Safe to say that 6 is too much

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Huh? In IWD2, the impact point of a Fireball when the spell is completed is exactly the same as when you start casting it. Are you trying to say something else?

Of course HOF changes the nature of spell casting. Personally, I think that it makes HOF more interesting (if you happen to like HOF in the first place). HOF is already enough of a repeat without having all spells being upgraded along with the HOF monsters' HP totals. I enjoy how this requires the players to discover different spell casting strategies, rather than just re-using the same ones that worked in normal mode.

 

Option #1: pick the impact point when the spell is started. I say, "drop a fireball THERE," and 1.8 seconds later a fireball sprouts there. IWD2 uses this option.

Option #2: pick the impact point when the spell is completed. I say, "drop a fireball," and 3 segments later the computer asks me, "Where?" and I say, "There!" A fireball sprouts there instantly. The Gold Box games use this option.

Sorry, I'm not going to argue with you about whether HoF is good or bad. I merely repeat that if you LOVE Fireballs and magical artillery, you will likely have to get that portion of your CRPG fix from a different game because the UI, rules, and game content of IWD2 favor that playstyle less, at high levels, than many other D&D games. Although Evasion does help even the score quite a bit, such that Fireball works quite well in normal mode IME.

-Max

 

This is a VERY subtle difference and I have to say that it took me a while to even see it. In the first instance, the FB is actually targeted when you start casting, whereas in the second, it's sort of like casting the Melf Mini-Fireball spell, where you'd have the FB "in hand" and could choose where it would land (instantly) at that point.

Honestly, I still like and prefer the idea that it's not easy to target a FB. It's like throwing a grenade with a 10 second fuse. You need to throw it where you think the enemy will be when it goes off in 10 seconds, though there are no guarantees that the enemy will be where you think he'll be.

Admittedly though, it might be nice if when you cast AE spells, there was some sort of UI "ring" displayed that showed the effective range of effect of the spell, cuz knowing that a spell has a 20 or 30 foot radius doesn't exactly translate to knowing what 20 or 30 feet are on-screen.

It should also be remembered that HOF is way outside of the normal D&D rules. I think that it was largely included by BIS with IWD2 (and IWD1) so that players can replay their high level characters, without BIS having had to create any additional expansion packs at the time. It's hard for me to complain about how HOF works when it's already far outside of the normal D&D rules.

Regardless, you are correct. Fireball works quite well as is in Normal mode. Its max of 10d6 damage is quite good for all of normal mode. But once you're in HOF, you're better off using the level 3 spell Skull Trap, since it doesn't have a damage limitation, or the Delayed FB spell, though the DFB spell has a very large effective area, and can be rather difficult to use in proximity to your party.

 

On top of that, it takes some amount of time for the fireball to move from the caster to the point of impact. This time is shorter if the point of impact is closer to the caster and longer if farther away. All of these little details makes it more of a challenge to cast fireball effectively compared to games like Temple of Elemental Evil. In ToEE, not only do you get to choose the impact point after you finish casting, the impact happens before anyone gets to move and the UI highlights exactly which creatures are in the blast.

I have learned how to cast fireball quite well. I have my melee characters form a wall in front of my wizard. When the enemy closes in, I have learned where to aim the fireball to usually hit only enemies and not allies. I have acquired this skill, but having to set it up discourages me from actually using fireball more often. The game engine encourages me to use more ally friendly spells like Confusion. I actually use my wizard more as an archer than a wizard.

I'm not saying IWD2 is a bad game. It and the game engine has many good features I like. I like the fact that in many battles, I don't have to micromanage my party. The script works well enough that I can simply point them in the right direction and they do quite well most of the time. I also like having 6 party members. I just like big parties. I find 4 to be too restrictive. 6 allows me to experiment with party make ups because I feel like I have 2 extra characters. I can play a heavy melee party or heavy ranged party or have caster party etc.

 

I tend to use my mages this way as well, though for a big different reason. I tend to prefer a more physical combat oriented style and prefer to not cast spells willy-nilly without good reason. For example, I don't tend to have my mage just fire off a magic missile spell just for yucks. I'd rather just fire away with a crossbow. But if there's an enemy mage that has a mirror image up, I'll fire away with magic missiles to get that MI down asap.

Of course, if there are a lot of enemies, and particularly if there are a lot of enemy spellcasters, then my mages, clerics, etc. will be much more generous in their spellcasting. But generally, I prefer to have my mages hold their spells in reserve so that I don't have to rest quite as often.

I like big parties as well. I tried a 4 person party once, but I ended up adding a couple more characters cuz I just couldn't get comfortable with only 4. Then again, I'm not a powergamer, and don't mind using classes that aren't exactly super powerful. I find that I can get plenty of mileage out of rogues and rangers, even if they aren't uberpowerful damage producers. I guess that I like using stealthy tactics and rogues and rangers are perfect for those tactics...

 

Whoa, quite the intense debate, keep it up!

I like the aspect of player skill in area-effect spell targeting, I only whined about that in a bigger party its a bit more annoying to be skillful at casting such spells than in a smaller one. So, like I said, make a cardboard cut-out, in the form of an arrow. Let it be as long as the radius of the aoe spell (make a in-game test to measure it). Then you have a nice little tool to measure the distances of spell effects on the screen.

I also noticed that there really are often situations where my spellcasters really don't know what to cast: When, for instance Apocalyptic Boneguards engage my fighters... In such situations you really can see the dullness of the spelltree. I mean, what could I possibly cast? AOE is out of the question. Maybe summon some undead for my side? My fighters already have the aggro on them, wouldn't take the heat away. Buffs? Lets say, we are already buffed up full. Mind spells don't touch undead (ok, except control undead, but who uses that?). Death spells don't work. Only option I see, is either chain lightning or maybe disintegrate/turn to stone, which I don't take. So yeah... I end up firing magic missiles. Pew, pew, pew (yeah, my precious C-orbs seem not to work on undead)

Oh, and on the evasion character thing... Yeah, sound like fun, IF your evasive character has AC 72 or if you use Imcheesed Incheesibility, otherwise he makes his little backstab, waits for the fireball, fireball comes, monsters take some fire damage, he evades the blast and, shortly after, is hacked apart by the monsters. Yay, super fun. Let's do it again!

 

Umex,

Good idea with the cardboard cutout.

Slow (best option)
Flame Arrow
Skull trap (yes, it's AoE, but the fighters won't be in it especially if they retreat just as the spell is cast)
Summons and then Invisibility (aggro shifts to summons)
Disintegrate (as you noted already)
Entangle/Grease (you say your fighters are buffed to the max so they have Free Action already, can hit the boneguard from out of its range)
Tremor

Are you positive that Mass Dominate doesn't work on undead? It works on demons.

By the way, where do you find Apocalyptic Boneguards? I can't remember ever seeing one, although I've never played the unpatched game so maybe they only exist there.

Wait, I don't get it--someone is going to have to face down the hoard of monsters. Why shouldn't that someone have Evasion in order to reduce his exposure to danger? A single mix-in level of Monk would suffice, and also improves his saving throws and possibly AC. Just because you have Evasion doesn't mean you're weak in durability or damage-dealing. An alternative to Evasion would be to drink a Minor Mirror Image potion just before the spell goes off, or just have a few levels of Illusionist/Bard/whatever to cast Mirror Image normally.

-Max

 

In response to both Umex and spmdw45:

Yes, there may be a limited choice of spells to use against Apoc. BG's. Oh well... just have to bash them in submission.

Slow probably is a good choice.

Skull Trap is a really nice AE spell to use as its AoE is small enough to be easier to control in tight situations, AND!!! its damage is NOT limited.

Flame Arrow seems unlikely to harm Apocalypse Boneguards, since IIRC they have some sort of aura of flame. (However, I do like Flame Arrow a LOT as a single target damage spell for most targets. But I am somewhat hesitant to use it at times with my sorc since each casting of Flame Arrow reduces the number of Skull Traps or Fireballs I could cast. So my castings of Flame Arrow tend to be very situational.)

One spell that spmdw45 didn't mention is "Control Undead", though ABG's being such high level undead might be tough to control.

Entangle and Grease might be good options, if you have enough room between you and the incoming ABG's. However, the one battle where I distinctly remember ABG's is the battle at the front door of the Severed Hand, and there's really not much room there to get much value out of these spells vs. ABG's.

One other battle where I think I recall ABG's is in one of the towers of the SH, the room with the Xvimian monks, there are BG's guarding the front door that go hostile when the battle starts. (Don't remember if they're regular BG's or ABG's, though.) Personally, in that battle, I just send my own summoned undead to keep those (A)BG's busy while my party focuses on the more dangerous (IMHO) monks. That said, Grease is a good option to dump right on the door to further slow down those (A)BG's.


Tremor is a great option, though it is a very slow casting spell.

Ice Storm might be a good option vs. ABG's since it does both cold and blunt damage.

All this said, in the battles where I remember ABG's, they've only been cannon fodder for the real baddies of that battle. And I've always tended to not see ABG's as all that great a threat, and had my mages focusing on the greater threats, while leaving the ABG's to my tanks.

ABG's are probably best dealt with using disrupting weapons, or nice high enchantment blunt weapons. I mean, aside from their flame aura, they're really just oversized undead skeletons, and all things considered, they're not that difficult to deal with. I would suggest that if you're in a melee with a number of enemy creatures, including some ABGs, if you have any choice, I'd try to get the ABG's as quick as you can just to turn off their flame aura.


And FYI, spmdw45, there are definitely a pair of Apocalypse Boneguards guarding the front door to the Severed Hand (along with everything else), but I cannot say with absolute certainty where they may be any others.


As for Evasion on tanks, you can get it by taking a couple of levels of Rogue, though I must say that a tank's Evasion ability may not be all that special if he's wearing plate armor with a low DEX. I don't think that I've ever bothered doing this with a low DEX, plate-wearing tank. However, I have intentionally built mid-level DEX (DEX 14) tanks that I designed to wear chain mail, and take a couple of rogue levels to a) get the Evasion ability and b) put the rogue skill points into the stealth skills. I'd start such characters as rogues for the initial burst of skill points, then take at least 3-4 fighter levels, then the 2nd rogue level, since by that time you'd be able to dump a boatload of skill points into both Hide and Move Silently. ((If you intend on using such a character with stealth tactics a lot, it might be worth taking a 3rd and even a 4th rogue level every so often, just to help pump up the stealth skills.)) My experience has been that a medium DEX tank with a small number of rogue levels can still be a highly competent tank, and isn't hurt by taking the rogue levels. And you get the nice evasion ability. BTW, note that it's definitely worth taking the Lightning Reflexes feat with this character, since its DEX isn't all that high, and the character will need all the help it can get with its reflex saves, if its evasion ability is going to be useful.

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I have to disagree. In my most recent party, the Windriders, my rogue (actually a Ftr 4/rogue X) has an AC in the mid-30's to about 40 at times, was able to hold his own in melee and use his Evasion ability. I'll admit that I would only rarely intentionally use him as a target decoy for my own spells. I did use my rogue as a target vs. the lich because (as usual) I forgot to have any sort of remove invisibility spell, and had to nail the invisible lich by carpet bombing the area where it stood with fireballs and skull traps. In truth, I didn't really need to have the rogue engage the lich in melee to use these spells. I did need to have the rogue engage the lich in melee to keep the lich from casting his nasty spells against the rest of the party (particularly to prevent the lich from casting a power word Kill against my sorc).

Honestly though, aside from this one battle, I wouldn't generally use my rogue in this manner. It seems a tiny bit cheesey, and besides, I didn't want to risk failing a evasion roll and have the rogue get toasted by some fireball.

OH... there was one other battle where I used my rogue's evasion ability... against the jellies in the River Caves... the once where you need to kill them with lots of fire spells. I didn't need to rogue as a target. I used him as a decoy to get the jellies to focus on him, while my cleric cast Flame Strikes and my sorc cast fireballs.

 

By the way, is everyone aware that wands cast instantly? So if you want some Fireball-type action without having to calculate moving targets, just use that one wand with 50+ charges of Flame Strike instead (I think you buy it in Kuldahar or maybe before). That should give you plenty of charges of 9d6 fire mayhem to complete the game with.

-Max

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Evasion does not work at all with medium or heavy armor, so plate armor is right out. On the other hand, there's nothing to stop you from using Spirit or Mage Armor or even a Shield spell (from an amulet/ring).

-Max

 

Are you sure about this? I mean, I can understand that Evasion would be difficult in medium or heavy armor, due to the Armor Check Penalty. But it's not too, too bad for chain mail at about -4 or -5... which can be somewhat offset with Lightning Reflexes feat, plus various other upgrades to saving throws (not to mention, if you're wearing chain, you likely have a DEX of 14-16).

It's been a while since I played a medium DEX Fighter X/Rogue 2 character, but I seemed to recall being able to get the evasion ability, though I could be wrong. I should note though that when I've built such a character, I don't depend on Evasion... I'm making the build more for the stealth, and with the (assumed) knowledge that the character might have some mild evasion ability. Even if Evasion does work in chain, I wouldn't use such a character as a evasion decoy, because I wouldn't depend on its reflex save being consistently high enough to provide 95% certainty. That's what nearly pure rogues or monks are for.

 

Yep. It was a nasty surprise for me when successful saving throws still resulted in my pal1/monk1 mule taking damage, and eventually I realized it was because he was wearing Abishai Hide armor. Chains of Drakka avoid this problem.

-Max

 

Not a good example, spmdw45. IIRC, monks lose all of their monk abilities when they put on armor, so I'm not sure that the same would hold true for, say, a ftr/rogue.

 

Crucis, evasion works the same way for both rogues and monks: only when not wearing medium or heavy armour. I know it sucks, as it makes the pretty bad medium and heavy armours even less of an option than before.

I don't know if shields affect the evasion roll at all.

 

No they don't. Monks can evade while wearing Chains of Drakka. I have one of these in my party right now.

-Max

 

Doesn't matter for monks. You don't get the WIS bonus to AC if you're wearing a robe. I gather this is what the game thinks of as "light" armor.

-Max

 

No, Leather and Studded Leather are "light" armor. Robes aren't actually armor at all, though apparently they're seen as "armor" by monks.

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Well that just plain sucks.

Honestly, I never paid attention to whether Evasion worked or not with my Ftr X/Rogue 2-4 chain-wearing builds, cuz I really took the rogue levels for the stealth skills and/or the talking skills, not to get the Evasion ability.

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It's coded as a robe. It's the only way to avoid the arcane spell casting penalty or the armor skill penalty.

However, it doesn't matter for monks. Anything placed in the armor/robes inventory slot turns off monk special abilities (according to the manual).

It should be noted that supposedly Mindchild's CustomDLL mod makes it possible for monks to weak robes without losing their special abilities.

 

I would think that Evasion isn't coded as a Monk ability, since another class has access to it as well. Is it a mere special ability, like Barbarian Rage or Bard's song, where as all of the Monk-only Monk abilities are coded special for Monks? Maybe because it can be stripped from them for wearing armor. I'm asking here, not stating...

 

No idea, BoV.

 

No, monk do not have Evasion ability stripped for wearing robe-type armors, even though they lose the AC bonus. There are at least some other monk special abilities like Stunning Blow that they don't lose either. I've never had a monk of level 2+ so I don't know about higher-level abilities.

-Max