Some PW friendly modified spells. These were rejects from the spellfix pack (see my other submissions) either because they've seen very little testing and/or are debatable enchancements and not fixes.
Call Lighting - Closer to PnP implementation
Harm, Heal, Mass Heal - 3.5 revised edition rules
Greater Restoration - No longer restores health, so the Heal changes matter
Bardsong, Curse Song - More Bard-friendly songs.
Issaacs Greater Missile Storm - Limit to maximum 10 missiles per target.
Terrifying Rage - Implementation closer to PnP.
Most interesting to PW coders, who may want to review, test and cherry-pick the spell changes that suit them. I have no further spell-updates planned currently, but suggestions are welcome.
The long version:
Call Lightning in 3.0 SRD: "To cast call lightning, the character must be in a stormy area", "A bolt causes 1d10 points of electrical damage per caster level (maximum 10d10)." and "This spell can be used only outdoors. It does not function indoors, underground, or underwater." Not fully supported in engine, so implementation changed to d10 in snow or rain weather, fizzles in indoors or underground marked areas. Cast time, material components etc. don't match, but that's true for many spells. Makes the spell much more interesting, works best on PW's with weather-scripts.
If you're running a PW, you've most likely already made some kind of nerf to Harm and/or half of your spawns are immune to it. Scribing made this even worse, with people's bags stocked with Harm/Heal scrolls or potions... FR recognized the problem and changed the spells for revised 3.5ed, so here's implementation that may be easier to sell to PnP crowd than a random nerf. Included is also a change to remove full heal from Greater Restoration.
Bardsong and Cursesong performance are personal pet peeve of mine, they're pretty much bard's main arsenal, yet the way they're scripted makes them unreliable and finicky. Ever had your epic bard in party with that RDD/Bard who thinsk they're the latest superstar, blocking your bard-song with their Lasting Impression boosted level 5 bardsong? What, no? Okay, at least you might've sung just a second before the last bardsong expired, wasting a use AND running out of song a few times. Well no matter, the provided new versions allow bardsongs to override current bardsong, so you'll only need to watch out for that level 1 bard interrupting your Lasting Impression...
Worse, the net effect of Lingering Song and Lasting Impression are actually not what you might expect. First of all, Lasting Impression is applied first, meaning your investment in Lingering Song is wasted as soon as you go epic. Yet this might be a blessing in disguise, since bardsong length actually reduces the frequency at which you can apply your curse song damage! So in this fix, addition first, multiplication then - both feats give you expected 150 rounds, not 105 rounds. And that won't ruin your Curse Song, because you will be able to redo your song damage every 10 rounds no matter what, as one would actually expect.
Next to Harm/Heal, IGMS gets the worst rep of NWN spells. At level 20 Maximized, it deals 240 magic damage to a single target, which many people feel is too much for single spell. Included is a version that checks the number of targets and cuts missiles to 10 if used against single target - or in other words, limits max. missiles to 10 per target.
According to Epic Levels Handbook, Terrifying Rage's panic lasts for 4d6 rounds, not the 1d4 Bioware implemented. In addition with this version there's full +d20 to Intimidate check, not Bio's +d10. Uses Turned-effect so the victims don't just stand there waiting to be hacked up, but run away. Mindspell and paralyzation immunities no longer prevent effect, but fear immunity does. Many people may find this version too powerful, but considering Bioware's suggestion in the comments, I just had to make a PnP-true version.
I guess I need to drop the "PW friendly" from the description, the current selection tends more towards "PnP-like". Any PW should ofcourse conduct their own analysis and possible play-testing on balance-impacts of the included scripts before deciding whether to adopt each one of them.
Posted by Lanessar at 2006-02-27 16:00:14 Voted 10.00 on 02/27/06
Well done. This gave me a bit of a start on some spell fixes on my own PW. _________________________ Lan's Placeable Groups v1.5
If you're looking for the Banishment and Planar summons fixes, I have wrapped them into the spellfixes pack, they're no longer included in the alternate spell implementations pack. While doing that I threw in a closer to PnP version of barbarian Terrifying Rage - I must say the NWN version was real dissapointment to me.
Bioware's scripters wrote "sorry but d20() was just too unbalancing for the game, if you are a rules layer, just put the d20 here..." on the Intimidate skill-roll, so I decided to do not only that, but correct other differences to Epic Level Handbook as well. The effect now lasts 4d6 rounds, causes targets to run away in fear and is only blocked by fear immunity, not mindspell & paralysis immunity.
For balance purposes you might contrast this spell-like effect to Turn Undead. A cleric can (and usually does) turn class level+4 HD; turn resistance limits usability. Barb needs to be almost pure-class to get these epic feats, but affects character level-1 HD. A cleric will turn class level + chr mod + 2d6 (or 3d6 if sun) total HD but they will always succeed HD's allowing, while a Barb will affect all that come to melee range provided they aren't immune to fear or make the ridiculously high save. Most importantly Turn Undead affects undead only, but in many cases a cleric is able to choose undead opponents. In many cases it will be overpowered, but as usual the DM(s) should be final judge of that.
Code allowing multiple summons also appears in:
x0_s0_planar (Planar Ally for clerics)
x0_s2_fiend
x0_s3_summonelem (0.5 delay, not intentionally exploitable)
x2_s2_dragknght (Should be able to cast only once)
x2_s2_mumdust (Should be able to cast only once)
As far as I know none of those are player exploitable.
Since I wrote the code already, I decided to update the submission. Version 2 of the spell mods package now contains SRD 3.5 specced restoration effect on Heal and Mass Heal (Yes, the restoration effects undead as well on purpose, that's the wording on SRD!) and removes full healing from Greater Restoration so the Heal changes actually matter.
As an added bonus, the Death-effect on Banishment has been made Supernatural so it affects death-immune outsiders as well, and I threw in an IGMS nerf as well so people don't think I'm just anti-Cleric :)
As the IGMS is specced, its clearly a crowd-control spell, able to hit up to 20 opponents at once. Unfortunately, on the flipside most people feel 20*2d6 maximized, generally unresistable magic damage to single target is excessive, and cut either the number of missiles or damage per missile. Another alternative is to limit the max. number of missiles per target. The actual missile-storm function is in NWN includes, and for compatibility reasons its not a good idea to mess with that, so instead the modified script counts number of targets and if it's 1, cuts to 10 missiles only.
Harm & Heal have been re-done numerous times on the vault, but the ones provided in this erf should be only ones to get the HP right according to 3.5 edition, and thus justifiable on PnP grounds. They're lacking the restoration effect though, partly due to laziness and partly because of symmetry with Harm that does nothing similiar. To do the 3.5 restoration, you'd need to add something like:
effect eBad = GetFirstEffect(oTarget);
//Search for negative effects
while(GetIsEffectValid(eBad))
{
if (GetEffectType(eBad) == EFFECT_TYPE_ABILITY_DECREASE ||
GetEffectType(eBad) == EFFECT_TYPE_BLINDNESS ||
GetEffectType(eBad) == EFFECT_TYPE_CONFUSED ||
GetEffectType(eBad) == EFFECT_TYPE_DAZED ||
GetEffectType(eBad) == EFFECT_TYPE_DEAF ||
GetEffectType(eBad) == EFFECT_TYPE_DISEASE ||
GetEffectType(eBad) == EFFECT_TYPE_STUNNED ||
GetEffectType(eBad) == EFFECT_TYPE_POISON)
{
//Remove effect if it is negative.
if(!GetIsSupernaturalCurse(eBad))
RemoveEffect(oTarget, eBad);
}
eBad = GetNextEffect(oTarget);
}
Then you can spend a few days arguing on the exact list of effects to remove; I've included only those that have exact match in NWN effects. According to 3.5 SRD Heal and Mass Heal cure "ability damage, blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, sickened, stunned, and poisoned".
To prevent Greater Restoration from being used for full heal, you'd have to remove the following block from nw_s0_grrestore:
if(GetRacialType(oTarget) != RACIAL_TYPE_UNDEAD)
{
//Apply the VFX impact and effects
int nHeal = GetMaxHitPoints(oTarget) - GetCurrentHitPoints(oTarget);
effect eHeal = EffectHeal(nHeal);
ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_INSTANT, eHeal, oTarget);
}
A few more words on these modifications, then. Motivation for most of the changes is Persistent World use, though other people might find use for them as well.
There's little doubt that Harm/Heal are most unbalanced spell in 3.0 edition and hence NWN, it doesn't matter if your dungeon boss has 10k HP or is undead or other, he will still be taken down by single spell and a stab. Not to mention the PvP battles that last forever with a stack of Heal scrolls. The question becomes what to do with it; the alternative is giving most creatures immunity to the spell and disabling scroll scribing. Using the revised 3.5ed version the spell can actually kept usable, which should be good to players. HP affected by the spell becomes 10 per level, max. 150 for Harm/Heal and 250 for Mass Heal, save for half.
On the PW I implemented this, there was an argument that the 3.5 SRD statement "If the creature successfully saves, harm deals half this amount, but it cannot reduce the target�s hit points to less than 1." meant Harm/Heal should NEVER reduce hitpoints below 1, but to me it seems rather clear the phrase modifies that sentence alone, ie. when the target makes its save. Therefore it's entirely possible for the spell to kill the target when they fail their save, which I am told makes some people prefer it over 3.0 Harm/Heal.
Reviewing the scripts, I notice I forgot in rather non-canon Maximize/Empower spell alterations, however the stock game doesn't allow maximizing or empowering these spells, so the spells work right in that regard. It does not, however, include Restoration for Heal like 3.5 SRD states - possibly something for another edition.
Bardsong and Curseong charges, these actually affect the power of epic bards quite a bit, but I challenge anyone to say epic bards are overpowerd as it is. The NWN bard is quite different from PnP so there's no single answer anyway. My main concern is this makes bards more of one trick pony, but it is good for bards to excel in what no-one else does. Also, their damage output doesn't increase over what a build with no Lingering Song/Lasting Impression would get - this just ends the quagmire where those feats actually cripple the bard, a situation I believe no other class faces. In the provided scripts, for performance and simplicity, the 10 round limit on dealing curse-song damage is imposed per bard and not per target, this means the bard can not hit additional targets they missed or otherwise became eligible during that time, though they can apply the other curse song penalties.
I have a concern the Bardsong itself might require similiar 10 round cooldown for adding the tmeporary hitpoints, as they may be used for healing as well, but bards also get Healing Circle which until late levels is better for healing. On higher levels healing per target is on par with what could be accomplished by healing kits, but it's on uses per day. Its worth noting for balance if you plan on using this though.
Also, it's intentional that with the provided versions a bard can boost their own Perform skill for subsequent bardsongs. The 100 Perform required for level 30 Bardsong is actually quite hard to get on most modules, its probably just about possible on level 40 with stock items, but the build would be no good for anything. This version provides an alternative where they can opt to keep the song going (or use two songs to get on speed) for maximum effect. I believe this, like the Call Lightning, spices up the gameplay by adding new alternatives.
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at 2006-02-27 16:00:14
