Wild Mage & Spell Feedback

[Sockss]

Wild mage changes

The Good:

The defensive reduction on some surges was definitely needed and great. They're still useful while not being crazy.

I also believe the spell refreshing had to change, that really made going base-wizard silly and being able to manage negative surges in a safe environment allowed you to essentially just get free buff/summon casts.

The Bad:

I will say I'll miss chaos (doubly so because I had a 5% with it!), it was a really fun ability and put the 'wild' in wild mage.

The dweomer and chaos shields are largely useless; of course they draw from Baldurs Gate but don't quite come up to par. (Dweomer being essentially an instant cast for one and the effectiveness of the table in BG being significantly higher in the setting)

The Ugly (I couldn't help it):

Long story short, I'd love to see chaos and surge return - albeit without the spell refreshing.

Some thoughts on spells follow:

Problem:

This is exceptionally strong for a pure caster.

If someone has a clarity cooldown, this is a 100% chance disable. (If they pray, you cast it again.)

Suggestion:

Give it a will save. Scale the DC based on CL difference between caster and victim.

Problem:

Adding further buffing ability and self buffing ability to a class which is arguably the strongest thing in the game is difficult to justify.

Suggestion:

Either remove the spell or reduce the effectiveness of bard song to compensate.

Problem:

Possibly the most worrying spell at the moment.

On the surface it's not anything special, but it's exceptionally strong when paired with persistant spells - there's no build that can survive a maze when the return destination has been lathered with persistant spells - not to mention that you are able to timestop someone in those spells when they return and nuke on top.

It's also a weird one in terms of exploitation. NWN transitions aren't the best and it's certainly considered exploitative to take advantage of them; namely transition camping. This advocates that.

"But wait", you may say, failing a will save on weird will get you killed too! And you'd be right - however you are able to pray and immunise yourself a little, making it less effective. Pray won't help with this, even if an immunity was added, which pushes things towards the shotgun meta rather than away from it as is beneficial to RP.

Suggestion:

Give the spell an immunity (FOM)

AND one of the following

Either randomise the exit location to avoid being put into a layered trap. (Thematic but could cause problems with being pushed into unaccesible areas)

>Avoids PAoE problem.
>Limits transition problem.
>Introduces an exit-location problem.

Or:

Give immunity to everything, cutscene invisibility, and also 100% miss/spell failure on exiting the maze for 2 rounds.

Disallow lenses while in this state and area-transitioning.

>Avoids PAoE problem.
>Avoids transition problem.
>However, gives a tactical advantage when coming out of maze.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Ooh, I woke up this morning thinking "Randomizing the return from maze" was the best solution possible. I do like the idea of having a scary spell that targets will, an opinion that got me called an idiot and an accusation that I was shitting up the builds and mechanics room by a moderator, which of course lead to me questioning why someone like that was a mod which freed me from the toxicity of the arelith discord for good, but the flavor of the spell doesn't match this being the one. Randomizing the return is a good idea.

[Poolbrain]

Maze

An idea could be to have the character who's been mazed away to be able to choose if he wants to come back or not, after 4 rounds the mazed characters gets a message, much as if you would get yoinked, OR a portal could appear that will take you back if you enter it.

To spice things up even more you add an option to this: To stay and face the trials of the maze. Stumble through the darkness, pass the trials and defeat whatever lurks there and be rewarded by a portal to take you to any node.

Sounds fun?

[Kalopsia]

Avascular Mass has been a primary reason for Wild Mages to pureclass (despite all resulting downsides) because losing 50% of HP without a save is immensely powerful. As a surge, the spell was great for a capstone ability that required a heavy sacrifice (no Discipline) to reliably cast it.

Now, however, every Mage can cast it - several times a day - and even scrolls have the same devastating effect. Preparing three Avascular Mass spells and one maximized IGMS equals saveless death for any build with 820HP or less (so basically everyone). Scrolls of the spell are powerful enough for dedicated melee builds to consider using them (after lowering SR with Mords) instead of attacking with their primary weapons.

For that reason, I think the spell needs one (or multiple) of the following suggested changes:
- Limit maximum damage dealt to 200
- Lower the damage to one third of max HP
- On a successful Fortitude save, the damage is halved.
- The Spell only works on “Uninjured” or “Barely Injured” targets. (This would make it an opener spell and prevent the scenario I described above)
- Like Greater Sanctuary, the spell cannot be scribed.
- Alternatively, the scroll requires a significant UMD investment of 40+ to use.

[Tarkus the dog]

Maze is my new personal favorite. Greater sanctuary get out of the way.

[Subutai]

Does the most recent update to Avascular Mass apply to the new spell AND the wild mage surge? Or only to the new spell?

[ActionReplay]

Does the most recent update to Avascular Mass apply to the new spell AND the wild mage surge? Or only to the new spell?

Only the new spell. And this is true for all other Wild Mage spells as well, they dont use the same script.

[Sockss]

Maze Change

Cool way to handle it.

Would you consider instead of removal on return, having a script and vfx which prevents paoe's being applied in the area until return. That seems more intuitive.

Is there any plan for preventing the transition abuse it inherently causes?

[monkeywithstick]

The changes look pretty solid to me.

Can I ask why Irresistable dance has such a short duration? It seems to be competing with hold monster which has a slightly lower DC and slot use (for a bard) and lasts rounds/level. Or with FoD, wrathful castigation or wierd or dominate for a wiz whereby the CC(or CC by death) are all longer than d4+1 rounds. Should it be rounds/2 levels? Rounds/level? It seems mostly useful for trolling people at present.

Also, I've said it elsewhere, should ward teleport explicitly block maze also? It seems silly to me that someone can be conjure teleported to a maze from such a warding when all other teleport functions won't work. I haven't had a chance to test this so if it's already the case then documenting it might be good!

[Shadowy Reality]

Can one target themselves with Maze?
I could see this being used as a possible way to escape these persistent AOEs, or say, an incoming Hellball. Whether this is good or bad, I cannot tell.

[ActionReplay]

Maze Change

Cool way to handle it.

Would you consider instead of removal on return, having a script and vfx which prevents paoe's being applied in the area until return. That seems more intuitive.

Is there any plan for preventing the transition abuse it inherently causes?

Yes i can do that instead, it may be a better presentation. Not sure what to do about the transition abuse I could add a GSanct effect when they return for 1 round, and disable the PC, so they don't A) Get an advantage B) dont get spammed down on return

[Sockss]

That would fix my concerns.

I still think it's super strong but, it's not crazy after the changes.

Thanks for being so receptive, as always!

[ActionReplay]

The changes look pretty solid to me.

Can I ask why Irresistable dance has such a short duration? It seems to be competing with hold monster which has a slightly lower DC and slot use (for a bard) and lasts rounds/level. Or with FoD, wrathful castigation or wierd or dominate for a wiz whereby the CC(or CC by death) are all longer than d4+1 rounds. Should it be rounds/2 levels? Rounds/level? It seems mostly useful for trolling people at present.

Also, I've said it elsewhere, should ward teleport explicitly block maze also? It seems silly to me that someone can be conjure teleported to a maze from such a warding when all other teleport functions won't work. I haven't had a chance to test this so if it's already the case then documenting it might be good!

Irresistible Dance can be extended and I think its a pretty solid duration to do what you need to do. It completely disables the target and gives them negative AC and Saves. When a target is in such a state do you need more rounds? Also I followed source here and I found it to be reasonable.

Ward Teleport does not block maze. Does it block against dismissal or banishment? Maze is banishing.

[monkeywithstick]

Irresistible Dance can be extended and I think its a pretty solid duration to do what you need to do. It completely disables the target and gives them negative AC and Saves. When a target is in such a state do you need more rounds? Also I followed source here and I found it to be reasonable.

Ward Teleport does not block maze. Does it block against dismissal or banishment? Maze is banishing.

Fair points. Cheers for the answer!