Dispelling Magic

Nalitheen of Vecna · Post by **Nalitheen of Vecna** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:53 am

I am curious to know how dispell magic works on this server, perhaps someone can explain how it works and if playing a wizard what can I expect the results to be when I cast a greater spell breach or Mordenkainen's Disjunction in pvp.

I have read the wiki and it says greater spell breach will strip 4 defensive sells and reduce magic resistance for a period of time, yet I have been unable to strip away a single spell mantle from a player in pvp.

In my last pvp encounter I casted 4 greater spell breaches in an effort to strip one spell mantle on a single advisary and saw no results for expending so many spells. I know by nwn default greater spell breach strips defensive spells in a top down order from strongest to weakest.

After reading the ns4 wiki of spells that are stripped, I am 100% positive that the player was trying to strip the one spell mantle from did not have 16 different types of defensive spells casted on his or hers character.

Would some please explain how the dispell magic works on this server.

Thanks

P. Fricebottle · Post by **P. Fricebottle** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 12:46 pm

I've casted Greater Dispelling on with my pure cleric on builds that were most definitely not pure and I didn't see any effects. I know Mords and Greater Spell Breaches work, but I think for you to see any huge results you need to focus in it. I'm not an expert with mages though, so you'll have to wait for someone who is to give you their professional opinion.

CrazyJ · Post by **CrazyJ** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 1:27 pm

Caster level is involved (which is why PMs usually have problems with dispell on both ends), and at some point--caster 25 or 30, somewhere in there--casters become undispellable by PCs.

Post by **Amoenotep** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 2:02 pm

casters only become undispellable because no one focuses in abjuration..it helps if you plan on stripping ppl.

mords and the breaches have a very exact list that they strip away from you, not sure if mantle is on the list for breach..but i think its on the list for mords.

Post by **Binkyuk** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 3:43 pm

according to nwnwiki at any rate the list is the same and spell mantles are right at the top.

Greater Dispel caps at 20 caster levels, so even with +6 from ESF: Abj it's pointless at epic. Mords is *supposed* to go right up to 40 levels though.

Post by **Amoenotep** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 3:59 pm

the breaches and mords auto strip..there is no caster lvl check

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:05 pm

Mord's and Spell Breaches auto-remove certain protections. (barkskin, shield of faith, etc. NOT buffs like bullstr, divine power, aura of vitality)

Greater Dispelling doesn't have a cap on it the last time I checked.
So, it works like the spell description, only without the cap for the caster.

A level 40 caster attempting to dispel another level 40 caster looks like:
40casterlvl + 1d20 Vs DC51 (casterlevel+11)

I can't quite remember, but I believe the dispeller needs only match the DC of the target to dispel something.
Therefore, in a 40vs40 the dispeller has a 45% chance to dispell each magical effect on the target (if directly targetting something).
Using Epic Focus Abjuration, the dispeller should have a 75% chance.

If the target has Arcane Defense Abjuration in a 40vs40 situation, the dispeller has a -10% chance to dispel.

Greater Spell Mantle has been modified to be immune to Spell Breaches and Mord's. I'm not sure if it is immune to Dispel though.

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 1:30 am

I remember reading before that if you target the ground with Mord's it does a super dispel on all targets in area.

Tested it at Earth and it does seem to target all hostile magical enhancements in the AoE.

Celorn · Post by **Celorn** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 1:34 am

Greater Dispelling doesn't have a cap on it the last time I checked.
So, it works like the spell description, only without the cap for the caster.

A level 40 caster attempting to dispel another level 40 caster looks like:
40casterlvl + 1d20 Vs DC51 (casterlevel+11)

I can't quite remember, but I believe the dispeller needs only match the DC of the target to dispel something.

Greater Spell Mantle has been modified to be immune to Spell Breaches and Mord's. I'm not sure if it is immune to Dispel though.

Ahhh.... well if that's the way it is then perhaps that's the way it is for pure casters? but when I tested my multiclass cleric (just now), to dispell itself is:

Dispell: (Abj.focus +2,+4 or +6)+20+1d20 - versus - Caster level +11

As far as i know the cap for greater dispell is 20, not 15 as i believe is the default, nor is it uncapped -- (but perhaps it should be uncapped for pure casters if it isn't already?).

Also: In the past I tested arcane defense: Abj. and it didn't seem to raise the DC to dispell.

You're right about mantle and mords/breach...

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 4:00 am

IIRC Clerics and other non-wiz/sorc aren't as good at dispelling, maybe that has something to do with it.

In general I think that when arcane and divine casters try to dispel each other they should suffer some sort of penalty. A -4 circumstance penalty, since they are dealing with a different form of magic different from their own.

Nalitheen of Vecna · Post by **Nalitheen of Vecna** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 12:27 am

Thanks for the response, I didn't realize greater spell mantle was immune to breaches and mord. In the wiki it makes no note of this and has greaterspell breach listed as the counterspell.

It would be nice if the benefits of spell focus was listed for every school of magic. Conjuration is fully described under summons but I couldnt find much on any other spell focus schools. I noticed that epic spell focus in necromancy has no benefit to negative spells only pm summons.

It would be nice to see more documentation on the finer points of spell casting for arcane and divine. At any rate its made an interesting topic discussion.

This is a little of the topic but does anyone else find the wizard class on this server to be very limited in effective options in pvp. I find some modifcations of spells to be very logical but overall the defensive magic that is specialized to the arcane arts that pose any serious problem for a melee fighter is competely canned and any chance for a reasonble dc check with a variety of offenive spells is a lost cause. (perhaps with the expection of a pure 40th level wizard with insane int)

Although I find the dc checks terrible low, I still enjoy being part of the arcane spell casters of Garagoth.

Post by **Binkyuk** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 6:02 am

I think you'll find on 90% of PWs that any spells with a save will be pretty much useless after level 30. This is because saves increase at +1/2 levels for epic characters, while casters get no higher spell levels, and they can't increase their casting stat at anything like the rate required to keep up with saves.
There's been a lot of talk about bonus DC for epic level casters (in fact it's already been done for Ruin and Hellball), but nothing concrete yet, and they may end up for pure casters only.

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 6:59 am

Don't forget everything in the mod runs around with maxed HP.

HP for a fighter should be 30 + 17d10 (123.5 avg) @ lvl 20
(They actually have more due to CON Bonus)

In reality, everyone who knows what they are doing is running around with max HP. Which would be 200 HP + CON Bonus

That's roughly 50-60% more base HP on avg for any given class.

From what I've heard the HP on mobs is boosted accordingly to match this extra amount that players get.

Yet casters receive no such compensation to the amount of dmg their dmg spells do.

:roll:

I want my 10d9 Fireballs and 20d12 Horrids! (that's with a lvl20 caster of course :wink:

)

Post by **TheBestDeception** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 2:19 pm

casters only become undispellable because no one focuses in abjuration..it helps if you plan on stripping ppl.

This is not true, for two reasons:

1) Even epic abjuration cannot dispell pure casters.
2) My caster is an abjuration specialist.

Also: In the past I tested arcane defense: Abj. and it didn't seem to raise the DC to dispell.

This is correct. I remember asking Lokey about it a while back, and he gave me a response along the lines of it being difficult to code.

P. Fricebottle · Post by **P. Fricebottle** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 7:08 pm

Since we are already on the note of dispelling magic, something is bugged with Aura vs. Alignment. I noticed it with Gary, level 40 cleric. Yesterday a cleric in my group casted Aura on our group, and when one of the NPCs attempted to dispel me it came off again. So that told me it just wasn't me.

What happens is that Aura vs. Alignement immediately gets dispelled no matter what, I don't know why.

Heck, you could even be a pure level 40 cleric and it will get dispelled. When I went pure I was happy knowing I had some compensation knowing I couldn't be dispelled, but this one spell is the most important party buff a cleric has and its been irritating. Is it meant to be this way or no?

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Dispelling Magic

Dispelling Magic

thanks for the response