Assassin Ultravision

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CookieMonster
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Assassin Ultravision

Post by CookieMonster » Tue Jan 15, 2019 12:51 pm

With 13 Levels of Assassin, the Character gains an 'Ultravision like effect' when using their Assassin Darkness, a very good concept when you think about what that means for an Assassin. Without the need of a wand or potion, they can navigate in their own Darkness, making it a world of hurt for whatever is placed within it.

However, what I discovered is that the Ultravision effect has half the duration of the Darkness, this means that you are left blinded by your own spell unless you have prepared Wands/Scrolls/Potions. It is a little bit underwhelming to say the least, perhaps raise the duration of the Ultravision in line with the Darkness?

Or better yet, change the way the Darkness spell works at level 13. Since it is effectively used as a Cookie for Assassins that invest into the later levels, why not have the Darkness apply blindness to anyone hostile within the effect. So whilst Ultravision can still penetrate it, anyone inside is still vunerable to the casting Assassin as they are rendered blind whilst within it's radius. Perhaps even a round outside of it's radius, it gives the ability an acceptable upgrade.
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SwordidActivities
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Re: Assassin Ultravision

Post by SwordidActivities » Sat Jun 06, 2020 2:25 pm

Thread necromancy, because this appears related to my issue.

The problem, in my experience, isn't that the UV duration is too short, but that UV gets stripped when you exit your own darkness field, regardless of whether you started in it, or had UV beforehand. While I can kind of understand this from a balance perspective, since you could use it for infinite UV, (but who even cares when that grows on trees?) it makes Assassin Darkness significantly LESS useful after you get the UV "buff", since it becomes more difficult to use. The central darkness field is actually quite small, and you can get edged out of it during automated combat movement, leaving you effectively blinded by your own spell.

If the intent behind removing UV upon exit was to prevent infinite duration, you can get that anyway by casting Darkness elsewhere and never entering the field.

If there isn't a better idea for a fix, I'd recommend letting UV run the full duration no matter what. Who cares? It's just UV.

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Maladus
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Re: Assassin Ultravision

Post by Maladus » Sat Jun 06, 2020 4:57 pm

Are you saying the darkness removes your UV even if you've had it cast beforehand from a source outside of the Assassin darkness?

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Diegovog
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Re: Assassin Ultravision

Post by Diegovog » Sun Jun 07, 2020 12:53 am

The assassin's ultravision is wonky. If you leave and return inside the same darkness you don't get the ultravision back. But then, we have to consider these spells have been causing headache to devs since the primordial days of NWN.

It's one of those things we learn how to play around.

SwordidActivities
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Re: Assassin Ultravision

Post by SwordidActivities » Sun Jun 07, 2020 1:33 am

I ran some tests!

Assassin Darkness won't strip UV from other sources, however it will strip the UV effect you get when casting Darkness, whether it's from the same casting, or a previous casting where you didn't pass through your own field.

While not as broken as it seemed in the first place, it's barely an upgrade unless you stand perfectly still in the middle of the darkness field. If you have to bring your own UV source, then it's not an upgrade at all.

Based on my limited understanding of the intent behind its function, I'd rather see a fixed 2 Turn duration, or whatever the maximum Darkness duration is, since Assassin spells don't seem to follow the same scheme as normal spells. It's an ugly solution, but would at least support the original intent.

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Re: Assassin Ultravision

Post by Gouge Away » Sun Jun 07, 2020 1:59 am

I’d rather just see assassin ultravision disabled entirely, it’s more harmful than useful in present form.

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Re: Assassin Ultravision

Post by Kalopsia » Sun Jun 07, 2020 2:12 am

Could also give assassins permanent Ultravision (essentially the Imp racial ability), at a certain level.

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Re: Assassin Ultravision

Post by Drowboy » Sun Jun 07, 2020 12:07 pm

I really don't think it would hurt anything if the UV was just a regular duration effect, honestly.

At the risk of going wildly offtopic without having to make an all new assassin thread: Can poisons be looked at? A 'pure' assassin using the highest DC poison (eyeblast, according to the wiki) will max out at 29 DC on poisons. Which seems not terrible, until you take into account: crafting materials, poison duration, the fact that poison seems to trigger kind of randomly, and, the big one-

Using assassinate clears any poison off of your weapon and prevents you from putting new poison on that weapon until you rest. The two major benefits of going heavy assassin over rogue or something, assassinate and half-decent poisons, actively cancel each other out right now. (Beamdog randomly deciding to nerf death attack doesn't help but it's probably hard-coded and not something Arelith can fix anyway)
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