merging mage and priest books

[Pete Mack]

I've gotta say, the "rip up spell books for scrolls" idea has some real appeal, although it should only apply to dungeon books. Kelek's (not to mention Wrath!) is sufficiently rare that it would only give O(1) extra set of Banishment scrolls in an average game. That's not unbalancing. And with the various Healing potions so rare, a few *Heal* scrolls wouldn't be unbalancing either.

[PowerDiver]

I've gotta say, the "rip up spell books for scrolls" idea has some real appeal, although it should only apply to dungeon books.

Dungeon books are enough to solve the problem, and they are already a special case, so maybe that is an OK approach.

I mentioned this because I heard about a D&D campaign where it was used. More technically, they made a big deal about inscribing spells into spellbooks, but allowed a mage to cast a spell directly from the spellbook even when otherwise out of spells for the day, at a cost of losing the spell from the spellbook. I have no idea whether or when this might have been official dogma.

[Magnate]

Dungeon books are enough to solve the problem, and they are already a special case, so maybe that is an OK approach.

I mentioned this because I heard about a D&D campaign where it was used. More technically, they made a big deal about inscribing spells into spellbooks, but allowed a mage to cast a spell directly from the spellbook even when otherwise out of spells for the day, at a cost of losing the spell from the spellbook. I have no idea whether or when this might have been official dogma.

I remember the same rule. It's been around since 1st Edition AD&D, so late 1970s. I think it's an excellent suggestion for Angband - well done.

CC

[Garrie]

I think before this gets attempted that someone should go through the priest spell set and clean that up. There does not need to be 6 different bless spells that just have different durations and some spells are duplicated. I would like to see more differences between the schools rather than merging them but I agree that it is annoying to find a deep prayer book when you are desparate for a deep mage book. Perhaps you can keep the first 4 books separate but merge the dungeon books?

I've said this before: what is needed is for pure spell casters to have far more spells available to them, then what they can learn.

This way, not all CL50 mages are identical. Some have specialised in attack, some defence, some detection, and others have tried to be generalists. Some have held off making early life hard, with the reward of getting a full kit of really kick-arse spells later on - while others have taken spells at the first opportunity, with the penalty of not being able to learn the truely god-inspired magic of the deepest, rarest and most powerful books.

This has another benefit: it can help both the n00bs by giving them quick access to watered-down spells, AND it can give the more experienced players a way of letting their pure spell casters actually BE pure spell casters - by sneaking around, using their weak magic intelligently, bypassing the opportunity to learn introductory or mediocre spells so that they can lean reality-twisting, irresistable forces from beyond the known universe.

Of course it is annoying finding some holy tome when you are after nefarious necromantic works. But have you played Grand Theft Auto? Never a motorbike when you want one, and you end up wandering all over town to find one. When you do, you work out you didn't need it anyway because you can do the same thing in a totally different way with a bus. Adapt the tactics and strategy to suit the situation.

[Donald Jonker]

I've said this before: what is needed is for pure spell casters to have far more spells available to them, then what they can learn.

This way, not all CL50 mages are identical. Some have specialised in attack, some defence, some detection, and others have tried to be generalists.

IMO, Rangers should specialize in attack, Rogues in defense/detection, and Mages in everything. That ought to be the one advantage of picking Mages when other classes have advantages in all other respects: complete mastery of the magical systems. Maybe force some decision-making in the early game, but really by the end of the game they should be comprehensive in their knowledge. I imagine it'd be easier to balance that way, as well (not to imply that they're at all balanced right now).

This has another benefit: it can help both the n00bs by giving them quick access to watered-down spells, AND it can give the more experienced players a way of letting their pure spell casters actually BE pure spell casters - by sneaking around, using their weak magic intelligently, bypassing the opportunity to learn introductory or mediocre spells so that they can lean reality-twisting, irresistable forces from beyond the known universe.

I don't really see how limiting their selection of spells helps mages be more reliant on casting. The only way to do it is to reform the spells themselves by making them more powerful, and boost mages' sp and sp regeneration... none of which seems all that complicated or controversial to me.

[Nick]

This way, not all CL50 mages are identical. Some have specialised in attack, some defence, some detection, and others have tried to be generalists. Some have held off making early life hard, with the reward of getting a full kit of really kick-arse spells later on - while others have taken spells at the first opportunity, with the penalty of not being able to learn the truely god-inspired magic of the deepest, rarest and most powerful books.

This is an attractive idea, but hard to balance. Not only do you have to have the class in general balanced, but each spell needs to be of similar value to the player, or some will never get chosen and all mages will still be the same.
I have this issue with specialties in FAangband - everyone gets to take three (supposedly to individualise characters), but if a couple of them are no-brainers, that's the end of individuality.

Another option is to accept that all mages will end up knowing all the spells, but structure the learnable spells at each level so that until high character level there are always more spells available than the player can learn. That way there are multiple paths through (cure poison, teleport, or frost bolt? Hmmm).

[Stossel]

Does Angband really even need spellbooks in the first place? Why not just have characters cast spells from pseudo-spellbooks, books which characters are just assumed to have, but aren't listed in their inventory. All the town spellbooks could be automatically listed in the system, and the dungeon books could use the old way or split amongst the different users (why should priests need a spellbook to pray for a certain spell?)

From a lore standpoint, I think it would make more sense to do away with spellbooks, considering spellbooks are really an AD&D magic system, though even more tolkien-purist variants still use them like they're gospel.

[Donald Jonker]

Does Angband really even need spellbooks in the first place? Why not just have characters cast spells from pseudo-spellbooks, books which characters are just assumed to have, but aren't listed in their inventory. All the town spellbooks could be automatically listed in the system, and the dungeon books could use the old way or split amongst the different users (why should priests need a spellbook to pray for a certain spell?)

From a lore standpoint, I think it would make more sense to do away with spellbooks, considering spellbooks are really an AD&D magic system, though even more tolkien-purist variants still use them like they're gospel.

The chief reason in my mind for keeping spellbooks is inventory balance b/w classes. Warriors have to contend with a heavy-loaded inventory as it is in order to have access to the bare minimum of utility magic; if spellcasters didn't need books at all, then the scales would be tipped way too far in the wrong direction.

Another solution - simply giving casters fewer inventory slots to compensate, doesn't feel right either. Angband, in my opinion, is largely a game about finding stuff. [A simple premise, but a wildly successful one.] Letting spellcasters gain spells as they gain levels would move away from that paradigm, and I think that would be a bad move.

There's the old adage that Angband can be summed up as follows:
1. Go to General Store
2. Buy a Lantern
3. Kill Morgoth

I think it would be more accurate (although less fun) to say:
1. Dive
2. Find shit
3. Kill Morgoth

One could argue that 2 is a by-product of 1, but progress in Angband is essentially about collection. Eliminating spellbooks moves it in the direction of making it essentially about gaining xp, which in my view, would be sort of boring. I can't think of any game (at all) where grinding for xp is fun.

[Narvius]

Another suggestion.
If a mage's (only mage!) level is twice the spell level, he can cast that spell without book. That eliminates the need to carry (destructible!) low-level spellbooks.

[Stossel]

Spells are distributed by level, so the grinding part wouldn't change. The dungeon books may be more item-centric, but the first four books you're generally getting from town. How is saving up 1000 gold for your 4th spellbook any different fun-wise than saving up such and such XP to get your next spell?

Experience is collected just like items are, but it doesn't take up a slot. Besides, it's not that grinding for xp isn't fun, it's grinding in general. Grinding for xp and grinding for items aren't really so different to my mind. Luckily in RLs, you get to a point where you can stop and win, whereas with MMO's grinding is mostly the point.

[Donald Jonker]

Spells are distributed by level, so the grinding part wouldn't change. The dungeon books may be more item-centric, but the first four books you're generally getting from town. How is saving up 1000 gold for your 4th spellbook any different fun-wise than saving up such and such XP to get your next spell?

Dungeon books were what I had in mind. Gaining levels to access spells basically only an issue with priests - Orb of Draining being the only really viable bread-and-butter attack spell. Everyone else either melees or longbows, and you don't (or shouldn't) bother level grinding just to access utility spells. I've never run into the problem of having to save up for the 4th spellbook.

Experience is collected just like items are, but it doesn't take up a slot. Besides, it's not that grinding for xp isn't fun, it's grinding in general. Grinding for xp and grinding for items aren't really so different to my mind.

The difference is that you don't *have* to grind to get items in Angband. Diving is sufficient. (Recently, you need to grind for end-game consumables, but that ought to be addressed by itself.. if it hasn't already in dev versions; it's been a while since my last trip to the bottom.)

Then again, it's probably the case that you can dive for xp as well.. I've never paid much attention to it. An illustrative case is comparing variants where statgain is accomplished by potions vs. those where you select stats to upgrade when leveling up. I find the former type of statgain much more gratifying - the carrot being that much more palpable. I'll concede that it's an issue of "feel," but attaching upgrades to level-up seems sort of artificial. You'll leap for joy when you find Mordy's Escapes; you'll give at most a brief smile when you hit level 35 (or whatever) and can now cast *telLevel.