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Stacking Spells and/or Abilities that do the same thing?

JidokwonJidokwon Member Posts: 395
in General Discussions NWN:EE
I just learned that the wizard spell Cat's Grace stacks with the harper scout ability of the same name. I've tested this one and they do stack. Is this intended or will it be nerfed? I've heard some other spells and abilities that are similar also stack, such as Owl's Wisdom and Owl's Insight or the Bull's Strength spell and the Bull's Strength feat. (Thanks: http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Stack) If intended, is there a full list of similar spells and abilities that do stack that anyone can point me to, please? If there isn't a full list available, it'd be nice if a developer could shed some light here. Do *most* arcane vs divine vs abilities (feats) stack when they're very similar, if not identical, in nature?

Comments

  • shadguyshadguy Member Posts: 154
    As a general rule of thumb, for buffs and prots, spells with the same SpellID (line number in spells.2da) will not stack effects, and spells with different SpellIDs will stack effects.

    -Dave
  • JidokwonJidokwon Member Posts: 395
    @shadguy: Thank you for that. In general, are most arcane spells, divine spells, and/or abilities that do the same thing classified with different SpellIDs or not?
  • TerrorbleTerrorble Member Posts: 169
    If it's cast as a spell, I'd say the spell ID will be the same. If it's a feat/ability, it'll be different.

    Bull's Strength, for example, uses the same spell ID (line 9 in spells.2da) whether cast as a sorceror or cleric (doesn't stack). The bull's strength feat (line 478 in feats.2da) stacks with the spell because the feat refers to spell ID 614 in spells.2da - even though it uses the same spell script as the spell.

    Personally, I don't see it as an unintended mechanic.
  • shadguyshadguy Member Posts: 154
    Yeah. Spells.2da is basically a spreadsheet; if the spells have different names, they have different spell IDs, and will most likely stack similar effects. The module designer can fix this if they don't want stuff to stack; for example, we enabled the Mass Bulls/Cats/etc spells on our server, but updated the relevant scripts to prevent stacking. So, the default spell scripts generally don't care about preventing stacking, but any given module or server can update the rules. Your mileage may vary.

    Also, some featspells [harper/BG/assassin/etc] may reuse spellIDs. This has various technical issues, and I forget what featspells do this, but we have fixed and re-routed a number of related problems over the years on our server. My best resource when trying to figure out what features and bugs the game shipped with is to check the nwn wiki, or, if it's not quickly obvious from there, run nwnexplorer and start looking at the 2da files directly.

    -Dave
  • JidokwonJidokwon Member Posts: 395
    Thank you both for the details. I'm just coming back to all of this, so it's almost all new to me. I was unfamiliar with the nwn wiki, for instance, and had forgotten all about tools like the nwnexplorer. Thank you for the reminders.
  • 1varangian1varangian Member Posts: 367
    edited March 2018
    Doesn't 3e rule against ability and AC buffs stacking? Or was it only fixed in 3.5?

    At any rate, I believe NWN would be a better and more balanced game without the crazy buffing pre-combat. Stacked buffs and protections also make PCs look like a ridiculous mess.

    5e handles buffing really well by basically allowing a much more limited selection and requiring concentration. So you have to choose instead of just stacking 15 spells on everyone.
  • FreshLemonBunFreshLemonBun Member Posts: 909
    Both 3.0 and 3.5 have the stacking rules. The only difference is that 3.5 summarizes them more clearly and places them towards the front of the book under basic rules whereas the 3.0 version was stuck in the middle of the book under a subsection for adjudicating magic.

    The stacking rules apply to everything not just ability bonuses and AC bonuses.

    The main issue is that NWN doesn't have a built in "type" variable for effects so you can't discern between enhancement bonus to ability score, sacred bonus to ability score, size bonus to ability score, other typed bonuses to ability score, and untyped bonuses to ability scores.
  • 1varangian1varangian Member Posts: 367
    FreshLemonBun said:

    Both 3.0 and 3.5 have the stacking rules. The only difference is that 3.5 summarizes them more clearly and places them towards the front of the book under basic rules whereas the 3.0 version was stuck in the middle of the book under a subsection for adjudicating magic.

    The stacking rules apply to everything not just ability bonuses and AC bonuses.

    The main issue is that NWN doesn't have a built in "type" variable for effects so you can't discern between enhancement bonus to ability score, sacred bonus to ability score, size bonus to ability score, other typed bonuses to ability score, and untyped bonuses to ability scores.

    Maybe they can code that in now. Controlling buffs stacking is good for balance.
  • FreshLemonBunFreshLemonBun Member Posts: 909
    It's not really about balance, bonuses of different types don't necessarily have an equivalent cost to power. It is kind of possible with effect tagging but you have to use one of the magic replacement systems that implements it.
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