Cast Rate

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How can you shorten the time between casting spells, and speed up the casting process altogther? Is there an item that can help?

 

Improved iniative feat is supposed to do that but it is broken and has no effect. However, there is an unofficial fix for that, if you install it you need to console a 'Potion' and use it to fix the feat. After you use it your casting times will be lowered by 1. Apparently you can use the potion even without taking the feat, but let's be fair, OK?

AFAIK there are no items like Robe of Vecna and/or that spiffy amulet from HoW of IWD which reduces casting times. Sorry.

Hope this helps.

 

Actually Improved Initiative is only ment to let you be able to cast the spell "earlier" in the round. You would (even if it worked) not be able to cast any MORE spells in the same time.

You are completelly bound by the "1 spell per round" in this game.

 

You are right ofcourse, you can only cast 1 spell per round in IWD2, and there are no original items to shorten the casting times of spells. II feat is supposed to do that though, right?

 

I don't think so. In turnbased D&D games like ToEE you just can do your actions earlier in your round, you don't get more actions per round.

 

as i recall saying, it is a common misconception that II is bugged, it actually works exactly as it states. It lets you attack sooner in a round...whether physical or magic...at least in the latest patch.

 

No it doesn't, I just tested it.
Party order seems to be more important for who attacks or casts first.

 

you can test if you want, i ran through the code as it ran, it does do it i've seen it with my own eyes in the code when i was trying to fix it.

Now this in no way means order doesnt affect it as well. if 2 people have an order of 3 and one of 4, the first in the party list with a 3 would likely go first (but not much), depends on the order that the game checks speeds at.

 

The fact that some calculations are altered doesn't prove that it has an effect on the game.
If it worked exactly like described it should cause a difference of 1/10 round, that's 0.7 seconds, a difference everyone would realize.

I created two sorcs with identical stats, paused the game and had them both cast spells like "ray of enfeeblement" or attacks with the same weapon at each other. Every time after unpausing the character without the "improved initiative" feat got to cast his spell first unless the party order was different. This just shouldn't happen.

Maybe the feat does something, but not what it is supposed to do.

But you made me curious. Did you manage to find out how the "who acts first" calculation works out exactly ?
Do you mind sharing your knowledge ?
I guess I'm not the only one interested in this.

 

i didnt delve deep enough to figure out which character was going first (most testing was done with 1 player...easier to keep track of memory addresses that way), but i did get to see where the feat checks were (they were there and code after them did in fact remove 1 from the given stat on the weapon/player). you have made me curious and now i wanna check to see if the check is only made on player 1 (that would be weird)...it would explain the scenario you describe.

EDIT::
From what i can tell with my testings in game (same scenario, summon monster...cast time 6, longer easier to see) II makes him cast faster...plain and simple, always gets it off first.

The weird thing is it subtracted 1 from 3...in that spell desc it states 6 as cast time, but in the spl file itself speed is 3...

Tried it with Dispel, cast time 5 in spl file, same effect, II faster.

still, it becomes noticable when there is longer cast times. The II char's anim starts first and ends first...doesnt matter who i tell to go first (as long as its paused).

im under the impression that speed does not exactly correlate with "seconds" thus a casting speed of 1 is not 1/10 of a turn...i could be wrong on that as im not a good judge of 10ths of seconds though...my eye can see it so its at least more than 1/25 of a second ... also keep in mind thats assuming a turn is 6 seconds with the default ai update setting


Also, remember that turns are not "everyone gets a turn every 6 seconds" its more realtime than that, its like "p1 started his turn at 6:01:55 and wont get another till 6:02:01 while p2 started his at 6:01:54 and gets another at 6:02:00". wait a full turn to allow them to start the turn at the same time again.

Its also easier to see the effect if you turn down ai updates to 15 or so (turns take effectively 12 seconds, meaning II effectively gives us twice the visual effect...game goes slow so it works the same, but easier to see)

also, it may just be my head, but it seems like whoever's hilighted goes a little quicker so i introduced a 3rd person to keep highlited while i tested.

[ April 08, 2007, 05:39: Message edited by: MindChild ]