Spells should all be per encounter

[LastSoloer]

Nope, game is perfect like it is in this sense, if you want it to be easier low the difficulty but dont give useless feedback.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

4. Spells are too good to be per encounter: I totally agree with you on this and I'm not suggesting they patch this change, but the spells are that good because they were designed for casts/day, not the other way around.

 

Hahahaha! Exactly wrong. Burning Hands Fan of Flames has some use, but otherwise Aloth and the wizard class is mostly baggage. This particularly true of their defensive and debuff spells. Superfluous at best. Their limitations on their per day casts wouldn't be a problem if any of the Wizard spells were worth a damn. Mr. Sawyer was clutched with terror that Wizards would break his game though, so he decided that Wizards would have nearly all of the limitations of Vancian casting, without any of the positive tradeoffs.

 

Even still, I don't typically need their spells to get through combat. Arcane Assault is ok, so I tend to exhaust that first. Usually by the time its two uses are over, the battle is won. I've utilized my priest spells more often, but it's still quite rare. My PC is a well built Cipher, and takes care of most everything. I'll be dumping Aloth as soon as I can get another scripted NPC. The Cipher one or the Druid, but probably the Cipher.

[Dongom]

Replaced Aloth with gun Cipher. Game got easier, as expected.  

 

I wouldn't mind a mod that makes the first 1-3 WizardSpell tiers encounter based from level 1.  I think that would make them competitive with Ciphers, which they currently are not.

 

Or alternatively, buff wand blast and arcane-assault or something.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Dongom

[Voss]

 

4. Spells are too good to be per encounter: I totally agree with you on this and I'm not suggesting they patch this change, but the spells are that good because they were designed for casts/day, not the other way around.

 

Hahahaha! Exactly wrong. Burning Hands Fan of Flames has some use, but otherwise Aloth and the wizard class is mostly baggage. This particularly true of their defensive and debuff spells. Superfluous at best. Their limitations on their per day casts wouldn't be a problem if any of the Wizard spells were worth a damn. Mr. Sawyer was clutched with terror that Wizards would break his game though, so he decided that Wizards would have nearly all of the limitations of Vancian casting, without any of the positive tradeoffs.

 

 

 

Well, yeah, if you disingenuously stick to the crap spells.   Try slicken, fetid caress, expose vulnerabilities and confusion instead.  They're rather disgusting as is, let alone as encounter based.   And arcane assault?  Pbbt.

[View619]

Sounds like you should play a Cipher, OP. All of their abilities are per encounter.

[Vaeliorin]

 

 

Having 2-4 suppies available is ridiculous. You are  continually backtracking to town to get more, then fight again, then repeat. It's destroying the game.

 

Either resting should not require any resources or  limit should be raised to ,say, 20.

 

And,please, don't get started with "old -school" and sh--t, acting all high and mighty as in lol-this-is-old-school-baby-get-back to-your-dragon-age-inquisition.  I played almost all CRPGs starting from the ones made pre-1990. And the way it's done here is no good. No good at all.

I'm playing on Hard and have never had to backtrack yet. I got my camping supplies to zero once, I think, and that's because I forgot to stock up when passing by the inn, and while it got a little fiddly to get by until I found more, it was not frustratingly hard.

 

I.e. if you feel like you need 20 camping supplies, I'm fairly confident you're not playing the game very well. Take a deep breath, read up on the mechanics, experiment a little, and it will come together.

 

 

I agree (surprisingly!).  In fact, I find myself leaving behind most camping supplies I find on Hard because I am capped. 

 

The only issue is Aloth is a lazy schmuck.

 

The only notes I've made in my journal is the location of camping supplies I've left behind so I can go pick them up if I ever get low.

[mrmonocle]

NO!

[DIXI]

Your point is fair. Not lying on that.

 

But considering the amount of encounters there is in the game + mobs not respawning, I don't think it's needed.

 

Just don't waste your spells when you encounter small enemy groups .

[Mungri]

What about per encounter cantrips? Like those weakling spells in NWN.

 

Or twice as many arcane torrents (4 total).

[Ashen Rohk]

People say at higher lvl wiz/druid low lvl spells become per counter? Is this true and at what level.

 

Yeah, but it'll probably only extend to first or second level spells.

[Mungri]

That's still great. Chill fog, slicken, fetid caress spam.

[Odd Hermit]

I go through a lot of encounters w/out using spells/day because I hoard them. Then eventually I'm low on health for a few characters, so what I do is keep them back a bit and move my other characters forward and "spell dump" to quickly get through a few more encounters with total overkill damage before resting.

 

It's fun to let loose with my druid once in awhile. I do wish we got spells / encounter at low levels, even it's just 1 for each spell level it'd make a huge difference and I wouldn't have my casters hanging back plinking with ranged weapons so much. I used my druid's shifting for some encounters early game but it doesn't scale so well and becomes more of a "hit this guy he's squishy and in melee!" button later on so I hang back with a ranged weapon "of marking" to give accuracy bonus to my other characters. Same goes for Aloth.

[PrimeJunta]

Hahahaha! Exactly wrong. Burning Hands Fan of Flames has some use, but otherwise Aloth and the wizard class is mostly baggage. This particularly true of their defensive and debuff spells. Superfluous at best. 

 

Which wizard class are you talking about? Reveal Vulnerabilities is a bleeding' awesome debuff and has turned several otherwise hard fights into cakewalks. Fetid Caress and Curse of Blackened Sight also. Wall of Fire is a "win" button for any fight that doesn't have teleporting enemies. And so on and so forth.

 

I haven't tried the defensive spells, largely because of the opportunity cost. To be useful you really should be able to cast them as pre-buffs IMO.

[Caerdon]

All per-encounter spells would make the game really bland in my opinion (and yes, I think IE games were bland if you rested after every encounter). You'd have all the same spells available for every encounter, so you'd only need to adjust your tactics to fit the enemy, but for the most part, you could easily use basically the same routine for 95% of the encounters. In contrast, right now you need to consider not just the enemy, but also the resources you have available and which resources you want to save for later. This adds tactical depth and make encounters much more varied and interesting.

 

Additionally all combat would have to be rebalanced, because the current weaker mobs would pose absolutely no challenge if you always had your full spell repertoire in use. Right now even the "trash" fights are quite interesting and even challenging in their own way, because you want to get through them without wasting your resources - again: tactical variation. (Sure, you can cheese the current system by visiting an inn after every encounter, but that's tedious and inconvenient and only an idiot would bother, so no need to take that into account when balancing the game.)

 

That said, I wouldn't be against making per-encounter abilities just slightly more common. For example, when getting the fourth slot for a spell level, maybe that could be a per-encounter slot. This way a druid with 4 L1 spells, 4 L2 spells and 2 L3 spells could always cast one L1 and L2 spell "for free". Or something like that.

[Epsilon Rose]

I would like to make two, apparently, contradictory observations and then resolve that contradiction.

First, the idea that per rest spells works as a limiting resource and forces tactical and strategic planning is flawed. In order to reasonably plan how to spread your spells over a rest, you need to have, at least, a rough idea of the composition of the encounters you will face before the next rest. A "difficult" encounter is a relative thing and without knowing the degree or frequency of the upper end of the set, it's impossible to know how many and what level of spells you should actually spend on an encounter; so the safe thing to do is spend none, that way you'll have them available for and, hypothetically, more difficult future encounters. That really isn't strategic thought. It's a lot closer to playing roulette or, maybe, betting on horse races (I don't know how predictable those actually are, I don't follow them). In order to raise it to the level of strategic planning, one of three things would need to happen: You'd need an efficient form of scouting, the monsters would need to respawn in fixed positions (ala the souls series), or the game would need to tell you outright (ala a tower defense game). While, some of those are less terrible than others, I can't see any of them happening.

 

Second, problem is that you don't tend to need spells for a lot of fights, so you have tons of spells available for the fights where you do need them. So far, I've found that I can easily destroy most of the encounters, so it's pretty easy to figure out that I don't need to spend spells on them. It's also fairly easy to figure out when I've run into a difficult encounter and should start spamming. No real strategic thought needs to go into either decision. I have also found that I am liable to take a good amount of HP damage in such encounters and, as such, I'm only going to want to go through a small number of them.  The per rest limitation isn't relevant for the first type of encounter, because I'm simply not using spells. The limitation is also not particularly relevant to the second type, because I will be resting in short order (usually do to HP damage) anyways and won't actually be without those spells.

These two observations might sound contradictory, since the first is close to "I don't have enough spells" and the second is, essentially, "I have to many spells", but the root cause of both problems is that the per rest mechanic isn't working as an effective limiter. Instead, it just encourages novaing.

There's also a related issue with how the wizard plays. Namely, when a wizard isn't casting spells, they're really, really, boring. They basically come down to Auto-Attack or use a really visually and statistically unimpressive AoE twice. This is a problem, since they won't be constantly casting spells.

To fix all of this, I'd do the following. First, give wizards far fewer spells. Second, modify their spells so the buffs have rest long duration, the sustained effects (like wall of fire or frozen mist) last for the whole encounter, and the instant spells (be they things like stun or just pure damage) are worth it (most are probably close to that anyways). Finally, give them a second set of abilities that are much weaker than spells, but also per encounter, so they'll have something to do when they're not casting spells.

There's actually a PnP game called Legend that did this really well and the mages ended up a lot more balanced for it.

[Bazy]

All per-encounter spells would make the game really bland in my opinion (and yes, I think IE games were bland if you rested after every encounter). You'd have all the same spells available for every encounter, so you'd only need to adjust your tactics to fit the enemy, but for the most part, you could easily use basically the same routine for 95% of the encounters. In contrast, right now you need to consider not just the enemy, but also the resources you have available and which resources you want to save for later. This adds tactical depth and make encounters much more varied and interesting.

I find the opposite. Since I need to "save" my spells I find that 99% of all fights are the same because my casters stand around autoattacking not wanting to waste the per rest spells. At least with per encounter my casters would do something on most fights. 

 

Interesting gameplay should come from interesting enemies not by restricting spell usage. 

Edited March 30, 2015 by Bazy

[Schyzm]

I don't like the per rest spell system either. I thought it was really strange when I made a druid and was like, "oh damn like 8 spells! imma spell fiend!" skip forward to playing druid, its basically entirely auto attacks. you get some relief later because you kind of collect a large number of overall spell uses, but there should probably be a better way at this point.

[Caerdon]

I would like to make two, apparently, contradictory observations and then resolve that contradiction.

 

First, the idea that per rest spells works as a limiting resource and forces tactical and strategic planning is flawed. In order to reasonably plan how to spread your spells over a rest, you need to have, at least, a rough idea of the composition of the encounters you will face before the next rest. A "difficult" encounter is a relative thing and without knowing the degree or frequency of the upper end of the set, it's impossible to know how many and what level of spells you should actually spend on an encounter; so the safe thing to do is spend none, that way you'll have them available for and, hypothetically, more difficult future encounters. That really isn't strategic thought. It's a lot closer to playing roulette or, maybe, betting on horse races (I don't know how predictable those actually are, I don't follow them). In order to raise it to the level of strategic planning, one of three things would need to happen: You'd need an efficient form of scouting, the monsters would need to respawn in fixed positions (ala the souls series), or the game would need to tell you outright (ala a tower defense game). While, some of those are less terrible than others, I can't see any of them happening.

 

Second, problem is that you don't tend to need spells for a lot of fights, so you have tons of spells available for the fights where you do need them. So far, I've found that I can easily destroy most of the encounters, so it's pretty easy to figure out that I don't need to spend spells on them. It's also fairly easy to figure out when I've run into a difficult encounter and should start spamming. No real strategic thought needs to go into either decision. I have also found that I am liable to take a good amount of HP damage in such encounters and, as such, I'm only going to want to go through a small number of them.  The per rest limitation isn't relevant for the first type of encounter, because I'm simply not using spells. The limitation is also not particularly relevant to the second type, because I will be resting in short order (usually do to HP damage) anyways and won't actually be without those spells.

 

These two observations might sound contradictory, since the first is close to "I don't have enough spells" and the second is, essentially, "I have to many spells", but the root cause of both problems is that the per rest mechanic isn't working as an effective limiter. Instead, it just encourages novaing.

 

There's also a related issue with how the wizard plays. Namely, when a wizard isn't casting spells, they're really, really, boring. They basically come down to Auto-Attack or use a really visually and statistically unimpressive AoE twice. This is a problem, since they won't be constantly casting spells.

 

To fix all of this, I'd do the following. First, give wizards far fewer spells. Second, modify their spells so the buffs have rest long duration, the sustained effects (like wall of fire or frozen mist) last for the whole encounter, and the instant spells (be they things like stun or just pure damage) are worth it (most are probably close to that anyways). Finally, give them a second set of abilities that are much weaker than spells, but also per encounter, so they'll have something to do when they're not casting spells.

 

There's actually a PnP game called Legend that did this really well and the mages ended up a lot more balanced for it.

 

I never said the tactical/strategic thinking is in deciding when and when not to use spells. Most of it is in choosing and adjusting your tactics based on which spells you're willing to use in the current encounter. When you're conserving some of your resources, you have different resources available, and that leads to tactically varied encounters, as opposed to having the exact same resources available every single time.

 

I'm still on my first playthrough, so I'm going forward "blind". And yet I've had zero problems conserving my resources in a sensible way. Some encounters I go through without using any per-rest abilities, in some I use a handful of those, and sometimes I burn most of what I've got. I've never found myself saving and saving and saving them for some imaginary ultra-hard boss fight that never comes. And you know what? More often than not I can look back at my decisions and I can say that I've used my resources wisely.

 

How's that possible? It's because I'm actually not going forward blind. I'm scouting. I'm making educated guesses. I'm using my experience and judgment. I'm preparing, not planning. A chain of encounters progresses in a certain way, and with some rudimentary skill and experience, you can develop a feel for it, and when you pay attention to your surroundings, you can make some fairly accurate predictions of what kind of battles you'll likely face in the near future. (And just to be clear: I'm not a particularly great player, even though I've played IE games quite a lot.)

 

Also, I don't see why every character needs to be superbly "interesting" all the time. If you don't need spells in some particular situation, just let your wizard auto-attack and focus on your other characters that probably have more interesting mechanics in such situations. That's yet another level of welcome variation: having different tools for different situations.

 

 

All per-encounter spells would make the game really bland in my opinion (and yes, I think IE games were bland if you rested after every encounter). You'd have all the same spells available for every encounter, so you'd only need to adjust your tactics to fit the enemy, but for the most part, you could easily use basically the same routine for 95% of the encounters. In contrast, right now you need to consider not just the enemy, but also the resources you have available and which resources you want to save for later. This adds tactical depth and make encounters much more varied and interesting.

I find the opposite. Since I need to "save" my spells I find that 99% of all fights are the same because my casters stand around autoattacking not wanting to waste the per rest spells. At least with per encounter my casters would do something on most fights. 

 

Interesting gameplay should come from interesting enemies not by restricting spell usage. 

 

 

Then use your spells more, you absolutely don't need to go through 99% of encounters without using per-rest spells. I really don't see the problem here, aside from that it sems to me like you're just not very skilled at managing your resources efficiently. Not to worry, you'll get better at it.

[Odd Hermit]

People say at higher lvl wiz/druid low lvl spells become per counter? Is this true and at what level.

 

It's true, level 9 for 1st level spells/encounter on my Druid. Aloth isn't quite there yet but I'm assuming it'll be same for him.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Odd Hermit

[Andtalath]

The game allows you to play /encounter if you wish it, about half the classes are based around that concept.

The other half gives a different dimension, not better, not worse, just different.

 

This opens up full possibilities to play this more like a modern RPG or like an old-school.

 

I fail to see the issue with allowing to play it old-school, this is not like in IE-games where you had to have a healer, a caster and a thief in every constellation (at least every reasonable one, I know it's fully possible to solo in those games and I have and enjoyed it).

Here, pretty much any combination of the six classes seems viable.

 

Forcing the classes closer together just makes it easier to grasp, not more flexible and not more balanced.

Just hogged down.

 

In short, leave my vancian casters alone!

Resource management is a BIG point of what I love about RPGs.

[spellcastersuck]

They should give cantrips (level 0 spells) that can be cast on a per encounter basis. Weak, but useful spells. This would deal with the problems of spellcasters (a ray of frost that deals little damage to anyone caught in the beam and a single target stuck spell, for example).

[Gidpo]

These two observations might sound contradictory, since the first is close to "I don't have enough spells" and the second is, essentially, "I have to many spells", but the root cause of both problems is that the per rest mechanic isn't working as an effective limiter. Instead, it just encourages novaing.

 

There's also a related issue with how the wizard plays. Namely, when a wizard isn't casting spells, they're really, really, boring. They basically come down to Auto-Attack or use a really visually and statistically unimpressive AoE twice. This is a problem, since they won't be constantly casting spells.

 

To fix all of this, I'd do the following. First, give wizards far fewer spells. Second, modify their spells so the buffs have rest long duration, the sustained effects (like wall of fire or frozen mist) last for the whole encounter, and the instant spells (be they things like stun or just pure damage) are worth it (most are probably close to that anyways). Finally, give them a second set of abilities that are much weaker than spells, but also per encounter, so they'll have something to do when they're not casting spells.

Yeah you sum it up really nicely.

 

I would like to point out that the augments for the spells for rest system don’t really add up, both the "its tradition" and the resource mechanic.

 

To be efficient with your spell casters you have to have meta knowledge, like “I know what mobs and how many I will be fighting in the next two maps."  Roleplaying, or simply on the first play through, will leave the player without this info.

 

The resource limiting aspect is meaningless if I am not given a good indication that I should cast a spell at a certain point and I am not going to be severely impaired in the near future.

 

The closest thing the game has right now is like a dialog scene. Dialog often equals a boss fight, blows the spells.

 

Outside of that it’s not strategic or even tactical, the player is just blind until the second play through or consulting with the strategy guide.

[lucid1222]

I find wizards and the rest system to be fine.  Wizards have per encounter options like the slam, they also can aoe their auto attacks.  I think most people think wizards suck cause they want to do damage with them, and they are basing their experience off the terribly built companion wizard in their party.  As far as the rest system I barely have to go back for supplies on POD difficulty so I don't know what to tell people who want 20 camping supplies on that one.  Maybe strategic combat isn't for you.

[Epsilon Rose]

I find wizards and the rest system to be fine.  Wizards have per encounter options like the slam, they also can aoe their auto attacks.  I think most people think wizards suck cause they want to do damage with them, and they are basing their experience off the terribly built companion wizard in their party.  As far as the rest system I barely have to go back for supplies on POD difficulty so I don't know what to tell people who want 20 camping supplies on that one.  Maybe strategic combat isn't for you.

The problem with that is their per encounter options are really lack luster and auto-attacks are incredbly boaring and, kind-of, anti-thetical to the concept behind the class.

[lucid1222]

I fail to see how a twice usable aoe damage plus daze is lackluster.  Maybe it's just me, but an AOE damage + decent debuff is pretty strong in my book.  If the argument is that the abilities aren't flashy enough, well that is a valid opionion, but doesn't really have anything to do with game balance. There are many wizard spells that are extremely powerful in the hands of someone who knows how to setup for their use and having more of these would be game breaking IMO.