Protection spells and Auras

[Starshine_Monarch]

I had one game where I was playing Rl'yeh with a Void Lurker god. Specifically one with E3 among other things. When I decided to send him into combat, he cast Invulnerability out of script where I had put Ironskin instead. Good thinking on his part, right? Wrong!

The Void Lurker has a Poison Cloud effect and, as you know, Invulnerability makes the caster more susceptible to poison. So, with his poison immunity completely gone, he choked on his own poison cloud and ended up dying because of it, which led me to ask the question as to why he would do such a dumb thing to himself.

Additionally, I know that the other protection spells like Barkskin and Stoneskin also make you more vulnerable to certain types of damage commonly found in auras. Mages, pretender gods more often than not, should know enough not to cast these spells if they would conflict with their aura. So what if Invulnerability grants a little more protection than Ironskin? If you'll choke and die on your own aura because of it, that should be more than enough reason to stick with Ironskin.

In any case, is it possible to adjust the AI so that creatures with damaging auras would not cast spells that would negate their immunity to their own aura?

[Jazzepi]

The most hilarious version of this I've ever seen was in a game where Abysia had a huge communion. Phoenix Pyre got cast, and then a nature mage, who was there to cast relife, went off his script, or at least ran out of script, and cast mass protection. All the mages in the back suddenly started taking fire fatigue very quickly. In like one round, 32 mages blew up from the phoenix pyre + heat from hells + fire fatigue.

Jazzepi

[Taqwus]

I wouldn't mind seeing a general prohibition on non-scripted spell use that drops a resistance from 100% or more to below 100%, regardless of auras on the recipient -- might be somebody else's aura, or another spell effect, or simply an expectation that somebody's going to be using a particular attack form. The impact of going from 100% and, say, 80% can be pretty severe.

[Zeldor]

We really really really need to be able to do a blacklist of spells that our mages cannot cast.

[CUnknown]

I second a blacklist. Great idea Zeldor!