Darkness / Web / Entangle / X

[FishyBusiness]

Not sure, if this should be here, or under Bug Reports, so apologies if it is in a wrong place.

If it is a recent change, or it's not, or a bug, I have not a clue.

However, spells mentioned in the topic (havent checked Grease yet), when they affect an enemy, break the casters invisibility, so basically, caster crowd control is totally gimped.

What's the point of casting Darkness/X on the mobs, and drinking an invisibility potions afterwards, if everytime something steps into the area of the spell, your invisibility will break, and most of the mobs will go directly at the caster anyway?

To answer a question which will probably come up - that casters should self-buff as well, not to die and all, I realise. Still, if things go wrong, those AoE spells mentioned, are now more of a suicide thing on quests, than actually any help. For what is left for the caster is to stand and chug healing potions until the spell wears off, so he can invis again.

My suggestion: Make those spells NOT break invisibility, as it makes them absolutely redundant for now and totally not worth using as pure caster classes.

(To clarify if the post is unclear - Im talking of this order:

1. Caster uses one of the mentioned spells
2. Caster invises himself
3. A mob steps into the area of the spell, breaking the invisibility.
4. Caster drinks another invis, but mobs remain in the AoE, cosntantly continuing to break the invisibility)

[Listen in Silence]

Agreed.

[SanTelmo]

If this is possible, I would like to see it changed so but I believe this has been discussed before.

[Udenbur]

It should break invisibility upon casting it on a crowd, for certain. But after that it shouldn't keep bugging your invisibility, takes away a fair share of creativity to a spell book.

[scrappayeti]

This is particularly awkward for darkness. I had one PvP where I didnt realise how it worked, and I cast darkness after summoning a swarm of summons. I blithely wandered out of darkness fully visible, against expectation, and the opposition charged me. I went inviso again, and it turned off a second time as more ran through. I invisoed a third time, and that one turned off a little later, as the last of the players cleaned up my summons and ran through the pool of darkness. This last time I was next to a monster, which could easily have killed me.

If I was fighting a wizard in a group, and they made the mistake of casting one of these spells, I would just walk in and out of the AoE constantly - you get instant inviso dispel from any range - pretty handy.

[Yalta]

Sounds abusable and therefore would be nice to change if easy to do.

[Gippy]

I do not agree with the above suggestion. It gives casters a rare moment of vulnerability. Invisibility already has SO many uses. Why do casters need to be invisible all the time? If they use blur / barkskin / mage armor they can be fairly durable. Why not cast web, and then darkness, and hide in the darkness? Or darkness / stealth?

I think the bigger issue is that all cloud spells only use the on enter script, and fail to utilize their heartbeats, making them really pretty worthless. One save for the orc as he crosses the web is just not good enough for the risk that using those spells entail.

[FishyBusiness]

Very abusable. Also, with the current 'smart' AI, most of the mobs instantly go for the caster after the invisibility breaks.

Experienced it on the Duergar Mine just recent, thought Darkness might be a cool idea to confuse the x-bowmen. It did confuse them. Most ran out of it, and started shooting at me, as it kept dispelling my invis >.<

[MissMonkey]

It should break invisibility upon casting it on a crowd, for certain. But after that it shouldn't keep bugging your invisibility, takes away a fair share of creativity to a spell book.

Sounds completely unuseful to a caster if this happens.

[Gippy]

Additionally casting these spells DOES not break invisibility. They can be layered quite thickly before anyone can spot you -- and then invisibility will only be broken when they enter it, and are screwed.

[FishyBusiness]

I do not agree with the above suggestion. It gives casters a rare moment of vulnerability. Invisibility already has SO many uses. Why do casters need to be invisible all the time? If they use blur / barkskin / mage armor they can be fairly durable. Why not cast web, and then darkness, and hide in the darkness? Or darkness / stealth?

I think the bigger issue is that all cloud spells only use the on enter script, and fail to utilize their heartbeats, making them really pretty worthless. One save for the orc as he crosses the web is just not good enough for the risk that using those spells entail.

That would work too. Still, it's not a 'rare' moment of vulnerability, Gip. Assuming you're a level 9 caster, it's 9 rounds. That's over half a minute of not being able to bail if things start to go wrong!

[FishyBusiness]

Additionally casting these spells DOES not break invisibility. They can be layered quite thickly before anyone can spot you -- and then invisibility will only be broken when they enter it, and are screwed.

EDIT: Oh right, didnt read properly ;)

Make them break invisibility upon casting then, perhaps?

[BoomdaddyBP]

While a mage certainly doesn't have to be invisible the whole time, I think it'd be kind of nice to not have your invisibility stripped everytime something enters the AoE. I think it should just be flipped so that when you cast it on someone/a group, it strips invisibility but then when things enter it doesn't. This way, people know who and where the casting came from and can pop a see invisibility and try to track them down.

[Drakill Tannan]

I remember one time where i threw chocking powder into a mob. I wasn't invisible, rather, hiding behind my full bab meatshields when things went wrong. The logical response to that is drink an invis and get the hell out of there. I drank 5 potions of invis nearly in a row. But they failed to have any effect due to this mechanic. And that sucks.

If casting the spell breaks invis, i'm all in agreement with that. If an enemy stepping on gresse breaks invis, that is just a flaw in the mechanics of the game, tbh, pretty much, a bug. I am CERTIAN this wasn't intended.

It's a no brainer, in my opinion. It should be changed.

However, since DMs never seem to take into accound anythig that benefits wizards/sorcerers...

I had suggested this before, why not script an "End area of effect" command? It existed on thain, and basically, it allows you through typing something like "/end aoe" and ends all the effects of say, cloudkill, entange, gresse, darkness... etc. This allows you to abort and escape if things go wrong, just quickslot the "/end aoe" comand and just after clicking it, drink an invis pot, and flee.

It's an improvement for sure.

[Lulzebub]

If invisibility is "too useful," then stealth is way too useful. Invisibility's usefulness is binary. Once you're discovered, you're caught. A stealth character can use darkness or some other method to hide again.

The biggest issue here is the exploit. If nothing else, PCs should not be able to trigger a remote invisibility dispel from all the way across the server.