Cure wounds too strong

[cofresi]

Agreed, but if memory is correct that's why iit was done, as an incentive to keep mages alive in the early stages of the game. Besides, a puny mage can only carry so much stuff before stat gain.

[Pete Mack]

Agreed, but if memory is correct that's why iit was done, as an incentive to keep mages alive in the early stages of the game. Besides, a puny mage can only carry so much stuff before stat gain.

Right. This is how I used to use it, even against large shards damage, to reduce use of incidental consumables. (It's especially useful in ironman for this.)

It's a different regime when you can use it for endurance.

[Tobias]

It's a single phase door in a maze of twisty passages. And it doesn't always take 4 turns. It takes only 1 to sustain fighting strength (~500HP) for a strong character in a battle of attrition. That's the real advantage of Paladins--not being able to heal in a single fight, which anyone can do with enough !CCW, but being able to fight effectively indefinitely against endless waves of monsters.

If you want it to scale, give it maybe 50 HP max, or make it use mana proportional to HP recovered. (Less than 10 casts total.)

Your problems sounds like it is more rogue specific.
It does not sound like it applies to mages, last time I killed M I had 730hp max that means *CLW would get me out of one-shot if I had between ca. 530 and 556 hp.
Maybe the solution would be to remove CLW from the rogue list and increase that mana cost for rangers.
If you want to build a ranger/mage for this paladin style fighting you have to carry lots of +Con items. I think you have earned that good *CLW then.

[Marble Dice]

Your problems sounds like it is more rogue specific.
It does not sound like it applies to mages, last time I killed M I had 730hp max that means *CLW would get me out of one-shot if I had between ca. 530 and 556 hp.
Maybe the solution would be to remove CLW from the rogue list and increase that mana cost for rangers.
If you want to build a ranger/mage for this paladin style fighting you have to carry lots of +Con items. I think you have earned that good *CLW then.

I like this.

[Magnate]

I like this.

I also like it better than the suggested weakings of the spell. It's *not* too powerful for mages, so let's just remove it for rogues. Anyone think this will make rogues unplayable with no healing spell?

[Hariolor]

I think it will make rogues more difficult, but not substantially so. Rogues are already basically fighters with some magical tricks in exchange for a bit less combat prowess. Makes sense to remove an abusively effective (and dirt cheap) means of healing reliably.

[shawnosullivan]

rogues won't be unplayable, but it will hurt them noticeably, and further shift balance of power to the ranger, an already overpowered class. personally i don't particularly see the problem with CLW as is - i think a rogue should be able steal away for a few turns to patch themselves up. even with a fair amount of hit points, it's not really enough to combat attrition against the more deadly opponents. certainly not game-breakingly overpowered compared to a lot of options other classes have at their disposal...
anyway if this change does go through, maybe to compensate, reduce the levels at which rogues get phase door, teleport self, and ID, as well as the reduce the failure rates and perhaps costs? i think that would be more thematically consistent, anyway...

[Netbrian]

anyway if this change does go through, maybe to compensate, reduce the levels at which rogues get phase door, teleport self, and ID, as well as the reduce the failure rates and perhaps costs? i think that would be more thematically consistent, anyway...

Honestly, I think ID should just have a zero failure rate for everyone. Doesn't affect much except making things go faster.

[Nick]

In FA, I have replaced the CLW and Cure Poison spells with one that halves all cuts and poison and one which cures them completely; there is no actual healing spell for mages. This then (mostly) saves them from dying from cuts.

[Pete Mack]

Honestly, I think ID should just have a zero failure rate for everyone. Doesn't affect much except making things go faster.

Even when ID is at 5% fail I generally don't use it much.
By that time there's usually a Rod of IDor two; the spell is occasionally useful while the rod is charging. The mana cost, even for a rogue, is too high to ID everything without excessive resting. (Deep levels are dangerous enough without tons of awake monsters running around.)
And if you don't have a rod, just carry a huge stack of scrolls. Buying out the alchemist is cheap.

There's certainly no point to be looking for loot at that point. 100K gold (at least) is pretty much guaranteed.

[Hariolor]

Even when ID is at 5% fail I generally don't use it much.
By that time there's usually a Rod of IDor two; the spell is occasionally useful while the rod is charging. The mana cost, even for a rogue, is too high to ID everything without excessive resting. (Deep levels are dangerous enough without tons of awake monsters running around.)
And if you don't have a rod, just carry a huge stack of scrolls. Buying out the alchemist is cheap.

There's certainly no point to be looking for loot at that point. 100K gold (at least) is pretty much guaranteed.

I use the identify spell obsessively once I've got a decent fail rate and a bit of mana. It lets me find artifacts far far faster than waiting for pseudo-ID to kick in. I can't imagine clearing out a pit or vault and *not* ID-spamming every object on the floor.

This becomes doubly important when playing with randarts, as it is harder to meta-guess what is or is not an artifact.

Making it 0% fail is really not unreasonable IMHO. Those who are obsessed with ultra-low turncount will not use it because of the mana cost, even at 0%. The rest of us are spared the boredom of sleeping in vaults while we wait to finish IDing everything we found.

[Hariolor]

*snip* personally i don't particularly see the problem with CLW as is - i think a rogue should be able steal away for a few turns to patch themselves up. even with a fair amount of hit points, it's not really enough to combat attrition against the more deadly opponents.

It turns out phase door in a destructed area pretty reliably gives enough time against even the likes of Sauron or M to effectively win the attrition battle, even with few to no other sources of healing. I didn't think it would work, either...until it did.

[Pete Mack]

I had plenty of supplies vs M, but I ran out vs Sauron when he was at 3 stars, and used *CLW and an !rMana I'd been carrying.
It felt like cheating.

[Magnate]

rogues won't be unplayable, but it will hurt them noticeably, and further shift balance of power to the ranger, an already overpowered class. personally i don't particularly see the problem with CLW as is - i think a rogue should be able steal away for a few turns to patch themselves up. even with a fair amount of hit points, it's not really enough to combat attrition against the more deadly opponents. certainly not game-breakingly overpowered compared to a lot of options other classes have at their disposal...
anyway if this change does go through, maybe to compensate, reduce the levels at which rogues get phase door, teleport self, and ID, as well as the reduce the failure rates and perhaps costs? i think that would be more thematically consistent, anyway...

Sorry, I wasn't clear: I meant remove it from rogues and rangers, leaving it only for magi. You're right that to leave it for rangers would make them even more favourable.

[Magnate]

I use the identify spell obsessively once I've got a decent fail rate and a bit of mana. It lets me find artifacts far far faster than waiting for pseudo-ID to kick in. I can't imagine clearing out a pit or vault and *not* ID-spamming every object on the floor.

This becomes doubly important when playing with randarts, as it is harder to meta-guess what is or is not an artifact.

Making it 0% fail is really not unreasonable IMHO. Those who are obsessed with ultra-low turncount will not use it because of the mana cost, even at 0%. The rest of us are spared the boredom of sleeping in vaults while we wait to finish IDing everything we found.

IMO this is exactly the way we shouldn't be going. The ID-by-use changes have been intended to avoid exactly this issue of people waiting around spamming ID on every last thing.

There's a very very easy way to test for randarts: destroy stuff. Anything indestructible is an artifact. If you're not up for destroying stuff because it might be Elvenkind (or something), then wield it: anything important is instantly tagged {splendid}. Between a one-turn wield and a one-turn destroy, you can sort through loot far faster (and with less boredom) than waiting to ID it all.

Don't destroy boots, btw - always wield them first. Unless you're already wearing BoS+10.