Buggy spells or is it just me?

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OK I have this problem since the time I had IWD2. Please help me or share your ideas/experiences.

Some really potent spells are bugy in my game, I think, as their DCs are naturally so low for some reason. Here is a quick list:

Slay Living, Harm, Destruction, Lich Touch, Darts of Bone, Black Bale of Disaster. AFAIK.

These are buggy, I think, as my cleric, with 2 in Necromancy focus an 28 WIS, could not destroy anything with his destruction. The DC shoul be more than 25 BUT everything succeeds on a roll of 15 or better, I guess. I tried hard. Sometimes, the destruction graphical effect (dying rose) appears, BUT the target takes 10d6 damage only, even his fortitude save was only 18, it says Success. Natural success rolls (more than 30) do not have dying rose effect. The only way for this spelll to work is, the victim should roll really low, OR make a critical failure. (natural 1 roll)

This is very much same for other spells I listed. Which makes them nigh useless, abeit they are all cool beyond words spells. Their DCs are soo low for some reason, even with BBoD's natural bonus to save, and only it has a bonus to save AFAIK.

I noticed that Tal Rasha has fixed BBoD's DC from 6 to 16. This means some DCs are naturally broken from scratch? I have the patch an it does not fix it.

Disintegrate, Flesh to Stone, Finger of Death and uber WoB works fine. Thankfully.

Please, if you know the cause, tell me. Most importantly, is it same in your games too? Or only my version is bugged? Lastly, is there a way to fix it, via editing some spell files somewhere in override folder? This bug is so annoying, and takes the fun of playing an evil cleric considerably.

 

Ok,
Destruction Spell:
Your DC is 30 (10 (base) + 7 (spell level) + 9 (WIS) + 4 (GSF)). The enemies Fortitude is 18, according to you. This means that the enemy has to roll 12 or more on a D20 to successfully avoid the full effects (45% success).
The unpredictable arrival of the rose suggests there could be a bug in there somewhere.

There are some obvious things:
1) Casting against creatures with high spell resistance (rare)?
2) Playing in HoF mode (higher saves)?
3) Some monsters are immune to certain spells, e.g. Destruction has no effect on undead and constructs
4) All the spells have Fortitude saves. This is the highest for all enemies, except spellcasters. Try spells that require Will saves to see if the result is the same
5) How did you find out the save was 18? Did you factor in the CON bonus?
6) Don't know how many times you cast the spells (as sorcerer bombards?) - could just be getting unlucky dice rolls
7) Any MODs installed - could be using one that has bumped up the difficulty?

Not sure how the mechanics of the game work, but here is an interesting thing. All the spells you mentioned that don't work actually create an item. With the exception of BBoD, all the "items" have +1 enchantment. It is this item that does the damage. Does it mean it fails against opponents with 10/+2 damage reduction?
I don't know...

The DC of WoB and Finger of Death ARE higher - not a case of "broken" DCs there. Not sure about the other working spells you mentioned.

I am running out of ideas, except for the old "it a bug!" thing...

 

Because all your listed spells are item-create spells.
For example, you cast Harm, then the spell create a item named HARM.itm in your hands, HARM.itm has a DC of 10, no matter how high your wisdom is, the DC will just be 10.

 

That sounds like a bug in the implementation, then.

 

I have all combat informations on the dialogue screen. I have only Undead Targos for a major mod, and I no am not trying these spells on Undead, Constructs, Spell resist creatures, extremely tough creatures, heck I even tried it on my Fort Save+11 rogue, and he succeeds most of the time, according to your rule he needs a natural roll of 19 (gasp) to survive a Destruction spell. (11+19=30) But he succeeded on a roll of 7, '11+7=18:Succes' it says in the combat dialogue. Irritating.

Haven't you tried these spells? Please do try (even on your own party members) and tell me your results, I am very interested in hearing yours.

I do believe from what you tell, that these spells are indeed buggy as they all create an item to hit the victim, is there a way to fix that? For example, fix Destructions DC to 17, and enable it to gain bonus DC from WIS and Necromancy focus. Isn't this how it is supposed to work AFAIK? Can some mod maker make this fix or is it just too hard work? (since Tal Rasha says he has fixed BBoD's DC bug I am hopefull.)

It is sad, I managed to disintegrate the Guardian with my sorc, but evil clerics can not kill anything with their uber 'save or die most miserably' type of spells. And do I have to say I love that kind of spells? They are soo powerful and exciting! And evil!

 

@Silverstar

Your rouge has a Fort Save of 11, which means he/she only fail on a roll of 1. The DC is 10, not 30!

I haven't fixed BBoD's DC bug yet. I just increase its DC to 16, which still won't add ability modifier.

A pity, I haven't any idea to fix these spells. I wish someone could do it.

 

Do you mean Black Blade of Disaster ? Because if you do I used this spell a lot on one of my characters in a former party and although it wasn't as powerful as I expected it worked quite well. The blade always disintegrated at least one or two foes each time I casted the spell.

 

Tal Rasha, thanks for the info. Do you have a complete list of Item Create spells?

 

I see. Well, BBoD (Black BLADE of Disaster, pardon my mistake) sure kills, but it is not very efficient, it could have been much more powerful according to rules, now it sucks, and won't cut it in HoF mode, while FoD and WoB still works wonders.

So there is no way to fix it. A pity. How could game designers miss such an obvious bug? Or at least they could implemet these spells like they did way back in IWD, casting ON the target in melee range. This could work, right? But noo, they use BG2's 'create item to hit the victim' concept and it sucks in 3e rules. (it works wonders in BG2 though, HARM anyone?) Final word.

 

Tal, why'd you pick 16 for the DC?

You need "only" 19 CHA (or INT) to cast BBoD. However, most characters would start the game with 18 CHA and increase it to 22 by level 17. In fact, CHA can go as high as 32, if the character is a level 28 drow with a maxed out Eagle's Splendor. I think, for the purpose of patching BBoD, the best compromise is pretend the caster always has 24 CHA/INT.

So that would yield a DC of 10 + 9 (level) + 7 (casting stat modifier) = 26. But the spell description says, "Fortitude save at +4", so make it DC 22.

Edit: here are suggested DCs for all the spells Silverstar mentioned.

Code:

 

Spell         Level    Min. Caster Level    Min. Stat    Typical Stat    DC    Max DC 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Slay Living     5             9                15             20         22      31   
Harm            6            11                16             20         23      32             
Destruction     7            13                17             22         22      33  
Lich Touch      6            11                16             20         22      30  
Darts of Bone   6            11                16             20         22      30  
BBoD            9            17                19             24         22      30 

Notes:
- "Typical Stat" assumes starting with 18 and using all level increases available to boost it, then adding 0-2 for items/buffs, depending on character level; high level characters have more access to such buffs.
- All except BBoD are Necromancy spells, so I assume one level of spellfocus, for +2 DC.
- Technically, Harm is level 7 for druids, but I ignore that since usually it will be clerics casting it.
- BBoD has gives +4 to save, which translates to -4 DC.
- Max DC is with a totally minmaxed level 28 HoF character, including +2 WIS from quests. For entertainment purposes only.

[ August 04, 2006, 00:33: Message edited by: JT ]

 

This may be an alternative trade-off, but I hope there is a way to fix it.

p.s. why did I choose 16 for BBoD? No why. Just increased it by 10.

 

There are other spells of this type in the Druid's list. In fact, Druids have more spells of this type than any other singe caster in the game.
More's the pity.