It's not directly related to the topic title, but since this seems to be a general discussion about spells I was wondering if anyone knows exactly how acid works.

It doesn't seem to be exactly how the description says it works as I got a pure mage to cast it on a paladin and it definitely reduced his melee and ranged defense by more than 2. I don't remember exactly how much it was, but I think it was 5 or 7. It also doesn't show up in the status window so I'm wondering if it expires the same way status spells normally do.

Unless that's something they change in 1.05.2. I've been using 1.05.1 and haven't felt the need to update.

According to var, acid have powermod 100 (+1 power per 1 spellpower) and resistpower 50 -1 power per 2 resistance on enemy.
Durationmod=0, doesn't scale with concentration. Always 3 turns.

So, your generic archmage with skill spellpower 5 will have +10 to spellpower (+4 from specialization, +6 from skill), Traumaturgy(^_^) 5, -5 to resistance
Generic paladin have 12 resistance - 5 from thaumaturgy=7/2=4
So, defense decrease could be -2 + (-10+4)=8

This is true, but it's still an offset. Because, if you'd been casting spells to get a "Good" karma rating, then their morale bonus would be positive rather than neutral.

Not telling some posters here anything that they don't already know, but it's been a topic on multiple threads that Evil magic-users are much easier to play than Good magic-users (both because evil spells shift more karma and because in at least the earlier levels, the Evil spells are much more powerful (Raise Zombie > Magic MIssile, etc.).

In that sense, it diminishes replay value and/or limits options for players who really want to role-play their heroes. I'm hoping that this is something that's been addressed in the sequel, but based on comments I've seen, it doesn't seem to have been.