Skip to content

A Challenge in spell writing

CirdanCirdan Member Posts: 21
edited November 2014 in BGII:EE Mods
Hello,

So I'm taking on a challenge and trying to create a particular spell. But there are certain things about DLTCEP that I am unfamiliar with. The spell I want to make is an area effect spell that works similar to skull trap, glyph of warding and that stuff. I want to use the BAM file SPCHROMI as the visual basis of the spell. What I want the spell to do is for the globe to fly to the designated place of casting and then hover there, where it will dominate the minds of enemies within its area of effect who don't make a saving throw or are resistant to magic. so.... a rather big task for me. Who wants to take on a spell writing challenge with me?
Post edited by Cirdan on

Comments

  • CirdanCirdan Member Posts: 21
    So i've been tinkering around and it looks like we are barred from doing anything with the projectiles right? I made a couple custom .pro files and placed them in the override, but nothing showed up anywhere that would be useful. ....
  • CuvCuv Member, Developer Posts: 2,535
    Yeah sorry - the Projectiles externalization is still in the *want to do* list but not much has been done yet with all the other stuff going on. There are some ways to work around the limitations - you could make the spell scripted and use a VVC for the effects, but it's tedious and hard work to get just right.
    CrevsDaak
  • OlvynChuruOlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,075
    edited January 2015
    I've came up with ideas for new mage spells, but I don't know how to mod. Maybe I'll figure it out some day.

    Here are a few examples:


    Dispel Minor Illusions (Divination)
    Level 1
    Range: Caster
    Duration: Instant
    Casting Time: 5
    Area of Effect: Sight of Caster
    Magic Resist negates: No

    Upon successfully casting this spell, all illusionary effects of 2nd level or lower affecting creatures within sight of the caster are dispelled. The spells that can be removed include only the following: Deafness, Reflected Image, Mirror Image, Blindness, Blur and Invisibility. Illusions affecting allies will also be dispelled. Dispel Minor Illusions can also potentially get rid of the effects of abilities that are similar to the spells mentioned above (such as a Dark Moon Monk's Mirror Image ability).


    Summon Lemure (Conjuration)
    Level 1
    Range: Sight
    Duration: 2 rounds +1 round/level
    Casting Time: One round
    Area of Effect: Any one spot in sight
    Magic Resist negates: No

    Upon the completion of this spell, a planar gate will momentarily open in the spot of the caster's choosing. While the gate is open, it will spew forth into the Prime Material Plane a lemure, the weakest of all the baatezu. This devil will slowly move to and attack the nearest creature. However, it will prioritize attacking creatures that are not under the effects of Protection from Evil over those that are. Although the lemure is an extremely weak creature, it is completely invulnerable to all attacks by nonmagical weapons.


    Exhaust (Necromancy)
    Level 2
    Range: 40 feet
    Duration: 1 round/level
    Casting Time: 2
    Area of Effect: 20 foot radius
    Magic Resist negates: No

    The spell Exhaust saps the stamina of all enemies in the area of effect. Those enemies gain twelve hours worth of fatigue and have their movement speed halved for the duration of the spell. The fatigue is cumulative upon multiple castings of Exhaust, but the movement speed penalty is not. This spell has no effect on undead or constructs.


    Shred (Evocation)
    Level 2
    Range: Sight
    Duration: 1 round/level, to a maximum of 8 rounds
    Casting Time: 2
    Area of Effect: 30 foot radius
    Magic Resist negates: Yes

    The spell Shred causes sharp, invisible magic forces to rake at the skin of all creatures in the area of effect, immediately dealing 5 slashing damage. In addition, those creature start to bleed, taking 2 slashing damage per round, for one round per level, to a maximum of 8 rounds at level 8. Although Shred will work on creatures without skin, certain enemies have resistance to the damage.


    Indomitable Mind (Enchantment)
    Level 8
    Range: Caster
    Duration: 1 day
    Casting Time: 4
    Area of Effect: Caster
    Magic Resist negates: No

    Indomitable Mind drastically enhances the caster's mental capabilities, giving him/her +1 to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma per 3 caster levels for the duration of the spell. In addition, the caster is able to shrug off almost any magical mental attack, such as charm, domination, feeblemind, fear, hopelessness, hold, confusion, and most psionics. However, he/she will still be vulnerable to mundane forms of brain damage.


    Simultaneous Combustion (Alteration)
    Level 8
    Range: Sight
    Duration: Instantaneous
    Casting Time: 1
    Area of Effect: All creatures within sight of the caster
    Magic Resist negates: No

    By uttering the power word for this spell, the wizard causes every single macroscopic creature in his/her sight, excluding non-sentient plants, to burst into flames. Each creature takes 1 fire damage per level and emits a Sunfire-esque blast which does 1 damage per 2 levels to all creatures within 30 feet.


    Some of these spells indicate different game mechanics from what's in the actual game (such as Protection from Evil not making the target fully invisible to fiends). That's something I'd mod as well if possible.
    lunar
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    edited January 2015
    Dispel minor illusions is okay.

    However summon lemure should at least be a lvl 4 spell, if not higher. The earliest a mage can summon a creature is at lvl 3 with monster summoning I, and a lemure will trash the kobold or tasloi it summons. Lvl 1 spells should not be able to gate in demons. Find familiar is unique that it can get you an imp or quasit, but it is a special spell that bonds the caster to the familiar and has some drawbacks. It is no cheap summon.

    Exhaust should have a save vs spells to negate the effect and either be a single target effect or move up to a higher lvl. At 2nd lvl we have ray of enfeeblement which is single target, save negates type of debuff. This spell is way stronger than it in this manner.

    Shred is overpowered as well, definitely need a save vs spells to negate ongoing damage. Otherwise it is a total of 21 points of damage to all creatures in the area effect with no save. Brutal for a lvl 2 spell. Also it will dispel stoneskins fast, so the ongoing damage should be bleeding (poison) effect that Valygar's katana uses. And like I said a save should nagate it.

    Indomitable mind is akin to mind blank, which is also of same level, but it gives massive stat boosts, like draw upon holy might but for the mental stats. Therefore, duration should be lower than mind blank. 1 round/lvl, maybe. Stat boosts don't have actual effect on battle mechanics, btw.

    Simultaneous combustion is grossly overpowered as well, I would rule a save vs spells for initial targets to avoid emitting a sunfiresque blast, but no save for the initial fire damage. Also, anyone hit by a nearby creature's combustive explosion should get a save for half damage, as well. With a greater malison precast, this might wreak more havoc than a horrid wilting if there are a lot of targets and many fail their save. Also, magic resistance should protect against this spell. Sunfire does not ignore mr in ee, it was an engine limitation in the original bg that sunfire bypassed mr.

    These can be modded with little difficulty, but lemure animation is needed from iwd2.

    OlvynChuru
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    edited January 2015
    Re projectiles - you need to use WeiDU's ADD_PROJECTILE action to append the necessary files, and then WRITE_SHORT this value into your spell file. Yes, it's not exactly modder friendly.
    From memory, it should be like this (check WeiDU doc to make sure I didn't misremember something):

    COPY ~mymod/myproj.pro~ override
    ADD_PROJECTILE ~override/myproj.pro~ myproj

    COPY ~mymod/myspell.spl~ override
    WRITE_SHORT calculate_the_offset_to_write_at myproj
    Grammarsalad
  • OlvynChuruOlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,075
    @lunar

    In general, I think that saving throws shouldn't exist because they make the game luck-based. (Of course, it's not like everything will be fine if all you change is remove saving throws, since obviously some spells like Chromatic Orb would be broken, so you have to make spell effects weaker to make up for it.)

    Adding a save to Exhaust would make it horrible. I don't see why you're comparing it to Ray of Enfeeblement. The ray has a REALLY powerful effect if it triggers. On the other hand, Exhaust's fatigue effect doesn't usually even do anything unless you cast Exhaust again, since it's only 12 hours of fatigue. For the most part it's just a slow effect.

    With Shred, keep in mind that it'll take a while for it to do the full damage. Obviously that means something to you, since you compared Simultaneous Combustion to Horrid Wilting instead of Incendiary Cloud. Horrid Wilting deals 1d8 per level while Incendiary Cloud deals a total of 10d4 per level, I think. The cloud does a lot more damage, but how often do you see people using it? Also, creatures which don't have blood or some other vital liquid aren't affected by the bleeding effect of Shred. One last thing is that being able to hit stoneskin isn't necessarily better than being able to penetrate it altogether, like Melf's Acid Arrow and Agannazar's Scorcher can. It depends on the situation.

    I agree that Indomitable Mind would be kind of silly if Mind Blank was already in BG2, but it's not. And I know that the stat boosts are a bit pointless, but they should be there anyway.

    I agree that maybe it's a good idea for Simultaneous Combustion to not ignore MR. However, keep in mind that it causes everyone to explode, not just enemies, and using it on a bunch of tightly-packed enemies is kind of the point of the spell. By the time you get access to this spell, a lot of enemies resist fire (see the yaga-shura temple for example). I'm more worried if the crazy amount of fireball animations when you have the genie summon a horde of rabbits and you combust them all would crash the game or something like that.
    lunar
  • CirdanCirdan Member Posts: 21
    So here I am again, a couple years later. haha I figured out how to write the spell. It works great.
  • ArthasArthas Member Posts: 1,091
    planning to release a mod?
Sign In or Register to comment.