeping friend is a use of it (standard action-- which we see in the engine as a "usable" feat), and could plausibly include an action to shoo away a sleep spell's effects.
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by t-ice »

Zelknolf wrote:
Brokenbone wrote: Smack them in subdual? Smack them without subdual (and possibly that gets interp'd as a coup de grace and they go to -6 and bleedout?)? I wonder...
If we ever assembled a sound and complete "Aid Another" action, waking a sleeping friend is a use of it (standard action-- which we see in the engine as a "usable" feat), and could plausibly include an action to shoo away a sleep spell's effects.
For PCs, maybe we could do waking up via applying the First Aid kit. (Perhaps the kit could simply be turned to an abstract "Aid" function, with the script detecting what kind of aid is needed. Leaving the MW kit for heal checks specificly.)

By far the more important is for the AI, though. (I doubt a DM would easily be ruthless enough to let a PC die by coup de grace while asleep and surrounded by awake friends.)
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by Zelknolf »

Well, I suppose there are differing opinions on priorities. Folk generally don't care so much when nameless hostile NPCs die, and PCs can't be targeted by the hardcoded coup de grace; that said, it would certainly be an improvement to make NPCs spend actions waking their pals up, and I'd happily include it if someone thought it was important enough to write.
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by Keryn »

BTW Tech guys is it possible to script a Dismiss of spell? Its sometimes just annoying you want to enter the inn and you cannot shrug off your spells.
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by Zelknolf »

Possible, sure; it's something we should probably consider along with other, broader spell system changes-- but it's also not a trivial thing to do. Only some spells can be dismissed and only the caster can dismiss them, and if we only implement the quick-and-dirty "Remove all friendly spell effects from me," we'll end up settling into an awkward and measurably-inferior implementation like we did in ALFA1.
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by Ithildur »

I'm generally in favor of bringing things at least somewhat closer to pnp; NWN2 has some VERY odd implementation of various elements of the game including spells... (though I think there are much more annoying things like max HPs or stuff that shouldn't require feats to do in the game engine - disarm, trip, etc - but some of them I realize are much less trivial fixes).

Having said that I'd agree a few things others have touched on do deserve consideration: do not make it excessively difficult for folks who don't have uber twitch skillz to play casters. i.e. casting Color Spray in real time, it can be tricky enough as is, making the cones/AOE too small seems unnecessary and only favors the folks who play a lot of Xbox.

If durations are going to be brought in line with pnp, for pete's sake slow the time compression down, so that long duration spells are actually long duration spells. It's ridiculously stupid that Stoneskin, for example, if brought in line with pnp would actually last LONGER than it does currently as a hour/lvl spell.

I've suggested this as a resource/possible time saver elsewhere; donno if you saw it NES:
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NW ... tail&id=99

Also, most ray/touch attacks spells should take into account sneak attack and critical hits, and lvl 1 list right off the bat has about half a dozen of these (the lesser orbs, ray of enfeeblement). The above package of fixes/improvements takes that into account.
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Re: Proposal: Bring Spells in line with PnP

Post by Regalis »

Complex weather systems are common. There are some good starting points on the vault for moving towards a canonical approach. Absent winter clothing in NWN2, some of them based the save period or target DC based upon light/medium/heavy armor.

One of the AI files contains the order of preference NPCs have for casting buffs and offensive spells. Any serious revision to the spell system would warrant a re-prioritization of that list. Likewise, it could be worth adjusting the NPCs memorized spells in the toolkit.
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