Rant about area effect spells and abilities

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What was BI thinking when they decided to make some area effects and abilities affect party members when in BG and BG2 they don't. I got so p.o.ed the first time I had my druid cast Insect Plague at a group of creatures only to have it affect my party members also. Right now I am helping Iselore defend the Heartstone Gem. I had my cleric cast Holy Word and it stunned my wizard in the process. Had to sell a perfectly good Plate of the Balor cause when an enemy hit the wearer and the randome number generator rolled that magic number it would cast Cloak of Fear. That too would affect party members. Almost lot my whole group to mere wolves because of that. Spell like Fireball and Lightning Bolt I can see, but spell that in the other games don't affect party members I can't understand why they decided to change it of IWD2. Rant off

 

Actually, some spells you mentionned ARE supposed to affect party members, per D&D rules. BioWare decided to tweak them so they wouldn't. Black Isle are in fact simply implementing the spells as they're supposed to work.

For Holy Word, it will affect all evil creatures, whether in your party or not. Likewise, if there are nonevil creatures attacking you, Holy Word will not affect them. This is how the spell is supposed to work.

 

Ok, I'll give you that about Holy Word, but Insect Plague, and Creeping Doom DO NOT AFFECT your party members in 3E rules. I play PnP D&D every Friday. I haven't played 2nd Ed since high school so I don't remember what the rules for those spells. Cloak of Fear isn't a spell I recognize from any edition of D&D, but I do know that any spell that encites fear in the caster's enemies does not affect party members. Insect Plague and Creeping Doom use to be something useful against spell casters and to lower the morale of groups of creatures. Now in IWD2 it seems to me they are utterly useless.

 

I wouldn't go as far as saying they're useless. You can still cast them on a group of enemies before you engage them in melee, just the way you use Fireball. Creeping Doom is still a pretty good spell to disable enemy mages (even though I agree it was much more powerful in its BG2 implementation)

 

Ziad, you're right. I guess I was just so ticked off after completing BG2 SoA/ToB I was used to those spells, then I start playing IWD2 which is "supposed" to be 3E rules and I just got mad. Twice most of my party was disabled by something that didn't work that way in BG2. Why the change I wonder? It's not like they affect party members in PnP D&D.

 

Probably for balance reasons.

 

For Holy Word, it will affect all evil creatures, whether in your party or not. Likewise, if there are nonevil creatures attacking you, Holy Word will not affect them. This is how the spell is supposed to work.

>Holy Word affects neutrals as well if your cleric is good aligned. As much as I can tell, it affects anyone of different alignment than cleric be ally or enemy. Also for that reason I believe Blasphemy is useless since there'r no good aligned ppl that u have to kill in this game.

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Otherwise there's a bug with Wail of the Banshee since it's supposed to affect ur party as well but it doesn't, also a Ressurection doesn't work as described etc.

Also spell resistance is bugged since it doesn't affect area effective spells at all(your char always takes the damage unlike in BG or NWN for example).

I believe the game was rushed to the market way too early, and designers in the end just gave up and stopped updating this game any(too many problems), but it's still very enjoyable regardless and no significant problems exist like in many other games.