The questionable use of area effect spells, silence and THAC0

[Thakrintiz]

I have just tried a new fun tactic with Irenicus...

Power Word, Silence him before he get ANY thing off...

It CAN be done, in the message box it goes:

Jon Irenicus- Silence

And yet 6 seconds later he is done casting time stop and other nasty spells...
he seems very fond of maze *grumble*

So silence doesnt work...
I have tried on liches, mages, i even used the horn of silence on those annoying quasits in Watchers Keep that keeps causing wild surges (i know this is a BG II SoA forum but since you can acces Watchers keep from SoA im posintg anyway, besides it wont kill you that this palce contains info on ToB) to no effect whatsoever!

Also the best tactic to killing liches was just using incindary cloud targetted somewhere in front of them, since there is no spell protection against 'area effect' spells (asides from stuff like protection from fire etc.) it killed them almost instantly, what with the being mages and having NO hps at all

But apparently that only works with "unnamed liches"

With "named" liches and spell casters etc. it just goes in the message box:

Thakrintiz casts Incindary Cloud
Autopause: Spell cast
Kangaxx- Spell Ineffective

Well thats really informative!
There is NO way that they can resist that!

Liches may be immune to electricity, cold, and acid but not fire, dammit!
I have encountered many other similar "errors" but i have, no matter how hard i think the message box through, check the manual, read the monstrous manual for 3rd edition, i havent found a logical solution to this!

Also the THAC0 is not exactly right....
My 14lvl Priest of Talos/27lvl Mage has a base THAC0 of about 10, now weilding Crom Faeyr, the "real" THAC0 is at -1, and against a War Dog (animal summoning I) i have to spend around 6 rounds trying to hit the bastard! (reason i summoned one in the first place was to study the THAC0) Also for that purpose i had set it to display To Hit Rolls, and it works fine, overlooking that it ONLY displays your own characters to hit rolls when they actually hit something! Other monsters To Hit Rolls are displayed whether they hit or not!
And it also states that i have 1 attack pr round, however when i count to 6 (one round) i have attacked at least 3 times...
With improved haste i also attack at least three times, even though it states that i now have 2 attacks pr. round....

Please if you know ANYTHING about these topics:
Post!

[Leonardo]

"Jon Irenicus- Silence

And yet 6 seconds later he is done casting time stop and other nasty spells...
he seems very fond of maze *grumble*

So silence doesnt work... "

I tried the same with the mages on the Harper´s hideout yesterday, and it just didn´t work with any of the two. Either: They cast Vocalize when I wasn´t watching or it was something I read somewhere else about how the designers scripted some enemies with ininterruptable spells.

"Thakrintiz casts Incindary Cloud
Autopause: Spell cast
Kangaxx- Spell Ineffective "

The demilich is immune to spells up to level 9. If he´s on normal lich form, maybe he set a spell immunity...

"Also the THAC0 is not exactly right....
My 14lvl Priest of Talos/27lvl Mage has a base THAC0 of about 10, now weilding Crom Faeyr, the "real" THAC0 is at -1, and against a War Dog (animal summoning I) i have to spend around 6 rounds trying to hit the bastard! (reason i summoned one in the first place was to study the THAC0) Also for that purpose i had set it to display To Hit Rolls, and it works fine, overlooking that it ONLY displays your own characters to hit rolls when they actually hit something! Other monsters To Hit Rolls are displayed whether they hit or not! "

Not a clue...

"And it also states that i have 1 attack pr round, however when i count to 6 (one round) i have attacked at least 3 times...
With improved haste i also attack at least three times, even though it states that i now have 2 attacks pr. round.... "

On the BG1 manual I remember that it´s stated that characters have a "cosmetic attack" on the screen, even if there´s no roll involved on that attack. Don´t remember seeing it for BG2, but since it´s still Infinity Engine

[Thakrintiz]

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING has ANY spell protections left after 1 ruby ray of reserval, 2 pierce magic, 2 khelbens warding whip, and 1 breach...

a good suggestion though i gotta admit

But if it had been spell immunity it would have said:

Thakrintiz- Kangaxx was immune to my damage...

[Xyx]

Leonardo has explained pretty much everything already. Here's what I have to add:

Originally posted by Thakrintiz
in the message box it goes:

Jon Irenicus- Silence

And yet 6 seconds later he is done casting time stop and other nasty spells...

A lot of the more powerful mages cheat. They force their spells, which means they will cast them regardless of your efforts to disrupt/silence them, and regardless of whether they already cast a spell that same "round".

Originally posted by Thakrintiz
i had set it to display To Hit Rolls, and it works fine, overlooking that it ONLY displays your own characters to hit rolls when they actually hit something!

The other attacks probably were "cosmetic" attacks, since you can only make one real attack every six seconds. If you are Improved Hasted, that will go up to two per round.

[Thakrintiz]

If it was then that would mean that at every chance i have struck ANYTHING i have hit it

Also on the topic of comsmetic attacks...
do they waste ammo for bows/slings/x-bows?

[Littiz]

Xyx is right, they're "cosmetic" attacks. The engine has to handle
up to 10 attacks/round (whirlwind) so the animations are prepared
with that purpose.
If your char has only one or two attacks, most of those that you
see are just "unreal".
This explains why you didn't see the rolls displayed.
You have really always hit the dog with your real attacks,
I assure you that even misses are displayed.
Just wait to roll a critical "1" and you'll see, or summon a tougher
monster for your testing!

Missile weapons work differently I think, I've never seen wasted
ammo...

[Silvanerian]

As Littiz somewhat explained: every non-hasted character that goes into melee swings 5 times a round (unless hit severe). A hasted character swings 6 times and a improved hasted/whirlwinded character swings 10 times. Now, in regular nonhasted combat your character will hit once (if not dualwielding) per round which leaves 4 cosmetic swings. To hit rolls are only stated for the real swings.

As Xyx stated Irenicis firces hos spells, but the not so tough mages usually has an instant vocalize prepared if silenced - have you tried to silence them twice? I don't know for sure if they force their vocalize (meaning that they don't have to memorize them, and that it's cast without interruption)
I've looked into some regular mages spellbooks and most have one vocalize memorized, so two silences might work.

By the way:
regular liches are immune to all 5th level and lower spells and the demilich is immune to all but 9th level spells, I think - maybe all spells (after an abi-dahlzim didn't work I dicided to go melee on him)

-Syl.