Visual range and long range spells
Alonso
Member Posts: 806
There are many spells in the game with a very long range. For instance, Comet has a range of 270 ft. Summon Planetar has a range of 120 ft. However, the visual range of casters seems to be around 40 ft, and they don't seem to be able to cast anything beyond their visual range. So what's the meaning of these long range numbers?
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And yet, aTweaks' Dimension Door has a range of 900 and the caster instantly teleports to this location without needing visual range.
Perhaps it's effect-dependent?
A wizard should be able to cast spells at the maximum allowed range of the spell if there is no obstacle between him and the spell, even if visual range does not allow him to personally see if any possible target is there, but removing the limitation of line of sight and so allowing to cast through walls is more weird that it’s now.
Wizard Eye is, however, very excellent for guiding Project Image clones, who otherwise cannot see through the fog of war.
- The spell descriptions are wrong. If the description says that the range is longer than the visual range of the caster (whatever that might be), that is wrong and the right description would be "Visual range of the caster" or its numerical equivalent.
- The game engine is wrong. If the description says range=300 ft, the correct behaviour is to allow the caster to cast at a spot that far away, even if she cannot see the spot.
What's your take?And, of course, can any scholar of the realms tell us how long the visual range is?
@Alonso: Documentation for Near Infinity suggests the visual range is something like 15. I'd guess @subtledoctor had it right, at 30. Unconfirmed.
To use a custom item (easier than a custom spell), just create a new item in Near Infinity and add a new effect using the "Visual range modifier" opcode, opcode 262. I think you can modify it with either 0 or 1 in the "Parameter 2" field, meaning you can add to a character's visual range or simply set it to a given value. You can set the effect to "Instant, permanent until death" to make it permanent even after you unequip the item.
I've used this method to bump a character's visual range up to 100, and it stretches very far across the map and also allows you to cast spells much farther away than normal.
To add the effect in EEKeeper, you would need to add a new effect in the "Effects" tab. I wasn't able to get it to stick (opcode 262, represented in EEKeeper in hexadecimal code as 106 in the "Type" field, as the code would keep changing back for some reason... some weird bug. But without that bug, you could add the effect to a character permanently by re-creating these parameters in EEKeeper:
Creating a custom item is easier, though.
Also, tweaking the "No LoS" flag in a spell indeed lets you cast it outside your line of sight. Confirmed.
Probably in a brand new game. But let's be honest: we already know where every monster is, what they are and that they can do.
Like I was telling to a friend of mine during a drunk talk: we'll never have the feeling of playing Baldur's Gate for the first time again.
Been there, saw that
By the way, SoD was the reason why we were talking about this. I was telling him that I didn't care if it would be great or lame, I was just excited with the idea of playing a brand new SoD.
But I have a method to verify if a spell is useless or not: as a Sorcerer would you get it?
Anyway, the results are quite surprising... and confusing, I'm afraid.
The attached game is prepared to test several visual ranges. I assigned visual ranges to each party member as follows: Minsc, 9. Jan, 12. Aerie, 15. Keldorn, 20. Nalia, 30. Charname, no modification. Moving the guys a bit around the place and comparing their visual ranges it seems clear that the default value is 15. Actually, EEKeeper itself gives you a hint of this: "The Visual Range parameter seems to be in the 0-15 interval".
This suggests that a spell with a range of 15 could reach the edge of the caster's visual range. However, that is not the case. There is only one spell with range 15 in the game: Haste. If you try to cast it at the edge of your visual range, you will actually have to walk a few steps in that direction. Something similar happens with a spell with range 25 (Slow), although it takes less steps for this one. Looks like the minimum range required to cast a spell at the edge of your visual range is 30 (Fireball).
The whole thing is pretty confusing. For gaming purposes the fact that the visual range is internally represented as 15 is irrelevant. What matters is the range of spells compared to the visual range of the caster. From that perspective, it seems safe to say that the visual range is 30.