Debuff spells

brus

Could you point some best wizard/priest spells to cheese the enemies as much as possible in every way, deliberating their mechanics generally.

Also, I'm not sure about Silence spell 15m . Does this spell has same radius as is radius of spell animation or has wider radius determined by the game? How to convert game's distance to screen distance to precisely know where will the spell hit?

Abi_Dalzim

I don't know much about the range of Silence, but honestly I don't use it much anyways, as spellcasters seem to save against it effortlessly. Better debuffs IMO include Hold Person, Slow, Power Word: Blind and Power Word: Stun. And if we're talking about debilitating spellcasters specifically, then I think damage over time spells like Insect Plague, Cloudkill, Incendiary Cloud and Firestorm work even better.

semiticgoddess

Silence 15' Radius has excellent range, roughly comparable to a Fireball. Generally it's easiest to just test it out and see how far it spreads; there's not a convenient way of describing it. You just have to get a feel for it.

It has a -5 save penalty, and therefore works very often, but mages can block it outright with Minor Globe of Invulnerability and can counter it with Vocalize. It's a spectacular option against druids and clerics, however, as they can cast neither MGOI nor Vocalize.

Insect Plague is an instant shutdown for all enemy spells, and once it hits one enemy, it can hit any others nearby, even those that might be invisible. If you have SCS installed, however, any Fire Shield will block it, and there is a save against the spell failure.

sluckers

Spell Thrust is a very effective spell for a lot of mages, as it takes out Minor Globe of Invulnerability and all spell protections up to level 5. All of them. It will also dispell Spell Immunities as well. Very effective unless Spell Shield or Spell Trap is up. I think those are the only two that block Spell Thrust.

Ruby Ray of Reversal is effective because it is a non abjuration spell stripper, and thus not blocked by Spell Immunity: Abjuration.

Khelben's Warding Whip is good if you want to shut down spell protections and keep them down. It continues to strip protections each round for a certain amount of time, I can't remember how long.

Silence is extremely effective and very useful. At the bare minimum, it wastes a spell round for an enemy mage until they cast Vocalize, and time is precious for mages and it denies them a round to do damage or status effect your team which can easily lose them the battle. If they don't have vocalize, Silence will leave them dead in the water.

Just be aware that Silene can appear to 'glitch' the game. It doesn't, but any encounter which results in dialogue will have to wait until Silence wears off before commencing. This may involve everyone waiting around twiddling their thumbs until everyone can speak again.

lunar

Greater malison. And then hit em with slow, chaos, polymorph other, hold monster, feeblemind, etc. They shall suffer. A greater malison+chaos combo will wreck a group of enemies. (-8 penalty to the save vs chaos!)

Skatan

I sometimes throw down a couple of silence spells, often two at the same time just to make sure. It's a good way to shut down enemy clerics etc who tries to charm or dominate your NPC's with low saves. I too, seem to experice that enemy mages save very often vs it, even with something like GM cast beforehand, but clerics often fail. I don't think this can be in any way statistically proven, it's just a feeling which has affected my 'modus operandi".

I use GM alot of course, coupled with Doom sometimes. I more seldom use power words. This is because I tend to metagame as little as possible, thus having my mages memorize spells that are as versatile as possible rather than specialized for single encounters, so I tend to favour area effect spells rather than single target ones. Though spell thrust and similar debuffing spells are essential ofc.

Was your question also about casting spells which glitch out the enemy AI? I've read there some of those, but since I'm not interrested in them myself I haven't really memorized which does that. I know some exist though, but someone else need elaborate on that subject.

lunar

Skatan said:

I sometimes throw down a couple of silence spells, often two at the same time just to make sure. It's a good way to shut down enemy clerics etc who tries to charm or dominate your NPC's with low saves. I too, seem to experice that enemy mages save very often vs it, even with something like GM cast beforehand, but clerics often fail. I don't think this can be in any way statistically proven, it's just a feeling which has affected my 'modus operandi".

Clerics have a sucky save vs spells. Mages have excellent save vs spells. Thus, confusion/chaos/charm and silence spells hardly affect mages.

Clerics are real good at save vs death. Mages suck at that. Thus a wail of the banshee spell will kill a mage easily. They are also more susceptible to poison bites and paralysing touches of ghouls/ghasts, while clerics are sturdy and blessed with holy health by their gods.

Skatan

It's kinda funny that after playing this game for so long, I've never taken the time to actually memorize save rolls for different classes Though it's somewhat deliberate, just as I try not to memorize traps, encounters etc to avoid metagaming as much as possible (amplified by my goldfish-like memory ofc!).

brus

Skatan said:

Was your question also about casting spells which glitch out the enemy AI? I've read there some of those, but since I'm not interrested in them myself I haven't really memorized which does that. I know some exist though, but someone else need elaborate on that subject.

Yes, that too. Evetything that disables them as your character takes control over battle.

brus

Skatan said:

Was your question also about casting spells which glitch out the enemy AI? I've read there some of those, but since I'm not interrested in them myself I haven't really memorized which does that. I know some exist though, but someone else need elaborate on that subject.

Yes, everything to take control over the battle.

Gallowglass

This is utterly off-topic, but ...

Skatan said:

... my goldfish-like memory ...

Contrary to popular legend, fish (including goldfish) do have long-term memory.

They quickly learn that your hand stretching out over the water means that you're about to drop them some food. They'll all come up to the surface just below your hand, waiting to be fed ... which shows that they are remembering the association between seeing your hand above the water and food appearing. Even if you've been away for a few days (and left them with a slow-feeder block to keep them going), then as soon as you're back home, they'll still remember and cluster under your hand at the surface when you reach over the water. If they didn't have some long-term memory, this behaviour wouldn't be possible.

gorgonzola

The different classes having different saves thing in really important, if possible use a spell that has a save type the foe you want to disable is bad at saving.
Some spells ie PW Blind have no save, but is blocked from MR. then use lower resistence, not GM.
Insect Plague, also good the little brother of it, only 50% chance of disrupting but lower level.
about IP, if you want to hit a powerfull mage whith really good saves and in SCS fireshield always cast it on one of his helpers, only that save is checked. Mage whith save at negative values whith goblin nearby = plagued mage. and In SCS always cast True Sight or have a thief dispell illusion to get rid of fire Shield.
I am not found of Creeping Doom, Take too much to cast and use a high level valuable slot.

My preferred is Feeblemind.