Storm Avatar

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Truthiness
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Storm Avatar

Unread post by Truthiness »

Storm Avatar is quite the spell, it gives you a huge movement speed boost, immunity to knockdown, 3d6 electricity damage applied to melee weapons (and creature weapons), and because of server fixes, complete immunity to ranged attack physical damage.

Now, Storm Avatar in Neverwinter Nights 2 had a pretty major oversight because of how it functioned. Originally it gave you 100% concealment against ranged attacks, which also applied to ranged touch attacks, effectively nullifying them as well. On Baldur's Gate, however, it seems to have been changed to reducing ranged physical damage to 0, to allow for ranged touch attacks to work.

This change has a few side effects, in that ranged attacks that would normally bypass concealment or deflection do not work against it, still getting their physical damage reduced to 0. This applies to both natural 20s and the epic feat One Shot. Both of which should counter the spell on some level, but don't.

This leaves very little counterplay for ranged characters to deal with it. They can attempt to melee whoever cast it, which, for the majority characters focused into ranged weapons, is a death sentence. The ranged character can attempt to dispel it with Mordenkainen's Disjunction scroll if it's cast from a scroll, but only a 60% chance for such an expensive scroll. If it's a high CL druid, the option to dispel it doesn't exist. The last option is simply to run away or somehow wait it out, but given the movement speed bonus Storm Avatar gives, this becomes very difficult without stealth, and given the high detection that most characters who cast it have, even difficult with stealth.

Now, this leads me to my suggestion. My first thought (probably a slightly biased one, given that I play a ranged character) was that it should be added to the breach list, to match the other spells that give such a major immunity (Stone Body/Iron Body being exempt from the list for some reason, even though with both Death Ward and Freedom of Movement up, the penalties are negligible to the characters who use the spells, but thats a topic for another day >.>). But the more I thought about it, the less I was for that idea. It would become a bit too easy to counter it, given the amount of characters with breach wands. And it doesn't really fit with the other spells on the breach list in other ways than the immunity. So I'm no longer sure about that idea.

Which brings me to my actual suggestion, which is just a fix, really. I'm not sure if it's possible (hence my first thought on the matter), but somehow allowing once again for natural 20s and the epic feat One Shot to work like they should against Storm Avatar, while still keeping the fix that allows for RTAs to hit. This would allow for an ability that was designed to counter effects such as Storm Avatar to actually counter it, along with the auto-hit effect of natural 20s to actually work as intended.

There is another minor fix that I would like to suggest. Greater Dispel has an innate spell level of 6, meaning that scrolls scribed and bought of it should be CL 11. The only scrolls that are currently purchasable seem to be CL 7, which is only 2 higher CL than the normal dispel scrolls. I was hoping this could be fixed. :)
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electric mayhem
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by electric mayhem »

This is an interesting idea, but very complicated.

Isn't the RP behind storm avatar that the Character basically becomes a whirling vortex of wind and electricity, and that is what sends all ranged attacks off course?
Therefore, in reality, regardless of what you roll, whether a 1 or a 20, the arrow/bolt/bullet would get thrown away?

I know that one shot is the crown jewel of a particular character style.

But is not Storm avatar another crown jewel trait of other character styles?

But this sounds like we are asking to lessen the ability of storm avatar against one particular feat, to make that particular feat more powerful in the unlikely event that it is required.

If I'm reading between the lines here, there is a potential opportunity against a stormavater character in game at some point. If your character is trying to pre-empt the battle and is worried about a particular spell, perhaps your character may need to invite along assistance.
There are other ways to counter a buffed stormavatar characters besides making arrows bypass a magic spell designed to counter ranged attacks.



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Truthiness
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by Truthiness »

electric mayhem wrote:This is an interesting idea, but very complicated.

Isn't the RP behind storm avatar that the Character basically becomes a whirling vortex of wind and electricity, and that is what sends all ranged attacks off course?
Therefore, in reality, regardless of what you roll, whether a 1 or a 20, the arrow/bolt/bullet would get thrown away?

I know that one shot is the crown jewel of a particular character style.

But is not Storm avatar another crown jewel trait of other character styles?

But this sounds like we are asking to lessen the ability of storm avatar against one particular feat, to make that particular feat more powerful in the unlikely event that it is required.

If I'm reading between the lines here, there is a potential opportunity against a stormavater character in game at some point. If your character is trying to pre-empt the battle and is worried about a particular spell, perhaps your character may need to invite along assistance.
There are other ways to counter a buffed stormavatar characters besides making arrows bypass a magic spell designed to counter ranged attacks.
Storm Avatar is a level 8 druid spell (and a level 10 feat of the Storm Lord class) that reads "Missile weapons fired at you are deflected harmlessly". It also provides a variety of other effects, the missile deflection is only one aspect of it. I wouldn't call it a crown jewel of a particular character style either, given that it can be scribed on a scroll and given to anyone. If it was an epic spell and not just a level 8 spell that anyone can use with enough UMD, then it would be another story.

One Shot is an epic feat that is usable once per minute, which requires 21 ranger levels (choosing the ranged weapon focus) or 27 dexterity and a few feats. It reads "The attack ignores all concealment and circumvents any arrow deflection (like that which is granted by Deflect Arrows or Armed Deflection).". It is pretty much the crown jewel of ranged combat, yet the feat has little use outside of making sure your attack hits despite concealment/deflection/etc. It was designed to counter such things.

It's not lessening the ability of storm avatar, One Shot would normally work against Storm Avatar, only reason it doesn't is because of a change the server made to allow for ranged touch attacks to work against Storm Avatar, resulting in the 0 damage thing. It's only fixing what was broken. :P

As far as the natural 20 thing, I don't know another spell or ability that doesn't allow an auto-hit on a natural 20 (mirror image/displacement/etc), just because there's a swirling vortex of wind doesn't mean someone shooting at it can't get lucky with their shot.

There's nothing really between the lines here, just a change that I've been thinking about since I found out how Storm Avatar works against One Shot over a year ago and brought up again with recent discussions. This was a mechanical suggestion for a fix. If you do want to get into the RP around it, if any character with enough UMD can read a scroll of it, that pretty much means you need to always be prepared for it, thus can't always have someone with you. Maybe your character could learn a way to fire a powerful shot that will always find it's mark...
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metaquad4
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by metaquad4 »

I don't see any reason why One Shot shouldn't bypass Storm Avatar. Seems like it would be doable, too. I'm sure someone with more technical experience can comment on that. Seems less like a change and more like a bug fix, to me (since we created the bug when we moved it from concealment to DR).

IMO, One Shot should be moved to a 30 Second CD too. But, that is just me! :D I always thought an epic feat should be a little stronger. Or maybe a mode. I mean, you are sacrificing all your attacks but one, for an attack that will always hit and always crit. Seems like a fair trade-off, for an epic feat.
Last edited by metaquad4 on Tue Feb 20, 2018 1:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by Tsidkenu »

And One Shot will still miss everything if you roll a 1 :P

Apparently Bugsidian were entirely unaware of the Coup-De-Grace Autohit script which makes such attack rolls an automatic 20 to hit... and never thought to adapt it to One Shot. Sigh!
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LISA100595
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by LISA100595 »

One Shot is still a ranged attack though so it's included in the "deflects harmlessly" part.
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by Born2BeWild »

correct me if i am wrong, but on default you don't need nat 20 to hit storm avatar - you just need crit
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by Truthiness »

metaquad4 wrote:IMO, One Shot should be moved to a 30 Second CD too. But, that is just me! :D I always thought an epic feat should be a little stronger. Or maybe a mode. I mean, you are sacrificing all your attacks but one, for an attack that will always hit and always crit. Seems like a fair trade-off, for an epic feat.
It's a normal attack, not a full-round action. And it's fine enough as is, imo. (Although I do wish Crossbow Sniper would work with it. :( Currently, One Shot doesn't apply crossbow sniper damage, which makes it less than useful on Fenix)
Tsidkenu wrote:And One Shot will still miss everything if you roll a 1 :P

Apparently Bugsidian were entirely unaware of the Coup-De-Grace Autohit script which makes such attack rolls an automatic 20 to hit... and never thought to adapt it to One Shot. Sigh!
It still has to roll a hit to actually hit, hence that behavior. :D
LISA100595 wrote:One Shot is still a ranged attack though so it's included in the "deflects harmlessly" part.
It's a ranged attack that specifically circumvents arrow deflection.

"You can attempt to deliver an extremely powerful ranged attack. The attack ignores all concealment and circumvents any arrow deflection (like that which is granted by Deflect Arrows or Armed Deflection). If the attack hits it deals maximum damage and inflicts a critical hit, even if the target would normally be immune to critical hits. This ability has a cooldown of 60 seconds. "
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Nemni
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by Nemni »

It would make sense if One Shot worked. It seems specifically designed to allow archers to bypass these sorts of defenses at least some of the time.
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by Steve »

Ignoring concealment and circumventing deflect arrows are technically different than Complete Ranged Attack Immunity.

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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by Flasmix »

You can also take One Shot twice and have them on separate cooldowns. If Storm Avatar was changed, you would need to account for this as well.
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by aaron22 »

the wording would lean me to believe that one shot should penetrate storm avatar.

one shot:
The attack ignores all concealment and circumvents any arrow deflection (like that which is granted by Deflect Arrows or Armed Deflection).
storm avatar:
Missile weapons fired at you are deflected harmlessly
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by Truthiness »

Steve wrote:Ignoring concealment and circumventing deflect arrows are technically different than Complete Ranged Attack Immunity.
Storm Avatar states "Missile weapons fired at you are deflected harmlessly", not a complete immunity to ranged attacks. Only reason it got that way is because of another fix, One Shot would normally work against Storm Avatar.
Flasmix wrote:You can also take One Shot twice and have them on separate cooldowns. If Storm Avatar was changed, you would need to account for this as well.
The maximum damage I've seen One Shot do while having two one shots is around 100~ with specific builds or sneak dice (Ranger 21/assassin 9 with longbow or ranger 26/fighter 4 with longbow, pure ranger does a bit less). It doesn't bypass DR, so premonition/etc would all apply to it. It's once per minute,
so a maximum of 200~ ranged damage a minute would be done to the character with storm avatar, assuming there is no DR (140~ if the target has premonition up) and the character has double one shot.

For a ranger to get double one shot, they need to take ranged weapon focus, get 27 dexterity and take point blank shot as well as One Shot, so I imagine with that sort of investment, I imagine they should have a better chance against such a spell. It's not putting a ranged character at an advantage over a character with storm avatar. It's giving them some chance at a fight with quite the character investment compared to just casting storm avatar (from a scroll or not) and doing whatever, when currently, there is very little to none.

But, if anything is done to One Shot, I'd say make it so the ranger feat counts as the normal one, to prevent the double usage. It is pretty odd behavior to be able to get One Shot twice, but it's definitely not overpowered to warrant such a change other than to fix the odd behavior, imo.
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by aaron22 »

even with it bypassing storm avatar, i would not suggest taking one shot twice to a build for mechanical purposes. it is just not that good.
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Re: Storm Avatar

Unread post by metaquad4 »

aaron22 wrote:even with it bypassing storm avatar, i would not suggest taking one shot twice to a build for mechanical purposes. it is just not that good.
Not to hijack the thread, but I think that can be solved too!

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