"spell failed"... on a cleric?

disastro · Post by **disastro** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 12:59 pm

several times ive tried to cast a spell with my cleric and it just fizzles. i managed to get a good test of this and got the following results:

fighting one enemy in alzaara (sword dude)
cast divine power
animation starts
sword dude gets an attack of opportunity and hits
i make my concentration check (shows as successful)
sword dude beats on me for 3-4 more attacks. no more concentration checks are attempted.
cast animation ends
"Spell Failed!" appears in combat log (not spell disrupted as is commonly the case if you get beat on
spell is gone as if it was casted.

this happened three times consecutively. on the second attempt to cast the spell there was no concentration check but i got the same message.

at no point did i ever take more than 4 points of damage. during the first attempt the critter did crit me but as a pm i got the immune to crits message and took my 3-4 points of damage.

anybody else run into this?

Apokriphos · Post by **Apokriphos** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:24 pm

I have also. I believe the Alzaara guardians have a special ability to interrupt actions (be it a spell, attack, or otherwise). If you have fought Alzaara, you would probably agree this makes sense

Hopefully we will get an official answer to this soon

Post by **LinuxPup** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:31 pm

Taunt gives 30% spell failure, and deafness 20%. EDIT: I think deafness only affects arcane... I know taunt affects both divine and arcane

If the Handmaidens wailed you, and you survived and didn't resist the spell, then you're deaf... not sure if the guards taunt.

Post by **Yonwe** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:55 pm

Deafness affects everything... PnP 3.5 states it should only affect spells with verbal components (and all Bard spells), but them's the breaks. I've never tried casting a Silent spell while deaf, but I somehow doubt Bioware bothered adding in something as specific as that as a way to bypass it.

disastro · Post by **disastro** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 3:08 pm

it was definitely taunt, sorry for the n00b mistake.

Merrip · Post by **Merrip** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:50 pm

I don't even know if the critter is still there but one of the Planar areas, that giant boss guy that used to make you bow on will failure was a killer for interrupting spells rofl.

I remember the first time we went there we thought some DM was being mean wanting the entire party to die ... no no after many laughs at our team it was just the Giants little trick he does ...

That was before the vault wipe and I have no toon high enough to go to Planar areas yet so if he is still there no idea.

disastro · Post by **disastro** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:54 pm

Merrip wrote:I don't even know if the critter is still there but one of the Planar areas, that giant boss guy that used to make you bow on will failure was a killer for interrupting spells rofl.

I remember the first time we went there we thought some DM was being mean wanting the entire party to die ... no no after many laughs at our team it was just the Giants little trick he does ...

That was before the vault wipe and I have no toon high enough to go to Planar areas yet so if he is still there no idea.

heh no that's alzaara and definitely still there. the bowing thing is totally brilliant.

Post by **Sparky** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 8:51 pm

I was on the time you guys thought a DM was messing with you. It was totally hilarious. The things I wish we could do that we get blamed for sometimes....

Merrip · Post by **Merrip** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:27 am

Yes yes I remember you being there Sparky ... DD has a ~laugh~ after we realised wtf was going on!

Celorn · Post by **Celorn** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:37 am

Sometimes I'm unsure what's going on too... is it a DM or did some crazy AI script get activated?!

ie: Sometimes a Crypt Chanter will go nuts and spam grease, and buff itself so that somehow it will do around 140 damage per hit, and hit every time, if you run off of the grease it will cast it again each time you move... but most times the chanters aren't so smart. I thought for sure it was a DM the first time, but then I noticed it happening on other occasions, and similar things happen in sunken and zons with certain mobs - some mobs seem to be triggered into this style of alternate AI when they get blinded.

disastro · Post by **disastro** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:42 am

just about any mob that can cast spells usually gets locked into repeatedly casting the same spell until it runs out. if you watch crypt chanters you'll notice that they hardly ever switch spells around.. they will cast dispel 10 times in a row then grease 15 time, etc. even summons suffer from this (slaad being the worst example because he has so many crappy spells to cast. balor makes better use of this feature, because he will spam harm.)

this is probably an engine limitation. lord knows how much lag a fully custom ai script for each mob would add.

Celorn · Post by **Celorn** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 12:17 pm

but that's the thing..... it wasn't spamming, it was seeing that I had moved from the grease and only at that moment did it cast grease again, in between it was smashing me with 140 hp per round.

I found counters to this problem so it hasn't bothered me since.

What I mean is sometimes mobs will behave in a way that almost seems like a DM is controlling them -- sometimes you hit one with WoF and it will run around so you can't KD it, and if you drop a static AoE spell, they will move out of it's area, but note that only happens sometimes, usually when it's a 'boss'.

And i should have said 'HATS OFF TO THE DEVS' for writing some amazing AI script (even if part of it was unintended between-the-lines 'accidents')...