Two questions for Xyx...mislead and mirror image?

[UserUnfriendly]

All right, after a bit of playing around with mislead and mirror image for sorc protection I've come to the conclusion mirror image rock! It does protect the sorc from area effect spells, tried it with the nastiest spell i know, inc. cloud, and I just stood there until all mirros wer gone! Absolutely fabulous defense when party is hit by area effect spell to cast that, and have your mage cast retaliation spells without fear of spell disrupt!

With robe of vecna should be fast enough!

ANyway, What I don't understand is why mislead is such a great defensive spell. I understand that the mislead image can fight on your behalf, under certain conditions, and I tried to kill the decoy to see if I am still imp invisible, and I am, but i still don;t understand why mislead is better than imp invisible, and how it can protect you in the same way as prot from magic weps. do you mean that any attack by monsters and spells will automatically target the decoy? And while I understand about the faast shutter effect of a spell cster under imp invisible, what real advantages does mislead give you over imp invisible? I generally prefer it, since as a sorc I can just get mass inv and get all the benefit, and impr inv can be cast on other party members and make the one spell do the work of two, mass party defense and sending off my sorc to duel with a lich.

Pls give me examples of why mislead is better than imp inv. both seem to be really good spells, but quite frankly mislead seems to be a waste of a slot, as I have not combat tested mislead like you have.

Oh yeah, anybody who reads this poll, I am still in spell selction mode for a new game of soa, after finally figuring out my party selection...after many days of deliberation...so I have not been able to test out khelbens warding whip on a dragon or high level boss monster. I noticed when you cast that spell on a lich the AI would go into " restore spell protections mode" and it does nothing for several rounds during which you can hurl all sorts of nasty spells at it. This is essentially worthless, as XYx's favorite method of lich killing is to cast delayed action fireball at it, bypassing most spell protections and blasting thru lich immunities. mine is almost as simple, tho I use inc cloud as it too bypasses lich protection and will interrupt its spell casting as insurance.

but against dragons it might have a value. letsnot forget a dragon is not only a very nasty spell caster, but has breath weps and claw attacks. so if a dragon hit with warding whip goes into spell protections restore mode, this would be valuable as it might not attack via claw, wing or breath. so if someone could test out, I would be greatful.

not quite as nsaty as natures beauty or insect swarm, but both those do not protect your fighters from physical attacks by dragon though it can't spell cast at you.

think what a nasty combo this would be... hit with khelbens, and while it stand around, hit with natures beauty, so its spells and possibly breath weps are off for good! and move in fighters to bash to death.

[THE JAKER]

I think the thing with mislead is: you send the mislead image far away from the battle. nothing can target your real character until the mislead is dead, so... (i could be wrong.)

Hey while people are talking about spells I have a few questions too - I think I have noticed that a "true sight" will dispel your projected image - now I imagine that a spell immunity will stop this, but who casts the spell immunity? Do you cast it before you cast project image, or does the projected image cast it on itself? and is it spell immunity: divination? Thanks for the info.

[King Leoric]

By what i know, improved invisibility is composed of two things:

1 - A "regular" invisibility, wich really prevents anyone (well, almost!) to see (and attack) you, and is broken when you pick something from the ground, attack, cast certain spells, etc

2 - The "shimmering effect", wich, with some patches from baldurash gives to you a bonus of 4 to AC and savings and makes spells being unable to be cast at you.

The problem is that the "regular" invisibility is easily broken, and once you make your presence noticed, the enemies can attack you.

Now, with mislead, as long as your decoy is still alive, that "regular" invisibility CAN'T BE BROKEN (or is recast in fractions of a secound, i don't know), and that's great, since monsters will never attack you!!!

Do the tests yourself: Make a mage Cast impr inv on himself and send someone attack him, and the game will inform you that the target is gone (the "regular" inv is working). Now, make the mage's presence be noticed, by any means, and send someone to attack him, wich will happen with no problems.

Now, with mislead, you will always have your "regular invisibility", and thus no one will be able to attack you (At least if you have the latest patches...)

@Jaker:
The PI must cast SI divination on itself, so it won't be dispelled by true sight.


Also, i have a little doubt about Mirror Image: My main char always receives only 5 images, while imoen and aerie always receive 8 or 9, i don't know. So, why does it happen and what can i do to change it?

Oh, and i'd like to add that Kevin Dorner's patch to fix Impr inv (that wasn't giving the 4 point bonus to AC and savings) doesn't make this fix when the spell cast is Mislead, when it should, so...

[UserUnfriendly]

guys, I killed off the decoy with magic missiles, and I was still invisible.

I have my suspicions, I think mislead will have the decoy become the target of all attacks, which means if you want inv send off decoy, but in most situations, your decoy will soak up magic and physical attacks and even if killed will still leave you inv.

But until I play with it a while, I am not yet will ing to risk going into a nasty skirmish with nothing but mislead humming on the hope that all enemies will target teh decoy first, not without Xyx assuring me this is so.

oh, and i know what you guys are going to ask next, will a projected image, which can be dispelled by dispell magic be invulnerable with spell immunity abjuration? Yes it is.

A dispell magic cast by either side will work. So my tech of casting khelbens on dragons has at least one benefit...unless you manage to whomp with a long spell disrupter, like nature s beauty, if you fight with projected images, like I do, their scripts will generate a dispell magic at some point. since I prefer to fight my battles with images, this is a necessary safeguard for me, since jaheira did not have creeping doom the last time I faced red dragon

[THE JAKER]

Well thanks guys, I appreciate the prompt response. User I know you've delved pretty deeply into the projected image, which I have only done a little work with. I never had Edwin in a party before, and I want to make sure that when i get my present game up to that point I can protect his images properly and get the most bang for my buck. He's so funny - when he levels up and gets a new page in his spellbook and he has 4 slots!!

[UserUnfriendly]

Projected images rock. so much so taht it makes shadow sorcerors possible. This is a new class...

you hack a sorc with shadow keeper, and give it about twice the number of spells a regular sorc has, but you cannot use spell triggers or any contingency spellls! this is due to limitations in the spell, chain cont and triggers. if you have more spells in the slots than the game normally allows, with all enhance items, the spell will produce a cont screen, but too many spells will casue the screen to drop spells and generally make it unreliable for setting up such.

so I play a shadow sorc and never use cont or triggers, but have all the spells I want. this causes my tactics to be slightly bizzare...

lots of traps, and one nice thing about project image is that it never triggers or inits dialog and are not considered a true char...for example, in the second visit to demogorgon, you must avoid the platform with chains until you're ready to face him, right? Wrong! The image can go anywhere without triggering the next game event. makes it the ultimate trapper, mage or even thief. I am pretty sure you can cast traps and other special ability while image, thus making jan evil beyond compare. this is how to trap areas that have specific trigger points that a regular char will trigger....like the twisted rune, a little farsight will go a long way...

and since my sorc cannot cast spell triggers and such, its still quite powerful, but I go thru a lot of timestops that way. time stop does work, but spell triggers and such while your image can launch them, they fizzle. I'm not sure about simmy, but images cannot launch triggers anyway.

oh yeah, any protections you have up must be recast by image for the image to have them, except those confirred by items. and if you had increased acuity up and running befoer image, that needs recasting too.

I am not looking foward to a lot of fightsss in tob, with certain monsters immune to timestop. sigh.

I tend to use timestop as my replacement for triggers and such. its all the faught of the 7th and 8th level spells, you know. they are so good and there are 8 spells I really wanted in lv 7, I just could not make up my mind!

If I ever go regular mage I'll probably go thief mage, but I'll just have the same problem all the time...which spells do I grab for a particular day? I already have enough problems and annoyanc with immys and aerie's spell book as it is.

oh yeah, images can cast mislead and mirror image too. just don't cast dispell magic, always cast remove magic.

[Bruce Lee]

Mislead is THE spell for my FMT. Just cast in and move in for the kill. I can backstab over and over again hehehe. It is cheesy.

[UserUnfriendly]

yes, I know a lot of people say that, but WHY? what makes it better than imp inv? or even shadow door?

so far I suspect the decoy will automatically casue enemy ai to target it, but thats not a significant improvement over imp inv. I've noticed that imp inv with spell immunity will cause most spell casters to do nothing and just stand around with their thumbs up thier you-know-what while soaking up your attacks. having the decoy will actually make it worse in many ways...the ai and script will still launch, so the mage or lich will start sending spells tword the decoy, possibly a dispell magic or a area effect spell...

this is a bad thing....

[UserUnfriendly]

one more thing...I know you can send decoy off into fog of war, in which case you are imp invisible, and no decoy to draw enemy fire, but this is still not good, without decoy the mislead spell is a improved invisibility, but WORSE! because you cannot cast on another party member...

so far I have only really seen disadvantages to mislead...


sorry xyx, I know how much you love that spell, but I still cant figure out why...

seems like imp inv with a few disadvantages... unless the decoy can attack via meelee? Ok for fighter mage or thief mage, but useless for a sorc. anyway, how do you get the decoy to attack?

[Xyx]

King Leoric hits the proverbial nail on the head. Invisibility comes in two stages; "true" invisibility and the shimmering. Mislead almost instantly re-applies the true invisibility if you break it (by attacking, spellcasting, initiating dialog or opening containers).

Because Mislead keeps you truly invisible at all times, enemies cannot see you and will not react to your presence. They can see the decoy and will go after it. When the decoy is destroyed, you will no longer be truly invisible. For this reason, you might want to keep the decoy out of the fight. If enemies can't kill it, you'll keep your true invisibility.

Thieves can backstab whenever they are truly invisible (whether through Hide in Shadows, spells or items). Since Mislead makes them truly invisible almost immediately after backstabbing, they can backstab again on their next attack.

King Leoric is also right about Spell Immunity - Divination. It has to be cast by the clone to keep the clone alive. Mislead decoys cannot cast spells, so will always be killed by True Sight.

The Mislead decoy can attack under some pretty hazy circumstances. I think it were my Projected Image's decoys that could. Second generation clones show some other glitches as well (no name, default soundset, no spells or items). Try having your Project Image or Simulacrum cast Mislead; those decoys can probably attack.

[edit] Oh, about the Mirror Images; I also noticed that my protagonist would get less images than Nalia... I have no idea why!


[ 09-24-2001: Message edited by: Xyx ]

[Bruce Lee]

Xyx I have a question that maybe you can answer.
Many liches cast mislead but it doesn't seem to work the same way for them. I can usually see both him and his decoy and sometimes I have killed him and his decoy has still been there. The question is, why isn't he invisible? This was the case when I fought Kangaxx.

[UserUnfriendly]

Bruce, I think that you're talking about the idiot tactic of many liches to cast mislead after they cast fire shield red....which will surround true lich rather than the decoy. thus, you know who to whack.

Xyx, let me get this straight. and I hate to be a downer about this, but mislead makes enourmous sense for the thief mage, but what does it do for the sorc?

The only way I would keep it for a sorc is if mislead does something more....

yes, I fully understand about the backstab increase via thief mage. this will with spell immunity be now jan's favorite spell. who needs assassination?

Just backstab with hindo's doom and scarlet ninja to on the off hand, or kundane and scarlet ninja to, and improved haste will give jan an enourmous amount of backstabs per round!

ANyway, sorry. ok, so the sorc goes in a room under mislead, with decoy next to rest of party. cast a spell, and as soon as incantation begins, everyone is alerted. or is that the csae with mislead? I know you've played spell slinger with mislead and imp inv befoer, so what I am getting at is does mislead offer more value for the straight sorc than impr inv?

The way I see it, because my spell slelection is limited, I would prefer a party usefull spell rather than a spell caster spell only, unless mislead offers a lot more than faster shutter speed. quite frankly, with imp inv. I never get targetted by spells anyway, after I get in the room and cast my first area effect spell. the enemy spell casters still stand around, thier scripts unable to deal with a spell caster undetectable by true sight. but if mislead will suppress the reactions of the enemy fighters, now thats something!!!!!

Does the rapid shutter effect prevent fighters from going after you? You blow your cover after the first spell anyway, but if you can avoid being targetted by fighters becasue they cannot find the shimmer, then mislead will become my fav new spell! Thats it, isn't it???

imp inv has shimmer after spell casting because the fighters are looking for it, but mislead is combo of imp inv and sanctuary, which is totally untargetable. so after a offensive action is initiated by spell caster, you go back into true inv so the fighters lose targetting lock and also stand around with thumbs up their you-know-whats.

Xyx, is that what happens?

And will misleaad work on creatuers that can see inv too? demi liches and so forth...

[Bruce Lee]

Try casting mislead and I think you'll see just how good it is. If you cast mislead away from the enemies and then move in you can do whatever you want for the duration of that spell. Nobody will notice you. A bit cheesy perhaps but I like it.

[Xyx]

Indeed, that's it. You're not 100% safe, but I'd say at least 95%. Every now and then, some creature's script will run immediately after you break true invisibility. It will then spot you and try to do something. Usually, you become truly invisible long before they get to you, but once or twice a year, they actually get a shot off. This is extremely rare, though. Like Bruce Lee says; try it out! You won't be disappointed. I promise.

Another Mislead advantage (though neglectable if you have the Robe of Vecna) is that it casts really fast. I use it as my "Oh, cr@p!" spell when I run into something nasty while not prepared.

Mislead works best when the caster soloes; the rest of the party still gets targeted normally. Mislead does not make enemies target the decoy, it simply makes them unable to target the caster.

Some creatures can see through invisibility and will probably see through Mislead's invisibility as well. Still, they'll not ignore the decoy any more because of that. Send it up to them to draw fire away from you.

Quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Lee: <STRONG>Many liches cast mislead but it doesn't seem to work the same way for them. I can usually see both him and his decoy and sometimes I have killed him and his decoy has still been there. The question is, why isn't he invisible? This was the case when I fought Kangaxx.</STRONG>

Maybe you hit the ground near him with high level area spells? Like UserUnfriendly said, they're usually easy to spot, with their Fireshield and Spell Turning.

[UserUnfriendly]

Xyx, may I respectfully submit you should add those cheesy points about breaking fighter ai scripts in your spell guide? I was intrigued by mislead by your glowing discriptions of it in your spell guide, but until you showed me the LIGHT, or rather the lack of it, hee hee, that I now understand misleads full power.

first it is a method of duplicating with active hostile spells the evil trick of sanctuary blade barrior. you can cast, then be ignored again rapidly. this makes a sorc immune to retaliation. and for shadow sorcs, it is obviously the best spell...send up decoy next to dragon, or lich, and they will waste spells on decoy and ignore you all together. or just take advantage of rapid shutter effect so they lose targeting lock and are easy meat.


once again, I bow to the cheese master.

IS THAT LIMBERGER I SMELL!!!