Multi-round spell AOEs not working correctly

[FleetFeet]

Seems that multi-round AOEs are not working quite right. I’ll just go right into an example to illustrate the problem. When I cast a spell like Binding Web or Slicken, everyone in AOE when its first cast makes a save roll as you would expect. However, for these multi-round spells, enemies outside the effect initially can run straight through the AOE during their turn without being affected at all. It seems that only if they are still in the AOE at the start of the next round is a save roll made. I need to do some more testing to confirm for certain but this does seem to be what’s happening.

 

Anyone else notice this issue?

 

[Wormerine]

AoE which last multuple turns seem to "tic" when they are cast and when character who cast them takes turn. You need to gather enemies in that area and wait for the turn of the caster to get the result. 

[FleetFeet]

AoE which last multuple turns seem to "tic" when they are cast and when character who cast them takes turn. You need to gather enemies in that area and wait for the turn of the caster to get the result. 

I just got home and had a chance to confirm, it seems to only "tic" on the start of your turn. I think this is a serious oversight actually. Yes you can always wait until your after your enemies are clustered together but a fair amount of CC is laying down AOE ahead of them, to slow down , divert, or debuff 'em before they engage your party. 

 

As an example, Eder and my wiz main got our butts kicked by the Xarups before the Engwithan digsite. In the first round, I dropped a binding web in-front of Eder to prevent him from getting overwhelmed by all 6 or 7 of them at once - but they just ran though it like it wasn't there. Sure, they got stuck in there on the next tic but they had already surrounded him at that point. Same story with slicken and chill fog. On RTwP I would have control over the initial engagement - and why I made sure my wizard had 19 dex for a turn based run. 

 

I think these AOEs also need to tic on any specific individual when they first enter the affected area in addition to the start of the turn.  For Eder's sake! 

 

 

 

[Cherudek]

These spells are also now invisible except for when they briefly tick on the caster's turn, which feels weird. I kept having Eder wander into Chill Fog by accident while I was playing yesterday. You can't even tell if the spell is still active!

[Wormerine]

I don’t think it is a problem but they do fulfill a different role. You can get a good mileage out of all of them, but not if you use them as in RTwP. In turn based you can use pushes and such effectively to move enemies into desired position. I did make a mistake of using Binding Web as a trap, but obviously, it failed. It does change spell use, but doesn’t necessary make them useless. There are priests wards which seem to work as traps, but to be honest I never used any of them so far. Now might be a time.

[TheMetaphysician]

I think this is a problem. A freakin' web should catch anyone who walks into it.

[FleetFeet]

I don’t think it is a problem but they do fulfill a different role. You can get a good mileage out of all of them, but not if you use them as in RTwP. In turn based you can use pushes and such effectively to move enemies into desired position.

I do agree that you can still get good mileage out of them but why not just fix it by making anything that walks into an AOE hazard on their turn make a dice roll right then? That's how other turn-based games I've played work and I can't think of a reason why it shouldn't work this way.

 

These spells are also now invisible except for when they briefly tick on the caster's turn, which feels weird. I kept having Eder wander into Chill Fog by accident while I was playing yesterday. You can't even tell if the spell is still active!

Yes same here, it's frustrating and weird, needs to be fixed for sure.

 

I think this is a problem. A freakin' web should catch anyone who walks into it.

Agreed!

[jrocket]

I agree that spells should tick whenever you're moving into an effected area, as it does in pretty much every other turn based game. But to be fair, the enemy AI probably shouldn't be running into AOE's in the first place.

[Saito Hikari]

There is a small unrelated issue I've noticed in regards to such AoEs as well.

 

At one point, I killed a skeleton wizard that had just cast Chill Fog on some of my party members. That Chill Fog was then apparently converted into RTwP behavior, as in my party members suddenly took 3 turns worth of Chill Fog damage at once before the AoE disappeared for the rest of the battle. They lost half their health and were all blinded/flanked without any way for me to react to it.

 

It is rather telling about how these effects are programmed, though.

[Wormerine]

There is a small unrelated issue I've noticed in regards to such AoEs as well.

 

At one point, I killed a skeleton wizard that had just cast Chill Fog on some of my party members. That Chill Fog was then apparently converted into RTwP behavior, as in my party members suddenly took 3 turns worth of Chill Fog damage at once before the AoE disappeared for the rest of the battle. They lost half their health and were all blinded/flanked without any way for me to react to it.

 

It is rather telling about how these effects are programmed, though.

Seems like a worthy bug report.

[Saito Hikari]

I haven't had an opportunity to try to reproduce it yet, but I suppose I'll test to see if it's a consistent bug. If it is, it'll probably apply to all other persistent ground AoE effects too.

 

Poor Aloth is going to be a punching bag.

[SChin]

Hey everyone!

 

Thank you for reporting the Spell AoE issue to us!  Fortunately we've got this one in the system and an investigation is already under way   If you have any other information to report about this issue, please continue to do so as I'm going to link this thread to the report as a reference for the team.

 

Thanks for all the help everyone!