Spell Casting Time

[ArcaneBoozery]

I made a post before that touched on this somewhat, but this is a broader post. In IE, all spells had a casting time, from the almost instantaneous level 1 spells to the high level (8/9) ones that took a while to cast. This was not present in turn based AD&D games as far as I know, and was presumably introduced in IE to balance out the power of the higher level spells. So something like TIme Stop or Horrid Wilting would take forever to cast because their results would be so devastating, while a relatively weak Magic Missile could be cast quickly. This was coupled with spell interruption, so that if the caster took any damage during casting, the spell would be interrupted.

 

I dont know about the rest of you, but I really don't like this mechanic. I think that the way it's handled in turn based games, where it takes the same amount of time (one turn) to cast any spell is much better. My reasons for this are that this mechanic actually seems to punish casters for becoming more powerful and also leads to "cheesy" combat. When a melee character or a ranged physical attacker levels, they become more powerful without any drawbacks, gaining more attacks, damage, chance to hit, etc. But although a magic user gains spells that are more powerful when he/she levels up, those spells also come with a longer casting time, making them unreliable in many situations, particularly when being targeted by the enemy. In addition, this leads to cheesy tactics, like in Baldur's Gate games, where you can pretty much shut down a powerful enemy mage just by timing your low level spells to interrupt his powerful ones. In those cases it feels like you are winning with an exploit rather than strategy, especially since the AI is completely unprepated for this. Or some spells like Creeping Doom completely shutting down a magic user's spell casting.

 

Personally I would much rather have PE balance out the power of high level spells in some different way.

[oldmanpaco]

I actually liked the casting time mechanic. It was another tactical layer to the magic combat of BG2/ToB. There were many battles that were won or lost (with SCSII installed at least) based on how well your front-line grunts held up while your mage cast his spells.

 

Also MM was one of the most powerful spells in the IE games. Anyone who does not understand that is a misguided amateur (been told I cannot say the word 'idiot' around here).

[Halric]

While you are correct that most spells could be cast instantaneously, there were some that required more time. Also, the interruption mechanic was present in almost all incarnations of the table top. 2e explained this by saying some spells required somatic components and taking damage in the round required a successfull concentration check. So it was still possible to have melee characters thwart spell casters... which is why you are supposed to defend those weaklings =)

 

I think casting time was a necessity in the IE games because of the real-time combat component. As for shutting down powerful mages with lower level spells, I have to admit the AI was pretty weak in this regard. There are options for a caster to defend himself against interruption through the use of counterspelling or defensive magics. I hope we can see more this type of strategy in the future. Adding an element to mage vs. mage strategy, I can say it was always pretty fun in table top when two duelling mages were engaged in a test of magical might while the melee characters clashed between them.

[Sensuki]

Cast time please. It's not a turn based game

[Director]

AD&D did have a "cast time" for spells of sorts, as each spell had a value that was added to your Initiative roll. Cure Light Wounds was +5, and I think Magic Missile was +1 or a very low number.

 

Higher level spells, Time Stop and others, had a high modifier, meaning that while you still only took one "round" to cast the spell, it was after all the melee attacks and low level spells had gone off. I think that BG1 +2 were just trying to replicate that mechanic.

[Hugo Rune]

I'd be surprised and also a bit disappointed if Obsidian didn't include something very like the casting time from the IE games. As Director said, AD&D did the same thing by pushing wizards back in the initiative order so as to give others a chance to interrupt their spells. The way the IE games did it seems to be a very natural and logical way to do this in a quasi real time system. It also just makes sense that it actually takes a little time to cast a spell. How would you balance it otherwise anyway?

 

Btw, the fact that you could sometimes shut down a spellcaster had little to do with this mechanic but with bad AI. Install an AI enhancement mod such as SCS and spellcasters will actually make use of the many protective spells at their disposal. You won't be shutting them down then. Let's just hope they do a better job with the AI in this game. Another way to make the whole shutdown issue less likely would be to give spellcasters a chance to resist interruption like 3E does it.

Edited October 19, 2012 by Hugo Rune

[Infinitron]

Casting time is what you're supposed to use (as opposed to per-spell cooldowns) to prevent spell spamming. It's essential.

Edited October 19, 2012 by Infinitron

[Hormalakh]

I made a post before that touched on this somewhat, but this is a broader post. In IE, all spells had a casting time, from the almost instantaneous level 1 spells to the high level (8/9) ones that took a while to cast. This was not present in turn based AD&D games as far as I know, and was presumably introduced in IE to balance out the power of the higher level spells. So something like TIme Stop or Horrid Wilting would take forever to cast because their results would be so devastating, while a relatively weak Magic Missile could be cast quickly. This was coupled with spell interruption, so that if the caster took any damage during casting, the spell would be interrupted.

 

I dont know about the rest of you, but I really don't like this mechanic. I think that the way it's handled in turn based games, where it takes the same amount of time (one turn) to cast any spell is much better. My reasons for this are that this mechanic actually seems to punish casters for becoming more powerful and also leads to "cheesy" combat. When a melee character or a ranged physical attacker levels, they become more powerful without any drawbacks, gaining more attacks, damage, chance to hit, etc. But although a magic user gains spells that are more powerful when he/she levels up, those spells also come with a longer casting time, making them unreliable in many situations, particularly when being targeted by the enemy. In addition, this leads to cheesy tactics, like in Baldur's Gate games, where you can pretty much shut down a powerful enemy mage just by timing your low level spells to interrupt his powerful ones. In those cases it feels like you are winning with an exploit rather than strategy, especially since the AI is completely unprepated for this. Or some spells like Creeping Doom completely shutting down a magic user's spell casting.

 

Personally I would much rather have PE balance out the power of high level spells in some different way.

 

Strong (and smart) mages always threw down a contigency spell with immunity to normal weapons (for arrows) and a globe of invulnerability (for low-level spells) before casting any higher-level spells. Those mages were deadly, regardless of casting time. There was also Alacrity, improved alacrity, and a whole host of other spells for the smart tactician to use against enemies so as to make casting time, not that big of a deal for magicians.

 

Casting time should be in.

 

Edit: Your issue is with the AI. I concur. Please make a strong and robust AI for those of us who want to play harder difficulties.

Edited October 19, 2012 by Hormalakh

[Gfted1]

Casting time is what you're supposed to use (as opposed to per-spell cooldowns) to prevent spell spamming. It's essential.

 

If they are alreay planning on spell cooldowns then casting times are out?

[Infinitron]

Casting time is what you're supposed to use (as opposed to per-spell cooldowns) to prevent spell spamming. It's essential.

 

If they are alreay planning on spell cooldowns then casting times are out?

 

Notice I said *per-spell* cooldowns.

[Hormalakh]

Casting time is what you're supposed to use (as opposed to per-spell cooldowns) to prevent spell spamming. It's essential.

 

If they are alreay planning on spell cooldowns then casting times are out?

 

Notice I said *per-spell* cooldowns.

 

I (somewhat) disagree, at lower tier spells (magic missle for example), your mage shouldn't be able to cast 50 of them one right after the other. He should be able to cast 5 or 6 per combat (with no cool-down, here I agree with you). But then, after the battle is over and his spell cooldowns are over, he should be able to cast them again (5-6 times) during the next battle, without having to rest spam. That's the whole point of spell cooldowns.

Edited October 19, 2012 by Hormalakh

[ArcaneBoozery]

I understand the points most of you make and I am sympathetic with them. I don't have a problem with casting time per se so much as with the kind of tactical gameplay it leads to. Yes, AI is definitely part of the problem, but as long as casting time is in, how can the AI deal with it effectively without letting the player abuse the low level fast cast time spells such as Magic Missile? Someone here suggested using defensive spells, and that was the first thing I thought of myself back when I was playing Baldur's Gate games and this issue started bothering me. But the problem is, defensive spells are countered with breach-type spells, after which you can go back to shutting down powerful late spells with MM. For example, at the begining of the fight, both mages throw up defensive shields. Then they cast breaches to remove the shields. Then they can either continue buffing-debuffing each other until they run out of shields/breaches, or start offensive casting. Either way, low level spells will dominate against late game spells once again. Am I missing something here?

 

I am not against Magic Missile or level 2 spells being useful, but it just seems really weird and immersion/lore-ruining that a spell that a rookie mage learns in kindergarten should allow them to dominate a terrifying lich with spells that can change the nature of the world.

Edited October 19, 2012 by ArcaneBoozery

[Ieo]

I'm surprised another extremely powerful method of spell interruption wasn't mentioned with regard to the IE games.

 

Invisibility.

 

Staff of the Magi in BG2 was the most ridiculously overpowered thing in any game I had ever played (though maybe I hadn't played that many, I dunno). That and a few invisibility potions on the scout.

[Hormalakh]

I understand the points most of you make and I am sympathetic with them. I don't have a problem with casting time per se so much as with the kind of tactical gameplay it leads to. Yes, AI is definitely part of the problem, but as long as casting time is in, how can the AI deal with it effectively without letting the player abuse the low level fast cast time spells such as Magic Missile? Someone here suggested using defensive spells, and that was the first thing I thought of myself back when I was playing Baldur's Gate games and this issue started bothering me. But the problem is, defensive spells are countered with breach-type spells, after which you can go back to shutting down powerful late spells with MM. For example, at the begining of the fight, both mages throw up defensive shields. Then they cast breaches to remove the shields. Then they can either continue buffing-debuffing each other until they run out of shields/breaches, or start offensive casting. Either way, low level spells will dominate against late game spells once again. Am I missing something here?

 

I am not against Magic Missile or level 2 spells being useful, but it just seems really weird and immersion/lore-ruining that a spell that a rookie mage learns in kindergarten should allow them to dominate a terrifying lich with spells that can change the nature of the world.

 

That is precisely why I loved playing as a mage in BG2. It was by far more tactical and strategic than melee fighters. It was like chess. Everything had a counter and a counter to that counter. You just had to out-think your opponent to beat them. Ultimately, I thought that was the whole point of RPGs. At least, when you play PnP you try to solve your problems using wit and imagination: I'd like to think that cRPGs try to do the same thing but at a more basic level.

 

There were counters to breach. Everything had a counter. Even invisibility (true sight).

[Osvir]

I'd love to see a Spell Casting time reduction too, as you level up you'll throw them lower level spells faster. If I'm not completely mistaken this is how Icewind Dale (and probably all the other IE games) work. Cure Light Wounds is cast almost as fast as a Lay on Hands ability at the end (afair... I might've gotten an item that sped up the casting time too *shrug*).

[curryinahurry]

Spell casting times are a must in my book, especially coupled with simple ( 1 spell) contingencies that make playing a mage quite tactical as others have said. I also like the idea of lower levels spells casting more quickly with levelling, but this might be a skill related issue.

 

Also, it would be interesting to have upper level spell slots that allowed for casting combinations of lower level spells at the same time.

 

What I didn't like about the old IE mage battles were the spell sequencer and chain contingency type spells which just came off as cheesy to me.

[Sensuki]

mmm Robes of Vecna mmm

[Chr1s]

I really want timed casting plus the chance to be interrupted and the chance to fail if you're wearing armor or have low intelligence or whatever attribute system we get since i hate games you can only spam powers in, old school feel ftw.

[Sensuki]

You'll be able to wear armor when casting, I don't think it will make you fail the spell, it might make cast time longer though? There's got to be some penalty for it but % of cast failure won't be it.

[Infinitron]

Casting time is what you're supposed to use (as opposed to per-spell cooldowns) to prevent spell spamming. It's essential.

 

If they are alreay planning on spell cooldowns then casting times are out?

 

Notice I said *per-spell* cooldowns.

 

I (somewhat) disagree, at lower tier spells (magic missle for example), your mage shouldn't be able to cast 50 of them one right after the other. He should be able to cast 5 or 6 per combat (with no cool-down, here I agree with you). But then, after the battle is over and his spell cooldowns are over, he should be able to cast them again (5-6 times) during the next battle, without having to rest spam. That's the whole point of spell cooldowns.

 

I'm not sure what this has to do with what I posted. I'm afraid you've misunderstood me entirely.

[rjshae]

It seemed like the way they did spell casting times in D&D v3* worked fine. Most just took a standard action.

[ArcaneBoozery]

That is precisely why I loved playing as a mage in BG2. It was by far more tactical and strategic than melee fighters. It was like chess. Everything had a counter and a counter to that counter. You just had to out-think your opponent to beat them. Ultimately, I thought that was the whole point of RPGs. At least, when you play PnP you try to solve your problems using wit and imagination: I'd like to think that cRPGs try to do the same thing but at a more basic level.

 

There were counters to breach. Everything had a counter. Even invisibility (true sight).

 

We all loved IE combat because of the counters and the strategic gameplay, but my point is that the timed spell casting ruins this strategic aspect. You say there are counters to breach, but I never said that breach was unbalanced, I said that the lower level damage spells with their quick casting time are unbalanced. No matter what spell defenses are used, and what counters are used, you have to agree that eventually both mages will be without the spell defenses (either because they cast them all and those were breached/removed, or because they switched over to other types of spells). As soon as that happens, one mage can dominate the other with spells like Magic Missile, even if the other has the most powerful spells in the AD&D system. That's what makes the whole thing broken. Spells like Magic Missile were never meant to be counters to high level spells, they are simply meant to be low level damage spells that scale very well with higher levels and might be useful in certain situations.

 

Here is a simple example. My mage enters a fight against an AI mage (1v1 to keep it simple). The enemy mage casts some spell shield on himself. If he doesnt have the instant cast contingency/spell sequencer, I might already dominate him by casting magic missile right after him, interrupting him and stopping his shield. But even if he did have the insta cast, I cast some breach/remove magic counter spell to remove his shield. So the round after that, he can continue casting shield spells, and I can continue removing them until he is out of defenses, or at some point he can switch to offensive spells against me. In either case, I can dominate him with magic missiles/other low level quick spells, by interrupting his higher level spells while also doing damage to him. Please explain to me how you would tell the AI to act against this dominant tactic. This is clearly an exploit/cheesy tactic instead of strategy/counters.

[Hormalakh]

That is precisely why I loved playing as a mage in BG2. It was by far more tactical and strategic than melee fighters. It was like chess. Everything had a counter and a counter to that counter. You just had to out-think your opponent to beat them. Ultimately, I thought that was the whole point of RPGs. At least, when you play PnP you try to solve your problems using wit and imagination: I'd like to think that cRPGs try to do the same thing but at a more basic level.

 

There were counters to breach. Everything had a counter. Even invisibility (true sight).

 

We all loved IE combat because of the counters and the strategic gameplay, but my point is that the timed spell casting ruins this strategic aspect. You say there are counters to breach, but I never said that breach was unbalanced, I said that the lower level damage spells with their quick casting time are unbalanced. No matter what spell defenses are used, and what counters are used, you have to agree that eventually both mages will be without the spell defenses (either because they cast them all and those were breached/removed, or because they switched over to other types of spells). As soon as that happens, one mage can dominate the other with spells like Magic Missile, even if the other has the most powerful spells in the AD&D system. That's what makes the whole thing broken. Spells like Magic Missile were never meant to be counters to high level spells, they are simply meant to be low level damage spells that scale very well with higher levels and might be useful in certain situations.

 

Here is a simple example. My mage enters a fight against an AI mage (1v1 to keep it simple). The enemy mage casts some spell shield on himself. If he doesnt have the instant cast contingency/spell sequencer, I might already dominate him by casting magic missile right after him, interrupting him and stopping his shield. But even if he did have the insta cast, I cast some breach/remove magic counter spell to remove his shield. So the round after that, he can continue casting shield spells, and I can continue removing them until he is out of defenses, or at some point he can switch to offensive spells against me. In either case, I can dominate him with magic missiles/other low level quick spells, by interrupting his higher level spells while also doing damage to him. Please explain to me how you would tell the AI to act against this dominant tactic. This is clearly an exploit/cheesy tactic instead of strategy/counters.

 

Well if the AI was written better, it could win. While you are casting breach, what is preventing the mage from casting magic missle on you? Ultimately, you also have so many magic missles (5 or 6) so you're going to run out sooner or later. There were always wands too that a mage could possibly use.

 

Yes, I agree, a challenging mage battle requires a stronger AI. There were many improved AIs for the mages with later mods that came out for BG2. Check out SCSII as a mod; you'll see what I mean. But casting time was intended as a balancing mechanism against higher level spells. You cast all the magic missles you want, if you let me cast a Abu Dhaltzim's Horrid Wilting in the same time that you can cast 4-5 magic missles without my spell being interrupted, let's see who'd win that fight.

Edited October 21, 2012 by Hormalakh

[ArcaneBoozery]

Well if the AI was written better, it could win. While you are casting breach, what is preventing the mage from casting magic missle on you? Ultimately, you also have so many magic missles (5 or 6) so you're going to run out sooner or later. There were always wands too that a mage could possibly use.

 

So I state that low level spells with quick cast time are completely overpowered and unbalanced, and ask how an AI could possibly counter them. Your response is that the AI should resort to casting those low level spells. Doesn't that support my point? These kinds of mage duels would degenerate into both sides casting their lowest level spells at each other and pretty much ignoring all the cool higher level spells they get later, as well as ignoring all the cool countering mechanics we all love so much.

 

Also (to address your other points) keep in mind, the mage will (at least in any approach similar to AD&D) have a lot more low level spells than high level spells, so they will never run out of them before shutting down the higher level spells and dominating. And I don't see how any mod can fix this as long as the basic mechanics remain the same. Sure the mod can make the AI resort to the same cheesy low level spell exploiting tactics that the player can use, as mentioned above, but then all the cool countering gameplay and high level spell casting is completely ignored and what's left?

[Hormalakh]

Like I said, if you want to cast magic missle all day, go right ahead. I'll cast time stop, horrid wilting, and meteor swarm, and we'll see who wins that fight. Magic that implemented casting time was not degenerate in BG2. Go play the game again with a harder difficulty and a better AI (SCSII mod is a good one), then tell me the enemy mages sucked.