Wizard Slayer Question? (BG2)

Caldegan

First off, let me tell you what mods I have installed:
1. Ascension
2. BG2 Fixpack
3. Spell Revisions
4. Item Revisions
5. NPCs
6. Quest Pack
7. BG2 Tweaks
8. BiggTweaks
9. Tactics
10. SCS II
11. Rogue Rebalancing
12. aTweaks

Now on to the question. I am playing Baldur's Gate II: ToB as a Wizard Slayer. With these mods installed, the Wizard Slayer receives 1% magic resistance per level rather than the glitched 2% and applies 10% cumulative spell failure to the spellcaster on a successful hit with ranged or melee (e.g. wizard, priest). As the game works (or should work), as long as the dialog box says “hit” then the spell failure is applied, regardless of protection spells such as Stoneskin or Mirror Image*. The word “cumulative” in this sense means that the percentage should stack up, so if I successfully hit a spellcaster three times, he should have a spell failure rate of 30%. However, I am not noticing this. I recorded several amount of times a battle between myself and a wizard. I clocked in how many times I hit him, and I counted within a 30-second period, that I hit this wizard 8 times. I had noticed that during my first few hits (or the first ten seconds), as he tried to fling off a spell, sometimes it would say “Spell Cast: Spell Failed” but others it would successfully cast -- no problem there. However, as I neared the 8 hit mark (which should set the wizard's fail rate, in theory, at 80%), he was still flinging every spell without fail. By this time, his mirror images had worn out, so I cannot say it was because of this spell.

So my questions are:
a) Does the spell failure only last for a certain amount of time? If so, how long is this time and why is this not mentioned in the Kit Description?
b) Are there any exceptions to this spell failure rule? I've seen priests cast Flame Strike with 100% spell failure applied, for example.

*Not sure about Mirror Image. Can any of you confirm this?

Any facts about the Wizard Slayer would be appreciated. Thank you.

SharGuidesMyHand

What weapon are you hitting the wizard with?

I'm not an expert on the wizard slayer, but I remember someone else on this forum saying the cumulative spell failure only applies to melee weapons, not ranged weapons (again, that's what someone else said - I don't actually know this myself).

Caldegan

SharGuidesMyHand said:

What weapon are you hitting the wizard with?

I'm not an expert on the wizard slayer, but I remember someone else on this forum saying the cumulative spell failure only applies to melee weapons, not ranged weapons (again, that's what someone else said - I don't actually know this myself).

It says in the Kit Description that this applies to ranged and melee weapons. Also, the spell failure is being applied -- I have noticed this. But it is not stacking correctly.

lamaros

You have so many mods (with so many many options, and possible conflicts) applied that if there is an issue you're only really going to be able to work it out yourself. Unless it's already known.

ICN

IIRC, if the Mage has PfMW up it will prevent you from applying the spell failure unless you use a normal weapon.

Lord_Tansheron

You have to actually hit succesfully; afaik it goes through Stoneskin and Mirror Image (you hit *something*) but not through things like PfMW, Mantle, etc. ("Weapon ineffective").

That being said, certain spells are exempt from WS spell failure, namely contingencies and scripted spells. SCS and Tactics add a lot of those, and it's often difficult to tell whether something was normally cast, or is a scripted cast.

Also, although the kit description does say so the vanilla WS does *not* apply spell failure on ranged attacks; it's unclear whether this is an error in the description or a bug with the failure coding. BG2 Tweaks (I think?) has an option to correct this either way as you choose.

As for the duration, I would assume that it is limited. Many such "details" are conveniently omitted in the descriptions. To test this, you could attack a party member and check the icon, and how long it takes to disappear.

Caldegan

ICN said:

IIRC, if the Mage has PfMW up it will prevent you from applying the spell failure unless you use a normal weapon.

Yes, I noticed this as well. PfMW will not allow this to work if it says "Weapon Ineffective."

Caldegan

lamaros said:

You have so many mods (with so many many options, and possible conflicts) applied that if there is an issue you're only really going to be able to work it out yourself. Unless it's already known.

The conflicts are minimal as I downloaded these in the exact order that Gibberlings highly recommended, omitting parts of each mod that would cause potential conflicts. I would like to know how to test this out myself.

Caldegan

Lord_Tansheron said:

You have to actually hit succesfully; afaik it goes through Stoneskin and Mirror Image (you hit *something*) but not through things like PfMW, Mantle, etc. ("Weapon ineffective").

That being said, certain spells are exempt from WS spell failure, namely contingencies and scripted spells. SCS and Tactics add a lot of those, and it's often difficult to tell whether something was normally cast, or is a scripted cast.

Also, although the kit description does say so the vanilla WS does *not* apply spell failure on ranged attacks; it's unclear whether this is an error in the description or a bug with the failure coding. BG2 Tweaks (I think?) has an option to correct this either way as you choose.

As for the duration, I would assume that it is limited. Many such "details" are conveniently omitted in the descriptions. To test this, you could attack a party member and check the icon, and how long it takes to disappear.

That's what I was worried about. I'm using Azuredge +3's ranged attack through Mantle, Mirror Image, and Stoneskin, so I would figure that it would work. But maybe ranged attacks do not work. I have found that there are very many serious bugs in the vanilla game which shocks me since I am so absorbed in this game regardless.

Lord_Tansheron

@Caldegan: the vanilla game is famous for having a plethora of fairly serious bugs/mechanics that don't work as they should. However, you do list BG2 Tweaks in your mod list, so I'd suggest checking your log to see if you've installed the WS ranged attack fix. If it really is BG2 Tweaks that does it... but I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Sure. Right... Uhm... maybe SCS...?

zur312

Caldegan said:

ICN said:

IIRC, if the Mage has PfMW up it will prevent you from applying the spell failure unless you use a normal weapon.

Yes, I noticed this as well. PfMW will not allow this to work if it says "Weapon Ineffective."

after pfmw you just switch to normal weapon and hit again

wiard slayers are not that great i have 2 on my LP and they are OK when fighting like a dragon so he won't dispell me or something but other than that liches are still the most annoying enemies and switching weapons trick won't work