Fireball blasts a little too big?

chimeric

I get a feeling the blasts were smaller in the original BG, or somehow more manageable. With the resolution that we had then it still took effort to walk out of my own fireballs' scope, but be that as it may, I have little use for the huge coverage of EE fireballs. Mostly I'm concerned about maneuvering the party out of there. What about you?

Dev6

No one should be able to outrun a fireball.
When I shoot one (or several), it means I want every single thing to die.
Sometimes that includes my party. :P

UnderstandMouseMagic

You insult Kossuth at your peril.

DevardKrown

There are only 3 Acceptable outcomes chugging a Fireball.

1: Its done well and the Enemy's die.
2: its done bad and your Party dies.
3: its done bad and the Mage dies from angry half toasted party members.

semiticgoddess

If you need a smaller Fireball, that's what Skull Trap is for!

dunbar

I like to think of fireballs as randomly dangerous weapons of last resort (sort of like Molotov cocktails).

Back in my PnP days Friendly Fireball Casualties were a fact of life and often subsequently resulted in the unfortunate demise of the party mage (as mentioned above). In fact my very first PnP character was killed when our mage threw a fireball...........down a tunnel!

Grond0

I haven't noticed any particular change in behavior of fireball in the EE. Now lightning bolt has definitely been changed to be less dangerous than in the original - but it's still pretty easy to kill yourself with it if you use it at close quarters .

JoenSo

Fireball. When you absolutely, positively, got to kill every kobold in the room; accept no substitutes.

lroumen

They changed the radius?

InKal

only the feeling

JumboWheat01

Fire resistance, my crispy friends. Fire resistance. Nuke the area with impunity.

chimeric

How about longer range, then?

ThacoBell

lroumen said:

They changed the radius?

No

lroumen

Then I don't see the issue

semiticgoddess

Longer range Fireballs would be cool. I always thought it would be interesting if visual range for both players and enemies was much larger. There are so many spells and items and stuff that have extremely long range that's meaningless due to the player's limited visual range.

chimeric

lroumen said:

Then I don't see the issue

Fireballs are instant in EE, everyone dies instantly if they are caught in that radius. In the old game it was possible to run out of there, very quickly, so they were more manageable. I wrote about this in another topic.

As for longer visual range and spell range, it's not a problem to implement. Visual range can be boosted by about 1.5 with game effects, and accordingly the range of missile fire and so on. The question is, how would that influence power balance? Characters with bows can already kill most things before they get to the party, monsters don't have nearly enough ranged attacks to answer in kind. Perhaps only spells and the visual range could get a boost. If you really want this, request it on the Modding forum, someone might pick it up.

kjeron

I don't really have an opinion about its size regarding balance, but I do think they need to match the description and the effect. There is no way it has a 30' radius relative to everything else in the game.

Default visual range is 448 units, which corresponds to '14' in opcode 262 (Visual Range Modifier), and '28' in spell casting range.
Casting range would indicate that 16 units = 1 foot.
Projectile effect radius is all over the place, ranging from 3.57 units per foot, to 28.57 units per foot, but most often around 8.5 units per foot. Fireball is ~ 8.57 units per foot.
Projectile trigger proximity, for traps and clouds, is likewise all over the place, but unlike effect radius, it is hardcapped at 448.

PRO: 2000 unit radius

• Desc: 235' radius: 8.51 units per foot
  • Invisibility Purge
    
  • True Seeing
    
  • Oracle
    
  • True Sight
    
• Desc: 70' radius: 28.57 units per foot
  • Detect Invisibility
    

PRO: 512 unit radius

• Desc: 60' radius: 8.53 units per foot
  • Detect Evil
    
  • Chant, Good (IWDEE)
    
  • Prayer, Good (IWDEE)
    
  • Recitation, Good (IWDEE)
    
• Desc: Visual Range: (448 units)
  • Earthquake (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 440 unit cone

• Desc: 35' cone: 12.57 units per foot
  • Cone of Cold
    

PRO: 426 unit radius

• Desc: 60' radius: 7.1 units per foot
  • Chant, Bad (IWDEE)
    
  • Prayer, Bad (IWDEE)
    
  • Recitation, Bad (IWDEE)
    
• Desc: 30' radius: 14.2 units per foot
  • Detect Illusion (IWDEE)
    

Desc: 29' cone: 12.57 units per foot

• Color Spray (IWDEE)
  

Desc: Visual Range (448 units)

• Detect Evil (IWDEE)
  

PRO: 400 unit radius/cone

• Desc: 47' radius/cone: 8.51 units per foot
  • Prismatic Spray (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 350 unit radius/cone

• Desc: 51' radius/cone: 8.53 units per foot
  • Cone of Cold (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 300 unit radius/cone

• Desc: 35' radius/cone: 8.57 units per foot
  • Cloudburst (IWDEE)
    
  • Thorn Spray (IWDEE)
    
  • Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (IWDEE)
    
  • Shout (IWDEE)
    
  • Death Spell (IWDEE)
    
  • Great Shout (IWDEE)
    
  • Horrid Wilting (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 256 unit radius

• Desc: 40' radius: 6.4 units per foot
  • Earthquake
    
  • Entangle
    
• Desc: 30' radius: 8.53 units per foot
  • Bless
    
  • Remove Fear
    
  • Chant
    
  • Writhing Fog
    
  • Dispel/Remove Magic
    
  • Strength of One
    
  • Defensive Harmony
    
  • Prot. from Evil, 10' Radius (Desc. is 30')
    
  • Spirit Fire
    
  • Mass Cure
    
  • Pixie Dust
    
  • Insect Plague
    
  • False Dawn
    
  • Sunray
    
  • Confusion
    
  • Un/Holy Word
    
  • Ethereal Retribution
    
  • Grease
    
  • Sleep
    
  • Horror
    
  • Stinking Cloud
    
  • Glitterdust
    
  • Web
    
  • Fireball
    
  • Haste
    
  • Slow
    
  • Detect Illusion
    
  • Ice Storm
    
  • Emotion: Hopelessness
    
  • Greater Malison
    
  • Teleport Field
    
  • Cloudkill
    
  • Chaos
    
  • Sunfire
    
  • Death Spell
    
  • Death Fog
    
  • Sphere of Chaos
    
  • Mass Invisibility
    
  • Incendiary Cloud
    
  • Horrid Wilting
    
  • Meteor Swarm
    
  • Wail of the Banshee
    
  • Curse (IWDEE)
    
  • Remove Paralysis (IWDEE)
    
  • Invisibility Purge (IWDEE)
    
  • Holy Smite (IWDEE)
    
  • Unholy Blight (IWDEE)
    
  • Spike Growth (IWDEE)
    
  • Greater Command (IWDEE)
    
  • Nature's Beauty (IWDEE)
    
  • Symbols (IWDEE)
    
  • Storm of Vengeance (IWDEE)
    
  • Snowball Swarm (IWDEE)
    
• Desc: 25' radius: 10.24 units per foor
  • Remove Paralysis
    
• Desc: 20' radius: 12.8 units per foot
  • Holy Smite
    
  • Unholy Blight
    
  • Greater Command
    
  • Fire Storm
    
• Desc: 15' radius: 17.06 units per foot
  • Silence
    
• Desc: 5' radius: 51.2 units per foot
  • Nature's Beauty
    

PRO: 250 unit radius/cone

• Desc: 70' cone: 3.57 units per foot
  • Prismatic Spray
    
• Desc: 29' radius: 8.62 units per foot
  • Insect Plague (IWDEE)
    
  • Firestorm (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 200 unit radius, 150 unit trap proximity

• Desc: 30' radius: 6.67 units per foot
  • Symbol, Fear
    
  • Symbol, Stun
    
  • Symbol, Death
    
  • Skull Trap
    
• Desc: 25' radius: 8 units per foot
  • Glyph of Warding
    
• Desc: 24' radius: 8.33 units per foot
  • Entangle (IWDEE)
    
  • Cloud of Pestilence (IWDEE)
    
  • Death Fog (IWDEE)
    
  • Acid Storm (IWDEE)
    
• Desc: 18' radius: 8.33 units per foot
  • Glyph of Warding (Proximity: 5' ) (IWDEE)
    
  • Delayed Blast Fireball (Proximity: 14' ) (IWDEE)
    
• Desc: 12' radius: 11.11 units per foot
  • Delayed Blast Fireball
    

PRO: 180 unit radius

• Desc: 20' radius: 9 units per foot
  • Hold (living) (IWDEE)
    
  • Hold Undead (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 176 unit radius

• Desc: 20' radius: 8.8 units per foot
  • Undead Ward (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 160 unit radius

• Desc: 20' radius: 8 units per foot
  • Invisibilty, 10' Radius (Desc. is 20')
    
• Desc: 19' radius: 8.42 units per foot
  • Repulse Undead (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 150 unit radius

• Desc: 18' radius: 8.33 units per foot
  • Spike Stones (IWDEE)
    
  • Sunray (IWDEE)
    
  • Sleep (IWDEE)
    
  • Web (IWDEE)
    
  • Cloudkill (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 128 unit radius/cone

• Desc: 15' radius/cone: 8.53 units per foot
  • Burning Handds (IWDEE)
    
  • Emotions (IWDEE)
    
  • Malavon's Rage
    

PRO: 120 unit radius

• Desc: 14' radius: 8.57 units per foot
  • Mists of Eldath (IWDEE)
    
  • Soul Eater (IWDEE)
    
  • Suffocate (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 100 unit radius

• Desc: 12' radius: 8.33 units per foot
  • Grease (IWDEE)
    
  • Incendiary Cloud (IWDEE)
    
  • Power Word, Kill (IWDEE)
    
• Desc: 10' radius: 10.0 units per foot
  • Mold Touch (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 84 unit radius

• Desc: 10' radius: 8.4 units per foot
  • Hold Undead
    
  • Power Word, Blind
    

PRO: 80 unit radius

• Desc: 8' radius: 10.0 units per foot
  • Flame Strike (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 75 unit radius

• Desc: 9' radius: 8.33 units per foot
  • Blade Barrier (IWDEE)
    
  • Vitriolic Sphere (IWDEE)
    

PRO: 64 unit radius

• Desc: 8' radius: 8 units per foot
  • Produce Fire (IWDEE)
    
  • Power Word, Blind (IWDEE)
    
• Desc: 7.5' radius: 8.53 units per foot
  • Hold (living)
    

PRO: 50 unit radius

• Desc: 5' radius: 10 units per foot
  • Force Missiles (IWDEE)
    

lroumen

chimeric said:

lroumen said:

Then I don't see the issue

Fireballs are instant in EE, everyone dies instantly if they are caught in that radius. In the old game it was possible to run out of there, very quickly, so they were more manageable

ah, you should have mentioned that in your main post. That would have been an important point in your discussion. You cannot expect people to vote for your cause with half the info.

I am not too sure about it though. Might be more logical to go back to vanilla rather than balance a new feature.

chimeric

lroumen said:

ah, you should have mentioned that in your main post. That would have been an important point in your discussion. You cannot expect people to vote for your cause with half the info.

I am not too sure about it though. Might be more logical to go back to vanilla rather than balance a new feature.

I don't have a cause. The instantaneity of the effect is something I talked about somewhere else, but here I'm concerned about the blasts being so freaking huge that I only use that spell to send it along to some creatures who I know are at the end of a corridor or in the fog of war. In a way, I cheat with it by starting fights before enemies know that I'm here. Otherwise for me it's more trouble than it's worth, after the first few levels when it becomes available. Yes, for a 5th level wizard there is nothing better, and that euphoria lasts until something like Confusion and other more subtle means open up. At that point my fighters are already capable of taking on most threats in the front line, and the wizards just help them. Fireball becomes mostly obsolete, but I can make more incisions with Lightning Bolt from the flanks.

That's why I asked for people's opinions, because this spell is not nearly as dangerous to the party in PnP, except that "cast it in a small room or point-blank" scenario. Otherwise, for a smart caster, a fireball is something he can drop from the top of a mountain or shoot out of a window. In these games, it's always point-blank, for its short range and huge blast radius. I thought of making a tweak, but, I guess, people are fine with it. @kjeron , It always surprises me how you find the time to quote all those numbers... So you think the blast radius is larger than 30 feet or smaller?

kjeron

chimeric said:

So you think the blast radius is larger than 30 feet or smaller?

Relative to most spells that give an explicit casting range in feet, either casting range has been doubled, or the size of a fireball is almost half of what it should be. Relative to the size of creatures, I would say spell-casting range is correct, and the fireball is too small.

chimeric

kjeron said:

the fireball is too small.

But also I'm quite sure the range of the spell scales in the Player's Handbook. What should it be at level 5, I wonder? Anyway...

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CamDawg

kjeron said:

Relative to most spells that give an explicit casting range in feet, either casting range has been doubled, or the size of a fireball is almost half of what it should be. Relative to the size of creatures, I would say spell-casting range is correct, and the fireball is too small.

Spell and item AoEs have been wrong forever. The initial release of the EEs purged the more egregious mistakes--like all the spells that listed AoEs as cubes--but retained a more fundamental one: pretty much everywhere in a spell's description that it mentions AoE as a radius, it means diameter. Fireball, for example, affects a 30' diameter, a.k.a. a 15' radius. Visual range is 30', so you would not actually be able to escape your own fireball if the radius was actually 30'.

Fixing the descriptions is something I finally got around to addressing in Fixpack v11, and is on the roadmap for the next EE patch cycle.

JoenSo

Oh imagine the glory of a 30’ radius fireball

lroumen

If you only use fireball to cheese and then don't care anymore after a few levels, then why use it or extensively discuss it . I would argue that the spell level has very good alternatives or that you just mod it into whatever you prefer yourself.
I guess the topic can give you others views on what seems balanced.