Since it hasn't come up but is still relevant: the on-hit dispelling effects of Carsomyr, the Staff of the Magi, and Arrows of Dispelling always dispel all dispellable effects, regardless of level.
Carsomyr and Staff of the Magi dispel at level 30 on-hit. Only arrows of Dispelling always dispel.
Carsomyr's 3x per day cast Dispel Magic dispels at (priest caster level), as does Bala's axe. Including the Paladin's (-8) penalty. Doesn't matter what level you cast the spell at - the dispel opcode uses your actual caster level, as do spells cast through items for the purpose of dispelling them. If you use the Amulet of the Cheetah without a wizard caster level, it will be dispelled as if cast at level 1.
Slightly related - effects applied directly by items have their dispel/resist/reflect BIT31(0x80000000) set. It's set both by activated abilities and on-hit effects.
It's new as of v2.5 - any ideas as to what it may do?
Quite the gap in those flags though:
BIT0: Dispellable, Resistable
BIT1: Bypass Resistance.
BIT2: Bypass deflection/reflection/trap effects
BIT31: ???
I always found dispel mechanics completely broken and not intuitive. I cannot know the opponents level unless I check it in the game files so the bonus/malus is a complete guess and the spell ends up as a coin flip.
i never look at game files, i prefer to gain my experience about what work and what does not work by trial and error.
about dispel magic i find that running small parties dispel magic is quite reliable if cast by a single class or early dual, with large parties is better if a bard or an inquisitor cast it, with a mage or divine caster is more a save or else type spell. and i never memorize it with multi like aerie or jan, they will probably fail all the times, unless i run very small parties. soloing even a triple class like a fmt can try to use it as each of his classes is at a level close to the one a single class caster has in a full party.
it is a coin flip, but you can guess the odds of the flip depending on party composition and on who use it.
as dm and its sister rm are really powerful to make them 100% reliable would make the game too much predictable. and with every tactic that depends on save or else imo there are only 2 possible strategies, depending on the power of reload, thing that i find lame, or having other options ready. i never go to a battle where i plan to use dm, feeblemind, flash to stone or similar spells having only 1 of those memorized, i want to have at least 3 of them to have good odds and i want also to have an alternate route to follow to win or eventually retreat if my save or else tactic does not work.
True, they should not be too all-powerful, but some more gradual drop off to negative levels would be nice. A 1% likelihood for success when you are just 6 levels off is what makes it currently that coin flip.
we have different opinions about it, but it has to be told that i mostly run small parties and often use good leveling up strategies, like soloing the chateau irenicus and "finding" jaheira ind minsc only before exiting the dungeon and delaying the recruiting of other npcs to get them at a fairy high level.
this is why i find dm more than powerful and quite reliable as it is now. in a more traditional way of playing, recruiting early and 6 people parties, i see how the odds of success can change drastically.
it has also to be told that in large parties the greater chance of having dm not working is compensated by way more mlee power if the party is mlee oriented, a stoneskin can be easily eroded by a high party apr and the party mage using mmm can contribute to it, in a party with multiple mages other debuffing strategies can be used, using more reliable spells, as the party can probably pull out 3 spells each round.
so in the end imho there is some sort of balance. small parties that lack of power in other sides can use quite reliably dm, large ones can spam it as both arcane and divine casters have it hoping it works or use alternative routes. and the same somehow is true for other spells, a party that can pull out multiple web or save or else spells in the same round has a good chance to win relying on them, to cast a single web and hope that all the enemies get stuck in it will probably lead to a reload, can work 1 or few times, but it will not take long before it fails as tactic.
Last I heard, there wasn't a 1% chance of a successful dispel; it actually went down to 0% once the Dispel Magic was 5 levels lower than the target spell. I've heard SR had a fix for that bug, but I don't know if an EE update fixed it.
You make good points about balance and I think this is to a large extent correct for vanilla and mildly modded games (some encounters may be exempt).
I think I gimped myself to play a game like improved anvil where all opponents have higher levels than before and the party naturally levels slower. Dispel is a must have in many encounters but only reliable in some classes and kits out in precalculated battles knowing the opponents levels.
I don’t think we can criticise the engine / developers / implementation for not forseeing how powerful dispel/remove magic could become because some genius fan developed SCS, whose mages optimised precisely when to cast it to leave a solo no-reload fighter helpless .
The basic issue is that mages and bards can protect themselves from dispel but warriors, thieves and priests cannot. So maybe we just need an item tweak to compensate. Like give the Cloak of Non-Detection the power to cast Spell Immunity 2x per day. Or a new item like the Ring of the Wizard-Slaying Warrior, usable only by warriors, rogues and priests, which casts Spell Immunity 2x per day and Spell Shield 2x per day. Or a new weapon, let’s say a +2 club, which gives permanent SI:Abjuration while equipped. Just a little something to redress the balance
Actually let’s make the club cursed, so it can’t be unequipped, to prevent cheese like only equipping the club when a dispel or imprisonment is headed your way. So you have to weigh up having a mediocre +2 weapon but with a great defensive attribute.
I don't think the imbalance is quite that bad, because fighters do have pretty sturdy defenses without buffs active. Granted, for no-reload purposes, spellcasters have a very distinct edge everywhere except for ToB, but fighters do have other strengths to compensate, and a properly-equipped fighter can have similar defenses to a mage, in the sense that the fighter can tank both enemy fighters and enemy mages. Solo no-reload fighters do tend to rely heavily on kits and shorty save bonuses, though.
In Spell Revisions, there's actually a solid fix for this. The Spell Immunity spell is replaced by Dispelling Screen, which is a party-wide spell that only blocks a single Dispel Magic (or I think Breach) before dissipating. This makes mages easier to debuff, but mages also get Foresight in place of Improved Mantle, which grants an undispellable and un-Breachable +20 to AC and saving throws, compensating for the weaker SI: Abjuration replacement.
As for solo fighters who don't have mage allies to cast Dispelling Screen, they're still not out of luck: in Item Revisions, which is designed to be paired with Spell Revisions, potions are undispellable, though their effects are generally shorter in duration. Notably, a Potion of Magic Shielding only lasts 10 rounds, but an enemy mage won't be able to get past it with IR installed.
Last I heard, there wasn't a 1% chance of a successful dispel; it actually went down to 0% once the Dispel Magic was 5 levels lower than the target spell. I've heard SR had a fix for that bug, but I don't know if an EE update fixed it.
It's still in the EE: -5 levels = 0% chance to dispel.
It's supposed to be a minimum of 5% of success/failure.
There does appear to be non-zero minimum chance of failure though.
i don't think that 0% or 1% chance of dispelling make any difference, who will cast 50 dispel magic only to have the 50% chance of succeed? trying to use dm in situations where you have 1% chance of success is like calling for a reload, if you are very lucky you will get it in 1 battle, the odds to get it also the next one are almost 0.
defensively it can matter only for non reloaders that are completely relying on their buffs and overleveled, mages that use self cast protections, not the ones from items, and are many levels above the enemy.
@lroumen, if you play improved anvil i surely understand your point of view. i did never try it, but reading about it seems to me that @Sikret created it in a way that compel you to play using only some strategies and i know for sure that he was updating it as soon as he was aware of some alternate route found out by players making those routes not viable.
probably dm is intentionally a not reliable spell in that mod and if you keep playing it you have to live with this fact.
i prefer tactics mod that is probably easier to beat, but let you experiment with many different tactics and let you more freedom and use of creativity to beat the same enemy each time in a different way.
@lroumen, if you play improved anvil i surely understand your point of view. i did never try it, but reading about it seems to me that @Sikret created it in a way that compel you to play using only some strategies and i know for sure that he was updating it as soon as he was aware of some alternate route found out by players making those routes not viable.
That's precisely what Sikret did. He was pretty up front about his belief that only certain tactics were acceptable, and any tactics he didn't intend to allow constituted "cheese" or "cheating." Every time people found another way to play the game, he updated the mod so that it could no longer be done, to the extent that he actually resorted to scripts to prevent certain things from happening.
Caster level Dispel gets really odd when an effect's caster level goes above and beyond.
An effect with caster level 260 to 1932735278 can not be dispelled.
An effect with caster level 1932735279 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 0]
An effect with caster level 1932735280 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 1]
An effect with caster level 1932735281 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 2]
An effect with caster level 1932735282 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 3]
...etc
An effect with caster level 1932735328 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 49]
An effect with caster level 1932735329 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 50]
An effect with caster level 1932735330 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 51]
...etc
An effect with caster level 1932735533 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 254]
An effect with caster level 1932735534 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 255]
An effect with caster level 1932735535 to 0 can always be dispelled.
A creature's and dispel's Caster level is capped to the range [0 , 255].
It seems to roll over at 1932735279 or 0x7333332f - nothing significant as far as I know, but if you want an effect that is harder/impossible to dispel the higher the dispeller's level is, then it's an option. Not that applying an effect at that level is really practical.
The current versions are much better. Critto is hammering out those anti measures from improved anvil but the dispel battles are still not that improved yet. At this point it is knowing the level of your foes to know whether dispel works or use other tactics (praying or running).
I do recommend it to veteran players just to experience hardship.
The more recent versions of IA might be worth checking out. I'd give Sikret's successor a chance, since I've heard they're friendlier than Sikret. I'm not sure I'd play it myself, though, since the mod's philosophy is still very much against mine--I couldn't find IA interesting for long unless I found a way to play it in an unintended way.
@kjeron: That is the most interesting unusable information I've ever heard.
Let me see if I understand this correctly - since spell effects cap at level 20 but dispel has no cap, if you have two level 30 mages, they will dispel each other's spells 100% of the time?
Technically there's no hard-coded cap on effects stronger or longer-lasting than level 20; scaling over level 20 was just never implemented, since you didn't get levels much higher than that until ToB was introduced. So, Skull Trap won't deal more than 20d6 damage in the unmodded game, but you could easily tweak the spell file so it would deal more than that at levels 21 and up... or tweak those spells the other way, so they didn't scale past level 15. In Icewind Dale, the cap is level 30, since all classes have a level cap of 30 in IWD. Same goes for IWD2.
I believe potions and wands, like scrolls, count as caster level 10 spells for the purposes of dispelling them. So a level 9 mage in BG1 would struggle to dispel them, while a level 20 lich in BG2 would automatically dispel them.
These are the spell levels for items, which determine whether they get past MGOI and how many levels they take from spell deflection/turning/trap spells:
Wand of Cursing: 0
Wand of Wonder: 0 for haste, petrification, stoneskin, and strength; normal spell levels for Stinking Cloud, Lightning Bolt, Fireball, and Web
Wand of Missiles: 1
Wand of Sleep: 1
Wand of Fire: 2 (Agannazar's Scorcher) and 3 (Fireball)
Wand of Lightning: 3
Wand of Monster Summoning: 3, but it doesn't matter
Wand of Fear: 4
Wand of Paralyzation: 4
Wand of Polymorphing: 4 (I think this is only available with mods)
Wand of the Heavens: 5
Wand of Frost: 5
Wand of Cloudkill: 5
Wand of Spell Striking: 5 (Breach) and 6 (Pierce Magic)
Rod of Reversal: 7
Oil of Fiery Burning: 0
Potions of Explosions: 0
Necklace of Missiles: 9
I'm trying to use Near Infinity to figure out by myself how to find this kind of values. However, it's not straightforward. Where are these values stored?
You have to look up each item file individually. For the Wand of Fire, for example, this is how you would find its power level for the Fireball charge (I'm assuming you know some of these steps, but I'll post all of them):
First, you go to the items list, highlighted here in red.
You scroll down to the item's file name, which in this case is WAND05.itm. If you don't know the file name, you can find it using CTRL-F to search for the file names of any creature, item, spell, or store. The wand's charges will be listed under "Abilities." The Fireball charge is highlighted in red.
This will show you a list of effects, and in this case, there's only effect, the damage opcode (note that you can switch from the "View" tab to the "Edit" tab at the top of the window to see a more user-friendly display of the list of effects).
Double-click on that and you'll get a window showing the parameters of that opcode. The power level or spell level of the effect is at the top of the list.
Spell effects don't stop advancing because the devs were lazy or didn't foresee high-level play in TOB. They stop at 20 for the same reason hit dice stop at level 9/10: because that is prescribed by the ruleset. If anything, I think Dispel Magic is wrongly coded - it should cap at caster level 20. (That would make high-level play more interesting, everything would have some chance of being dispelled.)
In IWD2 everything keeps advancing past level 20 because it uses the 3E D&D ruleset, a.k.a. "cartoon superheroes in the middle ages."
Is it easy to implenent isnt it ? As lvl 20 max dispel chance would be so much balanced.
Other things like SI:a should be remove after protecting one dispel magic like a spell shield or dispelling screen. It is so cheasy and out of the spirit of pnp. Or protection from magical weapon absurd powerful for its level, there should be a minor mantle or smthing like that.
I really try to love the spell revisions mod, but i feel it too much.
Yeah i know scs rely on pmfw rather than mantle or absolut immunty so pity, because with scs only mages have chance against mages without cheese. So bad.
Comments
Carsomyr and Staff of the Magi dispel at level 30 on-hit. Only arrows of Dispelling always dispel.
Carsomyr's 3x per day cast Dispel Magic dispels at (priest caster level), as does Bala's axe. Including the Paladin's (-8) penalty. Doesn't matter what level you cast the spell at - the dispel opcode uses your actual caster level, as do spells cast through items for the purpose of dispelling them. If you use the Amulet of the Cheetah without a wizard caster level, it will be dispelled as if cast at level 1.
It's new as of v2.5 - any ideas as to what it may do?
Quite the gap in those flags though:
BIT0: Dispellable, Resistable
BIT1: Bypass Resistance.
BIT2: Bypass deflection/reflection/trap effects
BIT31: ???
about dispel magic i find that running small parties dispel magic is quite reliable if cast by a single class or early dual, with large parties is better if a bard or an inquisitor cast it, with a mage or divine caster is more a save or else type spell. and i never memorize it with multi like aerie or jan, they will probably fail all the times, unless i run very small parties. soloing even a triple class like a fmt can try to use it as each of his classes is at a level close to the one a single class caster has in a full party.
it is a coin flip, but you can guess the odds of the flip depending on party composition and on who use it.
as dm and its sister rm are really powerful to make them 100% reliable would make the game too much predictable. and with every tactic that depends on save or else imo there are only 2 possible strategies, depending on the power of reload, thing that i find lame, or having other options ready. i never go to a battle where i plan to use dm, feeblemind, flash to stone or similar spells having only 1 of those memorized, i want to have at least 3 of them to have good odds and i want also to have an alternate route to follow to win or eventually retreat if my save or else tactic does not work.
this is why i find dm more than powerful and quite reliable as it is now. in a more traditional way of playing, recruiting early and 6 people parties, i see how the odds of success can change drastically.
it has also to be told that in large parties the greater chance of having dm not working is compensated by way more mlee power if the party is mlee oriented, a stoneskin can be easily eroded by a high party apr and the party mage using mmm can contribute to it, in a party with multiple mages other debuffing strategies can be used, using more reliable spells, as the party can probably pull out 3 spells each round.
so in the end imho there is some sort of balance. small parties that lack of power in other sides can use quite reliably dm, large ones can spam it as both arcane and divine casters have it hoping it works or use alternative routes. and the same somehow is true for other spells, a party that can pull out multiple web or save or else spells in the same round has a good chance to win relying on them, to cast a single web and hope that all the enemies get stuck in it will probably lead to a reload, can work 1 or few times, but it will not take long before it fails as tactic.
I think I gimped myself to play a game like improved anvil where all opponents have higher levels than before and the party naturally levels slower. Dispel is a must have in many encounters but only reliable in some classes and kits out in precalculated battles knowing the opponents levels.
The basic issue is that mages and bards can protect themselves from dispel but warriors, thieves and priests cannot. So maybe we just need an item tweak to compensate. Like give the Cloak of Non-Detection the power to cast Spell Immunity 2x per day. Or a new item like the Ring of the Wizard-Slaying Warrior, usable only by warriors, rogues and priests, which casts Spell Immunity 2x per day and Spell Shield 2x per day. Or a new weapon, let’s say a +2 club, which gives permanent SI:Abjuration while equipped. Just a little something to redress the balance
Actually let’s make the club cursed, so it can’t be unequipped, to prevent cheese like only equipping the club when a dispel or imprisonment is headed your way. So you have to weigh up having a mediocre +2 weapon but with a great defensive attribute.
In Spell Revisions, there's actually a solid fix for this. The Spell Immunity spell is replaced by Dispelling Screen, which is a party-wide spell that only blocks a single Dispel Magic (or I think Breach) before dissipating. This makes mages easier to debuff, but mages also get Foresight in place of Improved Mantle, which grants an undispellable and un-Breachable +20 to AC and saving throws, compensating for the weaker SI: Abjuration replacement.
As for solo fighters who don't have mage allies to cast Dispelling Screen, they're still not out of luck: in Item Revisions, which is designed to be paired with Spell Revisions, potions are undispellable, though their effects are generally shorter in duration. Notably, a Potion of Magic Shielding only lasts 10 rounds, but an enemy mage won't be able to get past it with IR installed.
It's supposed to be a minimum of 5% of success/failure.
There does appear to be non-zero minimum chance of failure though.
defensively it can matter only for non reloaders that are completely relying on their buffs and overleveled, mages that use self cast protections, not the ones from items, and are many levels above the enemy.
@lroumen, if you play improved anvil i surely understand your point of view. i did never try it, but reading about it seems to me that @Sikret created it in a way that compel you to play using only some strategies and i know for sure that he was updating it as soon as he was aware of some alternate route found out by players making those routes not viable.
probably dm is intentionally a not reliable spell in that mod and if you keep playing it you have to live with this fact.
i prefer tactics mod that is probably easier to beat, but let you experiment with many different tactics and let you more freedom and use of creativity to beat the same enemy each time in a different way.
An effect with caster level 260 to 1932735278 can not be dispelled.
An effect with caster level 1932735279 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 0]
An effect with caster level 1932735280 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 1]
An effect with caster level 1932735281 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 2]
An effect with caster level 1932735282 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 3]
...etc
An effect with caster level 1932735328 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 49]
An effect with caster level 1932735329 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 50]
An effect with caster level 1932735330 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 51]
...etc
An effect with caster level 1932735533 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 254]
An effect with caster level 1932735534 can be dispelled by a caster level [up to 255]
An effect with caster level 1932735535 to 0 can always be dispelled.
A creature's and dispel's Caster level is capped to the range [0 , 255].
It seems to roll over at 1932735279 or 0x7333332f - nothing significant as far as I know, but if you want an effect that is harder/impossible to dispel the higher the dispeller's level is, then it's an option. Not that applying an effect at that level is really practical.
I do recommend it to veteran players just to experience hardship.
I think we are diverging. I'll stop here.
@kjeron: That is the most interesting unusable information I've ever heard.
IOW a level 20 and 30 mage will both get 40 rounds out of a Protection from Evil, but it will be harder to dispel the one from the level 30 caster.
I'm trying to use Near Infinity to figure out by myself how to find this kind of values. However, it's not straightforward. Where are these values stored?
First, you go to the items list, highlighted here in red.
You scroll down to the item's file name, which in this case is WAND05.itm. If you don't know the file name, you can find it using CTRL-F to search for the file names of any creature, item, spell, or store. The wand's charges will be listed under "Abilities." The Fireball charge is highlighted in red.
This will show you a list of effects, and in this case, there's only effect, the damage opcode (note that you can switch from the "View" tab to the "Edit" tab at the top of the window to see a more user-friendly display of the list of effects).
Double-click on that and you'll get a window showing the parameters of that opcode. The power level or spell level of the effect is at the top of the list.
Is it easy to implenent isnt it ? As lvl 20 max dispel chance would be so much balanced.
Other things like SI:a should be remove after protecting one dispel magic like a spell shield or dispelling screen. It is so cheasy and out of the spirit of pnp. Or protection from magical weapon absurd powerful for its level, there should be a minor mantle or smthing like that.
Yeah i know scs rely on pmfw rather than mantle or absolut immunty so pity, because with scs only mages have chance against mages without cheese. So bad.