Spell questions - Caster level et al

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Well, Sir Rechet did imply "hilarity" as another possible standard. I guess it depends on your mood.

-Max

P.S. I guess the problem I have personally with micromanagement--and I say this without rendering judgment on whether sneak-attacking multiple enemies requires micromanagement--is that even though it may net you greater DPS as measured in game-time, by definition it requires large investments of player-time and attention. At a certain point I'd just rather not worry about a 10% increase in damage that I could get from casting a short-term buff like Luck, I'd rather just wait the extra 2 seconds for the combat to complete.

 

Let's see...

Investing in spellcraft will allow you to get the arcane elemental feats. It will also allow you to recognize the spell that an enemy mage is casting before it is cast, and sometimes get out of its area of effect. Seems pretty useful to me.

Investing in Knowledge Arcana can let you ID plenty of items without having to cast an Identify spell or spend money for a merchant to ID the items. Seems pretty useful to me.

Alchemy can let you solve a certain "puzzle" in Dragon's Eye on your own, although you can actually solve this "puzzle" without any alchemy by simple trickery (which I didn't realize until recently).

Hide and Move Silently allow you to use stealthy tactics. I happen to LOVE using stealthy tactics, so I get a LOT of value out of these two skills. But if you don't use stealthy tactics, then of course you won't get any value out of them.

Wilderness Lore is a generally useless skill. However, I tend to think that it makes the Fell Wood rather easier to get thru, and is worth investing a couple of SP into for a ranger, barbarian, or druid. (or even a cleric) But aside from the Fell Wood, anyone that's played IWD2 a few times will certainly know what monsters are where and won't get any value out of WL.

I've never tried using Animal Empathy. There certainly are a few places where you might be able to use it, but since it's a CHA based skill and I almost always dump some CHA on my ranger or druid, it would largely be a wasted skill.

The Talking skills are hardly "necessary" though they can open up alternative dialog options, some of which can yield XP or solutions that don't require simply killing the enemies in question. In other words, the talking skills allow for some role-playing options that might not otherwise be available.




I think that some of the skills are rather useless, but many are very useful. I tend to look at the point of view that all skills are useless as yet another instance of powergaming uber alles.

 

Crucis,

I think those skills are all at best about on par with Use Magic Device, which lets you cast spells you otherwise couldn't and use items like the Horn of Valhalla and wands. In response to the Thurisaz's complaint about Use Magic Device, what I meant to say was, "Hey, evaluate the opportunity cost." I actually enjoy Hide/Move Silently a lot.

As an aisde: in Fell Wood, I think that far more important than Wilderness Lore is knowing that certain paths don't open up until you go back to the village and get a new quest. Solving a mapping puzzle is fun. Solving a mapping puzzle whose solution does not exist yet is not fun.

-Max

 

It depends on the kind of micromanagement, for the lack of a better word.

I play all my characters myself (with AI off), issue commands and adjust tactics several times per combat round and find it enjoyable. I'm micromanaging my guys a LOT, actually.

However, I have issues with having to do game mechanics related tasks when I could be playing instead. For example, switching between Bard songs every two rounds can get tiresomely repetitive, to the point of not bothering with it anymore in the end. Or doing a full rest/rebuff routine just because one of my characters literally lives or dies by the presence of a buff that has short duration or low number of castings per day or even worse - both. Or like in Baldur's Gate series, where dual-wielding and ranged weaponry are a bad mix due to needing several inventory management steps for switching between them.

That's why I seek solutions that give me solid performance without having to jump through a lot of hoops to achieve it.

As for the stealthy rogue approach: I like the idea very much indeed and realize its potential. It's just that there's a HUGE repetitive component involved and I kinda like the constant melee skirmish pace of play better than the short burst of intense action separated by long interludes of sneaky scheming.

 

I agree, Rechet, there are certain "kinds" of things where it can be difficult to do certain things, such as your example of dual wielding and ranged weapons in BG2.

As for your final example of constant melee vs. short intense bursts of action, I can enjoy both. Major battles are unavoidable. But sometimes it's possible to open a major battle with a stealthy assassination of an enemy spell caster. I guess that I do enjoy the stealthy approach... the slow, quiet approach into the enemy's midst followed by the unexpected attack. It may be slow, but I enjoy the realistic feel of it. And it breaks up the feel of having every single battle be a frontal assault.

 

Proper use of talking skills could also land you valuable rewards early game that you wouldn't be able to receive otherwise. A potion of fireball and additional flasks of fire for the Targos wall battle, for example. Besides better gear and stuff.
Pick Pockets/Sleight of Hand is the same.

 

How do you get that? Is it a reward from Shawford Crale?

-Max

 

A reward from Sherwood for giving him the 300 arrows.

 

Fire flasks from Shawford Crale, the fireball potion from Oswald (you can buy it off him, only possible if you used your diplomacy/pickpocket skills to accumulate enough cash for it).

 

By the way, I tested this the other day, and found out, that in IWD2 Flesh to stone turns the enemy to a statue, but with a melee/missile strike you can destroy the statue and get the loot as usual.

So while Disintegrate is sure to do damage, the petrification effect is instant.

I seem to remember that a paladin or a ranger casts spells at lower levels than clerics or druids - for example a level 30 paladin wouldn't get +10 STR, DEX & CON with DUHM while a cleric would, is this true? I've got to check these things once I get home.

 

For rangers the casting level is half the ranger level (rounded down if .5), I guess it's the same for paladins.

 

Funny stuff I found out

About scrolls

I tested Tenser and DUHM with a lvl 30 rogue, lvl1 wiz/lvl 29 cleric and a lvl 30 sorc.

The two, who casted the Tenser's from scrolls, had it for roughly 1/3 (the same amount of time for both of them) the duration of the sorc's tenser - easily lasting a big battle. Possibly this is due to it being cast at minimum level 11 - and 11 rounds is a long time.

By the way, the cleric had Int 3 - so without int and only one wiz level one can cast all arcane spell scrolls.

DUHM cast by lvl 30 paladin gives +5 to S & D & C, a cleric's gives +10. DUHM cast from potion gives only +1, and from a warhammer of might it gives +2. Couldn't test the scroll - dalekeeper can't give one.

So... it seems that one level of wizard is actually a very good idea for any non-arcane caster - the ability to use arcane scrolls, cloak of mystra and an extra feat is nothing to sneer at (at least if one can find enough scrolls to benefit from this ability). This makes moon elves a better race than I initially thought. Also, when casting spells from scrolls, there's no chance of spell failure, no matter what armour one wears and how much punishment is absorbed. Elemental damage feats work fine when casting spells from scrolls, not sure about spell focus or penetration feats.

The funny thing here is that very many lvl6+ arcane spells don't get much better with levels, so it's almost as good (easier to save against, though) to cast them from scrolls, including but not limited to funny summoning spells. Many of those spells have fixed duration and effect. The only problem is finding many of them - is there any merchant who sells unlimited scrolls?

About skills & feats

Funny stuff I found out when leveling my test characters: I noted that rogue gets extra feats too - the same amount as a wizard, but no extras between levels 1-9. A rogue getting from level 1 to 30 gets 17 feats while a wiz gets 16 (for the record a fighter would get 25). No other class gets extra feats.

Also: barbarian, ranger, druid, monk and bard gets an extra skillpoint per level. Rogues get +3 skillpoints per level, not 2x. Low INT can lower this value, but not lower than 1 (2 for humans).

 

Confused

He guys, there's something i don't fully grasp.

quote:
"I think those skills are all at best about on par with Use Magic Device, which lets you cast spells you otherwise couldn't and use items like the Horn of Valhalla and wands. In response to the Thurisaz's complaint about Use Magic Device, what I meant to say was, "Hey, evaluate the opportunity cost." "

I always thought that skill is only important for thiefs that like to use magic devices "as if they were wizards". If I'm correct, there's no sense in spending points there for sorc, bard and wizard.

Can someone clarify this? I get spells I otherwise don't??? uuhh???

 

If IWD works the same as PnP, a Wizard with points in UMD could activate wands containing Cleric spells. Also, I think you need a UMD check to activate a wand that contains a spell of a level you're unable to cast yet.

 

In IWD2 Use Magic Device is bard/rogue only -skill. It allows the character to use wands and scrolls that only arcane or divine casters normally could.

Cleric1/Druid1/Wiz1/RogueX would have no use for the skill - he could already use every scroll and wand there is.

 

Use magic device is useless, even with extremely high skill the chance to fail is quite high.

Rogues get bonus feats at level 10,13,16, ...