Volunteers needed - beta testing next Temple+ release

Continuous damage isn't implemented. I've been meaning to do so, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I'm not sure the game ever tries to characterize continuous vs. repeated damage exactly; it's a judgment call. If you're being burned by acid or fire, conceptually it's a continuous effect and the only reason you take damage in chunks is the abstract nature the game. If someone is stabbing you every round, that's repeated; the stabs are isolated events, not the abstract amalgamation of many smaller stabs over time. There's probably a spell effect that acts that way, too, but one isn't jumping to mind.

I don't know who told you that acid arrow would do something against a balor, though. It gets around spell resistance, but balors have 10 acid resistance, and acid arrow does a maximum of 8, so they'll never take any damage. Is their resistance missing in ToEE or something?

Full round casting is also not implemented right. Instead, it just costs a full round action (like sleep). I've been thinking about how to actually implement the real thing for a while, but it's not trivial obviously. I did fix one aspect a bit back (though not actually merged yet), which is making the conjuration animation loop properly for interrupted spells. But that's only one piece.

At some point, I'll probably go through and audit all the touch spells, but it's another thing I haven't done yet. It looks like Inflict rolls a touch attack on non-friendly characters, but Cure doesn't. Both do some saving throws based on hostility, but the logic looks a bit weird. I'm sure I could allow for holding the charge without having to make attack rolls against friendly targets; it's just a matter of time.

If I were to nitpick, the hostility stuff for magic is a little weird. It kind of assumes everyone knows exactly what spell you're casting all the time. If you just walk up to some peasant and try to cast a healing spell on them, they should probably resist, because they don't know what you're actually doing. You could be trying to curse them. But maybe that's too complicated for this game.

(There's a pretty good scene in one of the Drizzt books where they capture a guy, and then a cleric walks around casting a bunch of harmless spells on him. But they tell him they're actually putting a powerful curse on him, and he doesn't know any better. So he agrees to some demand they made of him.)

 

Regarding the Balor: Someone in the general forum mentioned a strategy of hitting the Balor with multiple Acid Arrows, which would then prevent him casting spells. It has a low touch AC. The party would need at least several hits per round, but the continuous damage RAW would need even more to cause him to fail concentration checks.

I could swear in Co8 that Sleep required a full-round action = cast + 5' step only. PalCo Sleep does not but, as I have mentioned elsewhere, it seems that Marc used Vanilla files for spells. It appears you are saying that there is a touch attack for Inflict (Slay Living?), but there was no die roll for that in my Pal Co game. That is why I am wondering how to safely update Marc's spell files, especially if he doesn't return.

I really tried to make sure I installed my game correctly: Vanilla disks, patches, Co8 8.1, PalCo, FrontEnd.

 

Oh, yeah, the original game has Sleep taking a standard action. Making it a full round was a 3.0->3.5 nerf.

Vanilla scripts for Inflict spells also don't have touch attacks. But Co8 versions do.

I've kind of wondered off and on if Temple+ doesn't include enough fixes when running a vanilla game. Co8 has a lot of miscellaneous fixes like this, and T+ just doesn't bother including them all, I think because it assumes people will be running one of the Co8 packs instead of the vanilla game. But those fixes would also get automatically used in other modules.

 

Ah, so this is more evidence that (for some reason or accident) Marc used unupdated spells. I don't think you guys at Temple + should worry about someone not having Co8 installed. I'd like to help making Marc's spells compliant. Could you please tell me the locations of the files that need to be changed? I tried creating Ray of Clumsiness, which appeared in the spell book, but the game ctd when I right-clicked the wizard to get the radial dial. What did I forget to mod? Thank you!

 

Well, one reason I say including the fixes would be good is that I've seen people elsewhere (like reddit) say that they prefer playing vanilla with Temple+, because some stuff that is changed by Co8, even in the more vanilla pack, makes the module too difficult (I assume they mean stuff like the bandit outpost near the temple, or maybe the moathouse ambush). People like that will be missing a bunch of miscellaneous fixes.

It's hard to know what your problem is just from the fact that it crashes. The main things necessary for a spell are the python script and the rules text file. But there are a bunch of mes files for descriptions and sounds. I wouldn't expect the latter missing lines to cause a crash, though. Maybe it depends what ID you added the spell under, though.