Why is imprisonment considered a non-magical spell?
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Member Posts: 74
Its obviously magical...yet magic resistance has no effect on it and its pretty much an instant kill against most enemies in the game.
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That doesnt make sense. Whats it like in the PnP rules?
Spells like dispel magic and spell thrust arent affected by magic resistance for obvious reason, and its clearly stated in the description, but for some spells like imprisonment, there is no mention in the description at all.
In PnP all spells require magical components from your inventory, and the high tier spells are super expensive..
in pnp you can't just go cast high lvl spells willy nilly, you simply wouldn't have the stuff needed.. in bg, nwn etc, they just removed that with no other drawbacks added.. so imprisonment should be super duper expensive and nearly impossible to find reagents for.
I think it would be a good idea to reduce the spell spam in these games.
If you do it with reagents needed or remove rest options, doesn't matter much..
But it's ridiculous that you can just go spew DBF's and horrid wiltings every 50 feet.. it's no wonder that wizards/sorcs are so grossly overpowered compared to the non-magic users when a huge negative part of their design is just removed with absolutely zero effort on balancing it.. if anything they made it ten times worse by letting us rest whenever we god damn please, where a GM would say "no.. you rested 5 minutes ago".
The effect is that spells like imprisonment, that a legendary wizard might cast -once- in his entire lifetime is something we just pop off on a gibberling for lols..
Spells that should be super rare have been made toys and cantrips by game design.. so there's really nothing wrong with the spells, it's the lazy way spell casting is implemented.
Pillars of Eternity is a step in the right direction, where you need camp supplies to rest.. it's just a shame they are found so often, though they become increasingly rare (and possible stack reduced) on higher difficulties.. while leagues better than bg and nwn in this regard, it's still not perfect.. then again, there are no "i win" spells in PoE afaik.
One idea I would really like is if the amount of time you spend had consequences.
For example, if you rescue Imoen quickly enough, maybe Irenicus didn't have time to steal her soul yet and she suffers less trauma. If you exceed a certain time limit, bad stuff starts to happen. Maybe the thief guild is completely destroyed, maybe you are attacked by stronger ambushes, maybe the opportunity to do certain side quests is lost..
This would punish abundant resting, without the need for area restrictions. As a bonus, it would also make the time pressure that the story suggests feel much more real.
But even maze isn't that good.
Used by a player, I have yet to find a use for Imprisonment. There always seem to be more effective things to do.
There are quite a few stronger spells than imprisonment. Chain contingengy, loaded with triple horrid wilting on sight, for instance... Or the lower-level equivalent, triple skull trap in a sequencer.. Time stop + shapechange:mindflayer.. improved alacrity.. simulacrum..
The problem is that monsters don't use any of the above, probably because it would make players ragequit the game in frustration. But as a player these are all available. So I think you don't appreciate how strong some other spells can be because the monsters haven't been smart enough to use them against you effectively.
That's not how it works for a lot of touch range spells. Like when I set my priest to heal, they walk into touch range, start casting, and then the person being healed can walk anywhere, it'll still get them from across the room when Jaheira finishes casting.
Unless the enemy mage can see through invisible though, you can break the spell during casting by using stealth or invisibility. With a long spell like imprisonment that's pretty easy to do.
However it does require that the caster knows the name and background of the creature to be inprisoned. Which would really restrict its usage as a combat spell.
I think you underestimate how the player feels about "spam resting" when they have played the game for some time.
Basically, most don't enjoy it and restrict themselves without the Game (DM) having to do anything.
The only players who, in all probability, would be affected are those new/relatively new to the game players, who are already finding the game hard enough.
And the game does throw in a risk for resting with ambushes.
If you are a low level party, being ambushed while trying to rest can be disasterous, especially if you are resting because your magic users are out of spells.
What skews it all, absolutely everything in the game, is the ability to reload.
And nobody wants that removed and understands that it should always be up to the individual player whether they want to play a no reload run.
Just to add
Strangely though, it's in TOB where things become totally unbalanced because of the pocket plane. You are approaching epic levels and the cheesiest option in the whole game becomes available.
For years it never occured to me to return to the PP to rest from a dungeon/dodgy situation. Only ever used the PP at the end of a sequence/chapter/dugeon. (And yes, sometimes I am a bit slow to catch on.)
Now having discovered that and being able to remember the contrast, TOB has become much less of a "game"
So any change/restriction IMO should only apply there.
In BG1 it can be fun to try and rest only in inns. Cloakwood is the only part where it's truly challenging but the rest of the time it just forces you to be a little more choosy about your spells. I've never tried it in BG2.
You can also rest pretty frequently without necessarily spamming. If you make a character with 8 constitution they can stay up for about 16 hours before they get fatigued, so about a normal sleep schedule. If you try playing with a character like that you'll be surprised how often you've had your guys trekking for days at a time without rest. Sleeping every 16 hours or still leaves you with a very generous supply of spell slots.