The World of Avlis

I have detected that some spells are (intensionally) Messed up. they include the following:

Shadow Conjuration Summons the same shaddow as the 2 below
Greater Shaddow Conjurations Stated above
Shades Stated above
Tensers transformation Removed grafics and does not summon Tensers sword wich is part of the spell
Stoneskin Removes Grafics (What for?)
Greaterstoneskin Stated above

I would like to know WHY these spells are lacking in grafics and above all Why the shaddow summoning summons a stronger shaddow being at lvl 9 (when leveldrained) and the higer level you get the weaker the shaddow seems to become. I summoned a shaddow mestiff when i was drained wich had 155 HP and +15/+12 to attack, now at lvl 13 i summon a Shaddow fiend wich has 55 HP and +3 to attack. the CR of a mestiff is 5 and that of a fiend is 3. this cripples my character, as does the messed up tensers transformationspell. most of its power lies within the weapon it summons aswell. the missing grafics ... well why?

I suggest you read this thread for information about Tenser's and other spells. Quite simply, the new Tenser's rocks.

As for the visual effects, they were disabled on spells that do not actually change appearance. If they don't change appearance then you shouldn't be able to tell it was cast by looking at someone.

Tenser's has been changed to work more like the PnP version. As a result, it is significantly more powerful overall, and continues to scale as you gain levels. Rather than a polymorph spell, Tenser's in PnP pretty much turns your wizard levels into fighter levels for a short duration. In other words, carry a weapon around with you and see the damage you deal out when Tenser's is active.

Stoneskin's graphics have been removed because Avlis follows a WYSIWIG policy (What You See Is What You Get) - in other words, you literally are made of stone if the graphics are still there. Furthermore, the stoneskin effect could potentially cause all sorts of grief with disguises, and the like - so it's been removed. I prefer it without the graphic, anyway - your character isn't one colour 100% of the time and you can actually make out what the character is wearing...

I summoned a shaddow mestiff when i was drained wich had 155 HP and +15/+12 to attack, now at lvl 13 i summon a Shaddow fiend wich has 55 HP and +3 to attack. the CR of a mestiff is 5 and that of a fiend is 3

I'm not really sure about the mastiff vs. the shadow - have you tested this thoroughly? I've never been able to see the stats of summoned creatures, myself... and how'd you find the CR?

I always thought the Shadow Fiend was supposed to be a "better" creature because of all the immunities it has (immune to most elemental attacks and some physical DR IIRC).

However, you are right in that the Fiend does suck somewhat.

This spell has not been changed AFAIK, it is a Bioware thing.

And regarding Tensor's ..

most of its power lies within the weapon it summons aswell

Flame Weapon and Greater Magic Weapon should more than compensate for the lack of that sword, given all the other advantages.

EDIT: I just checked in the toolset. Shadow is CR 3, Shadow Mastiff is CR 4 and Shadow Fiend is CR 7.

Shadow Fiend has a strength drain touch attack that kills if it takes the target's strength below 3. And it spams it religiously.

stone skin has no visual effect mentioned in the description......thats why it is changed

The shaddow fiend cant land a hit on anything worth killing with its attack bonus of +3, and the damn AI triggers it to go into POWERATTACK mode all the time. giving it a -2 on its attacks... and with its low HP it cant even serve as a meat shield! id rather summon the mestiff then the fiend, it looks more frigtening than it anyway. as far as the immunities go... the conceilment tends to NOT work, even with improved invis, i think i might have been cursed. 50% miss chance end up being a 1% miss chance in my case all of the time. i allways get hit, did someone mutalate my ingame dice? who was it TELL ME! >:(

As said above, shadow fiends (at least the non summoned ones) will use a touch attack so they will have an easy time hitting things in spite of their lame AB.

Seriously, shadow fiends are extremely dangerous now and i would think twice before charging a group of them if my character is not protected against ability drain.

mortzestus wrote:As said above, shadow fiends (at least the non summoned ones) will use a touch attack so they will have an easy time hitting things in spite of their lame AB.

Seriously, shadow fiends are extremely dangerous now and i would think twice before charging a group of them if my character is not protected against ability drain.

I think there are problems with the AI though, sometimes they just stand there and don't seem very agressive at all (at least the NPC ones).

I can sympathise with the original poster though, after Shadow Mastiff I was expecting something better, and the Shadow Fiend really didn't seem like an improvement at the time.

This is a Bioware thing though, nothing to do with the Avlis Team.

mortzestus wrote:Seriously, shadow fiends are extremely dangerous now and i would think twice before charging a group of them if my character is not protected against ability drain.

I concur with Dirk on the AI. It's been my experience that they don't usually attack.

I have however seen them take out my succubus in recent memory, which was a surprise to me. Considering my character is protected against ability drain and was basically laughing at them, I didn't realize how they could have taken out the succubus. Now I know.

Dralix wrote:

mortzestus wrote:Seriously, shadow fiends are extremely dangerous now and i would think twice before charging a group of them if my character is not protected against ability drain.

I concur with Dirk on the AI. It's been my experience that they don't usually attack.

I have however seen them take out my succubus in recent memory, which was a surprise to me. Considering my character is protected against ability drain and was basically laughing at them, I didn't realize how they could have taken out the succubus. Now I know.

They also took out me. There was about 4 of them, but I was concentrating on the vampire warriors (I had no protection from evil, so had to take them quick). I was largely ignoring the Shadow's attacks until I'd died - and then say my STR had been drained to 0!!!

Another nasty (buggy) thing, is the way the AI works, they sometimes seem to want to break off attacks, which causes me to go flat-footed, even though I wasn't even fighting them I was trying to fight the vampire. This resulted in me being flat-footed, and only getting 1 attack per round (because I kept having to re-target the vampire). Was very pissed. Luckily my wounds stopped bleeding, and after a healing potion and a restore, I whooped their insubstantial asses.

I dunno, in my experience the shadow fiends can't even take a dire wolf fully buffed to the gills much less fight anything tougher or hit them with a touch attack.(Even more vexingly they don't even seem to try.)

I don't think I've ever used that spell once in actual combat. Well okay I did once to go and get smushed by ice storms.

My psion got cocky and tried to melee a group of those once. I think that was his first horribly horrible death

And my ranger just runs like a girl.

Depends what class you are, I guess

Or what gear you have.

*hugs cloak*

Gairus wrote:My psion got cocky and tried to melee a group of those once. I think that was his first horribly horrible death

Four words, Summon Planar Energy: Positive,

Blow up those undead in one shot!Now psions only have to fear elementals and golems!

...Just last week a single greater elemental chased my character through four area transitions in Deglos because I had no way to kill it.
Scary time.

NWDuneAuron wrote:Shadow Fiend has a strength drain touch attack that kills if it takes the target's strength below 3. And it spams it religiously.

mortzestus wrote:...shadow fiends are extremely dangerous now...

Just for the record, shadow fiends' AI seems to be working a lot better lately and it seems i am not the only one who has noticed this. That's why i said "now" in my post.

As an example, i ran into a bunch of them while ago with a high level character who was fully buffed improved invised blah, blah. I was lucky to have lesser restorations at hand or i would have been pwned by those effortless critters.

Final Shinryuu wrote:

Gairus wrote:My psion got cocky and tried to melee a group of those once. I think that was his first horribly horrible death

Four words, Summon Planar Energy: Positive,

Blow up those undead in one shot!Now psions only have to fear elementals and golems!

...Just last week a single greater elemental chased my character through four area transitions in Deglos because I had no way to kill it.
Scary time.

Detonate.

Hello? PsPs? I save my positive energy for the big things, and melee the little things.

Lesson learned though, shadow fiends have shot up to the "big thing" category up there with vampire warriors.

But anyway.... GAH! I am TIRED of everyone including psions going on like we have the energy to use powers on every threat like this. STOP IT. ARGH!

*disintegrates everyone in a huff*

Gairus wrote:Hello? PsPs? I save my positive energy for the big things, and melee the little things.

Lesson learned though, shadow fiends have shot up to the "big thing" category up there with vampire warriors.

But anyway.... GAH! I am TIRED of everyone including psions going on like we have the energy to use powers on every threat like this. STOP IT. ARGH!

*disintegrates one person in a huff, then promply gets beat down because he is out of PSP*

I fixed your error.

I love you wrath.

Visit IRC more often, damnit!

WrathOG777 wrote:

Gairus wrote:Hello? PsPs? I save my positive energy for the big things, and melee the little things.

Lesson learned though, shadow fiends have shot up to the "big thing" category up there with vampire warriors.

But anyway.... GAH! I am TIRED of everyone including psions going on like we have the energy to use powers on every threat like this. STOP IT. ARGH!

*disintegrates one person in a huff, then promply runs away and uses Residue to get all his PSPs back and returns to pwn everything else*

I fixed your error.

Extrafixted.

*takes a very deep breathe, refrains from responding, and sleeps*

Oh btw. Why did bioware nerf level 20 spider animal companion... oh why..

DC18 poison with level 20 spider is worse than what level 7 summon spider has...(DC24) *BIG SIGH*

PS. Do not say that DC35 poison earlier was too good etc. With AC18 spider you gotta have something to disable enemies in epic levels... or it'll end up dead in less than 2 rounds... Spider was weak before, now it's just pain... Was poison nerfing accident or intentional by bioware? any info?

They realise Your char had one and thought.....im gonna screw it up for Kenlie. MWWHAAaaa