What is the point of the Shadow Door spell?

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ThacoBell

Its escape button. If an enemy somehow gets close to your mage or if they are getting targeted, its a get out of jail free card.

sarevok57

@thedamages are you thinking of shadow door or dimension door?

sarevok57

also it seems like shadow door has a higher duration with a shorter casting time by the looks of it, so I guess that is the only difference

ThacoBell

Pretty sure I'm thinking of shadow door. Quick cast with an invisibility effect? I don't think Dimension Door is available without mods.

Raduziel

Never used it myself.

There are only five illusions spells in my game: Mirror Image, Invisibility (for trap removal/scout), Mislead, Mass Invisibility (an Improved Invisibility that covers all party), Simulacrum (a more useful Project Image).

All the others I ignore.

By the way: An gnome Illusionist/Thief is a ridiculous way to speedrun this game. All you need to do is reach level 3 as Illusionist.

Invisibility -> Nashkel

Invisibility -> Nashkel Mines (thrash talk Mulahey)

Invisibility -> Bandit Camp (talk to the guy whose name I forget)

Invisibility -> Cloakwood Mines. Trap Davaeorn and backstab the shit out of him.

Invisibility -> Baldur's Gate

OlvynChuru

sarevok57 said:

also it seems like shadow door has a higher duration with a shorter casting time by the looks of it, so I guess that is the only difference

Actually, Improved Invisibility lasts longer.

Improved Invisibility lasts for "3 rounds + 1 round/level."
Shadow Door lasts for "9 rounds + 1 round/level after 9th." In other words, 1 round/level.

Shadow Door's only advantage is a slightly shorter casting time. Improved Invisibility lasts longer, can be cast on other party members, and is one level lower.

DJKajuru

I think it's one of those spells that add roleplaying value to your game. In pnp enemies would think that you've either cast dimension door or teleported away so they wouldn't bother staying in the same room, while being invisible would have them look for you .

elminster

By taking it you have another Stoneskin or Polymorph Self you can cast?

(Yea I've got nothing)

Mush_Mush

Shadow Door I sometimes memorize as a mage but as a sorcerer I never take it.

Even if you don't take Improved invis (though I generally do) there are other ways to do essentially the same thing, Staff of Magi for example. SD has it's advantages but as ever with BG it's largely a case of preference

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lunar

subtledoctor said:

Yet another example of the genius of Spell Revisions. Nearby enemies must save or fall through the Shadow Door, i.e. be Mazed for a short period. The spell is designed to let your squishy mage quickly get out of trouble (which you can't really do with Improved Invis.) and SR maintains that spirit while making the effect more interesting.

That's quite a radical change, but fun.
I would just make Shadow door an alteration spell (you open a tiny crack to shadowrealm and by stepping in infuse yourself with the shadowy essence or something) for a self-only improved invisibility spell. That way necromancers could go improved invisible, but only on self, as a lvl 5 spell, and lower duration. Note that shadow and darkness suit necromancers well and this little flavour makes the spell x10 cooler. Also I would drop the casting speed to 1, to make it 'THE' escape option when surrounded. There is no alteration only spell at lvl 5 to boot, IIRC.

After all, enchanters could still blast with skull trap, invokers can horror for crowd control, transmuters can ruby ray for spell removal, illusionist can death fog to get rid of summons, but necromancers can do nothing invisibility-wise. Poor little necromancers, noone loves them.

Loldrup

Your suggestion is now on Redmine!
http://redmine.beamdog.com/issues/27158

lunar said:

That's quite a radical change, but fun.
I would just make Shadow door an alteration spell (you open a tiny crack to shadowrealm and by stepping in infuse yourself with the shadowy essence or something) for a self-only improved invisibility spell. That way necromancers could go improved invisible, but only on self, as a lvl 5 spell, and lower duration. Note that shadow and darkness suit necromancers well and this little flavour makes the spell x10 cooler. Also I would drop the casting speed to 1, to make it 'THE' escape option when surrounded. There is no alteration only spell at lvl 5 to boot, IIRC.

After all, enchanters could still blast with skull trap, invokers can horror for crowd control, transmuters can ruby ray for spell removal, illusionist can death fog to get rid of summons, but necromancers can do nothing invisibility-wise. Poor little necromancers, noone loves them.

Tresset

The only thing I can think of is that it is a much quicker cast so it can save your butt in the heat of a fight, but that is about all it has over improved invisibility. Back before EE it looked just like the dimension door spell. It is possible that this spell was included just to confuse new players into thinking that an enemy had fled battle so that they would let their guard down only to be attacked by the invisible mage. This trick obviously would not work when the spell was used by players.

Yelocessej

It's harder to dispel than Imp Inv.

lunar

Yelocessej said:

It's harder to dispel than Imp Inv.

Why? IIRC it is the caster level that is checked for dispel.
Hmm maybe you mean the lower diviniation spells that dispel illusions up to a certain level? Is there a spell that dispels improved invisibility but not shadow door? (detect illusions spell?)

Abi_Dalzim

Detect Illusion only works on 3rd and lower level illusions. No dice.

Yelocessej

Abi_Dalzim said:

Detect Illusion only works on 3rd and lower level illusions. No dice.

I was thinking Oracle, but nope, still gets zapped away.

Yelocessej

lunar said:

Yelocessej said:

It's harder to dispel than Imp Inv.

Why? IIRC it is the caster level that is checked for dispel.
Hmm maybe you mean the lower diviniation spells that dispel illusions up to a certain level? Is there a spell that dispels improved invisibility but not shadow door? (detect illusions spell?)

Sorry, as Abi pointed out, this statement has no weight...

I've had the sorcerers.net spell reference for it stuck in my head all these years, and so my first thought was "harder to dispel"... But that seems to have been a fallacy on their part all those years ago.

"Shadow Door
Only very minor differences from Improved Invisibility; harder to dispel, shorter duration, faster casting time"

sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/Main.htm

BelgarathMTH

Since certain plot enemies actually can teleport away, I always thought they just included the Shadow Door (Dimension Door?) spell so they'd have the (original) spell effect to use for those cutscenes. I though it sucked that a mage player couldn't do the same thing, but I understood that there were game engine limitations that were the reason why.

(Btw, this was a minor step backwards from the older 3D engine used for Might and Magic 6-8. In those games, you could teleport anywhere in the game, and fly.)

Yelocessej

It's not completely silly to take Shadow Door over Imp Inv. Someone like Haer Dalis might prefer Stoneskin slots to Imp Inc, for example, but wish to retain the Inv mechanic, but leve 2 is full of Mirror Image, and thus puts that mechanic on level 5.

DJKajuru

BelgarathMTH said:

Since certain plot enemies actually can teleport away, I always thought they just included the Shadow Door (Dimension Door?) spell so they'd have the (original) spell effect to use for those cutscenes. I though it sucked that a mage player couldn't do the same thing, but I understood that there were game engine limitations that were the reason why.

(Btw, this was a minor step backwards from the older 3D engine used for Might and Magic 6-8. In those games, you could teleport anywhere in the game, and fly.)

I think that they had predicted that you could dimension door your character from a spot to another unreachable one (by normal means), like in the temple of the forgotten god where there's a bridge that depends on answering a riddle to pass. I remember doing it a lot in IWD.