Do you think Abi-Dalzim's HW is too strong?

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The non-cumulative Doom is included in Baldurdash fixpack. I'm not sure why he made it that way because in the description nowhere is stated that it should be cumulative or not.

Because of that, I'd leave that spell as it originally was made by Bioware: cumulative.

If you want to get the original cumulative Doom back, just delete SPPR113.SPL from your override folder.

 

That explains it: I do have the latest Baldurdash fix installed. But I'll leave the non-cumulative Doom as it is...otherwise the whole games becomes no challenge at all: 3xLower Resistance, 5xDoom then Chromatic Orb/Polymorph Other/Finger of Death/etc... just boring. The -6 penalty you get with Doom and Greater Malison combined is more balanced: it will still leave enemies a good chance of survival, plus you can't cast as many Malisons as Dooms (the fact that it's got area effect doesn't matter as instant-death attacks are single-creature spells).

EDIT:

I checked Baldurdash's fixpack readme and here's the explanation:

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Cumulative Effect Spells and Abilities Fixes

The .SPL files SPPR111, SPPR113, SPPR210, SPPR306, SPPR406, SPPR412, SPPR513, SPWI107, SPWI201, SPWI319, SPWI320, SPWI702, SPWI803, SPCL423, SPCL907, SPCL913, SPCL914 and SPCL917 contained in this archive are modified versions of Baldur's Gate 2 spell definitions for the priest spells Armor of Faith, Doom, Resist Fire/Cold, Protection From Fire, Defensive Harmony, Holy Power, Righteous Magic, the wizard spells Friends, Blur, Protection From Fire, Protection From Cold, Protection From The Elements and Protection From Energy, the Assassin Poison Weapon ability, and the high-level Throne Of Bhaal abilities Hardiness (warriors), Evasion, Greater Evasion and Avoid Death (rogues) respectively. They resolve the oversight of these spells being cumulative/stackable; their effects would add up over multiple castings. As verified with BioWare (specifically, Senior Designer David Gaider) spells (especially protection spells) should only be cumulative if explicitly indicated.

As well, other errors with these spells were resolved[etc]
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So you see I was right. Taking advantage of multiple castings of the same spell is completely cheesy, unless the spell is explicitely supposed to be cumulative (like Lower Resistance). Sorry for you.

[This message has been edited by Israfel (edited April 16, 2002).]

 

Really? Then why that Senior Designer haven't fixed it himself? Why is that not stated in manual? Why does ordinary player need to experiment to find out about if it is cumulative or not? Also, why the text in dialog.tlk file wasn't changed so we have no second thoughts?

Bioware had it's chance and years to fix all bugs (and believe me those are not just few as I previously thought). Unlike Baldurdash, the fixpack I'm constructing won't change anything that is not specifically mentioned in any description or is not logical.
You see, the player who bought the game can't read the mind of Bioware designers. The player reads the description of each thing in the game or in the manual and expects that game behaves like it is stated in description or in the manual. Of course, if description is different than the manual, then description is what counts - manual was printed before the game release and patches.

It was nice of Baldurdash to ask designers if something should be fixed or not. I don't have time for that just as designers didn't have time to fix things on their own. Ok, maybe not fix all things, but at least the descriptions. So much for that.

And you have no right to call players cheesy just because they don't have a crystal ball to see inside what was designers' idea about something.
If you want it to be non-cumulative, write a mail to Bioware and they will make it non-cumulative in the next patch. Or they won't?

I think they won't.

[This message has been edited by Extremist (edited April 17, 2002).]

 

Well, you are right saying I had no right calling those people cheesy. I apologise for that.

As for the (non)-cumulative Doom, however, I insist in my position. You say: "I won't change anything that is not specifically stated in the description/manual or that is not logical." But this bug just falls into that cathegory: the description doesn't say whether Doom is cumulative or not, while logic says that a L1 spell should not be an overkiller (as cumulative Doom is).

 

Doom is not a bug. And doesn't fall into any category.

I don't find illogical L1 spell that can be obtained by solo Ranger or Paladin at pretty high level - as a cumulative. I find your point about illogic - illogical.

Btw, Doom is not overkiller just as Gmalision isn't too - both will fail if the target has significant magic resistance. And I certainly won't use Doom nor Gmalision against some puny goblins.

Remember, I won't depower anything that is based on the ground "developers ment to do it like that" if I don't have a good enough argument (AKA description) to confirm it. Developers ment many things, but Haer'Dalis never got his romance nor murder quest alive. Such is life.