Suggestion about spell menu

Pathfinder: WotR Suggestions
#1

I play kingmaker again. There I realized potential problems.

For clerics, the game should show which of the domain spells are cleric spells and which are not.
The domain slot and the domain spells have the same color. Some players may assume you can only use those spells in those slots. This is only true if domain spells are not cleric spells. Domain spells that are cleric spells can be used in any slot, including the domain slot.

Even I have problems to remember wich spells belong to wich class. Its not a big issue because you can find out easy by try and error.
But some players might not even try because they assume you can only put spells into slots with the same color.

Same thing for other classes that also have spell slots that can only be filled by some spells. Specialized wizards have school slots, but all their spells are wizard spells. There may be other classes too.

suggestion: Spell description could include information that a spell is a class spell of class x.
It might be helpful in any case, though it does not really solve the problem above.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Some spells show a description like: “Bone shaker does 3d6 damage plus 1d6 per 2 caster levels.”
What is the base caster level? I learn it at lv3, does it mean I already get an aditional 1d6 at lv3 when I learn it or do I get the first extra 1d6 at lv5? Do oracles get the extra damage one level later because they get the spell later?

Suggestion: A description may be:

  • When counting starts from level one: " The spell does 1d6 damage per 2 caster levels."
    Those descriptions already exist.
  • When counting starts from a higher level: “The spell does 3d6 damage plus extra 1d6 for every 2 caster levels above 3.”

note: I play Kingmaker in german at the moment, so it may be a translation issue.

These are only small issues, but it may help some players to understand the rules better.

2 Likes
#2

Some spells show a description like: “Bone shaker does 3d6 damage plus 1d6 per 2 caster levels.”
What is the base caster level? I learn it at lv3, does it mean I already get an aditional 1d6 at lv3 when I learn it or do I get the first extra 1d6 at lv5? Do oracles get the extra damage one level later because they get the spell later?

Best to give the general rule as it also depends on temporary buffs, there’s also the risk the users write it down and are surprised when using it with another character. So if the real value at that precise moment is indicated, it should be clearly shown, for ex. “1d6 damage per 2 caster levels (currently for [char name]: 3d6)”.

The Core Rulebook gives the specification:

Caster Level
A spell’s power often depends on its caster level, which
for most spellcasting characters is equal to her class
level in the class she’s using to cast the spell.
You can cast a spell at a lower caster level than normal,
but the caster level you choose must be high enough for
you to cast the spell in question, and all level-dependent
features must be based on the same caster level.
In the event that a class feature or other special
ability provides an adjustment to your caster level, that
adjustment applies not only to effects based on caster
level (such as range, duration, and damage dealt), but
also to your caster level check to overcome your target’s
spell resistance and to the caster level used in dispel
checks (both the dispel check and the DC of the check)

I think that one way to deal with that is to remain consistent with what has already been done, add a new tag on “caster level” in the spell description that points to this explanation in a pop-up. The game supposes that the users are familiar with the rulebook, but it still gives enough support to remind them the details.

When in doubt, I use the spell and look at the combat window, all the details are given to deduce the exact rule. :slight_smile:

#3

Your caster level is shown in your character screen.
At the moment I do not remember anything that temporarily changes your caster level, exept level drain maybe.

My problem was to tell where to start counting when effects depend on caster level.

#4

The Whiterose Oysters meal does too, fortunately :smile:

If you know what a caster level is, then you can find the information in the different pages of the character sheet, indeed. But there is no indication “caster level = 3”, and you may omit to look for buff or drain effects, too.

Yes, you asked “What is the base caster level?” and you propose to only show the numerical values. Instead, I’m proposing to keep showing the general rule and to clearly indicate what the current caster level value is, it’s more educational and avoids any confusion if the player applies it to another situation. If you’re not sure whether the spell is for such or such class, it may well be included in the description or the caster level value too ("… per 2 wizard caster levels …"), though providing too much help is never a good thing.

#5

One more thing: Meta magic should be easier to use.

I play a sorcerer in Kingmaker and I took the highten spell feat to cast spells at higher level.
It took some time to find out how to use it.
So I have to create a meta magic slot for every spell at every spell level, for example I have to create grease as lv2 spell, lv3 spell and so on.

Sorry, but I thought the point of spontanous casting + meta magic is that you can chose what meta magic you want to use combined with what spell however you want and whenever you want without the need to prepare things before.
I really loved the spell menu from NWN2. When you open it you could see all spell levels with all spells at once. You could click the meta magic icon and then see the new spell list at once, like you select empower and the list shows all spells that can be empowered at 1 lv (or was it 2? ) higher than before.
This way “spontanous casting” felt really great.
Until I read the kingmaker forums I was not aware that it is possible to apply several meta magic effects to the same spell, but even this should not be a problem with the NWN2 menu. The meta magic buttons are not exclusive, thats all.
So if you want to use empower+highten and select those buttons, the menu would show all spells that can be empowered at the empowered spell level and every higher spell level.

Spell menu

Here is an image. You can see all spells of all levels at once and the purple buttons at the top are meta magic.

1 Like
#6

Oh yes, +1 on that one. Independently of the meta problem you mention, the shortcut bar is so messy in Pathfinder, a quickcast organized by level such as below, that the user opens with a single key and that disappears (or not) after clicking on the spell could be very efficient and not invasive. :slight_smile:

Is that the one you mean, or the radial one? It’s far, but the meta and empower must be the icons at the very top row IIRC.

image

In Pathfinder, I only used the shortcut bar at the bottom or on the left at the beginning of the game. After that, re-organizing it constantly takes too much time, and the spell levels are not directly visible.

#7

Yes, that is the image I have linked.
Not sure what radial menu you mean, its been ages since I played NWN2.

If we had this spell selection I could clean up the hotbar and use it only for other stuff I use often (charge or cleave for warriors and special abilities of a class (alchemist bombs, cleric channel energy and so on)

While the spell menu (and some other things) could be better, Kingmaker did have a few great innovations.
Its great the you can select other things than attack as default action and I am really sad that other games (like BG3 EA) do not have an ingame bug report that allows you to give a detailed description and to edit the screenshot.

#8

Sorry about that! Somehow I managed to miss it :sweat_smile:

That’s the radial menu below, the idea was good but maybe it was a bit slow with the mouse because most of the options opened a new menu level, so there were typically 2 to 4 mouse clicks. It could also be used with the numerical keypad, and the positions didn’t change so you could quickly learn the codes of the frequently used spells or actions.
image

Yes, the bug report is a great tool, it’s even better in Wrath of the Righteous since you can open it with a keyboard shortcut (you can capture tooltips), and indeed, even edit the screenshot. I only know one other game that features an in-game report, Encased, but it’s not nearly as practical as how Owlcat Games implemented it.

In general, I find that the UI is much better than most other games, we’ve recently seen the process they followed to make it as clean as possible, and it really pays off! The tooltips to give more details on lore or other words is smart, the turn-based mode is made intuitive thanks to the clear indications on the UI. And so on :slight_smile:

#9

The ring menu is NWN1, the good menu we talk about is NWN2.

I could not play NWN2 on my old computer after changing to windows10, I did not test it on my new computer. I played NWN1 some years ago and the giant polygons hurt my eyes.
My opinion: A simple 2D graphic is better than a simple 3D graphic.
I like to play old Super Nintendo games or modern pixel art games, but old 3D is just painful.

#10

One more thing:
Yesterday I used the kinecticist twins in Kingmaker for their personal quest.
They are powerful, but using them is terrible.
You have to select stuff in several menues to get the blast you want. For some reasons I was unable to select gather ( any of the 3 ) and I could not select anything as default attack (right clicking it so you use it when you click on an enemy) except the default blast. For example I did not find out how to use the combined blast as default action.

suggestion:
Please let us use them as you could use the warlock in NWN2 with the spell menu shown above.
You can select the following things:

  • the element (one element or the combination of two elements)
  • the shape (single target, blade, cone, line, wall and so on )
  • extra effects on hit ( e.g. trip or push )
  • gather ( off, level 1, 2 or 3 )

This means you need 4 lines, one for each of the points above.
When you select one of them, all options that are incompatible will be greyed out ( like you cannot select trip effect if the chosen element does not have earth as one of its parts ).
This way you can see what combinations are possible and you can select them in a single menue.
You should also see a number of how many burn this blast would cause.

Using the warlock in NWN2 was very easy (you could only select one shape and one extra effect but the system would also work if you select 4 things). Using the kinecticist in pathfinder is really complicated.