My biggest complaint about Pillars of Eternity? I miss the Magic Missile.

[Daemonjax]

Cone of Cold, a 5th level spell, is considered by many the benchmark in D&D for damage spells.

 

It did 1d4 + 1 per level (so 3.5 average damage per level, which is same as 1d6) with a save for half damage.  It scaled infinitely, and was AOE.

 

Every other damage spell was measured against that yardstick.

 

 

What would you consider to be the equivalent of Cone of Cold (as in the spell by which to measure all other spells) in this game?

Edited April 11, 2015 by Daemonjax

[endruwiggin]

Instead of scaling with level you got infinite-spells at certain wizard levels, I think its pretty strong as it is, we can attack the darkness all we want

 

[piggyhog]

Instead of scaling with level you got infinite-spells at certain wizard levels, I think its pretty strong as it is, we can attack the darkness all we want

 

... except that at that level, your level 1 spell (since it doesn't scale at that level) is NOT going to save your bacon at all, no matter how many times you cast it.

[Marceror]

I love the magic missile spell in IE, but I'm rather happy with the missile line of spells in PoE as well.

 

What I don't miss is starting at level 1 with a silly, single missile that does such a paltry amount of damage. It's nice that in PoE I actually can cast some more impactful spells right from the beginning. And then I can get better versions of those spells as I level up, that work a bit differently.

[Luckmann]

To be fair though, most spells in PoE does not level with the player because they are useful throughout pretty much the entire game. Yeah, other stuff becomes better, but that's because they're at higher spell ranks - the low-level stuff never really gets as useless as it probably should.

[endruwiggin]

 

Instead of scaling with level you got infinite-spells at certain wizard levels, I think its pretty strong as it is, we can attack the darkness all we want

 

... except that at that level, your level 1 spell (since it doesn't scale at that level) is NOT going to save your bacon at all, no matter how many times you cast it.

 

 

 

STRONGLY disagree.

 

My level 1 spell that reduce resistance (forgot its name) helped me defeat the adra dragon.

Level 1 magic missile helps me clear off little guys from my backline.

Level 1 AOE freeze is very strong even now at level 10.

Fan of flame is overpowered so that one I dont even use!

Edited April 11, 2015 by endruwiggin

[Gotcha!]

No. Most damage-type spells scaled with level, though some of them (like Magic Missile and Fireball) only scaled up to a certain level and then stopped. A few (e.g. Skull Trap) scaled all the way up to level 20.

You're absolutely right ofcourse. I guess it's really time for me to replay those games again. I remember so little of them.

[Varana]

Also, Chromatic Orb. Damage was kind of negligible (although there was no save against it), but the side effects became rather astonishing later on, up to enemies being petrified or insta-killed.

[Namutree]

 

Fan of flame is overpowered so that one I dont even use!

 

Yet for some reason a lot of people just insist the wizard is weak. I've been using two wizards and they are so OP they just break the game. I use fan of flame when I'm low level, Confusion when I'm high level. Super effective.

[Hexo]

... None of the magic (that I've seen so far) scales with the player, so low-level spells very quickly lose relevance. There are also no visual or mechanical changes to the spells... and that's really disappointing to me. ...

 

It's not my biggest complaint (don't know what is, love this game), but yes I'd also prefer more spells that increase in power as I level up, and with a visual change to actually see that the spells have improved. Just like good ol' Magic Missile

Edited April 12, 2015 by Hexo

[Mungri]

Level 2 damage spells are crap though, the rolling fire ball and ray. Miasma, Blindness and Fetid Curse are great though.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Mungri

[PsykoKiwi]

I did notice the loss of Magic Missiles, especially as a long time BG player. But my only real complaint is the fact a ton of spells are restricted to 'Combat Only'. Personally I would like those to be available when an enemy is sighted, so I can scout out a target, buff up and attack it. 

 

But that is just my personal preference, I do like the challenge of it, but sometimes it really does bug me that I can SEE the enemy RIGHT there but I can prepare to fight them. . . which defies logic. . . 

 

Durance: 'I'll wait until they are trying to stab you Eloth, then I'll put the Armor of Faith on you. . . until then, just stand there and look pretty!'

[redneckdevil]

...... That actually sounds like exactly something Durance would say lmao

[Arsene Lupin]

I guess I'm not remember Magic Missile completely accurately. I remember that it was a missile that you shot from your fingertips, so I assumed the max number was 10. But I guess it's really just 5? Oh well. I also have a vague memory of, as you leveled up, the MM spell would attack multiple enemies in certain circumstances--so a 1v1 spell eventually evolved into a 1vMany spell. That was really cool. (Though I could be thinking of another D&D spell--I was never a D&D kid--no friends and all that--so my only experience with the spells is from the various CRPGs.

 

And I guess maybe some of you are right (depending on the wizard build) and all spells remain viable in the late-game... but I'm not really seeing it, myself. I feel like I'm just wasting my time casting level 1 spells, when level 2 and level 3 spells are the only ones doing any appreciable damage (even if they all have really annoying friendly-fire issues). I'm not about to say that the magic in D&D was perfect, or that the MM spell was perfect, but I do think that having a spell that becomes more impressive both visually and mechanically is an incredibly cool idea, and it's a shame that PoE doesn't even try to do something similar. And what's really annoying is that there is an upgraded missile spell... but it's visually identical to the level 1 version.

 

Also: IMHO only ever being able to shoot three missiles at a time just feels wrong. And stupid. I just can't respect my wizard for that, ya' know? The shadow of D&D is just too long.

 

I did notice the loss of Magic Missiles, especially as a long time BG player. But my only real complaint is the fact a ton of spells are restricted to 'Combat Only'. 

 

I definitely agree. And PoE seems like it would really benefit (even moreso than a D&D game) from noncombat spells. Things like being able to teleport to special maps/areas, to summon creatures to "scout" ahead--and maybe even deal a little damage before the main party arrives. Or--and this seems like it's the biggest missed opportunity--to affect the disposition of NPCs. IE a spell that could increase an NPC's susceptibility to rational dialog (at the cost of decreasing his or her susceptibility to aggressive dialog) and so forth... or a spell that has a chance of generating a minor disposition boost with a faction (which, to be balanced, could only be used on specific NPCs within a faction, and only one time) with a "critical failure" chance of a major disposition hit.

 

And so on.

[basketofseals]

Was I playing DnD wrong? How was magic missile overpowered? You only gained one extra missile every other level.

[PsykoKiwi]

Yea I just dislike not being able to take the initiative and prepare for a fight. In Baldur's Gate if I was in a creepy dark dank dungeon I would always have bless and chant on and usually stone skin and mirror image on my sorcerer. Just to be prepared for what might be around the next corner you know? 

 

Edit: But really, it's such a minor complaint on the whole! Just a few things that personally I would like an option to change.  

Edited April 18, 2015 by PsykoKiwi

[Yosharian]

Magic Missile was awesome because you could interrupt spellcasters with it, and interrupting them in the middle of casting a really amazing spell meant they lost that spell.

 

Whereas in PoE the spell is cast anyway 1-2 seconds later.

 

Interrupts are really not that important in this game.

 

The other thing that made MM good was that it did the BG2 equivalent of 'raw' damage.  Whereas in PoE the spell targets.. deflection is it?  Something like that.

Edited April 18, 2015 by Yosharian

[b0rsuk]

For some reason PoE has very few spells that are single target only. So much area damage!

[Dadalama]

Yeah I remember magic missile as something you get at level 1 (alongside sleep, which is actually useful) but you don't use it til level 3. In the pnp you can divide it up between multiple opponents. I think it had a max of 10 missiles. Which is 10d4+10 damage, or 20-50 damage. Each missile had about a 50/50 chance of taking out a 1 hd monster. So if you split it up you could soften the front lines or focus it all on one single monster. It falls out of favor around level 15, but level 10 took a lot longer to get too back then.

[-dib-]

Yeah, wizards were a lot more fun to play in the BG series than PoE. Sure, the PoE wizard is fine and a perfectly viable choice but that's about it. If magic is just as strong or viable as everything else then why bother becoming a wizard? The BG series where not very well balanced between classes at all and that's part of what made it fun and interesting for me, classes felt more unique and organic.

[Wiggum Esquilax]

Second one at level 2? Ten missiles?!?

 

Hax!

 

Reported.

Roll up a sorcerer.

Set game to auto-pause upon spell cast.

Reach experience level 20 to learn the necessary spells.

Equip the Robe of Vecna to reduce Magic Missile's casting time to 1/10th of a second.

Cast Chain Contingency, Time Stop and Improved Alacrity to give yourself 12 uninterrupted seconds in combat, and eliminate the cooldown between castings.

Cast Magic Missile, over and over, until 35 missiles are all airborne simultaneously and overlapping.

Enjoy a cool, refreshing beverage for the remaining 11.3 seconds of Time Stop.

35d4+35 in 0.0 seconds.  No saving throw allowed.

[dimvision]

And I think the Magic Missile spell is a good example of what I don't like about magic in Eternity.

 

(For those who don't know, Magic Missile is a D&D level 1 spell that most wizards or sorcerers start out with). The Magic Missile spell was awesome in the old IE games because it scaled with your level--the higher your level, the more missiles you could shoot, the more missiles you could shoot the more damage you could do.

 

It was great. That made the Magic Missile spell useful even at high-levels. It was also a great visual indicator of character growth. When I hit level 2 in Baldur's Gate, for example, I don't feel like I'm getting stronger because I can do slightly more damage and have slightly better stats--I feel stronger because instead of shooting out one dinky missile, I shoot two. And then hours later when my wizard is blasting 10 missiles from each fingertip--that feels truly badass.

 

Which brings me to Pillars of Eternity.

 

None of the magic (that I've seen so far) scales with the player, so low-level spells very quickly lose relevance. There are also no visual or mechanical changes to the spells... and that's really disappointing to me.

 

I love Pillars of Eternity, don't get me wrong: it's almost everything I'd hoped it would be. But I always play a wizard/sorcerer character in games like this, so it's disappointing to see that Pillars of Eternity is yet another in a long list of CRPGs that simply fails to (even try to) reach the same level as the old IE games.

 

 

Magic missile has always been op in the past IE games and pen and paper D&D, I've played a lot of 3.5 with the correct feats magic missiles will do a whopping 300++ damage (can't remember exact numbers) no need to roll for damage cause it's maximized oh and did I mentioned that it's also quickened?? LOL and yep you guessed it no save, no defense against it outside of magic resistance (I f****** hate autohit spells). Now that said most people are ok with it (personally I think it's op) because it uses up spell slots. In 4th edition not so anymore.

 

Spells scale in the past games because it "always" use up spell slots, they don't scale in POE cause later on lvl 1 and 2 spells shift to per encounter instead of per rest. This is the only first installment of POE, I'd imagine if an expansion or POE2 comes out they will raise the cap introduce new spells and maybe lvl's 3-6 spells will shift to per encounter.

 

Spellcasting classes in POE are OP as it is, they hardly fail because of the graze mechanic. Your lvl 1 slicken or lvl 1 natures mark is still effective even in the endgame. You just need to get a graze.

Edited April 22, 2015 by dimvision

[WebShaman]

 

 

Second one at level 2? Ten missiles?!?

 

Hax!

 

Reported.

Roll up a sorcerer.

Set game to auto-pause upon spell cast.

Reach experience level 20 to learn the necessary spells.

Equip the Robe of Vecna to reduce Magic Missile's casting time to 1/10th of a second.

Cast Chain Contingency, Time Stop and Improved Alacrity to give yourself 12 uninterrupted seconds in combat, and eliminate the cooldown between castings.

Cast Magic Missile, over and over, until 35 missiles are all airborne simultaneously and overlapping.

Enjoy a cool, refreshing beverage for the remaining 11.3 seconds of Time Stop.

35d4+35 in 0.0 seconds. No saving throw allowed.

Target has Shield spell active/MR/etc:

 

Nothing happens, and some very powerful spells were just wasted for nothing.

 

*clap, clap*

[waltc]

And I think the Magic Missile spell is a good example of what I don't like about magic in Eternity.

 

(For those who don't know, Magic Missile is a D&D level 1 spell that most wizards or sorcerers start out with). The Magic Missile spell was awesome in the old IE games because it scaled with your level--the higher your level, the more missiles you could shoot, the more missiles you could shoot the more damage you could do.

 

It was great. That made the Magic Missile spell useful even at high-levels. It was also a great visual indicator of character growth. When I hit level 2 in Baldur's Gate, for example, I don't feel like I'm getting stronger because I can do slightly more damage and have slightly better stats--I feel stronger because instead of shooting out one dinky missile, I shoot two. And then hours later when my wizard is blasting 10 missiles from each fingertip--that feels truly badass.

 

Which brings me to Pillars of Eternity.

 

None of the magic (that I've seen so far) scales with the player, so low-level spells very quickly lose relevance. There are also no visual or mechanical changes to the spells... and that's really disappointing to me.

 

I love Pillars of Eternity, don't get me wrong: it's almost everything I'd hoped it would be. But I always play a wizard/sorcerer character in games like this, so it's disappointing to see that Pillars of Eternity is yet another in a long list of CRPGs that simply fails to (even try to) reach the same level as the old IE games.

 

PoE is different from the "old IE games"--different, not inferior.  I have much enjoyed the differing spells and learning how they work.  But, there's a magic missile spell in lvl1 Wizard, and there's a MM spell from lvl 3 that is much more powerful than the lvl 1 spell.  I think your central problem is that you want to play this game like you remember playing the "old IE games" and this is a new game with new rules--it is not a D&D game and wasn't intended to be--and so you're trying to force PoE into a mold it will not fit.  Blank your mind of the "old IE game" memories and try and concentrate on PoE and PoE exclusively--learn how stuff works in PoE.  It's a lot of fun and I think in many ways much better than the "old IE games"--the magic is just terrific.  One thing I love about PoE is that after a rest *all* of your spells are available for casting (in combat)--not just a few of them that were "memorized" in the IE games.  You can't cast all of them, of course, but you can choose from all of them.

 

Also, lower-level spells are very relevant unless you rest after every fight--which I can't see being possible with the limited camping supplies.  After you cast your Lvl3 spells of choice, then lvl 3 is grayed out, but lvl2 & lvl 1 are available.  When lvls 2&3 are grayed out, then Lvl i spells are all you have left to fight with.  Happens to me frequently--often it is that my Wizard has used up all of his lvl1,2,&3&4 spells before resting (all of them that he can cast per level, of course.)

 

About the only thing in the game that I genuinely don't like is the shortage of healing potions in the game--the ones you can get for Health (not Endurance) are very weak, and the spells I've seen so far for Health are also very weak.  The abilities you can assign, like FIeld Triage, are also very weak comparatively.  Limiting the number of camping supplies one can carry in his unlimited stash seems ridiculous without being able to purchase robust healing potions or having robust healing spells--it simply means that I have to make more trips back & forth into a town just to rest because I've run out of camping supplies temporarily.  I think Health regeneration suffers in the game compared to Endurance regen in combat--and it's an unbalanced mix for the simple reason that I am out of combat far longer than I'm in it (exploring, etc.)  

 

But set yourself free of MM--there are some really powerful and really cool spells in this game.  I will say that I am amazed to read that some people actually don't like Wizards because in order to use them they have to pause the combat and assign spells...   Very weird, imo...

Edited April 22, 2015 by waltc

[chouia]

I though that magic missiles was not bad in PoE. You can get a lot of it, it's long range, it's quick. It's nice to annoy and even kill quickly other spellcasters. (Especially if you got two wizards.)

 

But, to be honest, the "problem" with "magic missiles" was more the powerful longe range weapons for me. It was very effective. If you are lazy, you don't really need spells (especially single target damage spells), except for very few fights. (I agree that the spell to creat a long range double of yourself is efficient too. :D) Furthermore, with the Damage Reduction system, big damages with big weapon are good idea...

Edited April 23, 2015 by chouia