Holy Infusions

[Pete Mack]

It was once marginally useful, prior to branding rings. A branded MoD (with any brand), is a pretty fine weapon. Branded BoC is also nice, but not as much, since it probably won't affect undead.

To make it worthwhile, it should work on any non-artifact weapon that doesn't already have a brand or slay, that is: Blessed and +Attacks.

[fyonn]

I don't think I've ever seen a blade of chaos or a mace of disruption... not that I'm a regular deep level player, but I have won once.

are there any other spells are useless by the time you get them?

as for elemental brand, I feel that it should either become a much more low level spell, where it might be usable, or alternatively be applicable to missiles like the mage spell. I would prefer the latter I must admit, but I don't know if it would be considered unbalancing..?

dave

[PowerDiver]

are there any other spells are useless by the time you get them?

Most priest spells are just filler. The question is not so much which spells are useless, but which entire books are useless.

That's not necessarily bad, since devoting fewer slots to books allows more slots for other things. A couple of rods of disarming is usually better than PB8, so be happy you can upgrade to a beam on disarming without losing a slot.

[fyonn]

I'd rather each book had 2-3 useful spells than just ditching entire books because there's no value in them. what do we need to do to bring some new value.. just redistribute the spells or come up with some new ones?

[Derakon]

Adding new useful spells would make priests and paladins more powerful, and I've gotten the impression they're already among the easier classes to win with thanks to their healing spells. Redistributing spells so each book has some useful spells would probably end up nerfing the classes by pushing early useful spells to later books; however, it might mean that some of the useless spells in late books could be moved to early books and thus made briefly useful.

Here's the priest spell list, as taken from x-spell.c and then slightly reformatted. I've marked spells I don't think are useful (read: will be cast maybe twice per game) when the book is obtained with asterisks. It's been a long time since I played a priest or paladin, though, and to be quite honest I don't remember what all the spells do.

Beginners Handbook
DETECT_EVIL
CURE_LIGHT_WOUNDS
BLESS
 * REMOVE_FEAR
CALL_LIGHT
FIND_TRAPS
DETECT_DOORS_STAIRS
 * SLOW_POISON

Words of Wisdom
 * SCARE_MONSTER
PORTAL
CURE_SERIOUS_WOUNDS
 * CHANT
 * SANCTUARY
SATISFY_HUNGER
 * REMOVE_CURSE
RESIST_HEAT_COLD

Chants and Blessings
 * NEUTRALIZE_POISON
ORB_OF_DRAINING
CURE_CRITICAL_WOUNDS
SENSE_INVISIBLE
PROTECTION_FROM_EVIL
EARTHQUAKE
SENSE_SURROUNDINGS
CURE_MORTAL_WOUNDS
TURN_UNDEAD

Exorcism and Dispelling
 * PRAYER
DISPEL_UNDEAD
HEAL
DISPEL_EVIL
GLYPH_OF_WARDING
HOLY_WORD

Godly Insights
 * DETECT_MONSTERS
DETECTION
PERCEPTION
 * PROBING
CLAIRVOYANCE

Purifications and Healing
 * CURE_SERIOUS_WOUNDS2
 * CURE_MORTAL_WOUNDS2
 * HEALING
RESTORATION
 * REMEMBRANCE

Wrath of God
 * DISPEL_UNDEAD2
 * DISPEL_EVIL2
BANISH_EVIL
WORD_OF_DESTRUCTION
 * ANNIHILATION

Holy Infusions
 * UNBARRING_WAYS
 * RECHARGING
 * DISPEL_CURSE
 * ENCHANT_WEAPON
 * ENCHANT_ARMOUR
 * ELEMENTAL_BRAND

Ethereal openings
BLINK
TELEPORT_SELF
TELEPORT_OTHER
TELEPORT_LEVEL
WORD_OF_RECALL
ALTER_REALITY

Feel free to disagree with my opinions. I also marked the duplicate spells as useless, not because they're actually useless, but because when they're obtained, their render their predecessors useless.

[pav]

I do cast Prayer and Rememberance rather often...

[fyonn]

Firstly, I'm not a multiple game winner, I tend to get characters into the mid 30's and then get careless and kill them (rBase is just optional when facing an AMHD right?) so my opinions are just that and others may wish to argue with the benefit of experience and possibly even facts.. I will also probably have the wrong idea about how some things work, feel free to correct me.

However, thinking about the fact that the artifact list has recently been worked on to make some of the artifacts less like junk, I wonder whether the spell-list could use a similar overview?

Adding new useful spells would make priests and paladins more powerful, and I've gotten the impression they're already among the easier classes to win with thanks to their healing spells.

I've never won with a priest but as I see it, they're mostly middling quality warriors with utility spells? primarily the ability to heal without using potions. paladins would be more warrior, less utility spells...?

Redistributing spells so each book has some useful spells would probably end up nerfing the classes by pushing early useful spells to later books; however, it might mean that some of the useless spells in late books could be moved to early books and thus made briefly useful.

this is what I'm kinda wondering, why are some spells useless? like with the artifacts, for some of them it's that by the time you get them, they have no value.

would there be value in bringing these spells lower down so that they can be used by lower level characters when they might actually be useful? or do they need modifying to become useful when they are earnt?

Here's the priest spell list, as taken from x-spell.c and then slightly reformatted. I've marked spells I don't think are useful (read: will be cast maybe twice per game) when the book is obtained with asterisks. It's been a long time since I played a priest or paladin, though, and to be quite honest I don't remember what all the spells do.

I'll add my thoughts..

> * REMOVE_FEAR

I definitely find this spell useful at early levels when facing monsters with the ability to terrify, esp novice paladins for example. with a recent ranger I was finding myself using bow and arrow at point blank range, or wands as I couldn't attack and had no pots of heroism.

> FIND_TRAPS
> DETECT_DOORS_STAIRS

This is, of course, one spell, and not two (unless the very latest download has changed something!)

> * SLOW_POISON

This I see as being a little useful on the way to getting neutralise poison later. once you've got the latter, then this one becomes redundant. I don't mind it being here

> * SCARE_MONSTER

agree, never used this. and past a certain level, virtually everything scary is immune isn't it? How does this spell work though? I wonder if perhaps most monsters shouldn't be immune to this spell, and have it work on a clvl dependant basis. the higher you get, the more creatures you can scare.

I can see some things being immune, the undead, golems and angels for example, but a level 50 priest all armoured up, beweaponed and chanting should be a pretty scary thing to all sorts of creatures. And I don't think that uniques should be immune by default. unless they happen to be undead/angels. I don't see that mughash or lagduf wouldn't be scared by the right character.

if this works out then perhaps we could have a higher level spell for "mass scare". it could be the priests "mass banishment". cast it in the middle of a pitch battle and 90% of the monsters start running away?

> * CHANT

is this just "Bless" that lasts longer? When I tend to cast bless, it's often to allow me to melee a more scary monster. I don't tend to cast it all the time. by the time it's expired I've usually already killed him, or am seriously thinking of running away. perhaps if it was like bless but giving more bonus's?

> * SANCTUARY

I have used sanctuary several times. often to sleep the small dude next to me, and to OoD the unique several steps behind him. that said, I wonder if it would help to get the same treatment I've suggested for "Scare Monster". make it work more powerfully and make it be able to sleep most monsters, cll dependant (again, some would be immune, but it should be the minority I feel). and if we can make this useful, then a "Mass Sleep" spell could work too

Also if my suggestion about attacking sleeping creatures goes anywhere, then this could be even more valuable.

> * REMOVE_CURSE

I could see this being useful if you could de-curse items in your backpack, not just the one you're holding. and if it got better with level, then you could perhaps de-curse calris for example. I guess it's useful for those people who wield weap's without ID'ing them (I have done this from time to time)..

> RESIST_HEAT_COLD

I'm not sure I've ever used this in anger...

> * NEUTRALIZE_POISON

I have used this many times...

> TURN_UNDEAD

hmm.. not sure I've ever used this spell.. I guess it's a "Scare Monster" for the undead.. is it useful in it's current form?

> * PRAYER

as with "Chant", I'd rather it upped the bonuses than lengthen the duration.

> * DETECT_MONSTERS

I have used this. it's better than detect evil

> * PROBING

I think this would be more use if it could be combined with detect evil/monsters to peer at the stats of creatures in other rooms. then I'd definitely find it useful. esp when surveying vaults..

CLAIRVOYANCE

> Purifications and Healing

can't remember the last time I saw one of these (as a priest)..

> * CURE_SERIOUS_WOUNDS2
> * CURE_MORTAL_WOUNDS2

I take it these are lower mana versions of the previous spells?

> * HEALING

this isn't useful?

> * REMEMBRANCE

why isn't this useful? is that by the time you get it, experience is mostly neither here nor there?

> * DISPEL_UNDEAD2
> * DISPEL_EVIL2
> * ANNIHILATION

why are these not useful? do they not do enough damage for the mana?

> * UNBARRING_WAYS

it seems mighty deep to be getting this spell. would it be worth moving this to a lower book?

> * RECHARGING

this looks useful for recharging staves of speed and the like..

> * DISPEL_CURSE

I wonder if this could be subsumed into "Remove Curse"?

> * ENCHANT_WEAPON
> * ENCHANT_ARMOUR

I'm guessing this should be good for re-magicalling damage kit?

> * ELEMENTAL_BRAND

ahh, the spell that started this. I'd love to see this spell be changed to brand ammo, but that could be a bit too powerful...


what about new spell ideas? one that comes to mind is a spell to aggravate and pull pack monsters into corridors to fight one on one? any others?

Also, perhaps the biggest question, is it worth having this discussion. is the spell list in vanilla up for discussion?

dave

[Derakon]

I'll add my thoughts..

> * REMOVE_FEAR

I definitely find this spell useful at early levels when facing monsters with the ability to terrify, esp novice paladins for example. with a recent ranger I was finding myself using bow and arrow at point blank range, or wands as I couldn't attack and had no pots of heroism.

I've marked this as unuseful because in my experience, curing fear once is often not helpful; what is needed is the temporary fear resistance that Heroism provides.

> FIND_TRAPS
> DETECT_DOORS_STAIRS

This is, of course, one spell, and not two (unless the very latest download has changed something!)

This spell list was taken from 3.1.1.

> * SLOW_POISON

This I see as being a little useful on the way to getting neutralise poison later. once you've got the latter, then this one becomes redundant. I don't mind it being here

I can't remember the last time I was poisoned, was too young to have a way to cure poison, and had too few hitpoints to survive without slowing poison. Usually I just wait for the poison to work its way out of my system and then heal the damage it caused.

> * CHANT

is this just "Bless" that lasts longer?

Yes. Ditto with Prayer.

> * SANCTUARY

I have used sanctuary several times. often to sleep the small dude next to me, and to OoD the unique several steps behind him.

Well, fair enough. I tend to have little interest in sleep spells in general, since my experience shows them to be unreliable. Granted, since I stopped bothering with sleep spells over five years ago, that experience may no longer be relevant...

> * REMOVE_CURSE

I could see this being useful if you could de-curse items in your backpack, not just the one you're holding.

Even then, uncursing isn't time-sensitive. You can always return to town for a scroll of Remove Curse.

> RESIST_HEAT_COLD

I'm not sure I've ever used this in anger...

Double-resisting elements greatly reduces the damage they can deal, from 533 to 177. Definitely worthwhile; all it takes is one breath attack to make back the turn spent casting this (since you would then have to cast an extra Heal spell to make up the damage).

> * NEUTRALIZE_POISON

I have used this many times...

Again, I either wait out poison damage, or chug a Cure Critical Wounds potion.

> TURN_UNDEAD

hmm.. not sure I've ever used this spell.. I guess it's a "Scare Monster" for the undead.. is it useful in it's current form?

I left this un-starred because I have no idea what it does. I suppose I should have looked up the code for the spell effect...*does so now*. Ahh, it's a "cause fear" effect on all undead in line of sight. Therefore useless.

> * DETECT_MONSTERS

I have used this. it's better than detect evil

By the time you get the spellbook, you'll be able to cast Detection instead, which eclipses both.

> * CURE_SERIOUS_WOUNDS2
> * CURE_MORTAL_WOUNDS2

I take it these are lower mana versions of the previous spells?

Something like that. As noted, these spells are marked as useless because they're duplicates, not because you'd never cast them.

> * REMEMBRANCE

why isn't this useful? is that by the time you get it, experience is mostly neither here nor there?

Yep. Besides, lost experience is easily made up by killing more enemies. I only bother restoring lost experience if I encounter a drainer early and it's cost me several levels, or if I happen to be in town when drained.

> * DISPEL_UNDEAD2
> * DISPEL_EVIL2
> * ANNIHILATION

why are these not useful? do they not do enough damage for the mana?

Two duplicates. Annihilation is under-damage and expensive (200 damage to one living enemy).

> * RECHARGING

this looks useful for recharging staves of speed and the like..

It's less powerful than the scroll, and thus is more likely to blow your staves up.

> * DISPEL_CURSE

I wonder if this could be subsumed into "Remove Curse"?

I believe the difference here is that this removes heavy curses. Typically I don't use heavily-cursed items anyway.

> * ENCHANT_WEAPON
> * ENCHANT_ARMOUR

I'm guessing this should be good for re-magicalling damage kit?

By the time you get this book your kit is mostly either immune to acid damage or so highly-enchanted that these spells can't help it.

[PowerDiver]

Yes. Ditto with Prayer.

These are useful in multiple incarnations because that makes it easier to toss books. If you toss PB1, you can get the same effect as Bless from Chant or Prayer in another book.

Two duplicates. Annihilation is under-damage and expensive (200 damage to one living enemy).

Talking about dispels in PB9, you are wrong here. They do more damage for less mana, and that makes them much more useful. The PB9 dispel evil is good enough so that you do not really need Orb any more. That in turn allows you to toss PB3.

This is in contrast to the truly useless duplicates in PB7. And, of course, the useful spell you would like duplicated, heal(300), is not there so you cannot even consider tossing PB4 to carry it. Even a duplicate CLW would be useful, now that it is so effective and remains super cheap.

Priests are expected to do damage with melee, unlike mages. As such, they need to be able to carry fewer books so they can carry swap melee weapons that mages don't need to carry, not to mention utility items such as staves of speed. It might be quite bad to move the spells around so that priests have to carry more books.

[fyonn]

I've marked this as unuseful because in my experience, curing fear once is often not helpful; what is needed is the temporary fear resistance that Heroism provides.

hmm.. is there scope to make the spell act as a duration based thing like the potion? or perhaps add the temp res-fear into chant/prayer? make them worth casting?

I can't remember the last time I was poisoned, was too young to have a way to cure poison, and had too few hitpoints to survive without slowing poison. Usually I just wait for the poison to work its way out of my system and then heal the damage it caused.

truth is, I usually do that too, but when I'm still poisoned and the hit point alarm goes off, then I often reach for the spell-book.

Yes. Ditto with Prayer.

what do you think about increasing the bonus's given? bless is +5 to hit and +10AC, maybe make chant +10 to hit and +20AC and prayer +20 to hit and +40AC (perhaps adding temp res_fear on this one as well?), all either for the same time as bless, or the extended times? maybe the bonuses figures can be tweaked, but what do people think of the idea?

Well, fair enough. I tend to have little interest in sleep spells in general, since my experience shows them to be unreliable. Granted, since I stopped bothering with sleep spells over five years ago, that experience may no longer be relevant...

I don't use sleep often myself, but I feel it could be useful if tweaked a bit. imagine sleeping a room full of hounds and then taking them on one by one?

Even then, uncursing isn't time-sensitive. You can always return to town for a scroll of Remove Curse.

I agree, remove curse isn't that useful, but I feel it's still worth having it. it fits in with the priest paradigm I think.

Double-resisting elements greatly reduces the damage they can deal, from 533 to 177. Definitely worthwhile; all it takes is one breath attack to make back the turn spent casting this (since you would then have to cast an extra Heal spell to make up the damage).

oh, I agree it's useful, I usually just completely forget to use it. I wonder why it's just heat and cold though. could we have a second spell for electricity and acid?

I left this un-starred because I have no idea what it does. I suppose I should have looked up the code for the spell effect...*does so now*. Ahh, it's a "cause fear" effect on all undead in line of sight. Therefore useless.

I've never used it. does anyone? what would make it useful?

By the time you get the spellbook, you'll be able to cast Detection instead, which eclipses both.

ahh, I see what you mean. good point.

Two duplicates. Annihilation is under-damage and expensive (200 damage to one living enemy).

I've always felt it was tremendously underpowered. a single shot from a bow can easily out perform it. does it get much use? would it be unbalancing to up the damage caused significantly?

It's less powerful than the scroll, and thus is more likely to blow your staves up.

that seems wrong. shouldn't a priest, casting a spell specifically for the item involved be able to do a better job than a scroll, written by cheap kobold priests

I believe the difference here is that this removes heavy curses. Typically I don't use heavily-cursed items anyway.

yes, it's a net against carelessness really. by the time you get this, you should already be able to ID everything you come across...

By the time you get this book your kit is mostly either immune to acid damage or so highly-enchanted that these spells can't help it.

what about upping the enchantment that the priest spells could reach? or making it so that the spell can enchant an item either to +10,+10, or to whatever it was originally if it's been damaged?

dave

[fyonn]

thinking about spells in general, I guess I see my ideal being the following:

Mages using actively violent spells as their primary weapon. they should be able to throw magic at their adversaries from a distance as they should be relatively bad at hand to hand and even bows and arrows. they'll also have some utility spells of course.

I see priest mostly being warriors, but having a library of utility spells that can let him/her make the most of their fighting skills. they should have lots of healing spells, not just healing damage, but also effects like poison, loss of stats and XP. also spells which affect enemies in other ways, such as scaring enemies, improving their own abilities and weaponry etc.

2 ideas for new spells:

1) What about having a higher level spell which could "bless" a weapon, ie make it "Blessed by the gods". applicable to all non-artifact weaponry.

2) perhaps the ability to "curse" an opponent. ie the opposite of what bless does to you. a spell which reduces an opponents to hit and AC? and I think this should be applicable to virtually everyone (uniques included). perhaps of variable power with level?

also, one of the things about priest is that they don't like "sharp" weapons. They feel uncomfortable with a basic sword for example. that's fine, but then why are they happy with arrows or bolts? shouldn't wielding a bow or crossbow make one feel uncomfortable and have the requisite effect on SP and failure rates. perhaps stacking with a sharp handweapon for double the badness? force priests to use non-sharp missiles, ie slings?

dave

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Comments:

Slow Poison: Even if fyonn's comment is correct, that this spell has some limited utility, it's *extremely* narrow at best. I also agree with the comment about Neut Poison...why bother neutralizing it? If it also gave short-term poison resistance, it'd be valuable.

Sanctuary: I've used wands of Sleep Monster...every now and again, I guess...to some usefulness. But not much, and not against any deeper critters. Smeagol and Wormy, I think I've used it...they're faster than you are at that point, and you don't really want either to be adjacent to you. Knock em out, you may get a chance to move away from them. This is NOT!!! to say, tho, that burning up my mana to cast the spell is a good idea. On the contrary, it's a BAD use for it; 5 mana's almost another OoD. When the spell might be effective, it's too expensive.

Remembrance: the value of this spell is most likely highly personal. I hate getting drained; I hate losing the functionality I damn well earned, by losing a level...and seeing my risks increase, because my prime spells are less effective and/or have higher fail rates.

But I very much agree with the major point: the priest spells list, in practice, is *significantly* shorter than it appears. Too many very low-value spells, far too much redundancy. You didn't even mark the standard books' healing spells, of which there are 5, as redundant. They're not entirely redundant, to be sure, but still, they're heavily overlapping. I think I'd be perfectly happy with 3 levels...something like Cure Light, Cure Serious, and Heal...especially given that they're all being expressed as percentages.

[Nick]

Has anyone considered that buffing monsters or nerfing items might be a valid approach to making prayers more necessary? So, for example, making !CCW (once again) cure a fraction of poisoning instead of all of it makes Neutralize Poison useful again.

[Atarlost]

The problem is that that hurts everyone but priests and paladins, who rely on those items.

[Pete Mack]

But the duplicate spells are a lot more powerful. That's like saying Mana Storm invalidates stinking cloud.
Oh, wait a minute...