Humble suggestion about Improved Invisibility

[Kirg]

I think this spell has a too big impact in the game. Thus I propose to scale it down to 40%, I'd even say 30%, scaleable with all the spell foci for illusion back to 50%.
This would make spells like camouflage a bit better compared to the current situation.

I just don't feel it is justified that a bard e.g. can suddenly solo places where a common tank at the same level still has some trouble.

[cRaZy8or5e]

Well if you're going to scale it with foci, then why not start it with no spell foci giving only 20% concealment. Then with spell focus it moves up to 30% and greater 40% and epic 50%. This would make other feats like self concealment, empty body, etc. more valuable and make a very low level, very powerful spell less available.

I don't think the spell is broke, mind you, and would be happy to keep it as is. However, I do think that your idea has merit in that improved invisibility is a very powerful spell, and in the spirit of making focus in the various schools more rewarding, think this could go a long way towards making the illusion school and the weird spell more commonly used. (uhhh, those are illusion school spells right? lol I can't remember for sure)

[Nyeleni]

Yes, Illusion. 20% is a bit low though, 30, 35, 40, 50 is possible too ie. as the first two foci are much easier to get than the last one.

Of course the reduction would only be active as soon as you reveal yourself. Before it's just a normal invisibility (unless you want to reduce that spell too). Not sure, how easy that can be scripted though. In case it really gets changed .

[disastro]

as far as i can tell the entire pvm game has been balanced against folks with 50% conceal. so if you reduce that you make the game drastically harder than was originally intended.

it would be like suddenly cutting everybody's hit points in half or dropping ac by 10 across the board... you would have to revisit a great many mobs/bosses/areas to get them to the right challenge again.

[Bargeld]

Also, keep in mind Ghostly Visage (lvl2 - 10% conceal) and Displacement (lvl 3 - 50% conceal, no invis).

[Nyeleni]

Also, keep in mind Ghostly Visage (lvl2 - 10% conceal) and Displacement (lvl 3 - 50% conceal, no invis).

But much shorter duration. Would give the latter a better use.

as far as i can tell the entire pvm game has been balanced against folks with 50% conceal. so if you reduce that you make the game drastically harder than was originally intended.

it would be like suddenly cutting everybody's hit points in half or dropping ac by 10 across the board... you would have to revisit a great many mobs/bosses/areas to get them to the right challenge again.

And that is the problem. It shouldn't be balanced against ii. Not all the characters do have access to it. Or do you have to be a trickery cleric or a umd class splasher to survive? Something is wrong with that, don't you agree?
Though you might be right. Well then make the duration shorter, and add to the duration of ii with the foci. Maybe that helps boosting other spells and innate abilities a bit more.

[frogofpeace]

Don't blind fight and true seeing ameliorate the concealment of ii? Seems like I read that blind fight drops the concealment to 25%. If that's the case, seems much less of an issue. I don't think I've ever built a meleer without blind fight.

[disastro]

right or wrong the vast majority of the game content has already been balanced assuming ii. not all builds have access to it but you're thinking of a solo toon... a good TEAM should have access to ii so it makes sense to balance for good teams. i dont think asking the dev team to rebalance lots of the mobs in the game is a viable suggestion.

as far as i know true seeing doesnt do anything for the concealment from ii (just lets you see invis), but you are correct frog blind fight does reduce your miss chance by half.

[Nyeleni]

right or wrong the vast majority of the game content has already been balanced assuming ii. not all builds have access to it but you're thinking of a solo toon... a good TEAM should have access to ii so it makes sense to balance for good teams. i dont think asking the dev team to rebalance lots of the mobs in the game is a viable suggestion.

as far as i know true seeing doesnt do anything for the concealment from ii (just lets you see invis), but you are correct frog blind fight does reduce your miss chance by half.

Actually it was more to make other spells and abilities a reasonable alternative than to nerf ii. Even with 30 or 40% it is still good enough imo. But I see, that you are assuming that we play in party, and rightly so. But the reality looks mostly a bit different.
Even so, I don't see why we can't leave the spawns unchanged after hitting ii with the nerf baton. They won't be too much harder only because ii, esp. if youre in party; it is not like it will vanish alltogether. But it will make space for more diversity. "Whole Body", innate ability by Duergar and Deep Gnome will not be tampered with, as long as you stay in invisibility you are still getting 50%, use of other spells, even if shorter in duration.

The only ones really affected are the UMDs ii chars. They won't hardly invest into illusion foci, thus they will resort more to hiding in the shadows, as they should anyways. I would give it a shot at least, if things get too upset, reverse it again heh.

[Amoenotep]

just for the record i don't remember getting the memo when we balanced the game vs ii...

[disastro]

just for the record i don't remember getting the memo when we balanced the game vs ii...

when you test new zones/monsters etc your test run toons don't use ii?

[Amoenotep]

just because someone uses ii doesn't mean we put in special things just for ppl that want to be concealed.

[disastro]

just because someone uses ii doesn't mean we put in special things just for ppl that want to be concealed.

ah thats not what i meant by balanced for ii. what i meant is that when a mob is designed, and tested to see if it's too tough or too easy by actual play testing, that play test would generally pit an average party of toons with ii against said creature. ii'd parties are a pretty common case and a fairly safe baseline.

so if mob x is "too easy" against the ii'd party, it's made tougher. once the designer has a beastie that's "just right," we now have a beastie that is a lot harder to beat WITHOUT ii.

how can we as players know that this is the case? anyone who's been in a moderately challenging encounter, got their ii dispelled, and then suddenly found themselves in a world of hurt has come across evidence of this effect.

thus it's not like designers are adding weird extra effects that count on concealment, its just a built in and natural part of the design process itself. otherwise the ubiquitous ii would result in complete cakewalks across the board. if you change ii significantly, you're changing the baseline assumption that the designer used to evaluate the toughness of the creature. if you want the creature to remain at the same cr/difficulty, you'd have a lot more work ahead of you.

[Amoenotep]

i got money that says if we drastically changed the nature of ii and concealment issues it wouldn't make as much of a difference as it would seem

[Lorkar1]

i got money that says if we drastically changed the nature of ii and concealment issues it wouldn't make as much of a difference as it would seem

Had yours dispelled recently? I have and Disastro is 100% right, but on the bright side the hurt doesn't last long, ie;death. Why is it that when any type of dispell goes off ii always seems to be the first casualty? I have been mords'd, greater dispelled, lesser dispelled by creatures and players both higher and lower than myself but the ii seems to vanish(pun intended) first and consistently.