About That Enchanting Suggestion

[Diilicious]

Let epic enchanters have a spell that upon casting, spawns 4 modelless, voicepackless, indestructable, unhittable NPC's that can not be controlled nor do any damage of any kind, if the target fails the will save they will begin to try and attack the invisible NPC's, otherwise they will just ignore them.

This would simulate the enchanter making the target (or targets) believe that there are some creatures trying to kill them though in reality and to anyone watching they are just fighting with air because there is nothing actually there and its all in their head.

Sounds more like an illusion spell.

It would be an illusion if the things you summoned were some kind of creature that everyone would be able to see and take note of, but that wasnt the suggestion
If youve been enchanted you and you alone are going to believe there really are monsters trying to kill you. When everyone around you sees nothing and hears nothing. Just a pc that looks to be in combat all by theirself.

That is the definition of somebody being enchanted.

[Kalopsia]

Let epic enchanters have a spell that upon casting, spawns 4 modelless, voicepackless, indestructable, unhittable NPC's that can not be controlled nor do any damage of any kind, if the target fails the will save they will begin to try and attack the invisible NPC's, otherwise they will just ignore them.

This would simulate the enchanter making the target (or targets) believe that there are some creatures trying to kill them though in reality and to anyone watching they are just fighting with air because there is nothing actually there and its all in their head.

Sounds more like an illusion spell.

It would be an illusion if the things you summoned were some kind of creature that everyone would be able to see and take note of, but that wasnt the suggestion
If youve been enchanted you and you alone are going to believe there really are monsters trying to kill you. When everyone around you sees nothing and hears nothing. Just a pc that looks to be in combat all by theirself.

That is the definition of somebody being enchanted.

Actually I’m pretty sure it would be a Phantasm, which is a subschool of Illusion.

”Phantasms are personal mental images conjured into the subject's mind such as making them believe that they are witnessing their worst nightmare or a loved one. Observers see nothing.”

That said, let’s not derail this thread any further.
Instead of Enchantment Basin related cookies, I would suggest a chat command spell for epic Enchanters that, for thirty seconds, gives an area the “no PvP” flag.
Alternatively perhaps a cooldown on Dominate Person/Monster.

[JediMindTrix]

Allowing more than one dominated henchman really isn't the best idea. You can already combine them an EDK, and you there are some powerful creatures out there that can be dominated already, which I will leave unnamed so they do not suddenly become immune to mind affecting spells. It's not the same as Undead, where the developer can be certain that the player only has two of this particular creature, which is easy to balance.
Minor attribute bonuses with gsf and a duration boost with esf is probably as good as it can get before venturing into 'oops too strong', unfortunately.

[Rwby]

I thought control undead was the problematic domination spell? Which, ironically, isn't enchantment.

[TimeAdept]

Arn't enchantment spells quite... ~Good~

Though? A successful cast of Hold Monster is a GG as a Finger of Death, in most cases.

The reason necromancy gets ~zero~ buffs is because the spell school is just considered good enough alone, yet Enchantment gets super server essential crafting tweaks, and is a solid spellschool?

Compare this to divination, which if you have an epic focus gives you a RP tool to use on the unsuspecting, and otherwise is flat useless, particularly mechanically.

I just don't buy that Enchantment Focuses are somehow mega bad without the 'Enchantment' cookie.

You can't -pray out of dead.

Divination has the best single target kill spell in the game in PW:K.

And PW:K is related a discussion on Spell Focuses how...?

You're the one that brought up Divination and said it's useless mechanically when it has 3 of the best single target disables and kills in the game now when you have ESF Divination.

[Rwby]

Is this another Wiki Issue? The Wiki doesn't state anything about ESF Divination having any affect on any of the Power Words, the only Divination spell with a DC based save the Spell Focuses affect is Feeblemind.

All divination focuses do aside from increase the DC of feeblemind is tell peoples auras, read the deck of stars, improve the DC of detect evil, and Scry. Detect evil has terrible DC anyway, and Paladins can't even take ESF unless they're hybrids.

I guess they also boost the duration of True Sight by a handful of rounds?

I'm not saying Power Word Kill is bad. I'm saying Spell Focus Divination is a mechanically useless RP cookie that has marginal RP use at Epic levels against people who don't know how to counter it.

Compared to the other schools, it's distinctly sub-par. Largely because most of the divination school didn't translate well from PnP and got dropped.

[TimeAdept]

Update to Divination Spells
--------------------------------

FEEBLEMIND
- Now does CHA damage as well.
- If the target has arcane caster levels (i.e. bard, sorc, wizard), the DC is increased by +4.
- If Feeblemind reduces the target's INT to 3 or less, the spell stuns for 1 round / level in addition to the usual effect.
- The vanilla NWN bug with Maximized Feeblemind has been fixed. Metamagic should apply normally.

POWER WORD, STUN
- Targets with more than 150 hit points will now be affected by this spell. Such targets must make a Will save or be stunned for 1d4 rounds (duration modified by metamagic). The DC of this saving throw increases based on the target's hit points.
151-200 HP: +3 DC
201-250 HP: +2 DC
251-300 HP: +1 DC
301+ HP: +0 DC

POWER WORD, KILL
- When targeting a single creature, this spell will now affect targets with more than 100 hit points. Such targets must make a Fortitude save or die. The DC of the saving throw increases based on the target's hit points.
101-150 HP: +3 DC
151-200 HP: +2 DC
201-250 HP: +1 DC
251+ HP: +0 DC

All mentioned DCs are modified by Divination Spell Foci.

[Rwby]

Thanks!

I'm really going to have to stop relying on the Wiki. I think I've been corrected on the forums 5 times in the last week now about things I've quoted from there.

[Baron Saturday]

Thanks!

I'm really going to have to stop relying on the Wiki. I think I've been corrected on the forums 5 times in the last week now about things I've quoted from there.

I think you might just be looking in the wrong places, tbh. The changes that TimeAdept listed, for instance, are mentioned on the wiki under Spell changes.

[Rwby]

Thanks!

I'm really going to have to stop relying on the Wiki. I think I've been corrected on the forums 5 times in the last week now about things I've quoted from there.

I think you might just be looking in the wrong places, tbh. The changes that TimeAdept listed, for instance, are mentioned on the wiki under Spell changes.

http://wiki.arelith.com/Feat_changes#Feat_changes

~
Spell Focus: Divination

Spell Focus: Divination allows a character see whether a character is "attuned" to Life, Death, Fire, Water, Earth, or Air along the usual information of the Right Click>Examine. Through trial and error association, a player may learn much about another character's habits and abilities from their attunement. Also allows a character to use the mysterious Deck of Stars item. Each foci in divination also increases the duration of the True Seeing effect of the True Sight spell by 1, 1 and 2 rounds to a total of max of five rounds.
Greater Spell Focus: Divination increases information gained when using -investigate, Detect Evil, and other things.
With Epic Spell Focus: Divination, the -scry command becomes available. Once per rest the character may send -scry as a tell to another PC (or type -scry [START OF TARGET'S NAME]). This permits the character to spy on their target for roughly one minute. It is possible to protect against this, but means of doing so are considered Find Out In Game information. Also, characters with the ESF will receive a feedback if somebody is trying to scry them. Additionally, epic diviners can recognize projected illusions when examining, if their caster level is above that of the illusionist.

I'm not just blind, am I?

[Baron Saturday]

I believe the point of the argument that TimeAdept is making is that changes to specific Divination spells make the school powerful enough without needing to add further mechanical incentive to the Spell Foci feats.

We are, however, getting rather far afield from the topic of Enchantment, so to refocus:

The problem with Enchantment is that while the spells themselves are powerful, the -pray command makes them less reliable than straight-up death spells. Additionally, individual spell changes to PW:K, PW:S, and Feeblemind means that Divination can achieve DCs considerable higher than Enchantment can, making it a better school for disabling and killing than Enchantment is. Thus, removing the enchanting bonuses from Enchantment Spell Foci and giving nothing in return leaves very little incentive for anyone to take the SF Enchantment feats.

[Rwby]

I believe the point of the argument that TimeAdept is making is that changes to specific Divination spells make the school powerful enough without needing to add further mechanical incentive to the Spell Foci feats.

We are, however, getting rather far afield from the topic of Enchantment, so to refocus:

The problem with Enchantment is that while the spells themselves are powerful, the -pray command makes them less reliable than straight-up death spells. Additionally, individual spell changes to PW:K, PW:S, and Feeblemind means that Divination can achieve DCs considerable higher than Enchantment can, making it a better school for disabling and killing than Enchantment is. Thus, removing the enchanting bonuses from Enchantment Spell Foci and giving nothing in return leaves very little incentive for anyone to take the SF Enchantment feats.

Oh I quite agree now I'm aware of them.

I do think it's a valid point to stress that NPCs do not get -pray, and even for ardent PvPs, they'll still form by far the majority of the fights, and for non ardent PvPers, sometimes still 100% of the enemies that character will ever face.

[Baron Saturday]

Oh I quite agree now I'm aware of them.

I do think it's a valid point to stress that NPCs do not get -pray, and even for ardent PvPs, they'll still form by far the majority of the fights, and for non ardent PvPers, sometimes still 100% of the enemies that character will ever face.

True, but that's where the "additionally" part of my post comes in, because even discounting -pray, Divination gets a death spell and two mind-affecting stuns that can have much higher DCs than Enchantment spells can. The fact that Divination can also choose between mind-affecting and death means that it has tools to deal with both mind-immune and death-immune enemies, while Enchantment is pretty much helpless against a mind-immune enemy.

[Rwby]

Oh I quite agree now I'm aware of them.

I do think it's a valid point to stress that NPCs do not get -pray, and even for ardent PvPs, they'll still form by far the majority of the fights, and for non ardent PvPers, sometimes still 100% of the enemies that character will ever face.

True, but that's where the "additionally" part of my post comes in, because even discounting -pray, Divination gets a death spell and two mind-affecting stuns that can have much higher DCs than Enchantment spells can. The fact that Divination also can choose between mind-affecting and death means that it has tools to deal with both mind-immune and death-immune enemies, while Enchantment is pretty much helpless against a mind-immune enemy.

Oh yes, the Divination being not that great a school for Focus' argument has evaporated with the new information.
Transmutation is pretty poor, but the cookies it gets are awesome.
Necromancy is pretty poor vs death immune, but does get direct damage spells that Enchantment doesn't.
Illussion gets a nice Epic cookie, and a very nice spell selection.
Evocation gets all the damage.
Conjuration gets summons and yoink.
So yeah, enchantment would be left as a good but not that great spell school, in need of an epic cookie along the lines of illussion, and maybe a token boost as a greater focus. I'd be happy with the greater focus = minor buffs to dominated things, and an Epic cookie of some description.

It does feel shifting stuff over to transmutation, regardless of the relevent strengths of other schools would give transmutation all the things, though. It's already a solid school with 'Enchantment' too, it becomes the no-brainer of schools.

[JediMindTrix]

If that cookie dances I'm game.

[Baron Saturday]

Yeah, I agree that shifting enchanting bonuses to Transmutation is a bad idea. Which is why I like the original suggestion of decoupling enchantment bonuses from Spell Foci feats entirely.

Also, Enchantment would become, quite literally, the worst Spell Foci to take. To expand on your list:
Conjuration gets great summons bonuses and yoink.
Abjuration gets IGMS immunity, improved dispels, ward and ward teleport.
Transmutation gets teleportation, portal creation and zoo spell bonuses.
Evocation gets backlash-free gruin/hellball combo.
Divination gets scrying and Deck of Stars usage.
Necromancy gets decent undead summon bonuses.
Illusion gets the dual-use project image.
Enchantment gets nothing.

EDIT: And yes, an Epic Rave cookie for Enchantment would be amazing.

[Rwby]

I think I'm the only person that thinks -dances would be the single most offputting thing ever to happen to Arelith...

I quite enjoy the the -NoPvP suggestion from earlier.

Or maybe some sort of AoE effect that's willsave or be set to friendly?

[Wytchee]

I'm still keen on more cooldown-based infinite cast spells for epic foci in each school, as was the plan "to give mages something to do in between boss fights" when the greater focus infinite cast spells (melf's acid arrow, magic missile, etc.) were introduced.

Not to sound pushy or anything. Buuuuuuuuut. *Pushes*

Evocation gets ILMS on a relatively short cooldown.
Enchantment gets Dominate Person on a relatively long cooldown.
Divination gets Power Word: Stun on a long cooldown.

Etc. Etc.

That way even if the enchantment basin is decoupled from enchantment foci, enchantment is still a very powerful school in PvE.

[JediMindTrix]

I think I'm the only person that thinks -dances would be the single most offputting thing ever to happen to Arelith...

Yes.

-nopvp just would mean enchantment becomes the 'take this focus to escape consequences' path.

[afreshstart]

Ok... Have about a steal body/posession spell? Lets you take control of 1 creature, it'll have it's physcial stats/equipment/feats etc and your characters mental stats and spells. The orginal body will be dazed for the duration of the spell and if it your orginal body dies you die. If the stolen body dies you get sent back to your orginal body. And if the spell dies without the host body dying the host gets dazed for a round or two. (Probably a hell to code but would be fun)

[thingsicantdo]

i hope that a change in enchantment isn't something related to domination spells. all the other ESF cookies relate to spells that should or do exist in PnP, but not in NWN, and i don't like the idea of being shoehorned into a line of spells just because it's the only high level option available, but if that's the path that we go down, let's at least add RP potential. for example, a spell that turns a PC into a henchman and leaves the player watching the action like a cutscene (achievable in a similar manner to how scry is done. PC disappears, and spectates an invisible NPC next to the target, a duplicate of itself in this case). obvious problems and silliness aside, it at least adds something to the role play, rather than just boosting a 9th level spell.

i like the sympathy/antipathy, but they don't add much roleplay value. insanity could be interesting, but could have severe PvP issues. geas would be an amazing feature, but the limited ability of scripting means there wouldn't be a lot that could be done with it (kill this person. go to this place, etc), and since wish/miracle aren't a thing, there would need to be a way to break it.

[yellowcateyes]

It is not a good dynamic when Enchanting is a sub-par choice, both mechanically speaking and in terms of RP perks, yet essential for high-end gear.

Ideas about what to offer Enchantment in lieu of basin bonuses would be helpful, as are thoughts and ideas about how to handle the transition gracefully.

[Wytchee]

It is not a good dynamic when Enchanting is a sub-par choice, both mechanically speaking and in terms of RP perks, yet essential for high-end gear.

Ideas about what to offer Enchantment in lieu of basin bonuses would be helpful, as are thoughts and ideas about how to handle the transition gracefully.

A simple boon to the dominate spells in terms of duration, as was done with Aura of Vitality, would be a sufficient draw to the school. Epic Enchantment could drastically increase their durations, to make them actually useful on long treks.

EDIT: my suggestion is a little mage-centric, sorry. Hmm!

EDIT 2: Or even a soft bonus to "social" skills like persuade, bluff/perform, appraise, taunt and intimidate, per enchantment focus, as the caster's familiarity with the mind allows them to more easily influence others. This would remedy enchantment being a lackluster choice both mechanically and in terms of roleplay. I feel this suits enchantment very well thematically and would more than make the feats worth it.

[BrutalForce48]

Just my two cents here.

Ive played enchanters for a long time, even before the skills were locked behind lvl 15. And gsf. Both surface and underdark.

I personally don't think that any change needs to be done with enchanting.

Again not hating on any others views but the change to dominate I don't think is necessary. Yes at low lvls itd suboptimal as the duration is utter garbage, but by upper teens you're fine and it's still very useful.

On both UD and surface, I was readily available as an enchanter and numerous people came to me for various needs. These people then told other people whom so on and so forth. Overarching above all else this created lots of rp. Its imo just having the enchanters being known about and also about them making a profit while enchanting as well. Many people don't want to pay for enchants again imo. If I can roll let's say all the skills myself then I don't have to pay someone else coin or etc. That's just how I have seen it as people are constantly trying to lowball the cost.

If I were to do anything, maybe double the cost reduction that each focus gets. Another option would be expanding enchantments so that you could enchant spell uses 1/day sort of stuff or maybe esf enchant opens up adding a +2 to a stat/+3 fo skills. Otherwise I think enchanting is honestly in a good spot that drives you to seek out an enchanter for rp and gives a nice boon to those focuses.


Cheers all!

[thingsicantdo]

as far as "easing the transition" goes, i think the only way that wouldn't bring up massive flames would be grandfathering. complete rebuilds (as much as i'd love to rebuild my wizard, since i took a focus i would love to change for transmutation, and keep enchantment) would allow... well, that. not to mention the sheer number of characters it would affect. if the problem was power, it would be easy. take one cookie, give them a bigger one. the flames stay small. but an enchanter (in this sense, one who enchants items) is the basis of what some character concepts are. this would be a big slap in their face if they suddenly had to start over because a detail that's been in place for over a decade and a half got changed because a bunch of old nerds decided they didn't like it anymore. (and let's talk about teleportation. in transmutation instead of conjuration! let me get out my 3.5ed phb and teach you something...)

put a tag on them. or give them an undroppable doodad (rabble rabble rabble, nerfed our inventory) for the enchant script to check for when it looks at feats, and voila.

or make the greater of either foci apply. this would be easiest for new players who don't know enchanters aren't supposed to enchant things at the enchantment basin, and it's clearly a transmutation thing