Spell considerations

[MLoki]

After playing with the new spell changes I have found that I have more spell slots available to me since these spells aren't worth casting anymore. So I thought I would suggest a few tweaks. Metis used to do a really good job of scaling the spells based on focuses. It made useless spells worthwile to those that focused in them and overpowered spells weaker to those that didn't. If these spells had some sort of scaling to them it would incourage other focuses and give a benifit to those that specialized.

So far I have found that places like HoD have became increasingly difficult. Even though you can stack multiple buffs on top of each other, you are still susceptible to Mords. Even loosing some of your buffs make the DC 48 or higher effects quite deadly. I even tried using clarity on my teammates to fix stun or fear with no success. Perhaps considering some minor tweaks to these abilities would bring them in line with the current mobs.

Mind Blank and Lesser Mind Blank could give a bonus based on Focuses. Perhaps starting at +2 for no bonus and going to +8 for Epic Spell Focus.

Clarity doesn't seem to dispell Mind Effecting effects anymore. Perhaps giving it no duration and allowing it to dispell harmfull effects like the description says it should. This would at least give us some remedy. (I never understood why this spell had a duration)

I also found that Shadow Shield still has a reduced duration. Perhaps bringing back the old duration would at least make it a viable buff. You could also scale this bonus as shown above.

Also Power Word Stun has the same hit point scale as Power Word Kill. I know they are differnt level spells but they already have a much different effect. If you can cast both why would you ever cast Stun when you could just kill the target?

Once again I think all the Devs are doing a great job and I appreciate all the hard work that goes into this mod. Thanks again.

[-BannyD-]

i agree with most of this

when i saw the changes to all the immunity type spells i wasnt really happy. mind blank was one of the only things a mage could contribute to an epic level party. a lot of the other spells do scale with focus so maybe all these can too...a basic +4 to save without any focus is ok i guess...but add +2 per focus maybe? for a total of +10 to saves vs whatever...thats not immunity but for the devotion it helps a whole lot, especially when feats on casters (well at least sorc) are tight.

i initially agreed with the stun vs kill power word spell but im really not sure now....if you get hit with power word: stun, you are basically dead anyway. the spell lvl difference is what, 2?, so maybe they would be balanced..spend a lower lvl spell to stun and let your knight or teammate finish the toon off...or use a higher lvl more valuable spell to kill em yourself....ehh im not sure about this one.

[MLoki]

Just as a side note. I know it was mentioned that the Mind Immunity buffs don't stack but it's important to know that if you cast Protection from Good/Evil before you cast Mind Blank you will not get the bonus from Mind Blank. A teammate noticed I didn't have the Mind Immunity "Crown" like everyone else so I did some troubleshooting and found this to be the case.

[Korr]

That would fall under the same category of non-stacking problems. If you cast bless on a party then someone else casts aid, you will only have the benefits of bless.

[Nyeleni]

On a related topic: are HoD's dc's of effects and spells at least been taken down a notch? If not somebody should adjust them? I thought everything got toned down a bit regarding the elemination of the immunities. I really hope DWP isn't as deadly as before...

[Amoenotep]

we've gotten quite a bit adjusted, but if you guys find some npc's with way out of whack dc's let us know....we can't know everything

[frogofpeace]

Oh...well, please up the lore bonus for DM's then.

[Amoenotep]

dump stat for dm's

[MLoki]

Could the script for Bigby's Clenched Fist be looked into. The changelog has this;

Bigby's Clenched Fist:
Once per round the hand makes an attack on the target (Spell DC + 9 STR modifier + d20 vs target's AC). The damage is 1d8 + 1 per caster level. A successful fortitude saving throw halves the damage. Duration is 1 round per 2 caster levels.

Most mages will cast either the 7th level or 9th level version of this spell but I don't know any that will cast this spell after testing it out a couple times. I have found that this spell rarely hits and even when it does the damage doesn't seem to do nearly enough. Perhaps adding a Discipline check to KD the opponent as bigby used to might help ressurect this spell.

[Shamed Monkey]

Someone tell me why you're thinking about buffing up arcane casters more. Especially when Bigbies are already ridiculously uber.