ILMS/Ball lightning change

[Trevor White]

Yesterday my PC was involved in a multi-way PVP before a trial. He was hit by an Isaac's Lesser Missile Storm that was clearly not aimed at him as the player who shot it PMed me wondering what happened. I had been hostile to him but switched it off. We were both blue to each other.

This got me thinking. Could they be tweaked on EfU to instead work like Dispel? You can fire them at the ground for an AOE effect that works as normal and lets you fry a bunch of weaker things by distributing the shots around all hostiles. Or you can fire them at one target and every shot hits them. This would stop the necessity of tweaking OOC hostile settings to ensure that your shots don't hit 7 random bystanders instead of the guy you wanted to blast. IC, you're thinking "this dude is my enemy, I want them dead". OC, anyone who's hostiled all in case of PVP gets to eat hot magic damage.

I don't think that makes Ball Lightning too ganktastic, as any Insulation or other DR works against each damage packet. ILMS would probably need a look though.

[Paha]

"A number of energy missiles (one per caster level but to a maximum of 10) appear and randomly target and 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, one of the creatures will be hit with multiple missiles. Each missile does 1d6 points of damage. "

From nwnwiki on isaacs lesser missile storm. They work as intended from what I've seen through years and I am not sure if they have been touched much. The missiles evenly divide between enemies around, first target getting any uneven left. Ball lightning is as intended also, it's difference being that it can reach to higher amount of missiles, which is not very meaningful in efu levels, granted, but is it's own type of spell. It cannot be targeted to location, but missile storm can to my knowledge.

I do not see much of a reason to changes in these spells. They are as intended, and in right situation potentially very useful. If you want to especially nuke person with several magic damage firing missiles, there's normal magic missile that can provide a plenty of single target damage, or use missile storm in a proper situation to take full advantage of it.

[Ebok]

As the attacking party, typically, don't we need to be hostile to everyone, even if we are only attacking a single target? What I mean by that, is the spell is designed to target your enemies. But if you have one enemy in a crowd, the need to hostile the crowd for their reactionary benefit incorrectly identifies them as your enemy to the intended mechanics of the spell. Thusly allowing the evocation to hit all of the bystanders, and possibly completely miss your target. Kind of strange for an attack that cannot miss.


I personally feel that the spell would benefit from a mod to explicitly focus fire, for when the damage is spread it is always less effective. This is further enforced by the fact that on efu we reduced the spell's damage with the implication that it was too much damage against a single target. This in turn has made it considerably less effective (dare I say useless) against many.

Just my two cents. ^_^

[Paha]

The spells purpose has never been to be purely one target hit. Even if you identify everyone around as your enemies, you still cannot focus on just one person.

It is a mechanical defect that you can pick a person from crowd and hostile them in order to target only one person. If, as I mentioned above, you wanted to spam a magic missile swarm on a person with certainity, use normal magic missile or something else. I do not much like the idea of making every spell viable for every single situation. It's why there are so many different kind spells.

[Trevor White]

What is the spell's purpose then Paha? I can't find one other than "there's only 1-2 hostiles and ILMS gets past their Blur". Which is a bit of a niche situation compared to "Ah sod it, Evard's solves everything" or "Bwahaha *Empowered combust*". TBH those spells aren't viable for most situations, as well as being glitchy on the whole "well I didn't MEAN to blow that guy up but he uhm... looked at me funny?". If you're using these as an attacker, hostiling the crowd rather than just your targets is weird because it means you damage PCs for purely OC reasons. If you want to hit multiple targets Fireball does your full d6/level damage to them all. If you want to snipe 2 targets in a crowd, Empowered Magic Missile or even basic MM is better as it's lower level for the amount of damage you get.

Firebrand is the same level as Ball Lightning, the same spell school but many times more effective as it does the full d6/level damage to all hostiles in the area while ignoring friendlies. As well as doing it in one packet so it's not easily countered by 5 DR. Ball Lightning's only good point is if all the balls hit one guy without DR. Otherwise Firebrand does a bunch more damage even with EfU changes of 1d9 per ball.

There are a lot of pretty useless spells that players just don't use as they're not worth it even for flavour. Why have Ball Lightning when I could Empower a Lightning Bolt and do hilarious damage while keeping to the theme, for example? Or use Flame Blast when I have better fire spells at L3? The problem with these broken spells is they keep players using the same stuff rather than a variety. On the other hand, custom spells like Ice Burst are great as they have slightly different uses (shorter range, wider AoE) than default spells and so get taken, rather than being super situational and so rarely used. This is especially true on Sorcerers, who go for spells that have a wide range of uses because they get so few spell choices.

[Edvard]

1. If you choose the Empower Spell feat then yes, lower level spells can become more powerful.
2. Without the empower spell feat, lower level spells are less powerful
3. Isaac's is still more powerful than empowered magic missile at any level  >  L7 isaacs vs mm: (1d6 x 7 vs. 1d4 x 1.5 x 4).
4. ... I could go on for a while.

Basically, all spells have their uses if you use them right. Some are more powerful than others. You don't need to use them all. Use the ones you like or fit your concept and settle for the fun fact that you're not optimized if you want to.

[Trevor White]

1: That's just one example of better uses for spellslots.
2: No, even basic Magic Missile is more damage than ILMS when you split it across >1 target. It is 1d6*7/(number of targets) vs 1d4+1*4. A poor use of a L4 spell unless it's a huge barrage. Remember you're supposed to hostile all possible opponents, so that spell is likely to do about 4 damage to 7 targets. If it's PVE, that's what will happen 95% of the time too.
3: See 2, but more so.
4: Well, you can't?

If we "settled for the fun fact some aren't optimised" we'd have no spell changes vanilla NWN. Evards doing an even more obscene 80 damage or so in 1 round, Hold Person being an unstoppable doom spell as it's not Mind-Affecting, persistent AoE spells only working for the first round, Grease not doing KD like it's meant to and Mage Armour being crap. I never understand why anyone would be so negative about cool new character options unless they are a DM and it would be their effort going in to coding it.

All of the underpowered spells can be left out in favour of spells with a similar theme or identical element, but which actually kill stuff. EfU is a hard server, so people optimise at least to some degree because they want their PCs to be effective and have fun, for the same reason we don't see 10 Strength 8 Constitution leathers-wearing greataxe fighters everywhere "to fit the concept". Because the concept ends up being "useless PC who dies a lot in boring ways". Especially with offence mages, who are generally less desired on a quest than extra buffs are.

[Paha]

The spells you listed are by no means underpowered. Missile storm is absolutely terrifying when you happen to get your target somewhere -alone-. However in group it is a storm of missiles that is not easily controlled, striking between enemies with -magic- damage that is not really countered with anything. It also does not have weaknesses.

Elemental damages are partly flavor, and partly they have specific uses. For one, we got and had perks that aid with specific elements. There also are weaknesses that can be abused by using certain elements. It's easy to counter with elemental protection, sure, but that small window of opportunity you get to strike someone with -25% vulnerability or more, up to -100%, they will be devastated.

I encourage any sort of suggestions for specific, cool and reasonable things that specific spells could do to make them more interesting, but not all are meant to be equal. Some have uses in very specific scenarios, some are just weaker or stronger than others, and some are just nice and flavorful for a quirky concept.

Regarding evards, it's strong, but these days the damage can be mostly blocked. The stunning effect indeed -will- one day change, definitely, if possible at all. Maybe to a rooting effect. Even in that situation, it's pro's and con's are clear as well. It's strong, but it has also devastated as many of allies and even caster itself, as it has enemies - people seem to forget that. It has ended the casters own story many times, which a rare few spell can even do. It's a small drawback that some spells don't have.

[Ebok]

The spells purpose has never been to be purely one target hit.

Sure it is. That's why it does more damage against one target then against more then one. Spilt, it does little no damage against anyone. The spells design suggests that it is supposed to be used when going against a single isolated target. Best used for surprise attacks and duels. If it were designed to hit more then one target, then it would be good at doing so.

All this being said, I suppose the spell is supposed to be used in duels and against single larger targets. The design might simply be that it is not supposed to be used outside of these semi-rare situations. However, with shield being so easy to get these days, it's ability to preform in those situations has been ~vastly~ diminished. Since these are changes we made, I don't think it is so unreasonable to consider opening up other uses for it.

Ball lightening however is kinda lol >_>; Firebrand ftw.

Paha poked in and pretty much summed up the rest of my speel, so I'll leave it short.

[Trevor White]

My biggest problem with those two spells is the "hilarious" PVP consequences which in the case I mentioned led to my PC subbing the wrong wizard over a misunderstanding as to where the Missile Storm came from. I targeted the one who was hostile, not the one who was blue but had somehow blasted my PC. The biggest problem I have is how an OC hostility system leads to an IC problem of "I just shot the wrong seven dudes and for 5 damage each, WTF". Or how someone hostile for an unrelated reason to your fight turns up and suddenly sucks up half the damage. Or the bug above. DMs are always saying "hostile is OC, you can't IC tell they are red, don't metagame", but the spells metagame. They shoot PCs/NPCs your one doesn't want to hurt. For example when an Aberdenn NPC is hostiled to chase a criminal but is also hostile to you.

Specific suggestion options then.

• Isaac's Lesser Missile Storm to be adjusted so that if you fire at a specific target, all the missiles will hit that one target. Example, the code for Lesser Dispel being either single target or AoE.  When fired in this mode, the missiles only do 1d4 damage each.
• Ball Lightning changed to work like Firebrand, doing 1d6/level damage to all hostiles in the AoE, Reflex for half.
• Ball Lightning kept as it is but with a "single target only" option.
• Ball Lightning given a "single target only" option with nerfed damage. 1d8 say, to keep it better than just Lightning Bolting them.
• Ball Lightning to be given a 1 round Stun effect on each ball like Gedlee's, Will save to negate. They wouldn't stack on the same target as all balls hit in the same Round. It would mean that splitting the balls between targets becomes useful as you then have a way in Evocation to stun a lot of things.
• Isaac's to be given some sort of minor stun/blind/other effect so that there's a reason to fire it at a crowd.

Specifically, Ball Lightning has the problem that although it doesn't gain from Vulnerability any more than a single damage packet spell like Lightning Bolt, it loses out from Immunity or DR hugely as at L9 just 5% Electric immunity soaks 9 damage, 5 DR soaks up to 40 damage.I learned this from taking on quest NPCs with it using a 5DR helmet and a ridiculous grin.

Regarding Evards, I didn't mention it as a "Nerf This Now" but that it's a perfect example of the opposite to ILMS. A spell that's tremendously useful as it works if you need AOE, stun, damage or slow. If you're a prepared wizard and you've got your enemy alone and unaware they are probably toast whatever offensive spells you hit them with. I can't see the point to spells that only make it easier to win a fight that's already hugely in your favour by dint of being a L9 wizard ganking a solo target.

ILMS is supposedly useful as it doesn't hit friendlies. But this means the only useful circumstance is one hostile, horribly outnumbered and with out Shield up. This is rarely a good situation for that hostile, whatever. Regarding the elemental perks, I really miss those, they were indeed awesome for making spells like Ice Dagger useful. It's a shame they aren't available as L5 Wizard Perks or something.

[Nuclear Catastrophe]

while I am sure we all see where you're coming from, it's honestly more a case of time spent making minor mechanics changes VS whether they're actually really necessary - which is why there's a sticky in this forum discouraging mechanics suggestions in the first place.  I don''t mind ilms the way it is now, personally.  Every spell has it's drawbacks...

[Trevor White]

The TL/DR version is "This spell is buggy as it can hit nonhostiles if they were hostile recently. Those bugs have had direct PvP initiation consequences. A change that would fix this could be implemented along with other changes that would make their use less dependent on OC hostile status of characters not involved in the fight.". I didn't just stick it in bug reports because I also had an idea for a means to deal with the bug.

[Nuclear Catastrophe]

it's not a bug, if you hostile someone, then unhostile them, they have to unhostile you too or they'll still flash up red and get targeted by spells.

[Trevor White]

We were both at that point unhostile to each other. I may as well report this separately.