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Anyone Else Think "Imprisonment" Shouldn't Exist?

unkinheadunkinhead Member Posts: 107
edited January 2014 in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
I always hated this spell, too me it provides no real strategic preparations to counter...It also is never stopped by opponents. It seems that it is pretty overpowered and the fact that you can't save nor have magic resistance defend against it just seems like its too much. The only real counter is spell immunity:Abjuration

Idk, too me it just seems unnecessarily good, at least every other spell has SOME kind of balance to it. Anyone else feel like this?
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Comments

  • KaltzorKaltzor Member Posts: 1,050
    Well, as a combat spell, not really... All the enemies need to do is Imprison the party and boom, game over.

    What I'd change on it is giving it an absurdly long casting time and make it interruptable even if the one casting it normally can't be interrupted or is protected... Someone scores in a hit, even an uneffective one, the spell is interrupted so you can't have enemies just imprison the party and win.
  • unkinheadunkinhead Member Posts: 107
    Kaltzor said:

    Well, as a combat spell, not really... All the enemies need to do is Imprison the party and boom, game over.

    What I'd change on it is giving it an absurdly long casting time and make it interruptable even if the one casting it normally can't be interrupted or is protected... Someone scores in a hit, even an uneffective one, the spell is interrupted so you can't have enemies just imprison the party and win.

    i would be okay with something like that.
  • JarlealeJarleale Member Posts: 114
    SCS has a few options that moots the problem of the imprisonment spell.

    - Freedom scrolls are added to early stores, making it possible to rescue friends before the asylum
    - There is an option to make mages never cast imprisonment on your main character
    - Demilich imprisonment grants a save at -5 (but level drain on successful saves)

    Actually, I miss imprisonment being such a threat. High level wizards and liches are more scary if you know they can possibly defeat you with one spell.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    I think it's fine as it is.
  • JarlealeJarleale Member Posts: 114
    edited January 2014
    Potentially makes it possible to play through the game with an imprisoned Charname. (Unless it breaks scripts/dialogue)
  • SilverstarSilverstar Member Posts: 2,207
    It's an annoying spell when encountered (screw you Kangaxx you douche!), certainly, but I wouldn't want it removed simply because it's annoying. There are ways around it after all. As a player cast spell, I think it's a bit silly since as Heindrich said it makes you not get your loot.
  • DemivrgvsDemivrgvs Member Posts: 315
    argent77 said:

    I've installed a mod once that changed the imprisonment effect into a permanent maze effect, thus allowing the character to remain in the party (not breaking romances, etc.). Can't remember which mod it was though.

    Spell Revisions does that.

  • stargazerbstargazerb Member Posts: 57
    No save, no magic resistance - it's much more powerful than a level 9 spell. It would be unbalanced for a mage HLA. I guess timestop+shapechange mindflayer isn't much less extreme, but you never really see enemies do that.

    It's not a spell I would ever use.
  • ZanianZanian Member Posts: 332
    If I'm not mistaken, going by the rules, it should both be a touch spell and affected by saves. That would pretty much fix its OPness.
  • SharGuidesMyHandSharGuidesMyHand Member Posts: 2,580
    IIRC, isn't the Slayer form immune to imprisonment?
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    stargazerb said:

    No save, no magic resistance - it's much more powerful than a level 9 spell. It would be unbalanced for a mage HLA. I guess timestop+shapechange mindflayer isn't much less extreme, but you never really see enemies do that.

    It's not a spell I would ever use.

    Funny, I was just thinking that it sucks for a level 9 spell. So many enemies are immune or can protect themselves and all it really does is act like a glorified Maze, except you need to cast Freedom to get the loot. And you still have to kill them afterwards, unless you don't care about items.
  • stargazerbstargazerb Member Posts: 57

    Funny, I was just thinking that it sucks for a level 9 spell. So many enemies are immune or can protect themselves and all it really does is act like a glorified Maze, except you need to cast Freedom to get the loot. And you still have to kill them afterwards, unless you don't care about items.

    You're not wrong. The immunities feel artificial to me, and I barely even know what they are since I never use the spell. The item thing is pretty much its only real drawback, but for me that doesn't change the feeling that it's just not a good spell.
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    @stargazerb yeah, I don't like immunities either. Anything that's so scary that you would consider imprisoning it and giving up the loot can't be imprisoned in the first place. Maybe if it was less all-or-nothing it would be more useful. Like a Maze with a small AoE or something.
  • That1DudeThat1Dude Member Posts: 19
    I cheese all the enemies that use it and never take it on any of my sorcerers and never use it on any of my mages so completely removing it probably wouldn't effect too many of my play throughs. Although I'll admit that my first ever play through charname was a berserker which made the removal of demilichs fairly trivial once I found some decent weapons. (Once you hit hla and have the improved mace of disruption demiliches are amusingly simple, berserk -> greater whirlwind = bye bye undead) Nowadays I just use a protection from magic scroll and have Keldorn go at em with Carsomyr.

    Besides demiliches do any other enemies even use imprisonment in the vanilla game?
  • kamuizinkamuizin Member Posts: 3,704
    argent77 said:

    I've installed a mod once that changed the imprisonment effect into a permanent maze effect, thus allowing the character to remain in the party (not breaking romances, etc.). Can't remember which mod it was though.

    This is an extremly good solution, i would add Magic Resistance as an instrument of block imprisionment also and allow a save (with some penality of -4 or more) would be very useful also.

    Imprisionment original spell is a touch to effect spell that should need at least an hit from the mage to take effects, also the original spell allows saving throw.

    Trap the soul from the demi-lichs (a lower spell from lvl 8 arcane circle surprisingly) also allow Mres and saving.
  • syllogsyllog Member Posts: 158
    edited January 2014
    The big lvl 9 spells are unbalancedly good the rest are mostly worthless.


    Timestop allowing attacks to autohit + BG cast & attack mechanics?
    Chain contingency having fast cast time (rather than one round) allowing you to timestop spells and target invisible creatures?
    I love shapechange - but Int drain when combined with time stop is ridiculous.

    Contrarily:
    Enervation? Drain 2 levels - seriously?
    Meteorswarm is a weaker version of lvl 8 Incendiary cloud?!
    Power Word Kill - only really useful if you have outside knowledge of characters' health and scripts.
    Spell Trap - You can get the same functionality with Imp. Invisibility 90% of the time... (/allows for infinite spells)
    Gate?! (arguably OP if you use SCS I suppose...)


    Spell strike is a reasonably balanced spell - though questionably useful in vanilla.
    Post edited by syllog on
  • DemivrgvsDemivrgvs Member Posts: 315
    kamuizin said:

    argent77 said:

    I've installed a mod once that changed the imprisonment effect into a permanent maze effect, thus allowing the character to remain in the party (not breaking romances, etc.). Can't remember which mod it was though.

    This is an extremly good solution, i would add Magic Resistance as an instrument of block imprisionment also and allow a save (with some penality of -4 or more) would be very useful also.
    Allowing both a save and magic resistance to block it would turn the spell into an utterly pointless pick considering it would be worse than Maze.

    I tried to imagine ways to make Imprisonment a truly "usable" spell within Spell Revisions but I'm short of ideas. With Maze performing the very same role it's really hard to keep Imprisonment both enough appealing and not OP for a 9th level spell slot. :(
    kamuizin said:

    Imprisionment original spell is a touch to effect spell that should need at least an hit from the mage to take effects, also the original spell allows saving throw.

    BG is based upon AD&D, not 3E. The original spell does not allowed a save, but it indeed required a hit roll (this alone would be a huge nerf, but the AI cannot handle such change), and worked only when target's creature name and background were known.
    kamuizin said:

    Trap the soul from the demi-lichs (a lower spell from lvl 8 arcane circle surprisingly) also allow Mres and saving.

    Both Spell Revisions and SCS tweaks demi-liches Trap the Soul to allow a save but drain target's levels on a successful save.
    syllog said:

    The big lvl 9 spells are unbalancedly good the rest are mostly worthless.

    Timestop allowing attacks to autohit + BG cast & attack mechanics?
    Chain contingency having fast cast time (rather than one turn) allowing you to timestop spells and target invisible creatures?
    I love shapechange - but Int drain when combined with time stop is ridiculous.
    Enervation? Drain 2 levels - seriously?
    Meteorswarm is a weaker version of lvl 8 Incendiary cloud?!
    Power Word Kill - only really useful if you have outside knowledge of characters' health and scripts.
    Spell Trap - You can get the same functionality with Imp. Invisibility 90% of the time... (/allows for infinite spells)
    Gate?! (arguably OP if you use SCS I suppose...)
    Spell strike is a reasonably balanced spell - though questionably useful in vanilla.

    I don't want to go off topic but discussing these might be helpful for me to eventually improve Spell Revisions.

    - Timestop allowing attacks to autohit is broken yes. Recent versions of SCS allow to disable this broken mechanic for the AI, and DavidW said I could now safely do the same for players within SR. Should I work on it?
    - with SR installed contingencies and triggers can only be prepared outside of combat
    - it's too long to describe here how I improved Shapechange forms :D
    - SR's Energy Drain (renamed into Larloch's Energy Drain) removes 4 levels from the target and grants them to the caster (increased hit points, thac0, and caster level too).
    - Meteorswarm is a 40d4 large AoE spell within SR
    - PW:Kill can now kill the target even if he has more than 90hp (a save at -4 penalty negates the effect), but targets with less than 90hp are not allowed a save (as per vanilla)
    - if you have any suggestion to make Spell Trap more unique I'm eager to hear it
    - Gate is supposed to be OP imo, but it's hard to implement the right drawbacks
    - Spellstrike was meh in vanilla, but against SCS mages it becomes very useful
  • DuronDuron Member Posts: 135
    Honestly, yes in BG it is quite a powerful spell, but you forget it is a spell from DnD pen and paper game. As a DnD player for decades I can tell you it ain't so OP spell. It is incredibly powerful but problem with it... in pen and paper (and BG for that matter) it is a you are gone button. Problem is it is a you are gone button but your gear is gone 2. For most enemies you could use the spell on, they have gear you want. Second, lore wise it doesn't kill your enemies, it only traps them in center of the earth, and they are frozen in time there. So we have another problem here cause of that. In paper game's that usually comes back to bite you up your behind. Baldur's gate doesn't have that but developers had to follow the rules of Forgotten realms DnD sistem.
    Spell is working as intended. It is powerful, but not over the top cause of trapping, and them taking the gear with them. That it killed them in the process then it would have been to powerful but like this it is just a strong spell and for a level 9 spell that is perfectly normal.
  • TethorilofLathanderTethorilofLathander Member Posts: 427
    This is why I hated Kangaxx. Walk in the door...

    PC: "Hey Kanga...
    -Imprisoned=
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    At least you have some warning for Kangaxx. The Watcher's Keep demilich is in the middle of nowhere. You go to check out a closet in the githyanki lair and surprise!

    I guess Watcher's Keep is full of surprises though, most of which are of the fatal variety
  • JonelethIrenicusJonelethIrenicus Member Posts: 157
    Demivrgvs said:

    kamuizin said:

    argent77 said:

    I've installed a mod once that changed the imprisonment effect into a permanent maze effect, thus allowing the character to remain in the party (not breaking romances, etc.). Can't remember which mod it was though.

    This is an extremly good solution, i would add Magic Resistance as an instrument of block imprisionment also and allow a save (with some penality of -4 or more) would be very useful also.
    Allowing both a save and magic resistance to block it would turn the spell into an utterly pointless pick considering it would be worse than Maze.

    I tried to imagine ways to make Imprisonment a truly "usable" spell within Spell Revisions but I'm short of ideas. With Maze performing the very same role it's really hard to keep Imprisonment both enough appealing and not OP for a 9th level spell slot. :(
    kamuizin said:

    Imprisionment original spell is a touch to effect spell that should need at least an hit from the mage to take effects, also the original spell allows saving throw.

    BG is based upon AD&D, not 3E. The original spell does not allowed a save, but it indeed required a hit roll (this alone would be a huge nerf, but the AI cannot handle such change), and worked only when target's creature name and background were known.
    kamuizin said:

    Trap the soul from the demi-lichs (a lower spell from lvl 8 arcane circle surprisingly) also allow Mres and saving.

    Both Spell Revisions and SCS tweaks demi-liches Trap the Soul to allow a save but drain target's levels on a successful save.
    syllog said:

    The big lvl 9 spells are unbalancedly good the rest are mostly worthless.

    Timestop allowing attacks to autohit + BG cast & attack mechanics?
    Chain contingency having fast cast time (rather than one turn) allowing you to timestop spells and target invisible creatures?
    I love shapechange - but Int drain when combined with time stop is ridiculous.
    Enervation? Drain 2 levels - seriously?
    Meteorswarm is a weaker version of lvl 8 Incendiary cloud?!
    Power Word Kill - only really useful if you have outside knowledge of characters' health and scripts.
    Spell Trap - You can get the same functionality with Imp. Invisibility 90% of the time... (/allows for infinite spells)
    Gate?! (arguably OP if you use SCS I suppose...)
    Spell strike is a reasonably balanced spell - though questionably useful in vanilla.

    I don't want to go off topic but discussing these might be helpful for me to eventually improve Spell Revisions.

    - Timestop allowing attacks to autohit is broken yes. Recent versions of SCS allow to disable this broken mechanic for the AI, and DavidW said I could now safely do the same for players within SR. Should I work on it?
    - with SR installed contingencies and triggers can only be prepared outside of combat
    - it's too long to describe here how I improved Shapechange forms :D
    - SR's Energy Drain (renamed into Larloch's Energy Drain) removes 4 levels from the target and grants them to the caster (increased hit points, thac0, and caster level too).
    - Meteorswarm is a 40d4 large AoE spell within SR
    - PW:Kill can now kill the target even if he has more than 90hp (a save at -4 penalty negates the effect), but targets with less than 90hp are not allowed a save (as per vanilla)
    - if you have any suggestion to make Spell Trap more unique I'm eager to hear it
    - Gate is supposed to be OP imo, but it's hard to implement the right drawbacks
    - Spellstrike was meh in vanilla, but against SCS mages it becomes very useful
    Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't the original dnd Time Stop spell prevent all attacks except for some spells?

  • KaltzorKaltzor Member Posts: 1,050
    Is there some way to get the Spell Revisions mod to work with the Enhanced Editions? Most of the changes seem to be pretty nice.
  • ReadingRamboReadingRambo Member Posts: 598
    Slayer form and Korgans (or PC) berserker rage protects against it. Knowing that, it's easy to plan against the spell.
  • stargazerbstargazerb Member Posts: 57
    edited January 2014
    @kaltzor
    I've been using it without any major issues, although there are occasionally string errors. All that needs to be done is for the ToB check to be commented out in the tp2 file.

    replace the required predicate line with:

    /*REQUIRE_PREDICATE (ENGINE_IS ~soa tob~) @8996 // ~This mod is designed for the Baldur's Gate II engine and will not function on other games.~*/

    This is obviously unsupported, and I hope @demivrgvs doesn't mind me posting this, since he's working on updating the mod.
    Post edited by stargazerb on
  • syllogsyllog Member Posts: 158
    edited January 2014
    JonelethIrenicus said:

    Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't the original dnd Time Stop spell prevent all attacks except for some spells?

    @JonelethIrenicus
    In 3e: yes.
    In 2e: ambiguous, but presumably not. It basically just says "time is stopped for all but caster" in the PHB.
    That leaves a lot open to interpretation.

    Without getting too nitpicky (how do I breath?! What about Gravity?! :) -- Can you be wounded if time is stopped for you is a reasonable and mechanically relevant one. 3e basically says no. But you can use things like delayed blast fireball that then go off after time is restored or buff your defenses (which is very valuable!<--but less valuable in a computer game because spell selection is so much smaller and surprises diminished).

    That said 2e rules weren't designed to be mechanically self-sufficient - they were more ideas that humans would adapt on the fly. (IMHO)
    Post edited by syllog on
  • KaltzorKaltzor Member Posts: 1,050
    I'd assume you technically can't be harmed DURING the time stop... However, if the mage did come over and smack you with his staff, the hit would be delivered the moment it ends.
  • syllogsyllog Member Posts: 158
    edited January 2014
    @Demivrgvs
    Demivrgvs said:


    I tried to imagine ways to make Imprisonment a truly "usable" spell within Spell Revisions but I'm short of ideas

    (1) One possibility (maybe?) would be to greatly increase the casting time.
    Say: 5 rounds? (There would practically need to be some AI workgoing on where knowledge of threat is passed to the subject to make this practical.)

    After that give the caster a magical object (with a +40 to hit and luck bonus [no crit fail]) that imprisons the subject - they have one round.

    It's thematically appropriate for a powerful binding spell at the least...
    (It's easily exploitable without some annoying coding to constrain who can be touched - but I personally wouldn't care if someone wants to run exploits in their own game.)

    (2) Alternatively you could create a couple companion divinations spells as pre-reqs (couple different ways that could be done - maybe annoying) that require targetting and casting first. But that basically just means it's OP against non-mages instead of everybody.

    (3) I think my favorite would be to make it castable only on creatures already under some other subset of status effects. e.g. held/stunned/blinded&deafened/nauseated
    One can imagine it requiring a few seconds of contact to finish casting - during which the recipient needs to be subdued. Thematically interesting. Potentially mechanically interesting (though in practice I think the mechanics would be ~so-so - but it could still be nice as a killing blow against a helpless enemy perhaps [maybe at lvl 8 in that case?])



    Demivrgvs said:

    - Timestop allowing attacks to autohit is broken yes. Recent versions of SCS allow to disable this broken mechanic for the AI, and DavidW said I could now safely do the same for players within SR. Should I work on it?
    - with SR installed contingencies and triggers can only be prepared outside of combat
    - it's too long to describe here how I improved Shapechange forms :D
    - SR's Energy Drain (renamed into Larloch's Energy Drain) removes 4 levels from the target and grants them to the caster (increased hit points, thac0, and caster level too).
    - Meteorswarm is a 40d4 large AoE spell within SR
    - PW:Kill can now kill the target even if he has more than 90hp (a save at -4 penalty negates the effect), but targets with less than 90hp are not allowed a save (as per vanilla)
    - if you have any suggestion to make Spell Trap more unique I'm eager to hear it
    - Gate is supposed to be OP imo, but it's hard to implement the right drawbacks
    - Spellstrike was meh in vanilla, but against SCS mages it becomes very useful

    TimeStop change:
    That's awesome!!!
    As for whether it worth working on - it depends on what your other options are.
    It would be *great* to have, but I can just self-regulate at minor cost (e.g. turning off ai if I have ranged weapons) so it's not critical to using that option IMO. If it's not hard to code it would be great though!
    [I'd love to see an option to remove cast-and-attack altogether actually!!!]

    Contingency out of combat
    I really like that one.

    Energy Drain-> 4lvls + Vamp
    I think that makes the spell interesting for multi-class. I like it.
    I still wouldn't use it at 9th, personally. If simply it bypassed spell protections and did 4 levels (or 1lvl/4 lvls of caster - same as enervation- perhaps with a modified save for 1/2) it would be neat in caster combat - draining high-level spells, but requiring touch.

    Meteorswarm
    I noticed that you made fire arrow multi-targetable. Which is neat.
    I should do this myself, but since I'm here: could you not make Meteorswarm closer to PnP and a bit flashier by:
    Making it multi-targetable at ground 8 times.
    Center of each target does (1/2)5d4 damage in a 5-foot diameter sphere and (1/2)5d4 damage in a 15-foot diameter sphere. No save. Respects MR.
    This is almost identical to PnP if you assume that all saving throws are made. (i.e. those directly struck by meteors gain no saving throw (they suffer 5-foot and 15-foot bursts) those not directly struck get and pass saving throw (15-foot burst))
    The 8 targetable impact locations gives it a lot of character and a little flexibility for mooks.
    The 5 foot burst is there because (a) targeting ground gives more flexibility (b) if it can target enemies it would be too effective at burning through spell protections.

    Just wanted to hear your thoughts in any case. :)

    PW:Kill
    Mechanically sensible, but I never personally liked it flavor wise.
    If it were possible (maybe it's not - I have very limited scripting exp) what I would rather have is a new divination spell introduced that makes enemy health knowable for it's duration. (Either by tabbing over them - or some sort of ForcedCast ability bar item (i.e. no time; doesn't cost an ability use for the round)).
    I like that Conjuration is the No Gambling school of magic. (In general if divination spells could give info about enemies - immunities, resistances: those would be neat spells that would both be fun RP wise and make the game much less opaque I think.)

    Gate
    Yeah - it's a problem. It was designed for complex RP scenarios.
    IF there were some list of magic items of minimum value (relative to each of the gating spells) then sacrificing a magic item as a cost for gating in an extraplanar entity would be thematically and mechanically in the ballpark I think.
    e.g. You want a Pit Fiend? Cost = 1 Firetooth Crossbow. (Or similar power Unique item.)
    Want a lesser demon? Coast = +3 sword. (would have to look at item availability lists to decide reasonable costs; etc. - not trivial - though anything is better than current arrangement I think...)


    (Perhaps there is a time stop cast and then a Wish-esque dialogue after casting to choose?)
    (Creature's C/N/L axis matches yours and implement the %-chance to turn on you?
    25% if Chaotic / 05% if Neutral / 00% if Lawful -- just for flavor/fun? :)

    Spellstrike
    I agree. It works well in SCS.

    _______________________________
    Oh. One other question I've been meaning to nose around and look into (if you would):

    Dragon Disciple's Breath Fire does something interesting.
    The cast is "instant" in that the effect occurs instantaneously, but afterward the character is frozen for a short time (for balance and flavor).
    It's a solution to the "Cone of Cold Problem" - you can't target it because by the time you've finished casting everyone has moved.

    I've wondered if a more natural ~reverse solution plausibly exists for spells: pause game and allow targeting after casting is completed.
    It would make targeting area-affect spells much easier and make long-cast times more tactical and less something that eliminates a spell's value...

    Is that doable?
    Post edited by syllog on
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