Defensive spells and their countermeasures

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Hey, last night I was fighting the liche in the drow city (the one who you get through a rope)
I entered the room, all the party invisible, somehow, I see nothing, so I cast true sight, invisibility purgue (or something, my spelling sucks) but nothing happened, BUT, I could see in the info bar: (liche's name): cast fire shield, improved invisibility, greater malison, etc, and some spells that you need to target to a character but hey! I was invisible! and he wasn't doing true sight or something; then, tried to dispels his magics defenses but nothing worked, his fire shield didn't went out, even after about 50 turns in wich his managed to make 3 time stop and a lot of thing, I was barely suviving, just getting out of his STIL BURNING shield (after much more many and countless turns) when OH surprise! he can cast imprisionment at a long range! it wasn't necesary a touch to do that?
After that, in an area where used to be only some angkeks and now because the tactics there are some dragons I found that one of them can cast long distance imprisionment!
Isn't that cheating? OK, you wanted some difficult game? thanks, yes, but not imposible and ilegal actions like that.

 

@Strifestrike - The Wizard slayer isn't bad at all. When he is on level 40 he have 90% magic resistance, 10% culmulative spell failure per hit, a lot of Greater Whirlwind Attacks, probalby three hardiness to stop psychical damage, the answerer(at least I do), Vhailor's helmet, the shield of Balduran, Boots of speed, the necklace of Suldanessellar and many healing potions to make up for the lack of regeneration item. My wizard slayer is better than Sarevok in fighting and he is all legal.

[EDIT] - Forgot to add - the elven armor that protects against normal weapons and less casting speed.

 

All a wizard slayer needs to do to get that cumulative spell disruption is to hit. To hit, not to damage. So I had a wizard slayer grandmaster in bows(it was a slow day) and equipped with Tuigon bow(3 shots per turn) and Kangaxx was "spell failure, spell failure, spell failure." I put him out of his misery after I stopped laughing.

 

A wizard slayer with bows is good enough, but I dont like to give up so many things just to be able to hurt mages. A battle with a mage is usually won or lost with ure own characters. Though now that I think about it, I do see potential with a party with a wizard slayer, you would probably need only one mage... or none even, sounds pretty cool.

Edit: Sydax, your purge didnt work either cause the lich had non detection or had a high level invisibility spell (shadow door). You need true sight to combat liches, trust me.

 

Which won't even work if they've got a spell immunity:divination.

I'm assuming that you did that after you got the quest, because before it, he imprisons you to start it.

 

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, when you do any spell, can you see: (char-name): spell immunity:divination? I mean, how do you know what the liche or mage is doing to himself?
Whatever, he do the immunity, what can you do? how can you see him? and most important, HOW they can cast upon an invisible target?

 

Here's a question. Say I have a mage/thief, Jan for example. I cast improved invisibility and spell immunity: divination on him. As long as he stays behind people, is he pretty much an endetectable backstabbing machine? As in every hit will be a backstab? He is concealed and one would think undiscoverable. Am I right?

What about the cloak of non-detection? Isn't it more or less an item that gives you immunity to divination spells like true sight?

 

Cloak of detection, and non-detection are bugged, they only protect ure invisibility if you got it from an item. That means spell cast invisibility can be dispelled, even if ure wearing cloak of non detection. Also the backstab thing, once u hit u become partially visible, u need to be completely invisible to backstab.

 

This is only somewhat true. I put the Cloak of Non-Detection on my thief and hide in shadows for scouting purposes. In at least one instance (the party in the sewers, in particular) the mage kept casting True Sight and my thief remained hidden. ONE TIME though on a reload the True Sight got through and my thief was discovered (no message saying hide in shadows failed).

Another example is giving a mage the Staff of the Magi and the Cloak of Non-Detection. Remove him from your party and try to True Sight him. Doesn't work. My guess is that there is always a 1% chance that True Sight will work against the cloak, but don't bet on it.

I'm not surprised that people get different results with the cloak. The game engine still has weird bugs, and this may simply be another.

 

Staff of magi is an item...

 

I've posted this a long time ago...

* Counterspells vs spell protections *

Spell Thrust vs.
Minor Spell Deflection, Minor Spell Turning, Minor Globe, Spell Immunity

Pierce Magic vs
same as Spell Thrust and also vs Spell Deflection

Secret Word vs.
same as Pierce Magic and also vs Spell Turning

Khelben's Warding Whip vs.
same as Secret Word and also vs Globe of Invulnerability

Ruby Ray of Reversal, Pierce Shield and Spellstrike vs.
same as Khelben's Warding Whip and also vs Spell Trap

* Counterspell vs combat protections *
Breach vs.
Shield, Protection Circle (what is that?), Resist Fear, Prot from Fire/Cold, Fireshield, Prot from Acid, Prot from Electricity, Prot from Magic Energy, Prot from the Elements, Protection from Energy.

 

You left out:

Breach vs. stoneskin, mantle, improved mantle, absolute immunity, prot from magic weapons, prot from normal weapons.

 

Just thought to note, that 'Dispel Magic/Remove-' has that failure %. That is solved by comparing the levels of casters.

 

Yes, that's why the only Dispel Magic I ever use is the Inquisitor's (since it is calculated at double level and is instant).

[ July 29, 2003, 03:07: Message edited by: Earl Grey ]

 

Dispel magic is definitely level based. I think it has a chance of dispelling any protection on any character (friendly or hostile) - at least whenever Keldorn casts it it seems to get rid of everything.

This is my understanding of how it works. The chance of dispelling is 50% if the person who cast the protections and the person dispelling are of the same level. There is then a 5% adjustment for every level difference. Thus, if you are a 15th level mage casting dispel magic against a 20th level mage, there is a 25% chance that each of his spell protections will be dispelled. (And I believe if there are multiple spell protections each one is calculated individually). If the levels were reversed, the 20th level mage would have a 75% of dispelling the protections of a 15th level mage.

As Earl Grey stated, that's why the Inquisitor has such a powerful dispel magic, because it fires off at twice his actual level.

Also of note, if you don't have Keldorn, the next best dispel magic would come from a bard. All things being equal, a bard will be a higher level than a cleric or a wizard (provided they have about the same number of XP) and thus have a better chance of dispelling. In order from best to worse you have:

Inquisitor
Bard
Cleric
Wizard/Sorcerer
Ranger/Paladin other than Inquisitor

The ranger and non-inquisitor paladins are equally sucky when in comes to dispel magic though, because dispel magic works on CASTING level, not character level, and casting level starts at 1 when a character can learn spells. Since rangers and paladins don't get spells until level 9, their casting level is 9 lower than their actual level. So a 15th level ranger only dispels with the effectiveness of a 6th level cleric/wizard. Of course, this excludes Inquisitors which dispel at twice their actual level.

 

Although after a few levels of being able to cast spells rangers/paladins hit a casting level of 9. It never increases beyond that, though.