Daggerfall Workshop Forums

There's some weirdness around Dispel undead effect (Dispel Daedra being similar) and the circinate spells Holy Touch and Holy Word based on that effect. To be perfectly clear it seems to match classic exactly; I'm just wondering if this should be considered a bug and fixed.

• When creating a custom spell based on dispel undead or dispel daedra effects, the only possible target is "caster only";
• However Holy Touch is a dispel undead on touch spell and Holy Word is a dispel undead around caster spell;
• No matter what target you choose, the effective target of that effect is an area around caster;
• However Holy Word is twice as costly as Holy Touch.

Could distinct targets (at least "on touch" and "area around caster") be implemented?

I'd like to see this fixed, but I don't see a way to do it without breaking players who rely on the effect right now.

If we fix all of those, and we properly reflect so that using on Caster has no effect, then those players will have a dead spell in their spellbook. If they want to get back that spell back, they'll have to get the more expensive area effect. Or settle for the Touch / ranged version

Maybe it's not so bad.

If we fix this, I'd probably disable Caster as a possible target to avoid confusion, and allow all the others.

Other effects, say Damage Health, allow all targets but caster; "on touch" seems to be the default target for spells based on such effects.

If Dispel undead effect is changed that way, and DFU only allowed "on caster" target so far, then Dispel undead effects used so far would become an impossible case and it should be possible to change the target to "area around caster" during game loading, to ensure a smooth transition with minimal surprizes.