MM6 & MM7: Shield (the Air Magic spell)

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UndeadHalfOrc
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MM6 & MM7: Shield (the Air Magic spell)

Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 24 Apr 2010, 13:30

Does it only protect against physical ranged attacks ie arrows, meaning in MM6 those lovely archer ladies and early game lizardmen are the only enemies whose spell actually works against? (In MM7 it would only be confined to enemy Goblin warriors, female elven archers, maybe a few others)...

Or it also protects against fire, electricity, cold, poison, magic, and Energy based ranged attacks? Not talking about the actual spells the monsters cast, but the actual normal ranged attacks, open up monsters.txt and most of them have this, and each one have an element attached to it. "Ener" means energy and is not resisted by anything.

(Speaking of which to make Magic resistance more useful I changed Ener (too many of these) to Magic for a few monsters, namely the two weakest Varn guardians types.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 24 Apr 2010, 15:17

Pretty sure only plain arrows, much like Air Shield in HoMM3.

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Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 24 Apr 2010, 15:48

Except that Air Shield in H3 protects against attacks from units that shoot not only arrows, but any kind of projectile, like the Titan's lightning bolts, Mages and Beholder's beam attack, Lich's death cloud, Gog's fireballs, Cyclops' rocks, etc

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 24 Apr 2010, 16:49

Yea, but they don't have any magical properties aside the appearance.

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Unread postby Jymbob » 25 Apr 2010, 08:36

In MM7 the spell "Shield" protects against arrows and spells like "Blades" and "Sharpmetal", but not against the elemental damage....

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 25 Apr 2010, 10:35

Huh? But Blades is Earth and Shrapmetal is Dark damage.

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Unread postby Macros the Black » 25 Apr 2010, 14:12

GreatEmerald wrote:Huh? But Blades is Earth and Shrapmetal is Dark damage.
I know Shrapmetal in MM6 is physical damage since it works on many magic immune enemies. Dunno about MM7 though. And even if it is physical damage, I'm not sure it's counted as a "projectile" rather than a "spell" and thus if Shield would work against it...

Edit: here's what the MM7 manual says about the spell:
Shield: Spell Point Cost: 8. Expert: Slows down incoming missiles (like rocks and arrows) so they
only do half damage if they hit. Duration is 1 hour plus 5 minutes per point of caster’s Air Magic skill.
Master: Duration is 1 hour plus 15 minutes per skill point. Grand Master: Duration is 1 hour plus 1
hour per skill point.
Seems to me that implies it would work against anything that does physical damage, meaning arrows, earth magic spells (rocks are used as example), shrapmetal (assuming it does physical damage in MM7), maybe even flying fist (not sure if it does physical or magical damage).

If this is true, then Shield goes from virtually useless to way overpowered :|
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Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 25 Apr 2010, 15:19

They reworked the entire elemental schools of direct damage spells going from MM6 to MM7. You can compare them by looking at the spells.txt of both games with MM6View and MM7View

DIRECT DAMAGE SPELLS:

Fire magic: No change to elemental affinities - everything is Fire based in both games. They reworked some spells though. Fire aura was a great addition, but the replacing of Fireblast with Fire spikes was painful.

Air magic: Implosion was physical damage in MM6 and everything else Electrical. In MM7, every spell is Air (electrical) damage. So while Implosion worked on Titans in MM6, it doesn't in MM7.

Water Magic: In MM6, damage spells were split between Cold and Poison damage. In MM7, everything is Water damage. Which is weird, because by making Undead immune to Acid Burst (as they were in MM6), they became immune to Ice Bolt as well.

Earth Magic: In MM6 everything was physical damage (including Magic Arrow), except Mass Distortion, which was Magic damage. In MM7 everything is Earth damage.

Body and Mind magic: In MM6 the damage spells were all Magic elemental; in MM7 they got their very own brand of "body" and "mind" elemental school. Of note is the replacement of protection against Poison with Body (In MM6 poison damage came from Water and Dark magic schools). Weapons enchanted with "of poison" in MM7 add Body damage when they added Poison damage in MM6.

Spirit Magic: Only damage spells were MM6 Spirit Arrow (Magic damage) and MM7 Spirit Lash (Spirit "elemental")

Light Magic: In MM6, Prismatic Light and Destroy Undead are magic damage, Sun Ray is Fire damage. In MM7 everything is Light damage.

Dark Magic: In MM6, Toxic Cloud and Dragonbreath are Poison damage. Moon Ray is Magic damage. Shrapmetal is Physical damage. In MM7 everything is Dark damage (which is why you can't use Shrapmetal on Robert the Wise, he's immune to Light and Dark).


STATUS INFLICTING SPELLS:
In MM7 the Protection from Magic spell simply flat out blocks status spells while MM6's Protection from Magic resisted "Magic" damage. In MM6 all of the non damaging status inflicting spells, from all schools, are listed as Magic; not sure if it means that victims need Magic resistance in their rolls to resist it.

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Unread postby Macros the Black » 25 Apr 2010, 16:26

I knew MM7 kinda screwed up the damage type system, but I didn't know it was that generalized. That really sucks imo. Maybe they thought it was easier to balance or easier to understand for the player or something.

Imo it should be:
Fire Magic = fire damage
Air Magic = electrical damage
Water Magic = cold damage
Earth Magic = physical damage
Spirit Magic = spirit damage
Mind Magic = mind damage
Body Magic = poison damage

Anything that blasts a solid object at an enemy should deal physical damage. That means Flying Fist and Shrapmetal, and maybe some other spell I'm missing here. Iirc Flying Fist was never physical damage even in MM6, but it should be. Magic Fist in Heroes games always did physical damage.

Implosion should have it's own type of damage (air damage? wind damage?). Should be extremely effective against anything that requires air to survive (humanoids and fire elementals) and not so effective against anything else. Air elementals should be immune. Perhaps there should be some more new spells that also deal this type of damage to make it less meaningless.

The damage type of the spell should be clear from the description btw.

-----

Anyway, back to Shield. So does it or does it not work on earth damage? The manual mentions "arrows and rocks" as an example of things it works on... If it's just arrows that means only goblins, archers and medusa's. Actually I can't think of any enemy that shoots rocks at you anyways so this might not even matter....
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Unread postby Jymbob » 25 Apr 2010, 16:39

I just know that in MM7, "Shield" slows down the arrows, Blades and metalsplinters, cause I can see them in front of me hanging in the air if I have "shield" on and some monsters cast those spells or fire arrows at me.

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Unread postby UndeadHalfOrc » 25 Apr 2010, 17:04

To further complicate things, the vast majority of elemental attacks in MM6 & MM7 from monsters are not spells. Just open up Monsters.txt .

Each normal attack is assigned an element: Physical, Fire, Cold, Electric, Poison, Magical, or Energy (the latter cannot be resisted).

If it's physical, than it's a melee attack, unless the projectile assigned to it is "Arrow". And many monsters have more than one normal attack.

The non physical "normal' attacks are all ranged, and have different projectile types so you can tell them apart (except Cold attacks, visually they somehow use the same projectile as Lightning attacks, you can tell them apart from the explosion they do when they hit you).

Spells that enemies actually cast (such as Archers casting fireballs, Lizardmen casting Lightning Bolt) are something completely different and treated separately in the monsters data table.

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Unread postby mkienenb » 26 Apr 2010, 12:47

UndeadHalfOrc wrote:To further complicate things, the vast majority of elemental attacks in MM6 & MM7 from monsters are not spells. Just open up Monsters.txt .

Each normal attack is assigned an element: Physical, Fire, Cold, Electric, Poison, Magical, or Energy (the latter cannot be resisted).

If it's physical, than it's a melee attack, unless the projectile assigned to it is "Arrow". And many monsters have more than one normal attack.

The non physical "normal' attacks are all ranged, and have different projectile types so you can tell them apart (except Cold attacks, visually they somehow use the same projectile as Lightning attacks, you can tell them apart from the explosion they do when they hit you).

Spells that enemies actually cast (such as Archers casting fireballs, Lizardmen casting Lightning Bolt) are something completely different and treated separately in the monsters data table.
Shield in MM7 protects from non-spell projectiles in the table, whether normal arrows, "dark" projectiles, fire projectiles, etc. It does not protect against spells. Same with items "of shielding" or "of the storm."

Probably the "Blades" and "Sharpmetal" comments above are referring to earth and dark protectiles rather than the specific spells -- the designers reuse the graphics. Just a guess, though.

Not sure about MM6 or MM8.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 26 Apr 2010, 13:34

Huh? What's the difference between projectiles and spells?

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Unread postby mkienenb » 26 Apr 2010, 14:11

GreatEmerald wrote:Huh? What's the difference between projectiles and spells?
Projectiles can miss. Spells don't miss. Spells are resisted. I don't remember if you can resist projectiles.

Projectiles also have their own set special damage ranges whereas the spells are based on the spell and level and rank.

For example, an elite archer fires an arrow (physical damage 3D7+3) most of the time. 15% of the time, it uses a fire arrow (Fire 4D7+3). 20% of the time, it casts lightning bolt at at master rank, level 8. 50% of the time, it casts shield at master rank, level 12.

The percentages are actually a little weirder than that.
Spells are only considered for casting if they would do something useful, then the first spell percentage is checked, then the second spell percentage, then the alternate attack percentage.

So, first, there's a 20% chance of casting a lightning bolt. If lightning bolt wasn't cast, There's a 50% chance of casting shield, but only if shield isn't already in effect. If shield wasn't cast, There's a 15% chance of shooting a fire arrow. If no fire arrow was shot, then we shoot a normal arrow.

So if I remember my probability correctly,

Without shield in effect:
20% chance of lightning bolt.
40% chance of shield. (80% * 50%)
06% chance of fire arrow. (80% * 50% * 15%)
34% chance of normal arrow (80% * 50% * 85%)

With shield in effect:
20% chance of lightning bolt.
12% chance of fire arrow. (80% * 15%)
68% chance of normal arrow (80% * 85%)

Code: Select all

Default Monster Data					Stats								Movement and Combat					Attack 1			Attack 2			    Spell Attack		    Spell Attack 2		Resistances										Misc																						
#	Name	Picture	LVL	 HP 	AC	 EXP 	Treasure	Quest	Fly	Move	AI Type	Hst	Spd	Rec	Pref	Bonus	Type	Damage	Miss	Att%	Type	Damage	Miss	Use%	"Spl,Mas,Skil"	Use%	"Spl,Mas,Skil"	Fire	Air	Water	Earth	Mind	Spirit	Body	Light	Dark	Phys	Special																						

6	Elite Archer	Archer C	29	171	22	1131	10%10D20+L3Bow	1	N	Short	Aggress	4	160	80	AR	0	Phys	3D7+3	Arrow	15	Fire	4D7+3	FireAr	20	"Lightning Bolt,M,8"	50	"Shield,M,12"	15	15	15	15	20	10	20	0	0	15	0

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 26 Apr 2010, 20:52

So which of those are projectiles and which are spells?

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Unread postby mkienenb » 26 Apr 2010, 21:02

GreatEmerald wrote:So which of those are projectiles and which are spells?
lightning bolt is a spell.
shield is a spell.
fire arrow is a projectile (attack 2)
arrow is a projectile (attack 1)

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 26 Apr 2010, 21:30

Oh, so attacks are projectiles, I see. But does magic really always work? I mean, things like Finger of Death, as you see by battling minotaurs in MM6, don't always work on you, same with fire arrows from mages, although they hit a lot more often that your do, which is odd.

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Unread postby mkienenb » 27 Apr 2010, 01:00

GreatEmerald wrote:Oh, so attacks are projectiles, I see. But does magic really always work? I mean, things like Finger of Death, as you see by battling minotaurs in MM6, don't always work on you, same with fire arrows from mages, although they hit a lot more often that your do, which is odd.
I was speaking in general terms. Attacks have to hit successfully before they can damage. Spells typically (although there are some exceptions) automatically hit. Spell damage can be reduced or eliminated via resistance. I don't think attacks can be resisted (other than with the shield spell).

However, I'm not really an expert on the complete workings of the combat system. Ask Bones or Sergey :)

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Unread postby Macros the Black » 27 Apr 2010, 20:47

Finger of Death is a condition they cast on you that has a chance to fail. It's not the same as, say, a fireball in that sense. However, the spell DOES always hit (assuming there's no wall in between you and the minotaur casting it). It just doesn't always work...
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Re: MM6 & MM7: Shield (the Air Magic spell)

Unread postby linuxrocks123 » 29 Mar 2018, 23:46

I know this is an old topic, but does anyone know if the Shield spell, "of Shielding" / "of the Storm", and the GM Shield ability all stack with each other, or none stack with each other, or how that works?


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