Like a broken record. Don't worry, you'll get over it.

I shan't hold my breath hoping the old dog learns some new tricks.

I was actually talking about The Temple of Elemental Evil. You were critical of the design decision to show area of effect radii before casting spells in that game, and I wondered if the developers did that because that's how it works in the pen and paper game, so I asked about the pen and paper rules.

It sounds like you prefer the Baldur's Gate interpretation of the D&D systems to the pen and paper version. Seeing you and others praise all the nuances of battles in Baldur's Gate has motivated me to try the game again, hopefully with a more experienced / mature eye for taking advantage of these systems properly. I probably won't get around to it for a while though, since I have a lot of games in my backlog.

Dang, you guys are still at it?

I know I had fun in my previous post, but seriously, both of you, take a lesson from a wise jedi master:

https://youtu.be/fgyyBLrYgC0?t=34s

Nothing ever results from fighting on the internet.

I like Hickory. ;p

Games that have a kind of top-down view need to exaggerate the size of characters to make the game more playable. This makes them larger than they should be and it distorts the perception of scale when you look at them. I can't really eyeball an area and tell you what a meter is in the game. However, your mage does have that information, which would justify showing the radius of a fireball or similar AoE spell.

Although you do get used to it after some practice. If you want to know about the radius of a fireball, just cast more fireballs.

The fiends in all three games are a joke, with the exception of Watcher's Keep. ToB isn't that hard to be honest. The only part that gives me trouble is the final battle, and that's only because it's a war of attrition sort of thing.

Edit: formatting

I have absolutely no idea what any of that has to do with what I wrote.

I thought your first point was about showing the radius of a fireball as opposed to the player estimating it, and I assumed your second point implied that demons in the game were strong. It looks like I misread your post. Sorry about that.

In real life you also have to estimate the distance. You will have trouble to specifying whether the object is 10m away or 11 meters away. So it is only realistic to me that in the game it takes a little bit of practice to learn the area affected by a spell. And seriously, you get a good feel very quickly.

And in game you have the same information as your mage. You can read the description of the spell, then cast a fireball or two to see how they work and you will get a good feel for it.

I see what you mean. I find that the Cloakwood forest is the best place to practice (with a hand-dandy wand of fireball of course!).

Edit: although a more open area would be better for a beginner.

About fireball, i am starting to like Skull Trap (also 3rd level spell) more and more. It has a longer range and as far as I see it has the same Area of Effect and damage. Even more after level 10.


EDIT: Corrected Firewall to fireball.

Skull Trap is far superior to Fireball (not 'firewall), because it's a non-elemental attack, meaning fire (or any other elemental) resistance doesn't factor in, and as you said, as the levels go up Skull Trap becomes super deadly because there's no damage cap like there is with Fireball. Chain contingency with 3 Skull Traps? Awesome! You can protect your party from Skull Trap with Protection from Magical Energy -- not many enemies have that.

Yes Fireball thank you. I noticed it's damage was yellow and for some reason it always gave more damage. On fireball most of the enemies say something like, "10 damage, (10 resisted)" but Skull trap gives directly 20 damage. Ofcourse it varies but i just gave an example.