Fizzlebert the gnome mage

[fizzix]

Uploaded Part 15 last night but forgot to mention it on here.

[getter77]

That reminds me: has there ever been any discussion as to making the various buff spells into sustains that simply lop off that much mana from your maximum MP pool versus having to keep on recasting?

[Derakon]

That reminds me: has there ever been any discussion as to making the various buff spells into sustains that simply lop off that much mana from your maximum MP pool versus having to keep on recasting?

I don't think so, but that ignores the problem of failure rates and the fact that early on you simply can't afford to keep your buffs up indefinitely, especially ones like Haste Self.

Later in the game, sure, it's trivial to keep buffs going indefinitely, for the dedicated casters at least. Hybrid casters have to deal with higher failure rates, smaller mana pools, and more expensive spells, so it takes much longer for them to not care about the costs of their buff spells.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

That reminds me: has there ever been any discussion as to making the various buff spells into sustains that simply lop off that much mana from your maximum MP pool versus having to keep on recasting?

I've had that discussion in my head.

[buzzkill]

I don't think so, but that ignores the problem of failure rates and the fact that early on you simply can't afford to keep your buffs up indefinitely, especially ones like Haste Self.

But simple buffs, such as bless or prot from evil could be sustained. It just a matter of figuring the cost to max mana. You would need some sort of calculation that involved...

m) mana cost of the spell
s) success rate
r) mana regen rate (per turn)
x) xtra cost for convenience (25% in this case)

((m/s)*x)/r = max mana cost

An experienced caster. Speed lasts 30 turns, costs 50 mana, and has a 30% fail rate, and regen is 1/2 mana per turn.

So. ((50/.7)*1.25)/.5 = 178 (subtracted from max mana)

The numbers here are made up, but the math looks pretty solid. I don't see why it wouldn't work. I'd love to see this in a variant.

[fizzix]

Sure making buffs permanent is a possibility and could probably be done reasonably well, however, I think it's more appropriate for a higher level version of the spell, one that's available when the simpler version would be close to minimal fail rate anyway. It costs M mana to cast (which is removed from your SP pool) and casts 0 mana to remove and the mana gets added back to your max (but needs to regen).

However, I'm not sure I care enough to code this up. What I do think I may do is make important messages like "you feel yourself slow down" a different color in my message screen. To go into V, colors would have to be pretty consistent and there are a lot of messages to check for, but if it's just for me, I can just pick the few messages I care about and color those.

[Derakon]

I think fizzix's approach sounds more workable.

That said, the only complaint I have with buffs currently is that IIRC Haste Self doesn't behave properly when you want to refresh it: instead of resetting to max duration, it adds some puny amount on. So if you currently have Haste Self active, you have to wait for it to expire before you can properly refresh it.

[fizzix]

I think fizzix's approach sounds more workable.

That said, the only complaint I have with buffs currently is that IIRC Haste Self doesn't behave properly when you want to refresh it: instead of resetting to max duration, it adds some puny amount on. So if you currently have Haste Self active, you have to wait for it to expire before you can properly refresh it.

Another thing that I've been meaning to do forever. Thanks for the reminder.

[getter77]

Sounds good all around really...main thing seemed like an avenue for "more thinking, less clicking", as I'd noted that it was already a somewhat annoying thing to you as far as resting went on casters to get things topped off.

Perhaps something similar could be applied to some of the lesser scrolls to keep them tactically interesting deeper into the game? Like, duration for the dungeon level read upon or some such.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

That said, the only complaint I have with buffs currently is that IIRC Haste Self doesn't behave properly when you want to refresh it: instead of resetting to max duration, it adds some puny amount on. So if you currently have Haste Self active, you have to wait for it to expire before you can properly refresh it.

Yeah. I went through all the spells in Mist and made sure that if you cast a spell multiple times, only the spell with the longest duration matters.

The original calculations were very counter-intuitive to me. For some spells you could cast it 500 times in the town, rest to full mana, and get the benefits of the spell for your next dungeon trip.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Perhaps something similar could be applied to some of the lesser scrolls to keep them tactically interesting deeper into the game? Like, duration for the dungeon level read upon or some such.

I did this for the Scroll of Prayer to make it different from Chant.

[fizzix]

regaining possession of my thread to upload part 16

[fizzix]

Part 17 is up

[getter77]

I'm just waiting for you to finally come across some of those more exotic wands/rods that your last playthrough couldn't make use of as it was late game and you didn't have the Gnomish super-boost to magic devices. It will be a sight to behold!

[PowerWyrm]

Part 17 is up

... and you're still using a ring of SI even if you get it from your (defender) weapon. At this point, you should really use another ring of int, or that ring of resist poison you have in your inventory.