Icewind Dale Spells
Black Isle Studios has released information on four spells: Entangle and Flame Strike for priests, and Color Spray and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere for the wizards.
- March 9, 2000
Introduction
In this month's installment from the Icewind Dale development team, we have decided to focus on several of the spells found in the game. Icewind Dale will be featuring over 180 spells from the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition rule set, as well as a few new to Icewind Dale only, and many of them have been retouched from the original Baldur's Gate implementations in terms of graphics and function. We will be focusing on two priest spells, Entangle and Flame Strike, and two wizard spells, Color Spray and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.
As a bit of background information for those who aren't familiar with how AD&D rules applies spell effects, a creature is given an opportunity to find some way to save itself from a magical attack. This chance is called a saving throw. A creature rolls a 20-sided dice (knows as a d20) and depending on its resistances to a specific type of attack, it must roll a certain number equal to or above to "save" against the effect. Its race, level, and other factors influence this number. In the following examples, the type of attack a creature saves against is called "Spell." Typically when a creature saves itself from a magical attack, it takes half the damage it would have had it not saved itself, although this can vary per spell, depending on its effect.
Entangle
The Entangle spell causes plant life in the area to uproot and grab hold of creatures that walk within a 40-foot cube in its area. A creature makes a saving throw versus spells when affected, and if it fails the roll, it is held fast for the duration of the spell. If it saves against the spell, its movement rate is slowed for the duration. This is an effective spell against large troves of monsters, but the party should remain wary, for the plant life discriminates against no one - friends and foes alike are subject to the effects of Entangle.
In this screenshot, a cleric demonstrates the Entangle spell to a group of zombies and larger skeletons.
Flame Strike
The next spell, Flame Strike, is described as a vertical column of fire that rains downward in the location called for by the priest. Any creatures that are within the column must make a saving throw roll versus spell. The amount of damage inflicted is 6-48 points of damage, which makes the spell very effective against lower level creatures.
In this animation (188 kB), a priest is bathing an armored warrior with the spell. The spell is made available to priests when they reach ninth level.
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