5 May 2011 development release(s)

[Magnate]

I like that too. What about the other elements?

Frost: "You chill it." (or, to be silly, "You give it a mild case of frostbite.")
Acid: "You irritate it."
Lightning: "You zap it" is currently the strong version; maybe this should be the weak version, and "You shock it" should be the strong version. I thought of "You electrocute it" but technically that would mean you killed it.
Poison: Not sure here... "You sicken it" or "You nauseate it" sounds just as strong as "You poison it" besides the fact that they make it sound like your character is just ugly.

Ok, I've made changes to fire (singe), lightning (zap and shock) and poison (sicken). Chill was already in place - I'm just looking for something better than irritate for x2 acid brand, as irritate is more like enrage than corrode. Melts?

[Magnate]

In other words, I don't think the cost-benefit is there.

What is your day job? Lawyer? You have an amazing way of explaining things clearly. I wish I could do that.

[Max Stats]

"singe" might be better verbiage than "slightly burn."

I like that too. What about the other elements?

Frost: "You chill it." (or, to be silly, "You give it a mild case of frostbite.")
Acid: "You irritate it."
Lightning: "You zap it" is currently the strong version; maybe this should be the weak version, and "You shock it" should be the strong version. I thought of "You electrocute it" but technically that would mean you killed it.
Poison: Not sure here... "You sicken it" or "You nauseate it" sounds just as strong as "You poison it" besides the fact that they make it sound like your character is just ugly.

[Derakon]

It's not really a punishment. Assuming, as you say, the point is to "avoid fights that are not worth fighting", then that is accomplished. If the point was actually to gather a room full of treasure by doing something rather ordinary for a mage, namely casting a spell, then yes it's a punishment.

Okay, let me put it this way: this is an "obvious rule patch", a change in the rules solely to prevent some undesirable behavior, that makes no sense in-universe. Banishment destroys monsters. Naturally that means that the monsters' inventories are gone. Why should it affect things on the floor? The spell explicitly targets monsters, not terrain or objects.

Now, obvious rule patches can be acceptable or even important if the alternative is seriously broken. Then there's an obvious strong justification -- if we didn't do this, then this undesirable result would occur, with a significant impact on the game. If you don't have that kind of strong justification, though, then obvious rule patches are undesirable, because they break the illusion of a consistent world.

Basically, what we have here is a corner case that is, yes, technically exploitative. The requirements for exploitation require you to be playing a specific class and to have gotten that class's last spellbook, so there's a very narrow window for exploitation before you go on to win the game. If you patch the game to remove this exploitation, then all the other presumably-justified uses of the Banishment ability in more limited form (scrolls and staves) have this bizarre behavior for no real gain.

In other words, I don't think the cost-benefit is there.

[Starhawk]

"singe" might be better verbiage than "slightly burn."

[Derakon]

What is 'weak' branding?

I am at present seeing "You slightly burn the Ethereal hound", and I find the qualifier 'slightly' far more amusing than I probably should...

Magnate added some x2 brands, with the idea that they might be more viable for off-weapon branding (though as far as I'm aware nothing uses them yet in the standard set). Feel free to suggest better messaging.

[buzzkill]

I really don't think this needs fixing, honestly. It's such a niche case, and besides, punishing mages for one of their few useful abilities (namely, to avoid fights that are not worth fighting without having to avoid the monsters involved) just seems uncalled-for.

It's not really a punishment. Assuming, as you say, the point is to "avoid fights that are not worth fighting", then that is accomplished. If the point was actually to gather a room full of treasure by doing something rather ordinary for a mage, namely casting a spell, then yes it's a punishment.

[scud]

What is 'weak' branding?

I am at present seeing "You slightly burn the Ethereal hound", and I find the qualifier 'slightly' far more amusing than I probably should...

[Derakon]

Is there some halfway-house - like, when a monster is Banished, any objects it is standing on are destroyed?

A.

I really don't think this needs fixing, honestly. It's such a niche case, and besides, punishing mages for one of their few useful abilities (namely, to avoid fights that are not worth fighting without having to avoid the monsters involved) just seems uncalled-for.

[Antoine]

* Being able to cast Banishment renders graveyards and zoos trivially plunderable for their floor items. Of course this is only an endgame mage trick, so I don't know that it's worth fixing. NPP handles this by giving the items to the monsters in the nest, but then there's less temptation to try to clear the thing out.

Is there some halfway-house - like, when a monster is Banished, any objects it is standing on are destroyed?

A.

[takkaria]

This... or make it cumulative, but not to exceed twice the maximum normal duration.

It always bothered me that it was possible to buy a stack of Protection From Evil (for example), read them all while waiting for recall to kick in, and be protected for a long, long time... probably until you're ready to recall back to town again.

Maybe we should implement lower caps on such effects - at the moment I think it's set at 10k turns... a few hundred should probably suffice, right?

[buzzkill]

It seems to me like just resetting the duration to the original duration would maintain game balance and would help avoid irritating wait times. IMO this should be the case for all duration-based spells (like Bless, etc.).

This... or make it cumulative, but not to exceed twice the maximum normal duration.

It always bothered me that it was possible to buy a stack of Protection From Evil (for example), read them all while waiting for recall to kick in, and be protected for a long, long time... probably until you're ready to recall back to town again.

[Zikke]

My options here are basically to either a) sleep until haste runs out, then re-cast it, or b) go into combat and hope it doesn't run out at a bad time. Is this really desirable?

It seems to me like just resetting the duration to the original duration would maintain game balance and would help avoid irritating wait times. IMO this should be the case for all duration-based spells (like Bless, etc.).

Resetting the duration seems to me to be the most common method in general for other games and probably already fits the mental model of most players as what would happen if they recast the spell. Part of having temporary buffs is having to plan for refreshing that buff if the fight lasts too long.

Just throwing in my opinion.

I'd be fine with Mass Banishment's hitpoint cost going up, since in that scenario you have a good idea of how many monsters are in the area of effect.

I agree that adding more damage to Banishment would really add unnecessary risk of insta-death to the game since it affects the entire level and not just your own detection range. The current damage per monster is balanced about right to account for a pit off in the distance or a unique on the level with minions.

Or you can make it not kill you outright from damage, but reduce you to 0 hp and stun you or hallucinate you for a while, or cause a *destruction* around you if you asplode too many baddies at once.

[Derakon]

Hmmkay. I don't really have a strong view, but I'm inclined towards not making it more useful.

My options here are basically to either a) sleep until haste runs out, then re-cast it, or b) go into combat and hope it doesn't run out at a bad time. Is this really desirable?

Well, rarity doesn't work like it used to at all. 100/rarity is the number of entries in the ego_alloc table. So elvenkind gets 3 entries and speed gets 4, making speed 33% more common, currently (assuming both are in-depth).

Ah, okay. Good to know. I was basing my relative rarities on across-entire-game rates, and Elvenkind boots are native to dlvl 60, which explains the difference I was seeing.

I wouldn't be averse to making speed once again the ultimate boots, and making elvenkind more common. IMO speed boots are too common anyway, and ought to go to 50 or 100 (2 or 1 entries). Elvenkind could then stay as is, with d6 about right.

Fine by me.

Wait a minute. I was thinking Mass Banishment. Surely a zoo or graveyard is not trivial to clear using normal banishment because of the number of different species?

Mages have infinite of both spells, so they can pick whichever they like. I generally prefer Banishment for acting across the entire level and only taking out the specific monster types I don't want to fight -- using Mass Banishment against a graveyard requires you to get close enough to activate the monsters. In fact I don't think I cast Mass Banishment more than once with my last character...and that once was only to remove the {untried} tag. I'd be fine with Mass Banishment's hitpoint cost going up, since in that scenario you have a good idea of how many monsters are in the area of effect.

Plus, there aren't that many floor objects anyway, compared with the number carried by graveyard denizens. And surely they can pick up the floor objects too? You have a point about zoos, since you probably only need to banish Z and M, but IMO there shouldn't be much on the floor of a zoo ... anyway, how about making Banishment fail occasionally on a per-monster basis? So you're 90% likely to get rid of a single critter, but if there are ten Black Reavers you're likely to need more than one cast ...

Fine by me. Again I don't think this is a serious issue, since as you noted there's not all that much in graveyards/zoos anyway.

[Magnate]

Well, then they can not implement it. Vanilla's been going towards maximal transparency for awhile now, and this is just one more step along that route.

Yup - this is both why I gave up Crawl and why I prefer Joshua's maintainership to Leon's.

Looking at the code, if you aren't currently hasted, then you get 1d(clvl + 20) added to the haste timer. Otherwise you get 1d5. Functionally the latter behavior is useless. I'd rather get "timer = max(cur timer, 1d(clvl + 20))". The goal after all is to guarantee that a casting will last you through the next fight, and the next fight is almost certain to exceed 50 game turns.

Hmmkay. I don't really have a strong view, but I'm inclined towards not making it more useful.

Looking at egos.txt, current Elvenkind is +d6 speed; I think it's just that the only two examples I've found in-game have both rolled poorly. They're rarity-30 while Speed is rarity 24; I don't know how relative rarities affect drop rates but I'd guess they're on the order of four or five times less common than boots of speed. At that rate you're very likely to have found good speed boots by the time you find elvenkind, so it's low odds that they'd be worth using.

What if Elvenkind were more like rarity 14, and gave 3+d3 stealth and d4 speed? As an intermediary step between the "low" boots (FA, Stealth, Stability) and speed boots?

Well, rarity doesn't work like it used to at all. 100/rarity is the number of entries in the ego_alloc table. So elvenkind gets 3 entries and speed gets 4, making speed 33% more common, currently (assuming both are in-depth). I wouldn't be averse to making speed once again the ultimate boots, and making elvenkind more common. IMO speed boots are too common anyway, and ought to go to 50 or 100 (2 or 1 entries). Elvenkind could then stay as is, with d6 about right.

I can't really see that making a difference unless trying to use banishment against a graveyard could kill you from max HP...and since graveyards are full of differently-symboled monsters, that could be problematic. Should you die for banishing 10 Black Reavers? What if you want to remove the one in this vault that's letting all the monsters out and Feagwath's on the other side of the level where you haven't seen him yet?

Wait a minute. I was thinking Mass Banishment. Surely a zoo or graveyard is not trivial to clear using normal banishment because of the number of different species? Plus, there aren't that many floor objects anyway, compared with the number carried by graveyard denizens. And surely they can pick up the floor objects too? You have a point about zoos, since you probably only need to banish Z and M, but IMO there shouldn't be much on the floor of a zoo ... anyway, how about making Banishment fail occasionally on a per-monster basis? So you're 90% likely to get rid of a single critter, but if there are ten Black Reavers you're likely to need more than one cast ...