Uninterrupted Casting

Schneidend

Is there a reason (besides trying to annoy me, obviously) that some casters in BG2 don't have their spellcasting fail when they get hit? Liches are the principal offenders, it seems, but the dwarf statue in the portal area of the first level of Watcher's Keep seems to regularly get off Insect Swarm regardless of how many poisoned arrows hit him. Has anybody else encountered this?

CrevsDaak

This happened in the vanilla game too, also with the (damned) Draconis, who don't waits 6 seconds too.
It is annoying, but it is how the game was implemented.

Zzidolfas86

Breaking every annoying rule you have to live with is a "clever" way to make stuff harder

This game is fantastic, but there is a lot of shit in the rule set that has always annoyed me so much. Stuff that just honestly makes the game less fun, and made playing in p&p a complete pain.

Ashendil

I think what the OP wanted to get at is whether this is according to the rules or if it is a kind of bug. I have been wondering about this for a while myself.

nano

These are scripted spells, aren't they? I don't think they can be interrupted. They bypass the usual requirements for spellcasting too... I've had confused liches still finish their string of SCS pre-buffs. That one I consider fair though, as it's supposed to represent the lich buffing before the fight.

JiveOne

It's probably a bug, but in some cases it may be that the initiative of the caster is so low that they're actually "casting" the spell early in the round before they get hit. They'll still show the long casting animation, but in the behind the scenes numbers they may have technically cast the spell already.

GamingFreak

It's one of those reasons why I rely on stagger abilities like Poison or Insect spells. That or just quickly remove their protections and chunk 'em. With liches it's a bit trickier, but there's always protection from undead scrolls.

Schneidend

GamingFreak said:

It's one of those reasons why I rely on stagger abilities like Poison or Insect spells. That or just quickly remove their protections and chunk 'em. With liches it's a bit trickier, but there's always protection from undead scrolls.

A poisoned bolt and a poisoned arrow, one from each of two blackguards, has failed to keep that damn dwarf in Watcher's Keep from casting Insect Plague.

Noon

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/15730/why-does-damage-seem-to-only-sometimes-disrupt-spellcasting

Clerics and druids can sometimes sustain some damages and still cast their spell. Neera or Nalia also successfully cast a spell by the end of my SoA playthrough while taking some minor damage. There is no known rule afaik, but it has been like this since BG vanilla.

ghostowl

get a massive 2-hander like Dorn on your team or a 7x backstab assassin and chunk them before they can finish the spell!!

CrevsDaak

Also, maybe it is because they have ForceSpell( in their scripts.
Also, for casting failures, a d100 is rolled, there are like 45% of failing if hit by damage type and time, so the weapon with the best interrupting chance is the Flail of Ages (all the weapons with elemental damage has increased probabilities), after Dragon's Breath. And, also, I think that as you progress in level you got lower probabilities of failing when hit.

Schneidend

ghostowl said:

get a massive 2-hander like Dorn on your team or a 7x backstab assassin and chunk them before they can finish the spell!!

I have Korgan, Dorn, and a Blackguard Charname with 19 Strength on my front line. Even with focus firing, the dwarf statue I'm talking about have a crazy amount of HP because of its high level.

nano

CrevsDaak said:

Also, maybe it is because they have ForceSpell( in their scripts.
Also, for casting failures, a d100 is rolled, there are like 45% of failing if hit by damage type and time, so the weapon with the best interrupting chance is the Flail of Ages (all the weapons with elemental damage has increased probabilities), after Dragon's Breath. And, also, I think that as you progress in level you got lower probabilities of failing when hit.

Hmm, where did you get this information?

CrevsDaak

nano said:

CrevsDaak said:

Also, maybe it is because they have ForceSpell( in their scripts.
Also, for casting failures, a d100 is rolled, there are like 45% of failing if hit by damage type and time, so the weapon with the best interrupting chance is the Flail of Ages (all the weapons with elemental damage has increased probabilities), after Dragon's Breath. And, also, I think that as you progress in level you got lower probabilities of failing when hit.

Hmm, where did you get this information?

@nano
From my giant sized brain, from trying tryin' tryin', and from PnP, but that don't matters. I don't know the exact numbers of fail %, but the game rolls a die to determinate that.
Also, please namedrop me the next time :P

nano

@CrevsDaak As giant as I'm sure your brain is, I was hoping for something more substantial

I'm guessing you're talking about divine spell failures? I don't think I've ever seen an arcane caster not get interrupted by damage, outside of scripted spells. Whether it's 1 damage or a crit backstab for 100 doesn't seem to matter. Heck even 0 damage stops casting unless you have ToBEX.

CrevsDaak

@nano Arcane spells should have higher failure chance (and they do), not many times but still happening, my 18/22 M/T gets hit in between the spell, and, he stills casting a spell. I never used mods in my vanilla version, nor tweaks, fixpacks nor anything (I installed SCS 4 days ago, but I haven't used a Mage in the game since so), Divine spells don't tend to get interrupted, because of they failure chance, I think it improves with your level, because at lvl1, all the spells I casted could get interrupted, but now in ToB, I start casting Skull Trap, and I make Mazzy hit the PC while he is doing so, he keeps casting the spell (she hits for damage, I wasn't using Stoneskin) and it don't says casting failure, some other weapons (Flail of Ages) interrupt (almost) ever, mage casting a spell? Go Anomen, hit him with FoA. The FoA deals out many damage types, and that is why it tends to interrupt casting all the time. Some great Mages and Clerics from ToB have lower failure chances, Sendai, I hit her with Gesen's Shortbow, and, despite of being two different types of damage, she stills casting the spell, then Mazzy hits (for damage) and interrupts the SAME spell (it had long casting time and my Party is nice fast-hitting-group), the same happens with all the spells, unless they are set by the script to be ForceSpell(Myself,WIZARD_SPELL_TURNING), what will force any character, despite of its class/alignement/anything to cast the spell with no failure chance. ApplySpell does the same, but without casting time, what means, it applies the effects of the spell instead of casting it (like 0 casting time spells).
Then, to interrupt spells, it is the number of damage types what matters, the best weapon to interrupt spellcasting in SoA is Dragon's Breath (Haldberd found in the Underdark), while in ToB the Flail of Ages is boss (not to mention 33% no save slow ).

nano

@CrevsDaak I think you are right. I tried what you said and it does work that way. I wonder what the formula is and how it scales with level...

CrevsDaak

@nano I wonder the same, we should ask to someone of the devs.