Magic Devices – let's make it affect recharge speed

[tangar]

We've been struggling for years to balance Magic Device usage for physically strong races and classes, and it's still OP… Maybe it's time to make recharge speed depend on the MD skill. That way, a dumb troll won't be able to spam a magic wand as often as an elf.

[tangar]

Or... maybe MD skill should only affect the recharge of equippable items (like artifacts with activation effects)?

[PowerDiver]

Why does every single change need to favor the asymmetric LOS abusers and penalize the melee types? I'd rather see things made easier for melee chars and harder for anyone who primarily attacks from a distance. A half-troll spamming magic wands is *not* a problem IMO.

[Sky]

asymmetric LOS is the equivalent IRL of peeking from behind cover. it sucks gamewise, but it's not unrealistic. But yes. Trolls spamming devices is *not* a problem, considering the failure rate.
as for recharge, idk i never found rod recharge to be much of an issue. Even at the bottom of the dungeon, if you have 7-10 rods of TO, they pretty much cycle fast enough that you rarely if even run out. Maybe they could use a slowing-down across the board, although i should point out that in versions prior to 4.2 everyone that isn't a warrior already has a TO spell with a lower failure rate than a rod or wand.

[Estie]

Idk, if you are going to weaken magic device I would prefer if it nerfs the smart HE rather than the dumb troll.