Bigby's Hands of Doom

[thaelis]

So, I've now heard pretty much everyone complain that this spell is overpowered.

Why not just add a Reflex save (DC +5) every round as well as the Grapple check.

Seems to me most characters would have an extremely small chance of opposing a 1d20+14 Strength check, but a DC 35 Reflex save? I'm pretty sure some rogues out there would snicker at that. It would even give Fighters etc an extra (if smaller) chance to escape each round.

[blurry89]

Or just cut the duration to 2 rounds. That's still only 4 rounds, extended. I'd do this for all the bigbys.

I'm opposed to the save-less spells having saves strapped to them. As powerful as casters are, there are some classes out there that have outrageous saves across the board.

[Root]

I would enjoy being able to do the crypts in Argyle without blowing an 800gp scroll, because for some reason, even though I'm one of the highest-str characters on the server, I still have about 80% chance to fail against that thing and get completely locked up and disabled for about two minutes.

Oh, and being able to not be completely shut down in any PvP by any arcane spellcaster is cool too.

Running the strength check every round instead of just once would be nice, too, so those raging orc FB's who get up to 34 Strength and still only have 40% chance to break it actually do manage to after a while.

[Chiangtao]

There has to be something that circumvents superbly high saves.

[Torgar]

For casters, just use spells that, even on a save, hurt the opponent a lot. I'll still finger of death a high fort save person, just for the 30-40 damage I'll do if they save. Wont' help on evasion people, but that high reflex cleric got you down? Just maximize your reflex spell, and still do more damage then they are comfortable with.

And I am all for the bigby spells having their duration reduced, I flat out refused to pick any of them beyond interposing hand on my sorceror, simply because I believed that reliance on them made me a bad arcanist.

[Silas North]

There's a good reason why so many servers do a complete overhaul of the spell list (and occasionally the critical hit system). However, I hear this is quite difficult to do.

Even though FoM negates all but one Bigby's, I agree that they could stand to be weakened slightly. Personally, I like the duration reduction best. A save would be good if save-boosting spells were weakened as well. From what I understand, some of them are not even in pnp.

[Mournas]

So worried about Bigbys these days. There are plenty of other spell combinations that will simply wreck someones world, especially if you focus on other no save spells.

[thaelis]

Or just cut the duration to 2 rounds. That's still only 4 rounds, extended. I'd do this for all the bigbys.

I'm opposed to the save-less spells having saves strapped to them. As powerful as casters are, there are some classes out there that have outrageous saves across the board.

Thats why I'm saying make it save at +5 or +10 (DC 35-40). Only those who have purposely invested in Reflex save would have a good chance of making that, even buffed with save-enhancing spells. Then, the spell remains just as useful against NPC's, but can't be abused as much against other PC's.

Reducing the duration would make it kinda useless against NPC's (weaker than a Hold Monster actually as NPC's have crappy Will saves). Then it will only be memorized as a PvP fallback, which I don't like the idea of.

Running the strength check every round instead of just once would be nice, too, so those raging orc FB's who get up to 34 Strength and still only have 40% chance to break it actually do manage to after a while.

I thought it already did this?! according to the wiki the grapple check is made every round, with the wzard receiving a +14 bonus (+10 Str, +4 for his "Huge" hand). If not then yes, this should be fixed too!

[roguethree]

The NWN2 wiki says a grapple check is made every round, but I've never, ever seen a Bigby's spell end prematurely after the initial success is made.

[Root]

There has to be something that circumvents superbly high saves.

Dispel Magic to strip the Cleric or FS's buffs.

And if anything, can we at least remove Bigbys from the Argyle crypts? It makes it flat out impossible for anyone that can't FoM or Spell Mantle to beat them.

Just like rogues shouldn't be an outright requirement for a place, neither should be a caster.

[Cornuto]

I have a feeling we'll address both the stupid ability to stack saving throw bonuses and the bigby spells at some point in the future.


There's more immediate stuff on our plates at the moment though.

[Dragor]

First the bug list for the most commonly hated on Bigby's spell:

x0_s0_bigby3.nss

Line 60: This spell doesn't use the NWN2 ApplyMetamagicDurationMods() and ApplyMetamagicDurationTypeMods() functions.

There are various odd things defined and unused; nDuration as a parameter in RunGrappleHold() - due to it being altered to up to nCasterLevel DelayCommand() functions.

Line 81: The change to nCasterLevel DelayCommand()'s might be not a good idea too, and it could run fine as the other bigby spells, firing another DelayCommand()ed RunGrappleHold() (which still doesn't need nDuration though).

It also does 1 too many. At level 20 We should do 20 instances of the RunGrappleHold(), instead it does 20. It likely will still work correctly, due to how it tracks the spell with the temporary visual effect. %At least one of these numbers should be 20 +/- 1, rather than 20.

Line 83: The other problem is that this status check is just silly, it runs instantly, not when the delayed function occurs, and the function GZGetDelayedSpellEffectsExpired() checks for if the target is dead / caster is valid on line 126 anyway. This could be uncommented.

As you can see whoever posted this is lacks an understanding of user friendly and quite possibly is an idiot...

Now for the math for nwn2

Caster Roll: d20 + Primary Spell Ability Modifier + Caster level + 10(hands str (33)) - 1 (size)
Target Roll: Target's full AC

This is effectivly the to-hit roll for the hand, if it hits you then it tries to grapple you, this is rolling against the full AC according to nwn2 wiki

sooo level 20's would go like this:

lets do the typical OP spellcaster build with a PrC and Practiced Spellcaster that brings the caster level to 24 on a lvl 20.

and we're going wizard so maxed int + fox's cunning 23 + 4 27 (+8)

1d20 + 8 + 24 + 10 -1
42-61

now for the victim lvl 20 half-orc fighter with maxed out str

so the above roll is going against this poor fellows AC, which is not likely over 25

(( for a basis here, 32 is good for an unbuffed melee class on this server ))

now for the grappling itself

d20 + Ability mod + CL + Hands Str Mod (10) + hand size mod (+4)
vs
d20 + ability mod + BAB + size

1d20 + 8 + 24 + 10 + 4
vs
1d20 + 20 + 7

47-66
vs
28-47

and I do not recall it ever giving you a chance to escape every round either

now this is the math I found in the 3.5 D&D source books

CL + Ability Modifyer + 10 (Hands Str Mod) -1 (hands size mod)
vs
the non-full AC as it acts as a touch attack

then the actual grapple check is
CL + Ability Mod + 10 + 4 (24 + 8 + 10 + 4)

and the opposition (optional) for each round is a grapple attack of your own or as a standard action the use of escape artist skill

BAB + Str + Size (20 + 7 + 0)

with the d20 attack roll of course

so what does this prove?

There is no way to resist or break out of this spell with the gear available on this server for a non-caster build and even if there was +10 gear there still would be no way for a melee build to resist this spell.

Since grappling is handled much much different in PnP the situations when this spell is cast are completely different than what you would run into in NWN2 engine created environments.

This spell is silly even in PnP though.

Well have fun making decisions on it, I'll stick to running Argyle in groups of at least 2 (the complaint I actually have about those zombies is the emmissary having smite good way too many times).