In relation to specialist save penalties the existence of those has been discussed a few times on the Bioware Forums in past years, but I agree it's only recently it's been possible to pin down what was happening. I suspect that's largely because it wasn't obvious which enemies (such as liches) were coded as specialist mages when considering why saving throw rolls mysteriously failed.
On the 25% I seem to remember reading somewhere that it had been implemented as 25% for every individual strike (as opposed to a cumulative penalty). That makes sense to me as otherwise a mage would be shut down after 4 hits - and you don't have to play long to discover that's not necessarily the case. Treating each hit independently, a mage would still have over a 30% chance of a successful cast after being hit 4 times (0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 = 0.316)
@Grond0: I just tested it and the 25% does stack up to 100% spell failure in only four hits. I created a sorcerer and Wizard Slayer and after the WS hit the sorcerer 4 times, the sorcerer could not cast a single spell even after 20 iterations. 99.999999999% confirmation.
I'd have to agree that the save penalties from specialist mages was pretty unknown, or at the very least vehemently disagreed upon previously. I asked about them before, and the common answer was always "That was never implemented in the game." The decision as to which specialist to play always boiled down to what you would lose out on from the opposition school.
@Grond0: I just tested it and the 25% does stack up to 100% spell failure in only four hits. I created a sorcerer and Wizard Slayer and after the WS hit the sorcerer 4 times, the sorcerer could not cast a single spell even after 20 iterations. 99.999999999% confirmation.
Thanks for the info. I guess then it must just be spell-like effects not subject to miscast magic (such as wands, potions, scripts, sequencers, contingencies and special abilities) that I'm still seeing from arcane casters after a couple of rounds.
Does it only apply the spell failure on a successful hit that does damage?
Like, if the mage has buffed himself with Stoneskin and you roll a successful attack roll against him but the Stoneskin blocks it... does the Spell Failure still apply?
If it doesn't, then the Wizard Slayer is still as weak as ever. As soon as I've managed to get rid of an enemy mage's protections, he dies very quickly anyway. So at that point in the battle, a Spell Failure debuff is no longer of much use. Getting to that point in a mage battle, is the hard part (especially with Stratagems installed). If the Wizard Slayer can't help with that, then he's just a severely gimped Fighter.
Comments
On the 25% I seem to remember reading somewhere that it had been implemented as 25% for every individual strike (as opposed to a cumulative penalty). That makes sense to me as otherwise a mage would be shut down after 4 hits - and you don't have to play long to discover that's not necessarily the case. Treating each hit independently, a mage would still have over a 30% chance of a successful cast after being hit 4 times (0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 = 0.316)
Like, if the mage has buffed himself with Stoneskin and you roll a successful attack roll against him but the Stoneskin blocks it... does the Spell Failure still apply?
If it doesn't, then the Wizard Slayer is still as weak as ever.
As soon as I've managed to get rid of an enemy mage's protections, he dies very quickly anyway.
So at that point in the battle, a Spell Failure debuff is no longer of much use.
Getting to that point in a mage battle, is the hard part (especially with Stratagems installed). If the Wizard Slayer can't help with that, then he's just a severely gimped Fighter.
Things that prevent hits altogether will not see Spell Failure applied (Protection from Normal/Magic Weapons, Mantle, etc.).