A Land Far Away

Just to be clear, will the changes to shield affect the stacking of other shield protections, as described in the 3.5 PHB? Would enchantment on armor also be 'lost'? If so, why?

Modifying the armor spell for low level wizards who are using light armor will be devastating to all but pure wizard builds, who arguably wouldn't wear light armor. The comparison to the cleric spell makes my point ... the cleric is already in plate mail after all; at best any functioning mage will not get more then a +3 bonus from armor before completely undermining spell casting ability. Consider using the NWN1 approach, consider capping the armor improvement stackability (e.g. can't be stacked with anything above leather (+2)), consider modifying improved mage armor to PnP but leaving mage armor some functionality...

It's not just about PnP conformity. Much of the NWN2 framework is not PnP compliant. You are not considering playability for mages in context of the game engine. Am I the only one that sees this as an issue? Does no one get where I'm coming from on this?

I get you Regas.

if you have +1 armour, the +1 should stack with the mage armour now (which it never used to)

My PC is a wizard warrior that always wears a chain shirt, but I'm still backing this fix, as it does make sense.

For pure wizards, a set of +1 robes should stack with mage armor for +5 AC. So this actually helps wizards not wearing armor.

I get the point of wizards having trouble in NWN2, the real-time and no-map-squares nature of the game makes it nigh impossible for tanks to keep enemies off the wizzies, who by canon are supposed to avoid melee. Consequently pretty much everyone needs to be able to survive melee in NWN2.

So I get what's the point. I don't agree that a wiz/rog or wiz/fig should get a +4AC compared to pure fighter or rogue, as it is, though. Let's face it, the reason why Mage Armor gives AC enchantment bonus instead of AC bonus is sloppy coding and understanding of the rules by Obsidian. Not a on-purpose increase in power for multiclass, armored arcanists and warrior friends of wizards.

The most silly part with mage armor is that in can be cast on anyone, meaning it gives +4 AC to every plate-clad warrior who have a wizzie friend. At least in Amn we don't have a specific rule about mage armor usage (that would be just insane complication), but people sometimes refrain from using it apparently by "personal conviction", sometimes not. All in all, it's rather silly. So the fix is much called for.

If we want to increase survivability of wizards, it's another discussion, one that might be well warranted. I know ALFA wants to very faithfully reproduce PnP rules, but if it's agreed the non-PnP features of NWN2 call for non-PnP features to return balance, I would favor a simple solution by an additional 1st level defensive spell for wizards. One that is of personal range, and increases survivability at expense of offense. Something along the lines of

"Force barrel", 1st level wiz/sorc
1 hour / caster level
personal
+3ac(deflection)
-3 to hit
Surrounds the caster in a field of force that deflects physical attacks. The field doesn't discriminate between attacks towards the caster or by him.

I think such a spell would increase wizzy survivability in a roughly balanced manner and add to the game (tweak the +ac and - to hit numbers to taste). Though I'm not that sure such a defensive spell is absolutely necessary for we do have shield, invisibility, ghostly visage and mirror image already. They are very useful, although obviously shadowed by the uberness of mage armor / normal armor combo.

[quote]I think such a spell would increase wizzy survivability in a roughly balanced manner and add to the game (tweak the +ac and - to hit numbers to taste). Though I'm not that sure such a defensive spell is absolutely necessary for we do have shield, invisibility, ghostly visage and mirror image already. They are very useful, although obviously shadowed by the uberness of mage armor / normal armor combo.[/quote]

if we want to make wizards a bit more survivable and also more balanced, make in game days longer - by extension increasing durations of spells. Wizards (especially at low levels) suffer from protection spells that last next to no time at all, all of the lovely spells T-Ice meantioned above have short durations, at low levels they just don't last long enough...

Of course making days longer is a double edges sword as it imposes more down time on wizards than they already have, but it might be a reasonable option (as it effects all spellcasting classes)

In fact all of those spells have duration measured in rounds (mins/level). Game clock doesn't affect them at all. They last long enough for one fight, unless you have a multiclass caster with only one or two wizzie levels, and then you had it coming.

6secs IG time =1 round = 6secs RL time
1 minute IG time = 10 rounds = 60secs RL time
1 hour IG time = 60 / time factor * 10 rounds ~= 10 minutes RL time

Thus the clock only affects hour/level (or 24hour) spells. Still, agreed that game time is rather silly, but there's no ideal way. For DM lead events, 1 on 1 timeflow would likely be best - the DM can use the Client to advance time as "*You trek across the Ferocious Forest towards the Dungeon of Doom*" happens. Because conversations by text take much longer in real time than they should, the current timerate means a short tavern convo takes most of the day. And if the PCs stop to exchange a couple words while the heat is on, buffs expire. The timerate we now have probably works well for static romps sans DM, and is decent compromise.

Regarding the "Shield" spell, I don't believe we have a fix for it on the table yet presently. Current fix lined up (and overdue for implementation on Western Heartlands for general testing) is for Mage Armor only, and likely extendable to Improved (Greater) Mage armor. One challenge at a time, I suppose.

t-ice wrote: The silliest part with mage armor is that in can be cast on anyone, meaning it gives +4 AC to every plate-clad warrior who has a wizzie friend. At least in Amn we don't have a specific rule about mage armor usage (that would be just insane complication), but people sometimes refrain from using it apparently by "personal conviction", sometimes not. All in all, it's rather silly. So the fix is much called for.

If we want to increase survivability of wizards, it's another discussion, one that might be well warranted. I know ALFA wants to very faithfully reproduce PnP rules, but if it's agreed the non-PnP features of NWN2 call for non-PnP features to return balance, I would favor a simple solution by an additional 1st level defensive spell for wizards. One that is of personal range, and increases survivability at expense of offense. Something along the lines of

"Force barrel", 1st level wiz/sorc
1 hour / caster level
personal
+3ac(deflection)
-3 to hit
Surrounds the caster in a field of force that deflects physical attacks. The field doesn't discriminate between attacks towards the caster or by him.

I think such a spell would increase wizzy survivability in a roughly balanced manner and add to the game (tweak the +ac and - to hit numbers to taste). Though I'm not that sure such a defensive spell is absolutely necessary for we do have shield, invisibility, ghostly visage and mirror image already. They are very useful, although obviously shadowed by the uberness of mage armor / normal armor combo.

I agree that casting mage armor on other pcs is a real issue; I remember discovering this when testing the spell--seems exploitable.

The idea of adding a defensive spell like the one you suggest is a great idea, I hope it's something standards can consider. It strikes at the heart of my argument, that if we only ever prune back without regard to balance we're going to continue to undermine playability with non-combat classes. The time issue is huge, as one hour per level spell durations are really ten minute per level spells--in real time.

My concern with shield is that we don't miss-read the PnP rules to require shield to not stack with armor, when PnP states it is not to stack with other 'shield' bonuses.

In any event, thanks for the suggestion t-Ice.

Maybe this warrants a new thread, but what about looking into changing the hour per level spells to better reflect real time? It never occurred to me before (until T-Ice), but these are the ones that become distorted by the time compression, where as the other durations aren't impacted by time compression. if time compression is 6 to 1, or 9 to 1 (?) then why not double or triple the hourly durations of spell effects?

And for my next topic

Boots and Intellignece buffs, can they apply....

ElCadaver wrote:Boots and Intellignece buffs, can they apply....

Yes, at a price.

Did you want to twink your toes?

How has the testing for the fix gone? will we see it on other servers soon? It looked good from what I saw testing in a private module.

Was going to have it for open testing on Western Heartlands (the only Beta server that was hosted at the time), but then WHL has been down since then. Guess we'll have to run more focused testing and then try to patch it into the Live mods if that goes smoothly.

well, give me a shout when testing is being done, happy to help with it

Did the fix to mage armour ever get to see the light of day?