Mage Help/Tips

[buzzkill]

I look forward to the time when this is no longer true!

A mana penalty for bow wielding, similar to that for wearing gloves, would reduce usage but is probably not a complete solution.

[PowerDiver]

I look forward to the time when this is no longer true!

The problem is that utility spells are so, for lack of a better word, utile.

The first step would be to remove CLW. Then you could reduce damage spells to all cost 1 mana. You have to make them better than a 7 mana recharge spell on wands of fire or acid bolts. That would probably be enough, but that is the sort of drastic change I think would be needed.

I don't see the problem with the current situation. People who want the challenge of only spellcasting can do feasibly do it. I personally don't want to see melee weapons and launchers turned into junk for mages. IMO it is nice to be able to use whatever you find.

[Derakon]

There's also a certain amount of relative balance to consider, too. If mages don't need their weapons or bows to be good as weapons or bows, then they are free to fill those slots with items that provide useful secondary benefits. ToME 2 had problems in this area, since warriors basically had to have a good weapon and two rings of damage, while mages could more or less just use what they felt like (well, they did generally want a weapon that gave extra spell ranks).

[Sirridan]

I like where you're going, the changes so far to the mage set have made it more fun for me to play. Mages used to feel like underpowered rangers with overpowered escapes.

I like the idea of multiple play styles per class, for mages you can forego a lot of casting by carrying stronger wands, or get more inventory space by casting more spells, or shooting more arrows, or even melee if you wanted.

Mana spent costing spells is mana unavailable for escaping. Depending on wands only means you can get drained. Using arrows means you have to carry ammo, and find good ammo. Melee is inherently dangerous and lower powered with a mage. So each style has it's advantages and disadvantages.

Also I agree with Eddie (can I call you that? or am I not cool enough?) that spells should cost 1 mana. Maybe weaker ball spells cost 2, line spells cost 2-4, stronger ball, line, and high powered spells (meteor, rift, chaos bolt) maybe cost even more.

But Fire / Cold / Acid bolts should cost the same (maybe acid costing 2 instead of one) which would give enough options.

Hell maybe one can adapt playstyle to what the RNG throws? Find bard early on? You bet you'll shoot. BM drops a huge stack of escapes? SP can go towards attacks. Found those 3 or 4 wands of anni? Zap zap zap away. Sirridan makes a redundant, too-long post? Ignore it!

It's fun to be an adaptable master of magic, at least I think so.

[PowerDiver]

Also I agree with Eddie (can I call you that?

You may call me whatever you like, keeping in mind that children read this forum.

I probably should have just made my forum name Eddie, but my wife said I had to call myself PowerDiver.

[fizzix]

I don't see the problem with the current situation. People who want the challenge of only spellcasting can do feasibly do it. I personally don't want to see melee weapons and launchers turned into junk for mages. IMO it is nice to be able to use whatever you find.

You read my mind. I was thinking of doing a pure-caster character after I finish futzing around with my nerfed-archery ranger. I haven't decided whether to allow use of wands/staves/rods or not. I'm thinking yes, because otherwise it'd be pretty boring.

[miyazaki]

I don't see the problem with the current situation. People who want the challenge of only spellcasting can do feasibly do it. I personally don't want to see melee weapons and launchers turned into junk for mages. IMO it is nice to be able to use whatever you find.

I wasn't referring to any specific changes to the Mage class, just to the general nerfing of archery. I think it will make spell casting more attractive. The mana costs should be revisited at that point.

[azfalt]

I'd like to see mages not have to rely on archery, but that's the way the game plays right now - especially early on, a high-elf mage plays as a bad archer with some utility spells (this is getting better with reduced spell costs, though).

How about making devices stronger mages? If damage dealt by attack rods/wands depended on class, they could be a viable option for a low-level mage with a recharge spell, and it would be more in flavor I think than shooting arrows.

[the Invisible Stalker]

What I've found with full spellcasters in both V and O is that I'm better off not trying to find a dungeon level with a balance between finding good stuff and being able to kill things. If you're not good enough for the "Dive! Dive! Dive!" strategy then you are better off with a yo-yo strategy, where you go back and forth between deep and shallow levels. The deep levels are for equipment and maybe ammo. The shallow levels are for consumables and experience. Going back and forth between the two is better than staying somewhere in between.

[ramier]

Something I was wondering, how many spellbooks are there total? For some reason I thought I read somewhere that there were 4 books to be bought from the store and 4 to find in the dungeon, but I've only seen the 3 in the dungeon, so I wanted to make sure thats all there is? Maybe the 8 books I read was pertaining to another roguelike, like rogue.

[Derakon]

Mage books, in addition to the four store books:

Resistances of Scarabtarices
Raal's Tome of Destruction
Mordenkainen's Escapes
Tenser's Transformations
Kelek's Grimoire of Power

Priest books, in addition to the four store books:

Ethereal Openings
Godly Insights
Purifications and Healing
Holy Infusions
Wrath of God

So there's 18 spellbooks total, 9 for each class.

[ramier]

Oh cool, there's still two books I haven't found. How hard are they to find? And what dlvls are the 5 books native to? If they can be specified like that.

[ChodTheWacko]

If you want to play a pure mage, you live early on with the
killer combo of magic missles and phase doors (generally with scrolls to save mana)

Magic missles do quite a bit of damage and you can kill almost anything early on with them.
You do need to avoid groups of monsters since you will run out of mana.

The midgame is really annoying when magic missles don't do enough damage, you don't have
the high end spell books, and most offensive spells just don't work. What mages really
need is an unresistable damage spell halfway between magic missle and rift - a decent
offensive spell to use against mid-game uniques.

A mage's primary offense should be via spells. Right now it's not, and this is
fundimentally wrong, imho. They should have stronger/less resistable spells and a major
to hit/damage penalty with normal weapons.

- Frank

[PowerDiver]

A mage's primary offense should be via spells. Right now it's not, and this is
fundimentally wrong, imho. They should have stronger/less resistable spells and a major
to hit/damage penalty with normal weapons.

- Frank

In any event, they currently have a major penalty with normal weapons. It isn't listed as a minus to hit, but it is there in the hit roll nevertheless as a consequence of the values in p_class.txt and also the rules for calculating number of blows. A beginning mage does what, say 1/5 the damage with a dagger as a starting warrior? Maybe 1/10 the damage. An endgame mage probably does maybe 1/3 the melee damage of a warrior vs high-AC opps when you include blows and hit rolls, certainly less than 1/2. They might do more than 1/2 the damage with bows, but it is still a major penalty.

[Estie]

Yes mages are bad both at killing with weapons and with spells. The thing is, they have such marvellous utility magic (though I prefer the priest spelline for utility overall).