Wraithform overpowered?

Jarleale

I was playing around with this spell.

It's absolutely devastating.

As a fighter/mage, you can attack at full force, as a sorcerer you can use Melf's minute meteors or wands.
The duration is 2 rounds/level, so you can have this protection during the entire fight.

elminster

Its good for bards too.

elminster

But as far as I know the only way to get it is to get it from the caverns underneath candlekeep in chapter 6.

So its not really OP. The enemies you face after that point can handle it. The harder ones can anyways.

gunman

But as a sorcerer you can learn it much faster.
Question, does lightning bolts or fireballs casted by enemy mages count as elemental damage or magical attacks? I know that Magic Missile is always magic damage, but does Wraithform protects from lightning bolts and fireballs?

Messi

I don't think this game has ever been particulary well balanced. Some spells/classes are almost useless while others are extremely powerful but that's part of the fun!

Illustair

Wraithform spell?? I can tell by the name what it does, but huh...I can't remember having a spell like that. And I've played as a mage in most of the time. It can only be found in what Elminster said then? None in BG-2?

Corvino

@fredamora It's a new spell in BG:EE. It's always existed in PnP and supposedly may have been an incredibly rare random drop ingame before this as well. There's now a guaranteed drop from an encounter under Candlekeep.

In short it makes you immune to nonmagical weapons as a level 3 spell, an has some other effects I can't remember off the top of my head

elminster

fredamora said:

Wraithform spell?? I can tell by the name what it does, but huh...I can't remember having a spell like that. And I've played as a mage in most of the time. It can only be found in what Elminster said then? None in BG-2?

25% "resistance to magic damage " and immunity to normal weapons. But you can't cast spells. For sorcerers, who frankly are not much for fighting without using spells, I don't see this as being overpowered either. It also only casts on the caster.

It will be available in BG2EE most likely, but that will be up to the developers where they put it.

ZanathKariashi

Wraithform and Dimension door were both from BG1, but were cut from BG2.

Cuv

Wraithform was in BG1, yes... but it wasnt working right. It is now:) Definitely a powerful spell for a fighter/mage

raywind

My blade loved it. wraithform stoneskin mirror image and bash away!

ZanathKariashi

They need to add the teleport spell...the mod that added it was pretty badass but I can't find it anymore (lost most of my files after a hard drive crash)

5th level, allowed you and your party to instantly teleport to any place you'd been at least once, and worked anywhere except for a handful of places that would reasonably be warded (or due to interference) against teleporting in or out.

And the best part was...if you imported the character from SoA into ToB, he retained all his teleport locations and could pop back into Amn or trademeet or whatever to sell or buy stuff and pop back into Tethyr. The only disadvantage was, you couldn't enter the world map from those areas without crashing the game, but if you made sure to visit each location, and each district of Amn, it wasn't a huge deal since you could just teleport to each district.

gunman

elminster said:

25% "resistance to magic damage " and immunity to normal weapons. But you can't cast spells. For sorcerers, who frankly are not much for fighting without using spells, I don't see this as being overpowered either. It also only casts on the caster.

It will be available in BG2EE most likely, but that will be up to the developers where they put it.

Immune to all non-magical attacks, +25% magic resistance.
Theoretically your sorcerer can run into a middle of enemy mob and cast fireball at his feet from a wand. Clearly overpowered. Has anybody tried this to see if it works?

Jarleale

I tried using wands with a sorcerer and it works. I think it's 25 % resistance to magic damage though, like damage from magic missiles and skull trap, not magic resistance. The sorcerer would need protection from fire to cast fireball at his feet without taking damage.

Madhax

Jarleale said:

I tried using wands with a sorcerer and it works. I think it's 25 % resistance to magic damage though, like damage from magic missiles and skull trap, not magic resistance. The sorcerer would need protection from fire to cast fireball at his feet without taking damage.

Protection from fire is easy, though. Off the top of my head there's a 40% ring and a 50% priest spell that stack...

elminster

The fireball strategy doesn't seem overpowered. I've seen no evidence it reduces fire damage (only plain magic like magic missile, vampiric touch, and skull trap damage - along with lightning damage). Not only that but the strategy involves you putting your character with probably the least amount of health in a situation where (in the more difficult battles) he/she could very well get hit with a hold person, confusion, or another mind affecting spell. Now granted that might not mean the end of them, but it is a pretty big risk for something you could have just cast from a distance. Unless you are playing solo or with a small party I'm just not seeing how a spell that you can only get after achieving 40,000 experience with a character (or getting to the end of chapter 6) really is going to make much (if any) difference to the point where it could be considered to be OP. Perhaps in BG2EE, but in that case the losing of spell casting is a disincentive to anyone other than perhaps a fighter/mage or bard (of any kit).

Illustair

Wow, immunity to normal damage and +25% immunity to magic damage...personally I think that's a bit overpowered for a low-level spell. I assume you can get it immediately with sorcerer or bard when you hit the necessary level?

bbear

That's very op indeed! About the wand of fire, instead of using the fireball option, use the agannazar's scorcher and run around so it hits all enemies. (Also, agannazar's scorcher is buggy because the wand version does more damage than the spell version.)

Kortok

ZanathKariashi said:

They need to add the teleport spell...the mod that added it was pretty badass but I can't find it anymore (lost most of my files after a hard drive crash)

5th level, allowed you and your party to instantly teleport to any place you'd been at least once, and worked anywhere except for a handful of places that would reasonably be warded (or due to interference) against teleporting in or out.

And the best part was...if you imported the character from SoA into ToB, he retained all his teleport locations and could pop back into Amn or trademeet or whatever to sell or buy stuff and pop back into Tethyr. The only disadvantage was, you couldn't enter the world map from those areas without crashing the game, but if you made sure to visit each location, and each district of Amn, it wasn't a huge deal since you could just teleport to each district.

I actually have this spell in my game to cast it Ipress ctrl + j.

elminster

fredamora said:

Wow, immunity to normal damage and +25% immunity to magic damage...personally I think that's a bit overpowered for a low-level spell. I assume you can get it immediately with sorcerer or bard when you hit the necessary level?

At level 6 as a sorcerer it would be the only level 3 spell you could cast, and you could cast it up to 3 times before resting. Bards get it when mages do (end of chapter 6).

Illustair

elminster said:

fredamora said:

Wow, immunity to normal damage and +25% immunity to magic damage...personally I think that's a bit overpowered for a low-level spell. I assume you can get it immediately with sorcerer or bard when you hit the necessary level?

At level 6 it would be the only level 3 spell you could cast, and you could cast it up to 3 times before resting.

Yeah I guess that would be its drawback, esp since level 3 has so many good spells to choose from IIRC. For normal weapons immunity...I have only played through BG1 once, so I'm not sure. But I bet half of the enemies won't be able to hurt you, even at later stages.

tyl998

Where is this 40% ring of fire resist?

elminster

fredamora said:

elminster said:

fredamora said:

Wow, immunity to normal damage and +25% immunity to magic damage...personally I think that's a bit overpowered for a low-level spell. I assume you can get it immediately with sorcerer or bard when you hit the necessary level?

At level 6 it would be the only level 3 spell you could cast, and you could cast it up to 3 times before resting.

Yeah I guess that would be its drawback, esp since level 3 has so many good spells to choose from IIRC. For normal weapons immunity...I have only played through BG1 once, so I'm not sure. But I bet half of the enemies won't be able to hurt you, even at later stages.

Any arrow with an effect on it (fire, ice, biting, etc) will affect you (just not its normal damage only the magical/elemental). I haven't tried acid arrows yet, but its probably the same (plus they aren't used by many enemies). By 40,000 experience (which I figure is roughly bandit camp/beginning of cloakwood) enemies with arrows +1/magical or elemental arrows of some kind are not unheard of, its only really the mobs you run into the wild that this is going to be useful against (and even then 1 or 2 fireballs would have killed most of them regardless).

Concerning the ring of fire resistance...

There is a hidden ring of fire in the gibberling mountains, as well as one underneath candlekeep (chapter 6).

Quartz

tyl998 said:

Where is this 40% ring of fire resist?

There is one in the Candlekeep Catacombs.

And another hidden in a crevice in this map (http://www.forgottenwars.com/bg1/ar5500.htm).

elminster

Quartz said:

tyl998 said:

Where is this 40% ring of fire resist?

There is one in the Candlekeep Catacombs.

And another hidden in a crevice in this map (http://www.forgottenwars.com/bg1/ar5500.htm).

Damn I was ninja'd just before I finished editing