Nerf orb spells

[Paha]

Orbs do all check for spell resistance. I will have to test if and why it would not work, that's more in nwn under the hood or possible issue with hooking through wrapper.

Touch attack is something I will discuss and look at over weekend with the team.

Likewise with secondary effects, can someone actually confirm the stun works? Because in nwn mechanics, engine level functionality, mind spell immunity should block the stun. I rather someone confirms and says that it is confirmed, so I know if we are working with assumptions and guesses, or actual facts.

I can only read what you guys write so keep things tight, factual and easy to read.

[SamB123]

And I said on average. Characters do not on average have resist elemental up, except pvp cautious clerics and rangers.

Why don't they? It's not hard, in my experience, to find a brewer.

And I've no salt for this particular death anyway, if that refers to me.

It refers to the thread in general. /shrug

[Random_White_Guy]

The eternal dilemma is Casters have always dominated in PvP because it's all about Burst Damage. If you can do more damage than foe can heal you win, anything else is just window dressing.

The best I can tell is this was probably adjusted for MAX HP which is a huge boost against wizards. If it's going to have damage AND save component, maybe it just needs some damage adjustment?

The Wiki says "The caster targets a single creature with an acid orb. The orb deals 1d6/lvl dmg (max 15d6), and blinding the target for 1 round on a failed save.

Personally I feel Wizards/Sorcs have way too much New Spell Favoritism with new spells making it a hat on a hat as its already considered an S tier option for PvP and PVE in vanilla NWN, then new spells atop it.

Maybe the Orb spells moved away from Arcanists and to Thematic Clerical Domains (Fire Orb  forFire Domain, Water, Earth, etc) and the more maligned Elemental involved Changelings picking between all elements to draw upon at their king hating leisure?

Inspiring PCs to try more Evoker Priests and Evoker Changelings are cooler ideas to me than "Evoker Wizards get 9 more ways to crush you in burst damage".

[Ironside]

The team is discussing the spells at the moment.  Although, similar to Scorching Ray, I am inclined to say that a wizard burning a majority of their IVth level slots (which are actually a fairly high demand slot) to subdue a single person when a majority of combats are not one on one, is fine. 

[Egon the Monkey]

Paha: The changelog says this was changed on April the 26th to not check SR. If it still does check SR, the docs need updating.

Electrohydra: I suspect the reason nobody complained is nobody's seen them used that dramatically. I've seen plenty of Orbs fired since the change, just not in duels. Yes Scorching Ray is extremely powerful, it got its own thread because of that.

I think RwG has the best idea. Make it a touch attack again and put it on the Druid/Cleric elemental domain lists. That's a nice tradeoff as they get secondary BAB, but it's rare to have an excuse for an elemental domain and one with True Strike. And Druids have relatively few spell slots.

I think the issue with Orb spells is they are situationally amazing, but that's not really a drawback to a Wizard. They're the class of being situational. I wouldn't use a barrage of three, generally, I'd have a single L4 slot with an Orb in as a finisher. Especially Electric Orb. I've seen a few wizards with a couple prepped as their self-defence spell, because worst case, it's enough damage and stun to force someone to heal while you run away.

Orb is what Isaac's Lesser Missile Storm wants to be when it grows up. Because it's useful for exploding a single person, but it can do that even if they have allies or a couple of summons out. And like ILMS, it works perfectly well with no SF.

[Paha]

Seems that the changelog said it was changed to "NOT Ignore spellresist check" and also, I've multiple times tried to make sure I also got it right-

Orb spell is single orb of damage, not like magic missile aka ball lightning, so it has a big difference to that as well. When it comes to adding them to clerics, perhaps. I am not against it, but frankly got too much on my plate to think or design any balance or other changes at this point. It may be up to discussion at some point, sooner or later.

[sinclairlim]

If orb spells are designed to deal with more agile PCs, who would make a reflex save, but also have much less HP, like rogues or bards, maybe just tone down the damage?

currently it's 1d6, so maybe 1d5? 1d4+1?

[CB]

Re-visiting this after an encounter with an orb spam.   If they are meant to deal with high reflex classes, why not make a save, but a fort save for half damage?  This way you can at least stand a chance when you get hit with several of them in a PvE environment?   Even if a PvP environment, it may be too strong, being a decent range, stun AND no way to avoid the full damage.   So adding some kind of limit ot it seems necessary, and a fort save for half damage may be the answer.

[Paha]

We've talked about this in detail with the team and in the end came to conclusion that we won't change the orb spells. However if I recall, the electrical orb or other, should not stun anymore anyway. It dazes, if I recall of the chage I made at some point. The texts are not updated because it needs tlk update and often is forgotten from hak updates.