Does Call Lightning work? Has it ever worked?

Quickblade

Been going over spells with a fine-toothed comb, and I find that Call Lightning doesn't seem to work as advertised.

Its description says it is supposed to be a 2d8+1d8/Dlevel lightning bolt at a specified target, and then repeat at a random non-ally target every turn for Dlevel/4 turns, but it's got issues.

Unless I'm really missing something, it doesn't seem to work right. In NI and DLTCEP in BG2EE it seems to simply be a 1 shot damage spell, and caps at 20d8 at 18th.

I've checked it with NI in BG1EE and BG1 and I can't find that it ever seemed to be different. Well, in BG1 it only went to like 9th.

I've gone in BG2EE and loaded a save and had J at 10th fire it off at a console-spawned hobgoblin, then went invisible and stood next to more console-spawned hobgoblisn for several minutes. Then used the console to advance time and still didn't do anything.

My guess is they didn't make it work properly partly for technical difficulty and partly for balance reasons. For balance, because at 18th Dlevel it would be 80d8 damage from a mere 3rd level spell. If it scaled to 20th it would be 110d8. For technical reasons making a LONG duration spell that fires at random non-ally target might be a little hard to make and...might have unintended consequences if it hit a neutral party. Like a commoner.

kjeron

The spell strikes once every round(6s), not turn(60s). Otherwise it works as advertised.

It is nothing compared to its IWD counterpart, which scales to level 30, dealing 32d8 damage, and strikes one round per level (up to 11). Both the per round frequency and strike limit only exist because the projectiles used for this spell are still hard-coded, and projectiles for higher strike counts just don't exist.

It's indoor variant, Static Charge, does strike once per turn, but has no arbitrary strike limit, reaching 30 strikes at level 30. Same damage.

Noobacca

@Quickblade I've noticed some inconsistencies with the spell too. I was under the impression that the spell "finishes" when it lands a killing blow. So if it was used on a hobgoblin and it died from the initial cast, it wouldn't continue for the full duration. However, if it was cast on an enemy that survived the first strike, it would continue to strike other enemies as the description suggests.

I admit I haven't tested this properly, it's just something I've observed from the few times I've used the spell.

Edit: Typos

Nuin

It could be that the spell no longer works when the caster is invisible. Call Lightning has always been a great spell that worked pretty much as advertised, but only in outdoor areas and you cannot control which target it hits. The damage makes up for those limitations.

The spell ignores neutrals, and iirc it has a "wasted" animation (if a particular bolt has no targets there's a kind of electricity animation on the caster).

Quickblade

All that still doesn't work. Tested again with console-summoning a mountain bear (as something simple with a lot of HP to stand a first strike).

1. Ran my main character at it to make it hostile, hid on it (shadowdancer)
2. Brought Jaheira up to cast on it, bear nearly died (but has lived on first strike all 3 times I've tested now).
3. Using boots of speed, ran Jaheira in circles for 12 hide checks after the cast landed and then failed the 13th hide check. So that's about 12 rounds at least.

That still possibly had flaws since Jaheira was running around, so then I redid it with my main character just tanking it with Jaheira standing nearby, turns out bear couldn't hit him except on a natural 20. That after I did it with my main character running around a little bit back and forth near Jaheira.

None of these times has it done more than the initial strike. It don't work as advertised in BG2EE.

Quickblade

I just installed IWD and IWD2 straight from disks to look at them in NI. IWD looks the same as all the rest, but IWD2 actually activates a Call Lightning Effect (Opcode 449) which gives a number of bolts to hit with, and a set state effect of "Call Lightning".

Grond0

The first strike occurs on the targeted enemy. The next strike needs to be on something else - so if you only have one enemy there will be only one strike.

Quickblade

Grond0 said:

The first strike occurs on the targeted enemy. The next strike needs to be on something else - so if you only have one enemy there will be only one strike.

Ah, this works. 2 mountain bears, 1 bolt on each.

Consoled Jaheira to 12, 3 bears, positioned in a row, one bolt on the right one, one bolt on the center one, then third bolt on the right one again, killing it. Second cast totally fried the center one, one bolt on the left one, and no third bolt. All my tests had been done in Bridge District, never bolted civilians.

And yeah, bolts were every round (or so I suppose, bears seemed to get 2 attacks each in between bolts).

JumboWheat01

So apparently divine nature lightning also never strikes twice.

valamyr

Grond0 wrote: »

The first strike occurs on the targeted enemy. The next strike needs to be on something else - so if you only have one enemy there will be only one strike.

Thanks, I know this is an old post but I was truly scratching my head as to why it always seemed to strike once for me even though I'm level 8 and there should be 2 rounds of damage and this explains it. This still limits the spell a lot. Combined with the long cast time and the multiple enemies thing, I'm either having trouble using it right or its really not that great in BG. Maybe its only considered very good because it was in IWD?