7 replies to this topic

[Acheron]

1.) The Union HLA grants a +5 casting level bonus, but the opcode for this (191) doesn't work according to IESDP (there are also some posts about opcode 191 not functioning in the IESDP forum at G3 also). This and thisat G3 discusses the issue.

-Acheron/Starcrunch

[the bigg]

Oh. Suggestions for replacing its effects? Higher spellcasting speed increase? Immunity to spell failure for all? Improved Alacrity for a duration of 1 second for all?

[Demivrgvs]

Suggestions for replacing its effects? Higher spellcasting speed increase? Immunity to spell failure for all? Improved Alacrity for a duration of 1 second for all?

Immunity to spell Failure combined with Tweak Pack' "allow spellcasting while wearing armors" may lead to the exploit of multiple armored mages without spellcasting failure. If I can think of a decent suggestion I'll let you know, but I don't think Alacrity would be a good one either.

Anyway if you're going to tweak this spell could you possibly set the duration of the aura's effects so that they don't expire 1 second before being renewed? I think that someone near the cleric/mage should be constantly affected by the aura, am I wrong?

[the bigg]

Suggestions for replacing its effects? Higher spellcasting speed increase? Immunity to spell failure for all? Improved Alacrity for a duration of 1 second for all?

Immunity to spell Failure combined with Tweak Pack' "allow spellcasting while wearing armors" may lead to the exploit of multiple armored mages without spellcasting failure. If I can think of a decent suggestion I'll let you know, but I don't think Alacrity would be a good one either.

Possibly. The C/M itself already gets immunity to Spell Failure anyway, and I think that if somebody really wants to exploit this he can be my guest (he'd have to roll a C/M, choose the ability, use it, and then wear the armor - if you already had one it wouldn't apply).

Anyway if you're going to tweak this spell could you possibly set the duration of the aura's effects so that they don't expire 1 second before being renewed? I think that someone near the cleric/mage should be constantly affected by the aura, am I wrong?

That sort of aura-like ability is very flaky, unfortunately (and I don't think I'm going to change and debug something like that anytime soon).

[Acheron]

A second issue:
The create scroll HLA uses opcode 122 to create the scrolls. This has a side effect that the scrolls only vanish after 12 hours in game if they are on the creature that created them. If Imoen creates a scroll and gives it to the PC, and the PC holds it until after the 3600 second timer expires, the scroll becomes permanent and will never vanish as intended.

Replacing opcode 122 with opcode 255 will solve this problem, though the scrolls will last 24 hours rather than 12 hours (it's not clear to me where the duration is set for this opcode, setting the duration to 0 nets me 24 hours then the item is destroyed no matter where it appears to be, IESDP indicates that the duration is in days; this is the opcode used for the Enchanted Weapon spell). If you wanted to keep the number of scrolls limited to no more than 6 at a time, you could reduce the number of times the Scribe Scroll can be chosen as an HLA to 2.

-Acheron/Starcrunch

[the bigg]

Hm. I still think that 'exploitable, but only if you really tried to' is better than acting against the spell description (AKA the developers intent, since HLAs were already done 90% before my time anyway). I'm against playing at being the police.

[Acheron]

Hm. I still think that 'exploitable, but only if you really tried to' is better than acting against the spell description (AKA the developers intent, since HLAs were already done 90% before my time anyway). I'm against playing at being the police.

Seems reasonable to me. Though it seems easy to stumble on the exploit by accident, I certainly didn't noticed it for several years using Refinements HLA's as a player with any number of mages and thieves (I admit that this may be in part because I don't take Scribe Scroll early in the HLA picks, and also that I use my scrolls that I scribe soon after creation in 95% of cases). I only discovered it while testing the kit I've been making which used a similar opcode.

As for Union, the immunity to spell failure seems like a good idea to me.
EDIT: You could also try to take advantage of opcode 280 and 281 to use a set wild magic effect to generate some interesting "metamagic" bonuses to casting. On the other hand this would break the wildmage's surging, allow a major abuse to Reckless Dweomer, and the effects may prove to be just too powerful for an ability with one hour duration (you could have spells cast at double level..., which is better than +5 but really doesn't do a lot except for dispel chances). If the WM were a class rather than a kit you could use eff files to fake  normal WM behavior (i.e. 5% of the rounds the aura is in affect the WM doesn't get the surge table set, but uses a random surge table). Also this would allow union to protect against the WM zones in WK. I'm not even that sure this will work, but I plan on experimenting with using 280 and 281 to make an HLA and will see, how it goes.

-Acheron/Starcrunch

Edited by Acheron, 23 June 2008 - 10:40 AM.

[the bigg]

Yeah, making RD never fail is worse than allowing you to cast spell in armor with a complicated cast 'n wear sequence. Also, succesful (or uber-successful) surges are supposed to be something to brag about like a streak of natural 20's, not something you get by casting a spell (I recall when Kelsey accidentally rolled "roll 4 times" and then 4 "normally cast" on a Finger of Death ).