Shield/Isaac's Lesser Missile Storm

[Egon the Monkey]

Blocking Magic Missile and +4 AC is pretty powerful, and blocking Lesser Missilestorm (a L4 spell) as well is a very strong benefit of a L1 spell. Yes, potions aren't brewable, but anyone with arcane levels can use scrolls or wands, and UMD works for wands.

Talking to other players though, yeah, ILMS can utterly wipe out a low HP char from ambush with no way to defend, so being able to put up a defense against it on a wizard is good.  Immunity does remove its usefulness against a prepared PC though. That makes  ILMS mostly useful for ganking or for when you only have one tough monster in the area. A shame, as otherwise it'd be a much better standby spell/ method of sniping that single hostile PC etc. I know it's not a huge imbalance thing, but considering how little I've seen it used generally, maybe there's a better way for Shield to work? 20% Magical Dmg immunity or something?

Any thoughts?

[Germain]

I'm not sure if I understand..

Are you suggesting that Shield maintains it's current properties as well as allow a 20% magic immunity?

[Anonymous Bosch]

20% magical dmg resistance instead of immunity to all magic missile type spells, is what I got from the post.

[TheImpossibleDream]

Shield is fine the way it is Egon, it grants deflection AC (protection from alignment already provides +2 which doesn't stack) so really the bonus to ac isn't as huge as it seems in most cases. Much like hold person its best used in an ambush situation and also much like pfe its ~really~ easy to dispel, if you are level 5 and cast a single dispel magic you're almost guaranteed to remove all level 1 potion spells from the target.

[TheGreatPlayer]

It is a level 5 potion spell, but still easily dispelled. Isaac's having a counter is essential. All other spells have some other way to reduce damage/counter them. Even if that is stoneskin, clarity, or endure elements.  

Your 20% magic damage reduction would not work as the magic damage is tied to the death system. Bleeding, and rest damage, are both tied to this damage type. If you did not take magic damage you could never die from bleeding and you could also abuse the rest system.

[Nihm]

I'd actually like to see classes that can't use wands or scrolls to have something that works like shield against missile storms.  Those potions are pretty rare, and those without them fall easily to this spell even nerfed as it is.

[ScottyB]

Once again, we have a wizard who feels useless while everyone tells him wizards are OP... I can't wait for NWN3 to feature 4E rules.

Also, moving to Suggestions.

[Drakill Tannan]

Once again, we have a wizard who feels useless while everyone tells him wizards are OP... I can't wait for NWN3 to feature 4E rules.

Also, moving to Suggestions.

It also happens to druids.

Anyway, a damage reduction seems resonable, taking into account ILMS is not so much stronger than a fireball except for the damage type i'd say having a way to completly block it is nerfing it a lot, specially because it's a level 4 spell, something truly strong in EFU:A and it's only real effective when used against a lone target, as otherwise the damage will be split into the number of creatures.

[ScottyB]

Except that we can't grant a resistance to Magical Damage because our resting, bleeding and death systems use Magical Damage.

[Luke Danger]

Hold on, ScottyB, let me try and understand.

On resting,well, if you rest, doesn't it dispell all beneficial effects anyways? So that won't do much.

On bleeding, you will only suffer. . . 1 point of damage, and if I recall right, 20% of 1 = .2 which is > .5 for round up.

On Death, perhaps simply have you dispelled upon entering the Fugue and when you are respawned? Makes sense to me that if you transist from a state of death to a state of life (and vice versa), magical effects should fail to remain.

Just putting some thought in the air.

[Relinquish]

Shields fine as it is, wands are pretty costly, easily dispelled, potions are fairly rare, and ILMS is a pretty neat spell anyway, not many remember shield potions.

[lovethesuit]

Luke,

Damage immunity removes the first point of damage no matter what the percentage is. If it's Damage Immunity 5%, it removes the first point of Magical Damage up to, say, 21 points of it, at which time it becomes two points removed I think. So even the lowest level would make bleeding to death impossible.

Oh, tempting.

[Mort]

It would also mean that you could log/relog and heal up.

[Mort]

Adapt to efu:a instead of wanting to make efu:a adapt to you <_<

[SkillFocuspwn]

Is that a universal statement, Mort?