Instant Death, power levels?

[hayaku]

hi... recently got Instand Death spell for my priest.
Was wondering, what does the power level does to the sucess of the spell? Is it just a straight increase in chance of sucess, or perhaps a more complicated AD&D approach, with higher power levels reducing the enemies "roll" against death?

The reason I enquire is I have found the spell quite difficult to predict... I have had 4 or 5 sucessfulll kills in row on single power level before, yet had constant failure on levels 2 and 3. Perhaps it mostly breaks down to the enemies divine resistance...

Anyway, that said.... BEST SPELL EVER! this has been infinitley usefull & fun for the short time that I have had it... it almost seems too powerful. It's not that useful in most of the harder battles, but its great for picking off pesky ranged enemies, ESPECIALLY fleeing ones that have left the acuracy threshold of your groups ranged specialist. Also great for killing enemies at the back of the pack, speeding up battles that would otherwise be carried by the groups fighters.

I'll leave it at that.. but yeah, anybody know how the spell power levels work?

-thanks.

[ 03-31-2005, 06:25 PM: Message edited by: hayaku ]

[Silpion]

Lower power levels seem to be more cost-effective. Unless I face a superior foe that can kill my party in a few turns I'll rely on lower power levels.

What puzzles me are the differences between the spells. I was able to kill whole armies with Quicksand (alchemy level 6) but I never had luck with DeathWish (divinity level 7).

[xfactor]

Yeah, Quicksand does seem a lot better than Death Wish. May have something to do with enemy resistances though, generally speaking, Earth seems to be higher than Divine with most monsters. Then again, my Alchemists always go for Powercast and my Priest spells are normally from a hybrid so that would explain a lot.

Anyway, back to the original point. Instant Death does seem to be better if you cast lots of them at lower power levels. It seems as though the increased chance of success as you increase the power level isn't proportionate to the extra spell points needed. I don't use it much because there aren't many enemies who are affected by it that are dangerous enough to warrant the spell.

xfactor

[Krull]

So, to clarify, Instant Death works on higher level monsters or just the lower level ones?

I must confess I've rarely used it.

Thanks.

[SpitBall]

I have had a suspicion for a while now that some spells require you to use that particular spell to "train" your caster properly. It is not just a matter of your spell points, level, and stats. Instant Death is one of these, as are the "sphere" spells, i.e. fireball, etc. What I'm talking about can be descibed as such: Consider two Fire Realm spells - Light and FireBall. One can 'train' for use of Fire Realm by casting Light at every opportunity. Now, let's say you've trained until you have the skill to cast a level 4 fireball, but have never actually tossed on off. Will that particular caster be more likely to bungle the the attempt at using a level 4 fireball, then a caster that has been 'training' their fire realm with lower level fireballs? This effect has to do with the color-coding on the spell level indicator - basically, I think it will improve more quickly for those spells that you actually use, as opposed to those that you do not, even within the same realm.

I have no basis for this beyond my own experience, but that may be skewed by other biases. Does someone with a more intimate understanding of how the game is programmed have anything to say about this?

[Scatter]

All spells become easier to cast equally, regardless of casting any given spell more than any other.
Higher-level spells add to your Skill increases faster than low-level spells, regardless of the Power Level you cast. Realm (eg Fire, Mental) Skill and Caster Level determine how many green circles you get on the Power Level scale. School/Book (eg Alchemy) Skill and Caster Level determine only which spells you'll be able to learn.

[DinkumThinkum]

According to the manual and the skill descriptions in the game, spell book skills do affect your ability to cast spells: how many green circles you get.

This matches my experience playing the game, and was very obvious with my Ranger. His realm skills went up slowly, because he didn't cast many spells. But his Alchemy skill went up quickly, because I had him do a lot of potion mixing.

I could see the power circle colors getting better from the increased Alchemy skill, even when the realm skill hadn't changed.

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Spell book skills are the main factor in learning spells, with a small (10%) boost from the realm skill for the spell.

Realm skills are the main factor in successfully casting a spell, with a small boost from the spellbook skill. For a Bishop, the highest skill for a spell book containing the spell is used.

[ 04-01-2005, 01:05 PM: Message edited by: DinkumThinkum ]

[Legolas73]

Hi all,
talking about the spell Instant Death I have been wondering for a while how good the higher spell levels actually are. I am playing a solo Faerie Bishop (with 9 levels of Monk) and I have some high level spells now. But in areas like the Mountain Wilderness the opponents that you meet will resist most of the spells or take very little damage from spells like Prismic Chaos or Mind Flay. The same with Instant Death: I tried it on Oozites in the Swamp, but seeing that they almost always resist it I gave up on it.
Therefore, my big question: What's the use of high-level spells when the monsters simply have a good laugh at them and then continue bashing away on you? Also I found that the high spell levels exhibit a marked lack of spells which boost the characters' powers. Actually, the spell I use most of the time is Superman (!!!), and that shows how ineffective level 7 spells are for me. I think they could have included more spells of the reflexive kind, because those would at least be guaranteed to work. Maybe for level 7 a spell like 'God' or something would be nice, whatever good it would do to your character(s).
Any opinions on this? Cheers,

Legolas73

[xfactor]

The high level spells, particularly the instant death types and the very high damage spells, are useful for a number of reasons.

Against lower level creatures they're great since it means combat tends to only last a couple of rounds, if that. Against higher level monsters a lot of the time even one kill from a group of 8-9 can be a good thing.

I tend to leave the level 7 spells except against certain types of monsters - Rapax are fairly vulnerable to Water spells so Tsunami and Blizzard can be very useful. You'll often find that there's at least one realm that monsters are vulnerable to and that's where level 7 spells come in handy.

In general it's the same story as the other magic spells in the game - direct damage spells are often not as good as buffs or status ailment inflicting spells.

xfactor

[SpitBall]

All these strategies on spells point to one essential aspect of Wizardry, likely the one that keeps folks like us playing it of all these years, it is a highly flexible and varied game. There are many ways to beat the monsters.

In my case, both the Psionic and the Bishop have Instant Death and the Bishop has Death Wish, as well. I use them - but hardly ever kill any monsters with them, especially high-level monsters. I found that Death Bombs were similar, I hardly ever killed anything with those things.

One the other hand - both of these characters have the ability to get an Instant Kill with their ranged weapons (slings). In fact, the Psionic with Ta-Li stones and a high level beast that has had its armor melted is far more deadly than any of the Death spells - even if he doesn't score an Instant Kill, the monster is usually left unconscious, paralyzed, or both.

Currently, Ego Whip and TurnCoat are some of my most useful spells - well, after Summon Elemental.