Two Things to Fix

[MysticTheurge]

There are two long-standing deviations from the D&D rules which I would like to see remedied in the near future, maybe even for Mod 6.

The first is Spell Resistance. Each and ever spell in D&D is specifically flagged as being Spell-Resistible or not. But DDO went through and said that every single spell that deals direct damage ignores spell resistance. This is problematic for several reasons.

One of the things that always gets said about this is that it's to benefit PC spellcasters. That is, quite honestly, a load of hooey. Given the vast disparities between PC and NPC hit point totals removing ways to block hit-point-damaging spells benefits NPCs far more than PCs. As a PC casting on an NPC, one searing light here or there is relatively insignificant. As an NPC casting on a PC though, one searing light can be 10-50% of a PCs hit points. Thus, it becomes obvious that defenses against HP loss benefit PCs more than NPCs and therefore goes to follow that removing those defenses benefits NPCs far more than PCs.

In addition, it mucks with a vast variety of other effects. Why, for example, is Spell Resistance a fifth level cleric spell when it blocks so few things in DDO. Though, again, you see the disparity here. Things like Spell Penetration remain fairly valuable to PCs because the spells we want to cast on enemies are non-damaging (or insta-death) spells and therefore most are subject to SR. But the SR spell or a drow's SR are significantly weakened because they don't protect against the critical damaging spells.

Please restore spell resistance to it's D&D state, and remove the overarching "damaging spells ignore SR" logic.

The second thing I'd like to bring up (again), is Antimagic zones. With level 15 on the horizon, that brings 8th level spells, one of which is Antimagic Field, so it seems like now is a good time to reexamine this game feature again.

An antimagic zone suppresses spells, spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities. Currently, the only antimagic zones in the game come from Beholders. Currently, those antimagic zones dispel spells and permit spell-like and supernatural abilities. This allows the beholder to dispel all your buffs and then hit you with eyebeams, when in fact at any point in time that you could be hit by an eyebeam your buffs should be in effect. Further, one of the main uses for Antimagic Field is to prevent spell-like and supernatural abilities from affecting you, so it's pretty imperative that these get added to the list of things that antimagic blocks before the spell gets added in.

So, please also restore Antimagic to work in accordance with the D&D rules, suppressing (but not dispelling) existing spells and blocking both spell-like and supernatural abilities.

[Cinwulf]

/agree please try to fix this at least for mod 6

[Sem34]

/agreed... always hated how they did the beholder eyebeam

[GramercyRiff]

I don't really care about the SR issue, though I do agree it benefits enemies and not the players. If SR was implemented like pnp, we'd need the Conjuration damage dealing spells, like the Orb series, as those bypass SR. Also, Golems would have to follow the proper rules as well, as they are only immune to spells that allow SR. Since the entire school of Conjuration allows no SR, Golems are suceptible to such magic. It would be nice for the most powerful school in pnp to be the most powerful in DDO. Nice, but not essential like anti-magic

As for anti-magic, I've had a serious issue with this since the beginning. Change anti-magic to work as it should. Auto dispelling should only come from Mord's Disjunction, a 9th level spell, the ultimate in abjuration.

[MysticTheurge]

I don't care about the SR so much

I don't really care about the SR issue, though I do agree it benefits enemies and not the players.

Yeah, for quite some time now it hasn't bothered me that much, but as we continue to get higher in levels it becomes more important.

Horrid Wilting, for example, as we've been discussing in another thread really has no defenses except SR. But since it's a damaging spell, it ignores SR in DDO.

Disintegrate really also falls into the same category.

[Vi'Aed]

hhhmmmm... gunna have to disagree with you, MT, about the SR issue. The way they have implemented it works just fine imho. SR effects spells that target you. It does not effect spells that create something that does damage to you. Searing light creates a beam of light that damages you. The spell itself doesn't do the damage.

I tend to think of it this way. Searing light, fireball, etc, are not, in the end, that different from a summoned monster. Just because the source of the damaging object is magic, doesn't mean SR prevents Troll from smacking you.

Yeah, there is some gray area in there, but in general....

I do agree w/ you about the anti-magic zones though.

[Azoralq]

Well..if you want to get really picky: Beholers can not fire any of their beams into their own Anti-Magic field. Why? Well..cause their beams are magical in nature, dispite the fact that they are in ray form. So, in order to fire at a person standing in front of the beholder, the beholder must first close his Central Eye, fire a few beams, then open that eye again.

Can you see now, how hard it would to implement a true beholder?

Imagine standing in front of a beholder with your standard 40 million buffs from an overachieving cleric and/or arcane caster. First they must program for the beholder to know when to close his central eye, fire, open central eye again. Then, they must program a way to toggle off all 40 million buffs when in field, know when the field is shut off, toggle on all 40 million buffs, and so forth. I know very little about MMO coding, but I'd imagine that's a lot of work.

While I agree that you should not be dispelled] when fighting a beholder. I would settle for my spells being 'toggled' off until the beholder dies/I move from his central line of sight.

I don't agree with the SR thing, either. Basicaly what the poster above said. A fireball is a ball of fire..it was magically created, and formed into a ball, to explode upon impact..but it's a ball of fire. That's how I look at it in my games, anyway.

[GramercyRiff]

Yeah, for quite some time now it hasn't bothered me that much, but as we continue to get higher in levels it becomes more important.

Horrid Wilting, for example, as we've been discussing in another thread really has no defenses except SR. But since it's a damaging spell, it ignores SR in DDO.

Disintegrate really also falls into the same category.

Great point. Spell resistance is a vital defense to have up at high level of play as you're going to die from magic in almost all cases. Count me in on wanting SR changed for what it's worth. I still say you'd need to implement more Conjuration damaging spells though, as those bypass SR.

Then again, death isn't as big a deal in DDO as it is in PnP. Still, good points MT regarding the need for the change.

One note to keep in mind though; what would stop the devs from giving casters a high enough spell pen check to penetrate our highest SR's with a roll of a 1?

[Strakeln]

I don't care about the SR so much, but the anti-magic BS has really been getting to me lately. Especially considering the unlimited SP of NPC casters. Allows enemies such as the undead beholder to indefinitely spam you with an anti-magic field, long after you've passed into heal scroll territory.

[Kerr]

An antimagic zone suppresses spells, spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities. Currently, the only antimagic zones in the game come from Beholders.

I'd be happy if they fixed just this. The first time I ran and met a Beholder I was so irritated they used such lazy programming that it instantly dispells our buffs when they should be toggle 'off' while in front of the Beholder main eye.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

Currently, the only antimagic zones in the game come from Beholders.

...and Globe of Invulnerability? ...and those flaming sphere things in the Cinnis preraid (both types)? Or are those different?

Garth

[MysticTheurge]

...and Globe of Invulnerability?

Globe of invulnerability is different. It stops/prevent spells (and spell-like effects) of a given spell level or lower. It's generally less powerful than Antimagic and won't stop any supernatural abilities.

...and those flaming sphere things in the Cinnis preraid (both types)?

I'm not familiar with the quest, so I don't know what those are.

[Kraldor]

Globe of invulnerability is different. It stops/prevent spells (and spell-like effects) of a given spell level or lower. It's generally less powerful than Antimagic and won't stop any supernatural abilities.

I think his point was that those antimagic globes suppress magic instead of dispelling it, and that it shouldn't be too hard to implement a similar mechanic for antimagic fields and beholder eyes.