Stupid AI!

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I can't believe this.

My sorc was getting swarmed by those guards at the Severed Hand, so I had him cast fireshield. Then I covered him in an Otiluke's Sphere.

The guards wailed on him, and promptly died from the fireshield. My sorcerer came out unscathed.

That's ridiculous. What's worse is that Otiluke's sphere doesn't seem to allow for a saving throw, despite the manual saying otherwise.

Is there a patch to tweak the AI?

 

Some spells are broken in IWD2.

I'd suggest Tactics4IWD2 it is quite challenging (npcs get to use better spells and better spell combination, expect summoned undead and II), you will probably like it.

 

When you cast it on your own guys of course there is no save... have you tested it vs enemies?

The real problems here are:
- You logically should not be able to cast spells on someone protected by ORS.
- If the fire shield was cast before ORS, it should be inside the ORS and thus irrelevant.
- The AI shouldn't keep wailing on a guy inside ORS.

Personally I choose not to use ORS.

 

I'm sure the creators intended for the spell to be used as a last ditched effort to save someone, basically a more powerful version of tortoise shell.

Unfortunately, to most of the people that play this game, it's just cheese.

 

JT:

'Of course'? If the manual says there should be a save, there should be save, whether you're casting on friend or foe. If I target a party member with a disintegrate spell, they still get a chance save.

Enemies don't get a save either.

I don't think you can.

I'm not so sure about this one. If the diametre of fireshield is greater than that for Otiluke's sphere, and they are both centred on the target, then fire shield should be outside otiluke's.

Yeah, I agree whole heartedly with that. ESPECIALLY if they are taking damage from fire shield.

It's rather ironic when you don't use a spell because it's TOO powerful.

 

Well logically you should be able to accept the spell so that a save wouldn't be needed. I mean it's not like there's saves on buffs either.

 

I gotta try this trick out. It sounds cool (or hot depending on which fire shield you choose).

 

It's not cool, it's overwhelmingly lame. Cool is beating the best at their best with sound tactics, not by exploiting buggy AI.

 

The AI can be considered realistic in this case. How should a monster without any spellcraft skill know what the ORS spell does ?
How should it know that the protected mage is invincible as long this spell is in effect ?
Even if the first attack roll succeeds and yields no damage the enemy still doesn't know if it's because of damage resistance which can be overcome with high damage rolls or a defensive spell which absorbs a certain number of attacks.
So the enemy behavior does make sense unless you think enemy monsters should have metagaming knowledge.
And guards should know that allowing mages to do what they want is suicide, so they even attack if they take damage in return.

You could even get the idea that this was implemented on purpose to allow not so skilled players an emergency cheese to avoid giving up in frustration. ORS never does disturb me since I never use it.

 

Same here. Good points kmonster.

 

Heh, me neither. I very rarely use defensive spells of any description, to be honest. Stoneskin, and that's it, for my spellcasters.