A spellcasting failure check would be awesome!

Akuro

It always annoyed me that a powerful wizard failed at spellcasting when he got hit - no matter how high the damage was. I mean come on - a pack of Hobgoblins are running towards you, screaming in bloodcraze while you are shitting your pants or you stand in front of a giant dragon - nevertheless you`re always capable of concentrating but if a little insect hits you for 1 HP damage, you - the Child of Bhaal - fail at casting your powerful spell? Nah....

When the "TobEx" tweak came out and introduced the "Apply Concentration Check On Damage [WIP]" component I was so happy about it - being hit and potentially still being able to cast your spell felt so awesome!

As the devs have stated that they consider implementing parts of 1PP and TobEx, I hope they will incorporate the spellcasting concentration check component (maybe based on a luck or constitution check) as well.

What do you guys think about this idea? Would it be too powerful? If so, how about other active and tactical solutions for the player and the enemies to prevent mages from casting (for example a counterspell-spell or an innate ability for thiefs/fighters called "interrupting strike/pummel")? Besides, creating and adding abilities like those later on could be easily done via modding, but I`d prefer to have it in the game right at the start to ensure compatibility with upcoming spellcasting/AI mods.

Akuro

Shin

I'm a bit divided on this issue. In vanilla BG (or more notably BG2) I suppose some interruption protection would come in handy as casters don't always take care to protect themselves before launching into longer casts.
With the use of difficulty-enchancing mods it's another story though - while using SCS for instance enemy mages will routinely pop enough protections on themselves from the get-go that even getting close to interrupting them is quite a chore.. I wouldn't think that yet more protection against it is really needed.

Of course, in BG1 mages don't have as many means to protect themselves with yet, so interrupting them is a lot easier than later on. But that's also part of the whole 2e D&D quadratic mage development, a price they pay when starting out for the power they obtain down the line.

Kerozevok

Doing a "concentration test" is a feature from the 3.5e, is that too powerful for BG ? In BG1 why not... But in BG2, the mage is already the most powerful class, a "concentration test" give him an additionally advantage.

Moreover, a concentration test is based on the constitution, without this rule... It's a little too easy.

Akuro

@Shin: Mhh, yes, I agree with your thoughts concerning the difference of BG1 and BG2 mages. Although I don`t know how high the level cap of a BG1 mage (enemy) will be, I`m afraid that mages im BG1 won`t have access to high level defense spells such as "Absolute Immunity" or enhancing spells like "Improved Alacrity".

Since there are some fights against mages who stand alone against a six-man party (e.g. Dradeel or Daeveron), I`d be glad to see their abilities improved, either via spell concentration checks (which should be granted to all mages imo) or by an effect similar to "Dear'Ragh's Aura Cleansing".
This would protect mages from being mere punching bags, once "Stoneskin" is down...

As the field of player tactics will be widened due to new engine mechanisms (with all its classes, rules, etc.) I`d be happy to see the enemies AI and tactics (in this thread in particular mages) being improved, too...