Acid Fog is doing unrealistic and bizarre damage

[Zorinar]

Watching people use the all time favorite acid fog spell often leaves me in awe. The damage can be incredible, as I have seen it tear through mobs in one casting that would take many more casting to kill with higher damage output spells. This level 6 spell in FK does more damage than some level 8 spells from my experience. Acid fog should be doing 2d6 damage, not the incredible almost (dramatic and untested opinion) 30d6 it seems to be doing. Each round it should do another 2d6. Now it does seem to do damage after its initial mega blast casting in FK, which only adds to the crazy spell. It is a no wonder that this is the ultimate go-to spell, but it really should be reconsidered as it was meant to be a damage over time spell, not a nuke, then damage over time.

[Gwain]

If its acting against the standard ruleset, then it should be depowered. If its not, then it should be left alone.

[Yemin]

Unsure what the standard rule set for FK really is tbh, but Acid fog does do retarded damage for its level compared to something like chain lightning, which even maximized at the same level proficiency as acid fog will be the only way it gives the fog competition.

I've personally never found it as a point of worry though. its not really anymore imbalanced than spellcasting in general.

Its the bias talking but it does give a very convenient way to solo a bunch of things as a caster because of the limited offense you often have but thats probably a negative thing depending who you are and what opinion you hold on the whole solo vs teamwork topic.

[Vinchel]

http://www.d20srd.org/

[Levine]

Quick PSA for those who haven't discovered it - acid fog seems to be doing an unrealistic and bizarre amount of no damage for the first round, and only hurts on ticks now.

Not sure if it is a bug or code update, though. Tread carefully with the spell! Don't let the filthy necros play with your corpse.

[Rhangalas]

The real question is: Why play a wizard anymore? It seems like everytime I discover a deadly strategy with one of my wizards, someone complains and it is nerfed into something so useless it is a waste of a spell slot.

With Dalmil - Grandmaster phantasmal killer + complementary spells. Result: Phantasmal Killer now only targets one opponent, rarely kills anything, and a spell was created specifically for the purpose of countering it.

With Necalli - Master Polymorph + troll form, resist spells, and metamagic. Result: Polymorph completely revamped to be a grindfest and troll form removed. Polymorph now lasts just long enough to be discovered using it when you revert and persistent spell prequisite was raised to be incompatible with level 4+ spells.

With Rhangalas - Grandmaster acid conjurer + metamagical feats. Result: Best acidic spell available now does zero damage.

With a caster, everything is a massive grind from day one. While fighters can basically just charge from room to room spamming kill, casters have to manage spells, prepare the right spells, allow for long delays to do it, and continously expend fortunes to maintain it. Thus, you spend hours upon hours - thousands - to experiment and build your wizard, then as soon as they have something viewed as overpowered it is gone and the build you spent years to create is worthless. It kind of sounds like: I play a fighter, so everything should be inferior to fighters.

[Yemin]

The real question is: Why play a wizard anymore? It seems like everytime I discover a deadly strategy with one of my wizards, someone complains and it is nerfed into something so useless it is a waste of a spell slot.

With Dalmil - Grandmaster phantasmal killer + complementary spells. Result: Phantasmal Killer now only targets one opponent, rarely kills anything, and a spell was created specifically for the purpose of countering it.

With Necalli - Master Polymorph + troll form, resist spells, and metamagic. Result: Polymorph completely revamped to be a grindfest and troll form removed. Polymorph now lasts just long enough to be discovered using it when you revert and persistent spell prequisite was raised to be incompatible with level 4+ spells.

With Rhangalas - Grandmaster acid conjurer + metamagical feats. Result: Best acidic spell available now does zero damage.

With a caster, everything is a massive grind from day one. While fighters can basically just charge from room to room spamming kill, casters have to manage spells, prepare the right spells, allow for long delays to do it, and continously expend fortunes to maintain it. Thus, you spend hours upon hours - thousands - to experiment and build your wizard, then as soon as they have something viewed as overpowered it is gone and the build you spent years to create is worthless. It kind of sounds like: I play a fighter, so everything should be inferior to fighters.

firstly, wow, phant killer used to be multi-hit on this game? .. that sounds like such a crackpot idea if the game is supposed to emulate dnd. not even 3.5 was that imbalanced. This said about one of the most imbalanced of its various editions.

Secondly, its unfortunate and sometimes unavoidable that alot of games, muds and tabletop both have people in charge of running them that don't really have the rl time or willingness to really sit down and work out the kinks. Perhaps at cost of running events, or doing other visible surface things that are mostly cosmetic. As a result, the simplest way to fixed a perceived problem is just to remove the offending cause. I.e. nerf it and be done.

Honestly, at the very least, if a feature of the game is having an undesired impact on the environment or the play and it needs be removed, I think at the very least, its only fair to give fair warning. I may very well have missed an announcement or something, but to this date the only people informing others of the change is other player's and i'm not sure why that is. Thats at the very least. As someone who both plays and runs games and have been in authority in other places. I couldn't really ever just strip the core of someone's main combat strategy without giving them something else in return to compensate for what's in this game is months of effort. I've not really been ever abel to understand why people ignore the base level of common every day curtesy to another human being behind the computer screen that hasn't abused bugs or broken the rules, but they still end up getting punished, if indirectly.

What inspired this post isn't Acid fog obviously. Acid fog was never particularly important to me, and frankly i've gotten used to people just nerfing spelllcasters all over the place because reasons. What I'd like to point out is that the quick fix results in players having the opposite of fun, as highlighted in the half rant above.

Lastly, do to myself being your average jo player. here, I'm not privy to the inner workings of what decisions are made, when, by whom. who gets a vote, who gets outvoted, how many orios Tempus snuck during the meeting or whatever, but between the half rant above, and the general responses i've gotten in the past when i've suggested things. That is what it looks like to me. So I hope it doesn't offend. If I did apologies all round. I would just like things like this to be addressed instead of ignored because 1 or 2 people were the only ones willing to put the effort to sound out their displeasures in a somewhat reasonable tone.

[Lylena]

who gets a vote, who gets outvoted, how many orios Tempus snuck during the meeting or whatever, but between the half rant above, and the general responses i've gotten in the past when i've suggested things.

What Tempus does ain't none'f ya business, son!

Though to have at least one point on topic, being notified of changes would be nice. However given our size (we're not that big), I don't really see it as feasible, all things considered. It's a nice to know thing when changes happen, but also having been on both sides to some degree or another (I can't even remember how long ago I held that position)...it's not a necessity. We'll likely find out when things are mentioned, but not always the immediate moment it happens. This "nerfing" may be temporary, this may be permanent. I'd rather IMM's work on other things than writing up a synopsis of things that will be found out one way or another.

That's my own opinion, though.

[Rhangalas]

My concerns aren't completely regarding the recent changes to acid fog, but casters as a whole. What I don't understand is why someone else would care how many NPCs another persons character is able to kill. My only assumption is that these concerns and resulting nerfs are based on the outcome of PvP. In Forgotten Realms, casters are generally feared and prestigious ones are nearly godlike - it is supported throughout canon and the settings lore since the beginning in various ways, most often it is demonstrated by a wizard killing an entire unit of soldiers singlehandedly. A prepared caster will almost always defeat a noncaster of the same skill level, provided that they use their full might and are not restricted by rules of engagement. Acid Fog really shouldn't even be a consideration, because if they really wanted to, they could simply bypass using incremental damage and kill you outright with necromancy. For example, Khelben Arunsun. The Blackstaff could blink at you and you would die instantly.

Based on that, what I am seeing here is: Acid Fog is powerful and is not banned in PvP; nerf it.

[Yemin]

who gets a vote, who gets outvoted, how many orios Tempus snuck during the meeting or whatever, but between the half rant above, and the general responses i've gotten in the past when i've suggested things.

What Tempus does ain't none'f ya business, son!

Though to have at least one point on topic, being notified of changes would be nice. However given our size (we're not that big), I don't really see it as feasible, all things considered. It's a nice to know thing when changes happen, but also having been on both sides to some degree or another (I can't even remember how long ago I held that position)...it's not a necessity. We'll likely find out when things are mentioned, but not always the immediate moment it happens. This "nerfing" may be temporary, this may be permanent. I'd rather IMM's work on other things than writing up a synopsis of things that will be found out one way or another.

That's my own opinion, though.

Thats mostly fair enough. To clarify though, its been a week and then some..., not to be cantanckerus or however you spell it, I'm just not sure what you mean by unpheasable since in the last month or so, tons of zones have gone in and each one that wasn't designed to be nigh death traps status has gotten an announcement. I mean even if it was a bug or some other problem, a mention on this thread after levine pointed it out would nip the speculation in the bud.

BTW apart from the ahem..., god challenge zones, (death traps) *cough cough*, all the other zones have been pretty nice. I haven't seen much of this yet either, so I'll go ahead and put a favourable mention of thanks and good job here. It is infact very much in the minority that muds actually add new zones and its well worth a nod of respect and a sandwich... though I have no pickles.. so yeah, there's that. How does this relate to the thread you ask??? well ... walk into one and find out.

As for spellcasters in general, well. Honestly, I find its a lot easier to screw up the game balance once you start home ruling them. A general feeling I have about FK spellcasters is that:
1. The learning by doing system hurts and is inadequate to replicate the true powers of a large number of arcane and divine spells both. I'm not suggesting it be removed because .. well it won't be but more because its a fairly good way to represent how good you can really get with your favourite spells. I'm personally not willing to sit there for hours upon hours typing the same command over and over so I don't and if I end up with a subpar wizard, well then, thats how it goes on this mud.

2. Wizards in particular are a little lopsided. i've only played in one guild and don't really have plans to expand that experience since getting where I am with mine... looking back was a little too much work than fun for me because I chose to play with traditional stats and techniques. What I see though is that some guilds are kind of missing a bunch of their utility spells and some spells that are currently in game that wizards are supposed to get... aren't on the wizard list at all.

[dolifer]

As for the acid fog thing...

I completely agree that as it was, the spell was very much OP. But I also think it is much better to actually fix the problem instead of replacing OP with just broken code. And as Yemin mentioned, a warning would have been nice... It's well known that this spell used to be the center of many wizards' offenses, and to allow that such a change be made without saying anything doesn't seem right to me. I was lucky, because I found out about the change before I flew into the middle of a high level area and got slaughtered because my main offense wasn't working correctly, but I feel bad for those who may have found out the hard way. It's like taking a barbarian's greatsword and replacing it with a butter knife...

I'm now forced to try to figure out a completely different way of playing my wizard, which again I wouldn't mind if I'd had a warning, but now I'm slightly worried... If I switch to depending more on something like illusory pit, is that going to be taken away at some point, too? It's just hard to tell, especially when someone's not particularly familiar with what the code is actually doing, what's not working correctly as opposed to where FK has actively decided to stray from cannon rules.

[Talos]

Acid fog is bugged at the moment, and is being looked into.

[Yemin]

thanks

[Korwin]

ACID FOG--
Since the change to this spell the damage is barely noticeable for a 6th level spell. In my experiments I have notice that the damage over time will ONLY AFFECT ONE CREATURE AT A TIME. Also my auto-attacks without bulls strength does much more damage then the acid fog damage over time with no initial damage.

BLACK TENTACLES- This spell is only causing damage upon the initial casting, no more damage over time.
----


Damage over time spells seem very fickle due to coding. Sometimes my acidshield will cancel a damage over time spell. Damage over time is much more appealing in pen and paper D&d, from my testings damage over time in FK cannot be stacked with other damage over time spells.

I'm just a bit discouraged about the Acid Fog, damage over time sounds wonderful on paper, but it is buggy. I've tried to find some use for the spell, but now it seems it would be better damage for me to punch a mob to death then acid fog him.



Thoughts? I'm just concerned with balance, as I've heard in many other threads FK is NOT 3.5 d&d, its modified to accommodate the code.

[Yemin]

I might be being slow here sorry, but were you asking if damage over time spells are worth it in this game?

Short answer, No, not really

slightly longer but still short answer:
I use spells like black tentacles for their restriction function. I often forget it even does damage.

[Korwin]

I was just trying to add something to the conversation, a brief summary of my testing of it. I remember when black tentacles used to have a sort of room damage tick. Otherwise, when not cast a lower slot restriction spell like shadow binding?

Just seems that several of my conjuration spells have been made very underwhelming, I understand that acid fog may be being reworked. But punching things with strength 12 does do more damage then acid fog.

Not complaining, just some input for extensive testing. Acid arrow(lvl 2 spell) does a lot more harm then acid fog right now from my testing at least. Perhaps replace Acid Fog as just an initial damage spell with no damage over time. Just an idea. Trying to turn this into a constructive conversation.

[Yemin]

Oh, fair enough.

I think we do skirt around the general effect of a fog though, which is to obscure vision. I guess maybe since there are no fog spells in game. Peeps are unwilling to put a way to blind people with a nosave mechanic. This may or maynot have been why initially the damage on it was bumped up quite a ways.

Consider that for example, fireball is roughly an AoE version of scorching ray that on SRD will do approx the same amount of damage to a single target until past level 12.
scorching ray:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/scorchingRay.htm
fireball:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fireball.htm

And that Wizards of the coast believe that this shift only warrants a 1 level increase. How much does a 4 level increase warrant in damage and effect for what in FK is basically just an AoE level 2 Acid arrow then?
Acid arrow:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/acidArrow.htm
Acid fog:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/acidFog.htm
Yes, 2D4 to 2D6 is a damage die increase, But the longer duration doesn't really come into the equation since Wizards are kill or die in about 5 rounds if its an appropriate level challenge. So. If your going to remove its main function, which isn't even to deal damage. how much more damage do you need to pile ontop of it to make it worth while to even cast? Especially if for some reason your going to add a fortitude save to it?

I'd say If the aim is to make Acid fog a pure damage spell and fix its current buggyness to stick it to 2D6 damage over time, Its only worth a 3rd level slot at the most.

If your going to turn it into a pure damage spell with similar or same damage of what it used to do. It should probably be a renamed 7th level evocation spell.

P.S.I'm aware of incendiary cloud, but i've never used it, and don't have plans to ever use it so feel free to input on how this affects my evaluation of spell balance.

[Raona]

I don't recall making any changes to Acid Fog, and I don't see anything about it in the spell code logs. If it has recently changed markedly, I don't know why; but I would venture that some kind of fix was made to the hard code (that I can't see or change) that backs up the spell code (that I can see and change).

I have just tried Acid Fog on the testport, and it is clearly doing an oversized amount of damage. The spell code is clearly not consistent with SRD, and this is something I can and should fix. But I don't understand why it was ever set to be the way it currently is.

Acid Fog spell is supposed to do area damage over time, but it only does so when there is only one target. When more than one target is present, the time-damage is set up, but it doesn't work. In short, this spell does need work but simple correction of it to match SRD won't happen overnight.

I apologize for the slow reaction to this; I am now very pressed for time in the summer months. When I do have time, there is always so much to sort through that I rarely find something concrete to tackle before I get pulled away again. Clear, concise bug reports are appreciated. (I know this isn't the bug reporting forum; I came here to look for information on what's up with Acid Fog.)

[Yemin]

Hope this helps.

It may be working on the test port but it is still broken on the live.

Code: Select all

Tombs of Tempus' Footmen
 N-Tombs of Tempus E-Tombs of Tempus W-Tombs of Tempus
A zombie footman stares into the distance.
c 'acid fog'
Unable to apply 'extend spell' to spells with a duration of 'instantaneous'.
You begin to chant.
cex
Extend spell mode set to on.
Extend spell mode set to off.
Powdered rhubarb leaf glows briefly.
Adders stomach glows briefly.
Your acid fog corrodes a zombie footman!
gl zo
A zombie footman is in perfect health.
Your acid fog corrodes a zombie footman!
You strike a glancing blow off a zombie footman!
Your crush violently crushes a zombie footman's chest.
c 'acid blast'
You prepare to cast 'acid blast'...
Your acid fog corrodes a zombie footman!
You begin to chant.
Powdered rhubarb leaf glows briefly.
Adders stomach glows briefly.
Your blast of acid eats its way into a zombie footman!
Your stone skin absorbs all of a zombie footman's damage.
Your acid fog corrodes a zombie footman!
You strike a glancing blow off a zombie footman!
With a bonecrunching sound your crush violently smashes a zombie footman's right leg.
c 'lightning bolt'
You prepare to cast 'lightning bolt'...
Your acid fog corrodes a zombie footman!
You begin to chant.
Some rat fur glows briefly.
A crystal rod glows briefly.
Your lightning bolt hits a zombie footman with full impact!
c 'lightning bolt'
You prepare to cast 'lightning bolt'...
You begin to chant.
Some rat fur glows briefly.
A crystal rod glows briefly.
Your lightning bolt hits a zombie footman with full impact!
c 'lightning bolt'
You prepare to cast 'lightning bolt'...
You begin to chant.
Some rat fur glows briefly.
A crystal rod glows briefly.
Your lightning bolt fries a zombie footman leaving him a twitching corpse!
A zombie footman is DESTROYED!
You sense that your patron approves of your actions.
As the zombie falls, his armour and weapon crumble to dust.
You hear the sound of restless undead nearby.

I believe the damage over time is working minimally with a single target but the initial damage looks like 0.

I don't know if there is an easy way to implement miss chances rather than a flat penalty to hit but that is what a fog should be doing.

I will note that incendiary cloud also is doing far more damage than it should be. I would say it is doing as much damage as acid fog used to do for us which is still much more than the 4D6 it should be doing. It also seems to be ignored if the target has fire immunity or high enough fire resistance which again shouldn't be the case for the fog effect portion. A fog allows no saves.

[Hrosskell]

Just to clarify, immunity/damage resistance are not save mechanics. Whether elemental resistance spells grant damage resistance or increased saves is probably worth discussing somewhere else.