Hide in Plain Sight

[Jordicus]

This thread reminds of the time one of my players stated his Paladin didn't need food or water.
"See, here in the Player's Handbook, it says, 'Good deeds are the meat and drink of paladins'"....

LOL

[Cath]

In my experance, very little can cause a spell to stop being cast. I have never seen a NPC stop casting a spell for any reason, once it enters the casting animation

That happens every time you disappear out of sight and I mean as a normal character without HIPS.
I've tried that a few times.
Approach a caster from behind a corner, shoot til you see him begin that spell, move back out of sight and the spell is cancelled.
Repeat.
Feels cheesy but nothing stops me in SP mode.

[Vanor]

That happens every time you disappear out of sight and I mean as a normal character without HIPS.

Ok, that is something we can maybe adress with a AI change on our end.

[Titanium Dragon]

What about PCs?

What about them? We will never, ever do anything on Avlis to address CvC issues. We may do things that effect CvC combat, but it is due to other reasons, and not CvC balance.

Four words for you: Greater Isaac's Missle Storm

SD attacks, then elf starts casting, then SD HIPS, then spell never finishes?

In my experance, very little can cause a spell to stop being cast. I have never seen a NPC stop casting a spell for any reason, once it enters the casting animation.

Do you have any reason what so ever to suspect this actually happens? Because it is begining to sound like you all are grasping at straws in the hope to see HiPS nerfed or removed completely.

It sounds to me as though you are exaggerating what it should be able to do. Hiding behind the shadow of a blade of grass or a grain of sand? Come on.

Moreover, if a mage loses line of sight, he stops casting his spell. It happens to my mage constantly. Hiding = loss of LoS.

[Vanor]

Four words for you: Greater Isaac's Missle Storm

One word for you. Wrong.

We changed Isaac's cheesy storm, but it had nothing to do with CvC combat, we changed it for other reasons.

[marauder]

Issac's Greater Missle Storm was not removed for CvsC reasons, but for all arounf power issues. It was a 6th level spell that could do 360 some odd points damage to one NPC or one PC. It was not a CvsC decision just because it affected it (in a way)

[sly_1]

Oh for gawds sake: 'A mage will run out of spells'? I'm just guessing here, but I'd say that's why they do more damage then.

More damage? say a mage can dish out 500 hitpoints of damage before he needs to rest. Say he can dish out 1000, 10,000 whatever. No matter how much damage a mage can dish out before he can rest, it is a finite amount. This, as opposed to a shadowdancer/rogue who can dish out an infinite amount of damage without ever needing to rest. The point is that without spells and rest, the mage's power is balanced by the fact that his spells will run out and he needs to rest. The sd's power is balanced by... what, exactly?

'Sneak attacks against monsters with no risk'? I think that's already been clarified as untrue

In some cases, I concede it's untrue that the sd isn't at risk, when the npc has a really high spot/listen skill. But if a SD is fighting something that can't defeat his hide/move silent with it's spot/listen, it's a fact that the SD can use ranged sneak attacks to destroy the enemy with no risk. This, despite the fact that there are a ton of things that NPC's *could* do, like casting area effect spells at the location the sd dissapeared, casting light via spell or magic item all around the room and then standing in the middle, etc.

I think all we can do is agree to differ.

Agreed

[storminj]

One time I hid and got hit with umberconfusion at same time....just stayed hidden for a bit untill he spotted me and spell wore off.

Perhaps it is a line of sight issue vs area effect. There are spells that are suppose to get disrupted if you can no longer see the person in PnP.

[Bear]

I've been killed by mages even after I've hidden as a SDk. This has happened on at least 3 occassions by NPCs and PCs. Mages just need to select appropriate spells.

Bear

[Vanor]

Moreover, if a mage loses line of sight, he stops casting his spell. It happens to my mage constantly. Hiding = loss of LoS.

What spells? If it's something like MM, or some other targeted spell, then that makes a great deal of sense. You can't target something you can't see.

If it's something like Fireball, or Weird, then that's different.

[Cath]

Moreover, if a mage loses line of sight, he stops casting his spell. It happens to my mage constantly. Hiding = loss of LoS.

What spells? If it's something like MM, or some other targeted spell, then that makes a great deal of sense. You can't target something you can't see.

If it's something like Fireball, or Weird, then that's different.

It happens with fireballs for NPC mages as they always aim at you and not the area around you.
A PC can work around this of course.

[Titanium Dragon]

Moreover, if a mage loses line of sight, he stops casting his spell. It happens to my mage constantly. Hiding = loss of LoS.

What spells? If it's something like MM, or some other targeted spell, then that makes a great deal of sense. You can't target something you can't see.

If it's something like Fireball, or Weird, then that's different.

Any spell that you cast, if you lose line of sight to the target you can no longer cast it. That includes negative energy burst, fireball, ect. (area effect spells)

[Bear]

Regarding the bug... Sence I highly doubt we can do jack or shit about that... I'd recomend if it's true, that SD's do not act for 4-5 seconds after they engage HiPS, other then perhaps normal movement.

*Not directed @ Vanor but to this bug point in general*

I have seen no verifiable tests to indicate that there is actually a bug to this effect. When this claim was raised on the other thread, I kindly asked for a link to the bioware forums so that I could review the data. No link was provided.

I then noticed a limited test by one of Green Raven's PCs and a rogue. In that instance, Green's PC was able to see the rogue instantly, and on each occassion. I may have misread the post, but it sure looked conclusive that a bug did not exist.

Does anybody have any hard data? If not, let's run some tests before we start assuming there is actually a bug here.

Thanks,

Bear

[Vanor]

If not, let's run some tests before we start assuming there is actually a bug here.

I believe Jordi is going to run some tests for this. Of course even if this is a bug, I question what we can do about it. We can of course ask that people not use HiPS or something else of that nature in cases where it would cause another PC/NPC to react in a way that isn't realistic...

i.e. Stop casting a fireball simply because the target is no longer seen.

But there is simply no way to enforce that at all. Lag will be a factor and no way to prove who did what first...

Any spell that you cast, if you lose line of sight to the target you can no longer cast it.

Do you lose the spell, or simply not cast it?

[WrathOG777]

I will be in wilderness in 2-3 hours, you can run all the test you like on tiras.

[Tangleroot]

Four words for you: Greater Isaac's Missle Storm

One word for you. Wrong.

We changed Isaac's cheesy storm, but it had nothing to do with CvC combat, we changed it for other reasons.

The 6th level arcane spell "Isaac's Greater Missle Storm" is going to be shelved until we the team figure out what to do with it. Maximized it deals 240 pts of damage, at least 2x of damage of any other spell. When spread among multiple enemies it is balanced, however in recent cvc surrounding the vortex plot it has proved too powerful.

edit: bolding in quote by me.

[WrathOG777]

If not, let's run some tests before we start assuming there is actually a bug here.

I believe Jordi is going to run some tests for this. Of course even if this is a bug, I question what we can do about it. We can of course ask that people not use HiPS or something else of that nature in cases where it would cause another PC/NPC to react in a way that isn't realistic...

i.e. Stop casting a fireball simply because the target is no longer seen.

But there is simply no way to enforce that at all. Lag will be a factor and no way to prove who did what first...

Any spell that you cast, if you lose line of sight to the target you can no longer cast it.

Do you lose the spell, or simply not cast it?

in PnP any targeted action IS supposed to be targetable on invisable objects as long as the action taker believes somethign is there. if the spell/gaze/breath etc is already being cast, they defineately should finish casting it, regardless if the SD successfuly hides or not.

[Bear]

in PnP any targeted action IS supposed to be targetable on invisable objects as long as the action taker believes somethign is there. if the spell/gaze/breath etc is already being cast, they defineately should finish casting it, regardless if the SD successfuly hides or not.

I didn't think that was how it worked. Our DM runs that you need to see the target in order to cast a targeted spell on that target. Thus, if you want to cast Magic Missle, you need to actually see the person, not just think they are in that general area.

Now, fireballs and area affect spells are a different story. If you click on someone, then you are targeting that person. If they go out of sight (i.e., hide or go behind a building), then you can no longer target that person and the spell fizzles. However, if you cast on the ground next to that person, then the spell still goes off without a hitch even if they run out of the area or go hidden.

Tiras is good at this. You just need to use the appropriate spells and cast them in the appropriate way in order to make this work.

Thanks,

Bear

[Tangleroot]

Just to keep the discussion going, another idea..

True seeing does not see through hiding -> remove bonuses to spot from the spell.

True seeing sees through magical effects -> make true seeing see through hide in plain sight automatically.

[Bear]

Just to keep the discussion going, another idea..

True seeing does not see through hiding -> remove bonuses to spot from the spell.

True seeing sees through magical effects -> make true seeing see through hide in plain sight automatically.

This was discussed on the "other" thread. HiPS is a supernatural ability that lets you take advantage of a non magical skill. TS does not impact it in any way.

Thanks,

Bear

[Vanor]

however in recent cvc surrounding the vortex plot it has proved too powerful.

*sighs* when will people realize that staff members do in fact know what the hell we're talking about?

It was durning some CvC events, that the extreamly cheesy nature of this spell became apprent, however, and let me make this peffectly clear.

We did not change this spell, due to CvC balance issues, and we will never change anything due to CvC balance issues.

That is a standing rule amoung the Avlis staff. Get it?

[Bear]

We did not change this spell, due to CvC balance issues, and we will never change anything due to CvC balance issues.

That is a standing rule amoung the Avlis staff. Get it?

Hence the 6th Level Bigsby's Hand Spell remains the same, even though (in general) you need immunity to knock down to resist it, it comes with a daze effect that does not exist in the PnP version, and it lasts a whole heck of a lot longer than the PnP version.

*shrugs* We just live with it now.

Bear

[Vanor]

True seeing does not see through hiding -> remove bonuses to spot from the spell.

The spot bonus in TS, was put in because by default, TS allowed a mage to see someone who is hidden, no matter how high the Hide skill, or how low the mages spot skill. This was seen as a decent compromise between how it should work in PnP, and how things worked in NWN.

True seeing sees through magical effects -> make true seeing see through hide in plain sight automatically.

HiPS simply allows someone to use the hide ablity even if seen. It does not make them magically hiden.

[Vanor]

in PnP any targeted action IS supposed to be targetable on invisable objects as long as the action taker believes somethign is there.

Depends on the spell cast. Rays, cones, AoE, ect... Yes those should go off as normal. Targeted spells, like MM however wouldn't, they would simply fizzle, and the spell lost, if the target is no longer valid.

However, no matter how true that is, it is not something we can do much about in NWN. We can't alter the way something works if it's hardcoded into the game.

If you are casting fireball on someone, they use HiPS and that causes the spell to be cancled, there is simply not a single thing we can do about it.

[Chasman]

Moreover, if a mage loses line of sight, he stops casting his spell. It happens to my mage constantly. Hiding = loss of LoS.

What spells? If it's something like MM, or some other targeted spell, then that makes a great deal of sense. You can't target something you can't see.

If it's something like Fireball, or Weird, then that's different.

He's right Vanor, I have had this happen everytime I cast at a target that subsequently went unseeable.