Melf's Minute Meteors Spell

LookToWindward

Hi,

I have a quick question about the Melf's Minute Meteors Spell. When I cast this, I get a number of missiles that stay with me after I rest. Is this a Bug? Most other spells wear off!

Here is a trick I use. Before resting, I cast this spell (assuming I haven't used it), that way, I wake up with my full complement of spells + the missiles from before I rested! If I do this with NPCs too, I get a lot of extra missiles!

Cheers
Dave

CrevsDaak

No, it is working correctly that way. And yeah, it is very cheesy, plus it hits as +5 so you can hit Demiliches and it deals Fire damage to kill trolls.

LookToWindward

Yeah and Spiders hate it!

One thing that is a pain though that is, if you have 2 weapons in the quick weapon slots - in my case a sling and a dagger+2, and you have the sling selected before you cast the spell, when you have used all the Meteors, instead of re-selecting then the sling, it ALWAYS selects the dagger, which makes the player go wanders off towards the monster it was attacking which if you are not quick enough usually results in a quick death! I tried leaving the other slot empty, but then instead of re-selecting the Sling, it selects Bare Fists which results in an even quicker death!

Is this a bug? Sense says it should re-selected the last weapon being used which will always be the same as before the spell, cos it stops you from changing it!

Cheers
Dave

Frosty

Maybe the spell favors one of your weapon slots over the other, try switching the weapons slots around.

ZaknafeinBaenre

Yea, I doubt it's a bug, more likely it's just something we have to deal with. Who can say what happens after you finish throwing flaming meteors. Maybe you had to put the sling away so it didn't burn to cinders. But yes if you look at the duration of the spell, it is longer than an 8 hour rest period.

Skaffen

It's annoying and the stupid script sends you into melee even if you have the missile weapon equipped before Melfs.

Interestingly in PnP it lasts as long as the player has an exact mental count of the remaining missiles leading our DM asking the players at the most inopportune moments how many missiles were left - mental, not notes, so expect to be asked during dinner break, on the toilet, ...

LookToWindward

Yeah, I think it's a bug, it should re-select the last weapon being used, the only way to catch it is to set it to auto-pause when weapon unable (e.g. when the last of the MMMs have been fired). Also if you try to select a weapon from a quick weapon slot in the inventory screen while MMMs are active, it picks it up, but won't put it back into the slot! You have to put it into your inventory (if you have room) and then remember you've done that when you have used up the last of the MMMs.

I'dont buy the sling being put away argument, since it will select a club or a staff which could equally be burned!

Tasraya

If it's a bug--which I don't believe that it is--then even in vanilla, this behavior occurred. I believe the game is just designed to favor a melee weapon instead of a ranged weapon coming out of MMM. I tend to try to watch casters that are using the spell fairly carefully as they get low on meteors so that I can switch back to their ranged weapon as the meteors conclude.

LookToWindward

So if I don't have a melee weapon in my quick slots, but I do have a sling, it selects fists, and, since the MMMs themselves are ranged, why would it favour melee weapons? If there is no good reason for it doing this stated in the manual or on the spell itself, then it's a bug in my books. Yeah, that's what you have to do, but it's a pain, especially if you have 2 or 3 mages all using it at the same time.

Corvino

If you set the game to autopause on weapon unusable (available in Gamepolay options) then the game should pause when you run out of missiles. It's not a perfect fix, but it will allow you to change weapons and stop your mage going mano-a-mano with Trolls.

Wanderon

I believe this is new with EE - if you have any ranged weapon equipped and run out of ammo in the ammo slot you are using it switches to your other weapon (or maybe directly to bare fist) - I suspect this was implemented to keep your character from wasting higher end ammo you might have in the other slots ( which often happened in vanilla)

In the case of MMM I'm guessing it is treating it like ranged ammo and doing the same thing. - not my favorite feature but I'm fairly certain it is a feature and not a bug.

LookToWindward

Yes, I have set the auto-pause option for Weapon Unusable, but I've found that it doesn't always fire and my mage goes into a fist-fight with whoever and usually gets canned!

Wanderon said:

I believe this is new with EE - if you have any ranged weapon equipped and run out of ammo in the ammo slot you are using it switches to your other weapon (or maybe directly to bare fist) - I suspect this was implemented to keep your character from wasting higher end ammo you might have in the other slots ( which often happened in vanilla)

In the case of MMM I'm guessing it is treating it like ranged ammo and doing the same thing. - not my favorite feature but I'm fairly certain it is a feature and not a bug.

So, instead of wasting ammo he goes at it one-on-one with a Troll using fists?

So we have a super intelligent mage, that can memorise complex spells and cast them so as to command Missiles of Fire, yet when the missiles runs out he isn't smart enough to select a melee weapon and attacks with bare fists when he has strength of 9! It just doesn't wash for me!

I think the ranged weapon ammo selection is pretty crap to be honest and can find no rules as it how it is supposed to work written down anywhere, so it's hard to say what is a bug and what is a "feature".

If they have changed this in EE, then I can only say it wasn't very well thought out, and with a bit of effort it would be possible to come up with a more intelligent way of handling it, with a few simple rules. For instance, if the 3 ammo slots A,B,C always worked from left to right, so for the 3 slots, if you initially selected A, it will use all of A, then go on to B, use all of B, then go onto C, you could work with that without too much effort by ensuring you had the lessor Ammo to the left, e.g.

Slot: A B C
+0 Arrows +1 Arrows +2 Arrows

If you select, B, it will use up B and then move to C, etc.

By arranging your Ammo if the right order, you could then easily avoid wasting ammo while at the same time making it more playable.

Also, I don't think the "Weapon Unusable" Message/Auto-pause for running out of ammo, is right, it isn't unusable, it'd just out of ammo. If it's unable I'd want a refund! It would be better to have a separate message/action, "Out of Ammo, slot A/B/C" when slot A,B or C runs out. Then add an option to select whether to pause if a slot runs out or ignore it and just more onto the next slot, and if all slots empty then give the message "Out of Ammo All Slots"

Another way, would be to only auto-switch if the two ammo types are the same, e.g. +0 arrow to +0 arrow, then auto-switch, otherwise "Out of ammo slot A/B/C".

Anyway, it's the way it is and I guess we have to live with it.

dreamrider

Ammo sequencing being changed in patch 1.3.

Nokkenbuer

LookToWindward said:

Yeah and Spiders hate it!

One thing that is a pain though that is, if you have 2 weapons in the quick weapon slots - in my case a sling and a dagger+2, and you have the sling selected before you cast the spell, when you have used all the Meteors, instead of re-selecting then the sling, it ALWAYS selects the dagger, which makes the player go wanders off towards the monster it was attacking which if you are not quick enough usually results in a quick death! I tried leaving the other slot empty, but then instead of re-selecting the Sling, it selects Bare Fists which results in an even quicker death!

Is this a bug? Sense says it should re-selected the last weapon being used which will always be the same as before the spell, cos it stops you from changing it!

Cheers
Dave

I don't think it's a bug. However, I recommend either switching the weapon places to prevent this, or (preferably) turn on auto-pause for when a weapon becomes unusable. When your character or party member runs out of the minute meteors, the game will autopause, preventing that character from diving into the thick of battle with the wrong weapon equipped.

ryuken87

It's not a bug, it's officially a poor design choice.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/27737/auto-switch-to-melee-weapon-when-magical-weapon-ammo-runs-out

Gawdzilla

I noticed this change in gameplay too. Used to be a character would use up ALL her ammo before switching to melee, now they just use up the selected ammo.

It's kind of a pain, but I micromanage closely during combat and haven't yet lost anyone who decides to suddenly plunge into combat with her fists!