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Glitterdust.

 

Thank you, Splunge!

 

Other than Cam's suggestion, the single-target antimagic spells - Secret Word, Warding Whip, and the like - have a small area of effect in SCSII (if you install the appropriate component) precisely because I rather agree with you about SI: Div. Some of them will work to take it down.

It's vanilla game legal (try it). Some people (e.g. Sikret, and Demivrgvs on the G3 boards) think that the game would be better if you could only use one at a time, and so their mods block multiple spell immunities. I can see a case for this but I happen to disagree, so SCSII doesn't block it for the player and doesn't shy away from using it for enemies.

It's possible this is a bug, but I doubt it. Enemies will still autocast long-duration protective spells (e.g. Stoneskin and Minute Meteors) on that component; and they might have three or four spells in Chain Contingencies and Contingencies; and they might use a spell sequencer in the first round. That can add up to eight or nine spells. Have a look next time you fight a lich or archmage, and if you're still worried, send me the list of what spells they actually autocast.

Probably a bug. Which power?

No, but I can't reproduce the problem locally; if you've got other mods than SCSII installed, it might be a compatibility problem.

 

I don't understand that at all. What's the point of invisibility if not to grant protection from such single-target spells? If you wanted to make Improved Invisibility + SI: D less overpowered surely there are better and less arbitrary ways to do it.

 

Thanks for the response, David W.

I'll try those in future. I was having a lot of trouble with Deirex, but then I think quitting and reloading changed his spell loadout, so he didnt use invisibility, and consequently I was able to use breach and kill him. I saw he had a Chain Contingency, which fired a few spells, and later on a Contingency, with Protection From Magical Weapons. If I come across another situation where a spellcaster looks he might be autocasting spells, I'll send you a list of the spells.

Dont know. When I fight the illithid in the sewers, I'll take note of which power it was. All I know is that I cast Chaotic Commands on my 2 best fighters, and sent them in. The rest of my party was over 2 screens away. They took damage, although not enough to be fatal even to the mages.

I think I have shadow thief enhancements installed. Didnt know if he was supposed to be like that because I'm used to improved Mae Var. Most likely it was the shadow thief enhancements then.

As I see it, the problem with that is that its too overpowered. Glitterdust is the only thing I can think of (thanks CamDawg) that can take down invisibility with SI. Not even dispel magic works, and that is intended to be area of effect. If I could dispel the SI, and then use True Sight, that would be something, but as such, I'm left with no options.

 

Well, with the proviso that this is just a judgement call and not meant to be the "right" answer...

Short answer: the "point" of improved invisibility (at least in SCSII) is to grant protection from actual attack spells.

Slightly longer answer: I prefer a game in which getting through an enemy's magical protections isn't tooo much of a logic puzzle. So I'd prefer there to be various spells that can protect you from various attacks and various spells that can bring down the former set of spells, and (partly because I find vast numbers of reloads break suspension of disbelief) I'd rather not have too many battles where you have to have learned just the right combination of anti-magic spells.

I also find (at least on my preferred style of play) that SI: Div combos tend to lead to rather "tense-boredom" style encounters where you can't do very much other than play a waiting game, hoping that the enemy wizard's spells won't kill you before his protections expire.

In SCSII, an archmage might be protected by (say) Spell Turning, Globe of Invulnerability, Improved Invisibility, SI: Abj, and SI: Div (as well as various anti-melee and anti-elemental-damage spells). It's going to be a sustained effort for the party mages to bring those defences down (so they can either hit him with their own spells or Breach his protections and let the melee fighters in) but they can at least get on with it: two or three mid-to-high-level antimagic spells will bring down the spell protections, then Truesight or Glitterdust will drop the II.

I don't want to defend the claim that it's the only way to do it, or the way that leads to the hardest battles, or the way that suits everyone's style of play, but I will defend the claim that it's a way that seems to work for me and for others who've played SCSII, and that it strikes a reasonable balance between indestructible mages and instantly-killable mages. It also makes it easier to script enemies to counter player use of Invisibility without the extreme strategy of just letting them see through it.

 

If you are referring to the Rogue Rebalancing component then note that it (deliberately) doesn't alter any quests or characters related to Mae'Var's guild. Therefore, this issue can not be caused by it.

 

@Proteus: my bad, I have found the problem with the Mae'var priest. Will fix for next version; thanks for that. (Workaround: attack him; he'll go hostile.)

 

Forgive me if this is incorrect, but could you not just bring down the Spell Turning with a single (e.g.) Pierce Magic spell, then Breach this archmage and cut him to pieces in melee? Breach can also bypass improved invisibility in SCSII, right?

 

No, Breach is still single-target. (Good point, though, I should have made that clearer.)

 

Seeing as you need to get rid of the II before you can target him with breach, you need to either use glitterdust, or an area of effect spell like ruby ray.

with the invis dispelled, hes easy game. ALthough, wouldnt SI:Abj protect you from breach too?

Cool, thanks for that. I only noticed it because I launched a bunch of area of effect spells at Mae Var, including cloudkill. He died of course, but I lost 8 reputation points. So next reload, I just waltzed in and took him out, and found the priest there. I didnt try to find out if attacking the priest caused the reputation drop, was most likely the prisoners in the cells near mae var.

Just fought Firkraag, he has a few tricks up his sleeve!