How Bigby's Works:

[keikobad]

Ok, for those of you who haven't looked at them in the toolset, here's a breakdown. Please chime in if I've missed something. Hopefully it'll clear up some doubts and bug calls.

Bigby's Forceful Hand (6th lvl)
It's harder to get a dragon with it than I thought. The spell works by comparing two rolls:

Caster: 1d20 + 14
Target: 1d20 + STR_Modifier + Size_Modifier

If CasterRoll >= Target Roll, Target is pimp-slapped.

The Size Modifiers are
Tiny: -8
Small: -4
Medium: 0
Large: 4
Huge: 8

So anything bigger than a human with at least a 38 STR (+14 modifier, same as hand) has a better than 50% chance of resisting.

Look at the Bigby's progression again:
5th: decreases target AB
6th: completely disables target unless immune to Knockdown AND Mind effects
7th: completely disables target unless immune to Mind effects OR Paralysis
8th: rolls to damage target every round, target stunned if fails save
9th: holds target in place (no immunity), and damages every round


Bigby's 7-9 make a to hit roll vs target AC and a grapple roll vs target STR. The way its scripted is a bit funny, but the grapple rolls should almost always succeed; high AC creatures have a better chance to escape.

Bigby's 6th lvl, because it requires immunity to knockdown AND mind spells to resist, is the most powerful against any creature smaller or weaker than a dragon.

The 9th lvl Bigby's would hold the dragon in place, but it could still breathe and cast spells at you. An archer could still shoot at you.

[Vergilius]

Bigby 7-9 grapple should almost always succeed, yes, but as I read it, the attack should almost always succeed, unless against a ridiculously high AC.

[WrathOG777]

well, if you want to get into overpower stuff, clerics get harm at the same lvl, and can use it in armor.

So compare, harm which makes someone really easy to kill fast, to forceful hand which makes someone unable to defend themselves.

Both need an immunity to avoid completely. Both have a small chance to avoid by even the weakest opponent. Both have cases where they are hard to land.

mages get range, clerics get to were armor.

I fail to see the unbalance. Only real difference is that cleric can finish the fight very quickly by hitting the target once. While a mage will have to cast more spells.

The real comparison to that spell is hold person, the 2nd lvl cleric spell. Bigby's forceful hand is just a 6th lvl mage version that is hard to resist.

Explain exactly why, compared to other 6th lvl non damageing spells this is sooo powerful? Flesh to stone is the same level and that is supposed to be permanent. NO immunity for that anywhere. Save or be a statue forever. Donot go thinking saves are soo easy to make. Maybe for dwarf berserkers, but for the rest of us, 6th lvl spell fort saves are not 50%.

Tiras can cast flesh to stone with a DC 26. Can your character make two of those in a row consistantly? With even a 50% chance?

[Gairus]

I'm not that fussed either way, but it seems worth mentioning that Harm is pretty much unanimously considered broken. Comparing the hand spell to harm is possibly counterproductive to your argument Wrath

[engelhar]

Just to clarify: immunity to mind spells does not protect you from 6th lvl Bigby's.

I am pretty sure of this, cause I swear I got hit with one while I was wearing a golden circlet, but I wanted to check with what other people have seen.

[Vergilius]

comparing cleric to wizard spells is apples to oranges in my book. Clerics get built entirely differently from a mage.

What is broken about it? you said it yourself in the other thread, its the knockdown that is added to it. Its only broken because knockdown is broken. now, Maybe thats the best the NWN engine can do with regards to the spell description.

apples and oranges. I don't think these kinds of comparisons are adequate. Each class is belt to have certain strengths and weaknesses. You probably don't want to blow a death spell on a fighter because by the time you add a strong fort save to most likely decent CON bonus plus a coupel of save boasting items, they have a fort save of 20ish. Thats not a give-me, but it is far better than 50%.

Comparatively, even for a STR heavy class, you're still getting nowhere near a +14 out of it and a +14 is what you need to have a 50% chance.

Since the effect is knockdown, what about having it resisted by a discipline check? To me, that balances out the spell appropriately. It has its strengths: vs low str, non-discipline classes, and it has its weaknesses and seem to fall in line with the other spell vs class type dynamics.

[Vergilius]

I'm not that fussed either way, but it seems worth mentioning that Harm is pretty much unanimously considered broken. Comparing the hand spell to harm is possibly counterproductive to your argument Wrath

Even Harm has a save against it, has its strengths and weaknesses. Against a high fort save character, you're probably going to have to cast it more than once.

[keikobad]

Hmm, meant this more as a reference than an argument, but since you brought it up... Seriously, there are some sporked things:


Look at the list of Bigby's spells above, and tell me when you'd want to use the 7th level Bigby instead of the 6th one? When you want to RP capturing and interrogating a person. Otherwise, 6th lvl B. is more powerful.

7th lvl B. is screwed up by the immunities. Anything immune to 6th lvl B. will also be immune to the 7th. Many more things are immune to 7th than 6th though.

Changing forceful hand to be the 7th lvl B. would be a bit closer to PnP, though PnP still allows the target to cast spells with somatic components, so it's not the mage killer that it is in NWN. Consider another 7th lvl disabling spell, Power Word Stun-- disables you completely, but up to a 150 hp max and is stopped by a clarity potion. Again, no use for it. Bigby's 6th is stronger.

Ironically, the one thing that IS right with Forceful Hand is the Grapple Check. According to PnP, you make an opposed dice roll to grapple, once you hit. But the scripts for the 7th and 9th lvl Bigby's left out the target's dice roll! So, 7th level Bigby's grapple check is:

CasterRoll= 1d20 + SpellCastingAbilityModifier + CasterLevel + 10 + 4
vs Target"Roll"= SizeModifier + STR_Modifier

Not sure what monsters are supposed to have a chance against that.

Edit: dumb mistake, CutsceneImmoblize only works on PCs I think. It'd be nice to make the 'holding' effect of the 7th lvl Bigby's work like the hold effect of the 9th. Meaning, you're stuck in one spot, but you can still melee anything next to you, attack at range, or cast spells. And then add a hefty penalty to the attack bonus to come pretty close to the PnP version.

But in the scripts, both the 9th lvl and 7th lvl Bigby's use the same EffectParalyze() function. And the 7th lvl Bigby's does indeed give you the daze effect and prevents you from attacking or spellcasting. Something I can't spot now changes that in the 9th level and leaves you with a nice paralyzed-legs effect, but I've no idea if it can be replicated on spawns successfully or what.

Don't listen to Wrath about Harm, he's trying to derail this thread to R&R where it'll get deleted in 30 days. He knows very well that you need to make an attack roll to make the spell work, and all Tiras has to do is turn on Imp. Expertise to laugh at any cleric trying that. Even if he didn't use Expertise he could just run around in circles until the cleric's buffs wear off and he's left with a lame attack bonus. Plus Tiras' Shadow Shield spell makes him immune to Harm. And if here were a fighter he could drink a heal potion after harm was cast. Bah.

I shouldn't tell you but Jake could save against that Stone spell 50% of the time, and he's only a lvl 13 cleric with 10 CON. Enjoy Bigby's Pimp Hand while you have it, there's nothing like it.

[Arandil]

Hah, Jakes just a bit bruised from the last time he got knocked down by it. It's a powerful spell all right. But it's been in the game a while now, and we don't generally balance for CvC unless , likes Isaacs, it is completely over the top. All the bigbys spells can now be dispelled, which makes them significantly weaker.

[Gairus]

Harm allows saves? Oh. Good.

[KinX]

Harm allows saves? Oh. Good.

a high magic res will also nullify it.

[Dhalmoh]

Kinx, high magic res will nullify anything. Including bigbys spells.

[The Constrainer]

Harm allows saves? Oh. Good.

Last I got hit by one there was no save. I was in Hala at the time.

[Starslayer_D]

unfortunately, harm needs that you have a follow-up handy faster then th enemy heal potion.... easy counter. And I know at least a few spells wich completely nullify it.

Bigby's #6 simply knocks you down and then the mage can kill you with toothpicks, as you can't even drink a fucking potion!

[Pyracantha]

a high magic res will also nullify it.

What's considered high? 20, 30, 40?

[Emprod]

To resist a 6th level spell by a minimum level (11) caster? 17-18 to have a very marginal chance, 25-26 to have a decent chance, low to mid 30's to point and laugh.

[Pyracantha]

Sorry, don't want to hijack, but does monk natural spell resistance (after level 12) stack with spell resistance found in some robes, cloaks, etc.?

[Nob]

No, they don't. They used to, but that was a bug(fixed in 1.31 IIRC) and SR isn't supposed to stack at all.

It's a moot point, how many damned strength based fighters(who in PnP could hack up Bigby's hand if they wanted to) have a SR of 30?

[keikobad]

Dratted hijackers-- this is a discussion about the scripting behind Bigby's!

AAARRRGH.

Forget about CvC-- look at the effects I list for all the Bigby's spells in my first post. See what's wacky? Go up against an Iron Golem, which Bigby's do you use?

6th lvl-- 50% of the time disables it completely
7th lvl-- would be the same as above except Golem's immunity to paralysis stops it
8th lvl-- won't cut through it's dmg resist or stun it
9th lvl-- will hold it in place 100% of the time, but Golem will be able to melee anyone next to it (and in theory use it's poison breath, but see my next post), won't cut through dmg resist

Once again, the 6th lvl wins. Same goes for almost any spellcaster boss spawn you might use. In theory-- because as you'll see in my next post, there are bugs in the implemenation of Bigby's.

[keikobad]

Bugs:

Forceful Hand

Should take immunity to BOTH Knockdown and Mind effects to resist. Holds true for PCs, but will not work against spiders or any monsters immune to mind-effects.

Why? Same bug that causes the concealment from improved invisibility to cancel when you attack someone in patch 1.61 (is fixed in Avlis, but you can see it in a local module).

Code: Select all

effect EffectLinkEffects(effect eChildEffect, effect eParentEffect ) 
// Link the two supplied effects, returning eChildEffect as a child of 
// eParentEffect. 
// Note: When applying linked effects if the target is immune to all valid 
// effects all other effects will be removed as well. This means that if you 
// apply a visual effect and a silence effect (in a link) and the target is 
// immune to the silence effect that the visual effect will get removed as well. 
// Visual Effects are not considered "valid" effects for the purposes of 
// determining if an effect will be removed or not and as such should never be 
// packaged *only* with other visual effects in a link.

Bioware ignored their own advice and used it to link the daze and knockdown effects in Bigby's Forceful Hand:

Code: Select all

if (nCasterRoll >= nTargetRoll) 
{ 
effect eVis = EffectVisualEffect(VFX_DUR_MIND_AFFECTING_DISABLED); 
effect eKnockdown = EffectDazed(); 
effect eKnockdown2 = EffectKnockdown(); 
effect eDur = EffectVisualEffect(VFX_DUR_CESSATE_NEGATIVE); 
//Link effects 
effect eLink = EffectLinkEffects(eKnockdown, eDur); 
eLink = EffectLinkEffects(eLink, eKnockdown2); 
//Apply the penalty 
ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_TEMPORARY, eLink, oTarget, RoundsToSeconds(nDuration)); 
ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_TEMPORARY, eVis, oTarget, RoundsToSeconds(nDuration)); 

Seems to work fine if you remove that linking and apply the knockdown separately:

Code: Select all

if (nCasterRoll >= nTargetRoll)
{
effect eVis = EffectVisualEffect(VFX_DUR_MIND_AFFECTING_DISABLED);
effect eKnockdown = EffectDazed();
effect eKnockdown2 = EffectKnockdown();
effect eDur = EffectVisualEffect(VFX_DUR_CESSATE_NEGATIVE);
//Link effects
effect eLink = EffectLinkEffects(eKnockdown, eDur);
//Tybalt-Commenting out linking of daze and knockdown
//eLink = EffectLinkEffects(eLink, eKnockdown2);
//Apply the penalty
ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_TEMPORARY, eLink, oTarget, RoundsToSeconds(nDuration));
ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_TEMPORARY, eKnockdown2, oTarget, RoundsToSeconds(nDuration));
ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_TEMPORARY, eVis, oTarget, RoundsToSeconds(nDuration));

[keikobad]

Next bug:

Bigby's Crushing Hand

Should hold the target in place, but target should still be able to melee anything next to it and cast spells. Works fine on PCs, but NPCs will only try to attack with weapons, they won't cast spells or use special abilities.

This is probably a limitation in the default AI, which is too bad. If it were relatively easy to fix, then the EffectCutsceneImmobilize that it uses (which does work on NPCs, I realized) would make a great base for all the other Bigby's spells. For example:

Forceful Hand: Add a prohibitive Attack Bonus penalty OR start with immobilize and add a -10 AB penalty. Could not be resisted by any immunity.

Grasping Hand: Start with Immobilize, add a prohibitive Attack Bonus penaly, add a chance of spell failure (should only allow Stilled or verbal-only spells to be cast. Not sure if a temporary property identical to that of armor that causes arcane spell failure for spells with somatic components could be applied to the target, or if it's a general spell failure). Could not be resisted by any immunity: spell becomes useful again.

If there's interest I could try to work on them.

[WrathOG777]

Think you could work with all this knowledge you have to fix knockdown? So that it works as trip?

Here are the details off the top of my head.
- cannot move
- Opposed str check instead of disapline skill
- failure results in getting tripped instead of doing tripping
- being tripped does not stop one for attacking or casting.
- +4 to get hit in melee -4 to get hit in ranged *think this works now
- cannot take full attack? only partial round attack
- size +-4 bonus/penalty does not effect to-hit. Only applys to the opposed str check.

[keikobad]

Think you could work with all this knowledge you have to fix knockdown?

Nope, I'm just starting to learn how the NWN engine works. And boy is the documentation poor. Spell scripts are easy to edit, you can do it in the toolset. Feats are another story.

Knockdown's been in from the start. If there aren't any good community fixes for it in the vault, there's probably a good reason for that.

[WrathOG777]

darn it. I can hope can I not?!

[Bear]

Think you could work with all this knowledge you have to fix knockdown? So that it works as trip?

Here are the details off the top of my head.
- cannot move
- Opposed str check instead of disapline skill
- failure results in getting tripped instead of doing tripping
- being tripped does not stop one for attacking or casting.
- +4 to get hit in melee -4 to get hit in ranged *think this works now
- cannot take full attack? only partial round attack
- size +-4 bonus/penalty does not effect to-hit. Only applys to the opposed str check.

Give the poor fighters a break. Knockdown is not the same as trip. The NWN feat is actually a bastardized verion of trip and grapple/pin (neither of which are available). It trips you to your ass, and gives you the same reaction as if you were pinned. Yes, it should probably be a str check (instead of skill), but Bioware thought fighters had such few skills in the game they should give them one that mattered......

The problem with Bigsby's is broader than just the 6th level spell includes a daze effect that was not in the rule-book, and that is better than higher versions of the spell. The problem is specifically acute to Avlis and CoPaP worlds.

I will conjecture that when the 6th level spell was designed and balanced, people decided to add a daze effect because they knew characters would have access to items with immunity to mind effects and immunity to knockdown. They probably sat around a little conference room and said:

Fred: ?I think wizards need spells with more variety. Let?s add an 11 round daze effect to the 6th level Bigsby?s Spell.?

Bob: "Great idea? But fuck, we should probably put some kind of save on that daze because it isn?t in the rule book. You know...maybe a reflex save to let people jump out of the way or something."

Sam: "Don't worry about it, people and monsters that should be able to resist will have immunities that will act just like a save."

Bob: "Oh, good point, let's talk about hockey."

If you take these immunities out of the game (good move in my mind) you essentially turn a medium level spell that should have saves into a high level spell with no save....(i.e., 6th level spell suddenly becomes a 9th level spell).

Sum for Avlis: Bigsby?s = 6th level spell with no save and uber-powerful daze effect even though it?s not in rule book.

Bigby?s Forceful Hand
Evocation
Level: Sor/Wiz 6
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Medium (100 ft + 10 ft/level)
Target, Area or Effect: 10-ft hand
Duration: 1 round/level (D)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes
As Bigby's Interposing Hand, except the forceful hand pursues and pushes away the opponent that you designate. Treat this as a bull rush with a +14 bonus on the STR check (+8 for STR 27, +4 for being Large, and +2 for charging bonus, which it always gets). The hand always moves with the opponent to push him back the full distance allowed, and it has no speed limit.
A very strong creature could not push the hand out of its way (because the hand would instantly reposition itself between the creature and you), but it could push the hand up against you by successfully bull rushing the hand.