[MOD] Magic Battles Revised

I threw this together kind of on a lark; consider it an alpha release for now. There's no readme at the moment, refer to this thread instead. This little mod is meant to change the tenor of the "mage duel" system: reducing the number of layers of spell protections mages can have, and trying to make some of the various parallel systems a bit more integrated. WHAT THIS DOES First: it removes Spell Turning from the game. No intelligent player would ever cast a spell at a mage with Spell Turning, and no competent AI (meaning, SCS) would either. So if spells are never turned against their caster, what's the point of the opcode? Answer: there is none. So Deflection is used instead. Second: it removes Globes of Invulnerability from the game. Globes are functionally a bit more different from Deflection/Turning, but I always found them to be a bit useless. Anyway the idea here is to simplify: if you want to have a spell protection, you can, and the way it works is by deflecting a certain amount of spell levels. Period, end of story. Of course one big difference between Deflections and Globes is that Globes stop area-effect spells... if you want to be protected from AoE spells then I highly recommend installing Spell Revisions "NWN-style Spell Deflection" along with this mod. So you end up with just three spell protections: Minor Spell Deflection at 3rd level, which blocks 7 spell levels; Spell Deflection at 5th level, which blocks 14 spell levels; and Greater Spell Deflection at 7th level, which blocks 21 spell levels. Note: these spells do not stack. If you cast more than one, you will only get the benefit of the highest-level version. Third: this mod tries to make the "number of spell levels blocked" more important. Instead of magic attacks simply canceling your Deflections, the entire system works via this mechanism. Spell Thrust is a 3rd-level spell but it burns off 8 spell levels of protection. This mean Spell Thrust can cancel Minor Spell deflection outright. But also, recall that in the vanilla game Spell Thrust is entirely ineffective against e.g. Spell Deflection or Spell Turning. In fact any other 3rd-level spell would be more effective than spell thrust, because at least they would burn off 3 levels of protection, which Spell Thrust doesn't. Here, Spell Thrust is partially effective even against Spell Deflection (burning off 8 its 14 levels of protection) and Greater Spell Deflection (burning off 8 of its 21 levels of protection). Secret Word, at 4th level, burns off 16 levels of protection; and Pierce Magic, at 6th level, burns off 24 levels of protection. So if an enemy is protected by Greater Deflection and you don't have Pierce Magic available, you can successfully strip it with Spell Thrust + Secret Word. Ruby Ray, Pierce Shield, and Spellstrike, on the other hand, don't bother with this; they are powerful enough that they can simply blast away any protection, including Spell Trap. Fourth: Spell Trap is buffed. Seriously. It becomes more or less "Super Globe of Invulnerability," block all spells - direct-targeted and area-effect - from 1st through 9th level. It is more or less complete spell immunity; it has to be taken down in order for any spell to work against the caster. Fifth: you can no longer bypass the spell protection system by just casting Dispel Magic/Remove Magic/Breach. Those are all blocked by both Deflection and Trap. Note: this means that Inquisitors' innate ability and the on-hit abilities of Carsomyr and Staff of the Magi are ineffective against mages with Spell Deflection active! :flushed: So the result is that you really have to engage with the spell protection system in order to make mages vulnerable; but because that system is simplified, it should be less painful to do so. Since it might be helpful and informative, I'll include a quick comparison of the various magic battle systems: Vanilla: - up to 7 layers of protection (Minor Deflection, Minor Turning, GOI, Deflection, Turning, Trap, Spell Shield) - Breach bypasses spell protections - Dispel/Remove Magic bypass spell protections - some protections only work against low- or mid-level spells - some magic attacks only work against low- or mid-level protections SCS/SR: - up to 7 layers of protection (Minor Deflection, Minor Turning, GOI, Deflection, Turning, Trap, Spell Shield) - Breach does not bypass spell protections - Dispel/Remove Magic bypass spell protections - some protections only work against low- or mid-level spells - some magic attacks only work against low- or mid-level protections Magic Battles Revised: - max 3 layers of protection (Deflection, Trap, Spell Shield) - Breach does not bypass spell protections - Dispel/Remove Magic do not bypass spell protections - all protections work against all spells (depending on how you treat AoE spells) - all magic attacks are at least partially effective against most protections (except Trap)