Overhaul Spells - Shadow Spells

System Work

Framework for illusion spells with these notes:

• Fires the original spell script with an illusion parameter and illusion strength parameter set
  • This affects one aspect; the metamagic is filtered. You can't apply Extend to spells that don't allow it for instance.
• The illusion parameter causes anyone targeted with SignalSpellCastAt to get a saving throw
  • This is not perfect but it is "good enough for now":
    • The Saving Throw is vs. Will and SAVING_THROW_TYPE_ILLUSION which is a new saving throw type and clarifies what the save is for.
    • Save has to be redone each time in AOE scripts, but per-round stuff with DelayCommand(6.0, FurtherEffects()) we might need to figure something out (maybe a local variable to store it? or a json array stored in memory).
    • It takes into account situations like Cure spells having variants depending on the target, plus Charm spells which are signalled as non-hostile due to their resulting effects
    • However it fires the saving throw very early (before immunities and other "valid target" checks even)
• There are 3 potential consequences of passing the saving throw (for hostile spells only):
  • 1. The random dice roll, or static amount, for damage is modified by the percentage (eg 10 damage, with 20% strength, does 2 damage). Some other hostile variables might be also affected by this (eg amount of penalty to speed), but not save DCs, ability checks etc.
  • 2. The duration of effects is modified by the percentage (eg 10 rounds, with 20% strength, becomes 2 rounds)
  • 3. There is a chance for no effect to take place (eg 20% strength, you roll a d100, 21 and over and you don't take any effect) this is for instance effects like EffectDeath for instance and things that don't fit into the above two situations.
• What we can't do:
  • We cannot have effects like Mage Armor or Fire Shield selectively apply to attackers, so these are a little more powerful (but you're using a higher level spell slot for not much gain - not even metamagic - except possibly casting spells from a restricted school as a Wizard)
  • We cannot have a "can" aspect to the saving throw. If you wanted to take damage (for some reason) tough you might save
    • However we can allow "good" effects through uncontested.

Total Shadow Spell Revamp

Going down a more serious route for Illusion to have Shadow spells help their school a lot, is to have the spells act more like their PnP 3.5E counterparts.

The change to the spell levels (and addition of Shadow Evocation) should be fine. For two reasons:

• The AI doesn't use them properly with talents so rarely were added to blueprints (and Shadow Conjuration isn't changing level)
• We could validate blueprints with some searches for the spell Ids in Nasher
• Players won't lose spells if a Sorcerer since they'll get the upgraded ones for "free". Bard may lose Greater Shadow Conjuration though.

These are detailed below:

Technical Implementation

The problem with the current method of 8 set spells is figuring out what a good set of spells to use for those 8 slots are. It becomes also redundant when you can have nice NUI spell selectors and more spells are added later!

The main problem with having slots you can choose is is an issue of text, since we can have SetTextureOverride apply a new spell icon to a given subspell icon. SetTlkOverride does work but conflicts if another caster changes theirs (NPCs can do whatever too but this can be set/set back pretty much on the timing of casting). This might be enough to be honest?

We could also mix it up and have these:

• 5 for the different ranges: Long, Medium, Short, Touch and Personal
  • These default to particular spells (at least their icons do) so people can quickbar them.
• 3 for set spells that can't be changed

Sadly we don't have 10 slots since we could do "area" and "targeted" for each. For now we'll just have to have every single target be valid and add additional validation in the shadow spell script.

For the spell data we can have some nice "illusion-ary" VFX and SFX used for conjuration and casting. We then do more magic in the spell script:

• Set a parameter to alter the spell ID of the next one called
• Execute the spell script of the spell we are mimicing
• Have wrappers to do the 20/60/80% effect on illusion saves for various effects.

The key effects are to reduce the effectiveness if a (separate) Will save is successful:

• Before the effect is applied alter the duration/damage amounts based on a will save result. Only need to call this will save once the save-or-negate, SR etc. parts of the spell are done of course
  • Easiest to do it successful or not in the usual save throw function (With a global for it to track).
  • Dice roll and duration functions take it into account
  • Other "effects" like amount of Attack Damage or whatever if a spell had it, might be nice to change, but not sure...

Original Ideas

3 spells in this range:

• Shadow Conjuration - level 4
• Greater Shadow Conjuration - level 5
• Shades - level 6

These provide access to 4 normal spells and a unique "Summon Shadow" spell.

One advantage of this spell is having five spells combined into one. For sorcerers, this effectively increases the number of spells known. For wizards, this provides the ability to select which spell to cast at the time of casting.

The main issue is they were not as flexible as the spells they were based off (which could mimic loads more spells), but they did have the benefit of having the full effects of the real spells.

Some ideas on what to do. We can at least expand them by 3 with more subdial options. The spells are considered pretty weak, and I'd agree, with the levels of the spells allowed quite a lot lower then the spell slot - I mean who would want to cast a random Magic Missile in a 4th level spell slot? Bioware may have done this to avoid the "20% power" stuff however, but then again you get access to Cone of Cold for Shades, one a level lower and thus could be considerably more useful (and gains a save DC bonus).

Existing Defaults

Keeping the originals would keep both some backwards compatibility, some sensible things for AI's to use, and doesn't mess with things too much.

The defaults are:

Fixes

3 New Subradial Options

Options here:

• Add 3 more set spells per version
• Allow a choice of any spells the player sets up

Since we can't link to existing Spell ID lines we need to add new ones.

Any spell would be best done if we can fake the spell ID (insert complicated system using TagEffect here...!), or only allow instant spells - eg Fireball or the like that do damage not persistent effects (There's no saved effects to interact with then).

Some ideas if we were to pre-set them. A focus would be on areas missing from the other 4 in that spell already. No summons since we have Summon Shadow.