Singing the praises of Detect Illusion

[Tancred]

Can I just say, how wonderfully useful the oft-overlooked thief ability Detect Illusion is? I'd been building up my thief with Detect Illusion points out of the sake of completeness, and it's just saved my bacon against a particularly nasty ToB Boss that I wouldn't have stood a chance against otherwise.

For those who wonder, the Boss in question did have the word 'Improved' in his/her/its title.

For those of you that don't know, this is like a free True Sight; give a Thief about 70-150 points in Detect Illusion, hit the Find Traps button, and your thief will cheerfully remove any invisibility spells, illusions protecting mages etc. Best thing is: It's not a spell! Magic resistance doesn't stop it, Spell Immunity: Divination doesn't stop it, nothing stops it! All in all, very well worth it, and a definite plus point to having a full-class Thief in your party.

[True_Moose]

It's great, but then again, what thief ability isn't, besides pickpocket? I find a good tactic is to cast improved invisibility on a thief (thief/mage mixes are good for this), walk up to a mage, early backstab, then when the contingency spells come on...

BAM

No more mirror image, invisibility, blur, etc, etc. No more Mr. Mage.

[Dace De'Briago]

People with high Intelligence scores should automatically be able to see through low-level illusion spells.

Int 19 - First level
Int 20 - Second level
...
Int 25 - Seventh level

I would *love* to see somebody implement this. However, more than implementing Intelligence tables, I would like Wisdom tables implemented properly because of spell immunities.

Wis 19 - Cause fear, charm person, command, friends
Wis 20 - Hold person
Wis 21 - Fear
Wis 22 - Confusion, Emotion
Wis 23 - Chaos, Feeblemind, Hold Monster
Wis 24 - No spells in the BG game
Wis 25 - Death spell

Implementing this would go a long way to helping out the no-reloads soloists out there. Anybody up for the challenge to make my life a lot easier?



To balance it out a little, you could always let mind flayers and dragons see invisible creatures and have limited immunities based on the chart as well. Other creatures might get similar benefits.

If anyone does fix this, give me the download location when its done

[Lord]

Making a character immune to spells in BG with 24 wisdom in BG would be very unfair since having a spell caster with lvl 5 spells was like...WOW!!!!!!!. Being immune to those spells that you found 'oh so powerful' in BG would simply make the game boring. There should be no complete imunity to magic (unless you get 100% magic res somehow).

[Dace De'Briago]

Re-read what I said. I think you've misunderstood somewhere.

High i ntelligence only grants immunity to ILLUSIONS. Not general spells.

With Wisdom 24, there are literally NO spells in the Baldurs Gate series that it could apply to.

i.e. Wisdom 24 grants immunity to Geas, Mass Suggestion, Rod of Rulership.

None of these spells are in the game, hence 'Wis 24 - No spells in the BG game'.

Clearer?

[Lord]

Yeah [img]smile.gif[/img] . I thought you meant complete immunity to every single spell in the game [img]redface.gif[/img]

[Pirengle]

Originally posted by Tancred: Can I just say, how wonderfully useful the oft-overlooked thief ability Detect Illusion is? I'd been building up my thief with Detect Illusion points out of the sake of completeness, and it's just saved my bacon against a particularly nasty ToB Boss that I wouldn't have stood a chance against otherwise. For those who wonder, the Boss in question did have the word 'Improved' in his/her/its title.

I agree! My first (and most likely, only) attempt at Ascension I made with a swashbuckler that had ~200 DI by game's end. If this is the same boss I'm thinking of, isn't DI the greatest? One round to shear off all protections, then unload a nice potent barrage of death on one target, take a round to recover, and repeat.

Imagine Mariel and Anomen facing a lich. She'd take out his protections with DI, he'd take out the lich with TU. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship...

[Tancred]

Originally posted by Pirengle: quote: Originally posted by Tancred: For those who wonder, the Boss in question did have the word 'Improved' in his/her/its title.

I agree! My first (and most likely, only) attempt at Ascension I made with a swashbuckler that had ~200 DI by game's end. If this is the same boss I'm thinking of, isn't DI the greatest? One round to shear off all protections, then unload a nice potent barrage of death on one target, take a round to recover, and repeat.
[/QUOTE]From the sounds of it, I think so... Sendai, yes? It also came in rather... useful against a mob of Chosen of Cyric, too. A whole array of applications, DI.

[SixOfSpades]

IIRC, Improved Sendai was never a part of Ascension....she came in the Oversight MOD.

As for a Thief using DI on a Lich, followed by a Cleric using TU....if you've got the TU, you don't need the DI.

[Tancred]

Ah, so she does. Got to hand it to Kish - he created one mother of a fight. If only it wasn't for the tiny, tiny flaw...