Making Mages, More Magelike

[UglySquirrell]

So, I just had a lot of fun, playing a high elf mage ironman game. Made it to level 42 dl. 99 before death. Used magic only, bad randart weapons good resists. Anyway was thinking it would have made the game a lot more fun, if you could wield spellbooks. Give them a no attack flag, and don't let high level books stack, but give them a recharge mana actavation. I don't think this would make the game much easier, just less tedious. Less resting, dependinding on consumables etc. Maybe, you could lower spell failure rate for equipped book, mana storm is fun but 400 or so damage for such a high chance at failure, seems extreme. Giving the book resist blind, confusion, paralysis, like a weapon would also add variety, so you wouldn't only use one book. Tome had a lot of auras, fiery, icy, etc. That worked like thorns in Diablo, monster hits you monster recives, a world of hurt for his trouble. This would make close range casting a lot of fun, I think.

Well, just my 2 cents. Cheers

[buzzkill]

I like it. If mages wielded a spellbook, then they'd be less inclined to use a weapon. Giving books resists and stuff is a neat idea too. Maybe less mana cost, lesser failure rate for spells in a wielded book. This has possibilities. They could wield rods, staffs and wands too. There's no reason a wand of lightning bolts shouldn't provide rElec.

[azfalt]

I think this is a great idea. I've never heard anyone come up with the idea of wielding a spellbook in years of playing angband. It makes intuitive sense - holding a book and reading spells shouldn't leave hands free for a sword (or shield, lantern, and bow, but that's a whole other situation...)

I always thought mages should be stronger device users than other classes, too. They do have lower fail rates with devices, but they should also get stronger effects - ie more damage from attack wands. Spells to upgrade wands could replace the useless/non-flavour weapon/ammo/armour upgrading spells in Tenser's/Infusions. Lower level spells could perhaps turn junk wands into attack wands, or allow mages to drain wands for mana.

A priest equivalent could be using/upgrading staves, or perhaps being able to improve/make healing potions from other potions.

Anything to discourage mage melee sounds good to me.

[Derakon]

I think this is a great idea. I've never heard anyone come up with the idea of wielding a spellbook in years of playing angband. It makes intuitive sense - holding a book and reading spells shouldn't leave hands free for a sword (or shield, lantern, and bow, but that's a whole other situation...)

ToME 2 has wieldable items that you can copy spells into, many of which are spellstaves. Not exactly like wielding a book though.

I always thought mages should be stronger device users than other classes, too. They do have lower fail rates with devices, but they should also get stronger effects - ie more damage from attack wands.

They do get stronger effects! You get a (your magic device skill) - (level of object) percentage bonus to damage from all devices, and mages have far and away the best magic device skill of all classes -- base skill of 101 at level 50, compared to 82 for rogues and rangers (next best) and 80 for the priest. INT then increases that skill further, and mages will typically have the highest INT scores too.

Anything to discourage mage melee sounds good to me.

Ew. I've always liked that Angband mages are willing to get into the thick of things. I don't mind if they have good attack spells, nor if they're able to beat the game without getting into melee even once, but they should be willing and able to resort to melee when the time comes.

As for the original idea, the big issue I have with it is that IMO attack spells are already well balanced for mages. So either you make it a requirement for them to wield books to be able to cast attack spells well (in which case they lose versatility because they can only cast 1/8th of their repertoire "effectively" at any given time), or you make their attack spells overpowered when cast from wielded books. Neither seems like a great option to me.

[Nick]

Steamband allows wielding of spellbooks.

[dos350]

please , no!

hey i got idea 2 mak warrior more warrior like

giv them command 2 shout and giv encouraging talk 2 themself

also one for priest

giv them command 2 pray 2 jesus,

please also~ give rogue command 2 pick the pocket and also make police 2 come chase him if he does

and dnt forget ranger,~ giv them command 2 talk with the animals (just4fun)

last but not least , paladaine~ giv them the ability 2 charge, like in d2,~ combine the . command with attack 4 best effect and double the dmg while u at it,,

ty , so much change has just GOT 2 B GOOD,


please ~ nn2qq!

[Zikke]

Sounds good to me. I like the idea of wielding spellbooks (or shrunken heads, like in Diablo/WoW, or other mystical objects not intended for bludgeoning)!

[Therem Harth]

Spellbook wielding sounds cool, but more like variant material to me. Maybe better for future releases of OAngband, e.g. make wielding the spellbook a requirement for some abilities. (Fast casting? Heal on cast?)

I do like the idea of making mages more magelike though. Maybe make the attack spells in the fourth book less exclusively elemental, so that they can rely on something other than melee and shooting before they start getting high-level books?

Another idea: something like ToME's mage staves. Have a wieldable "weapon" (Talisman? Charm? Blasting rod?) which is totally worthless in melee, but has benefits for spellcasters - increasing the effective level of spells, boosting mana, or maybe more specific stuff... For instance

Wielding: a Talisman of Fire (1d1) (-5, -7) (+3)
A bronze charm carved in the shape of a stylized flame, and attached to a bronze chain.
It provides resistance to fire and cold. It increases the power of fire-based attack spells by 3 levels.

Or maybe

Wielding: a Talisman of Wood (1d1) (-10, -6) (+4)
A crude wooden charm shaped like a leaf.
It provides resistance to poison. It increases the power of healing spells by 4 levels.

Does this sound any good?

[Tibarius]

mages

I have been playing gnome mages now for around 30-40 chars in a row. Yesterday i made my first win ever . So i can write down some observations for gnome mages, i dunno if other race mages play the same. But basically i guess yes.

Spellbooks: If i find a nice weapon as melee char, i can use it right away. If i find a high level book as low level mage, i can't use it for a long time. Spells are level dependant and once they are available their success rate is moreover dependant on char-level. That would be like makeing a weapon which requires level 30 before you can use it and str 18/150 before you can effectively swing it. THat is frustrating from player point of view.

Spells should be available once you find them, and the failure rate should not tie to char-level (decreses per 3% per level).

RESTING = : Basically the question is did i make it to a save spot, if the answer is yes, then resting for 30 turns is basically the same as resting 300 turns. Could resting be changed? My goal is always to rest until hp and sp are full OR to rest until i am disrupted. Could rest be automatically as long as you are either full or are disturbed (or maybe as option, if you do not say how much turns you want to rest you rest until full/disturbed)?

Devices: I agree that mages should make even more use of them. To my experience damage wands / staves are still too much hazzle to compare to my spells. In the beginning the device skill is not high enough to make them interesting, later on the number of charges is not high enough to rely on them. Wand of Annihilation have about 2-3 charges per wand i find. But even if you got like 10 charges ready, that are only about ~4000 HP. Thats not even 50% of the HP tough uniques have. So several wands are not enough for a single fight. Recharging during combat is dangerously and often backfires. Furthermore each type takes up a slot of my inventory. They require more charges, less failure for recharge spell or increased power.

I like the idea that you can only cast spells from your readied spellbook. But you should be able to 'choose' the spells from your collection of spellbooks. Taking Spell#1 from book a, spell#5 from book c and so on.

Derakon said, that would limit the mage to very few spells. But in fact, even if i have 9 books, i seldomly use more than 5 different spells later on. So a maximum limit of 7-9 spells for the book you wield would be ok for me (and would require some decisions from the player - which spells will i use?)

Another variant would be to make the spells more versatile, so their effect would less often be the same and choosing right spells for the right circumstances would be required. Spells like sleep, confuse, slow seem to never work on anything.

Attack Spells could have a success rate, a chance to hit, a damage level, required mana, maybe cooldown which could be varied much more than it is right now. Ball spells, row spells, single target spells, spells with physical effect or only working if the target has a mind (not on animals) etc.

The game would be much more fun for mages if they could collect items to improve their spells. The idea from Therem Harth is great

Wielding: a Talisman of Fire (1d1) (-5, -7) (+3)
A bronze charm carved in the shape of a stylized flame, and attached to a bronze chain.
It provides resistance to fire and cold. It increases the power of fire-based attack spells by 3 levels.

On the other hand, then much new items are required. As alternative +to hit equipment could reduce failure rate of spells and +dam equipment could boost damage level.

I think mages should be a spell only class - i have tons over tons of good ideas for spells and effects. Haste could provide less than +10 speed in the beginning and increase with power-level as well for example.

[Therem Harth]

On the other hand, then much new items are required. As alternative +to hit equipment could reduce failure rate of spells and +dam equipment could boost damage level.

I think that, if we have to stoop to this, the opposite would be better - it would make for an interesting game dynamic, and could be justified by saying that nasty, cursed items make better foci for offensive spells. But to_h and to_d bonuses/maluses can get very high even in V, so I don't think it's really a good idea.

I do kind of like the idea that getting a book = instant access to the spells. Then again, if failure rates depend on stats, powerful spells will still have high failure rates.

[Derakon]

I continue to maintain that Angband mages are better for being willing and able to go into melee when the time comes. Why should we stoop to re-implementing the stereotype that every other fantasy game uses? Just because we've done that for every other class is no excuse...

I do agree that it's irritating to have to wait to a specific clvl to even be able to cast a spell. On the other hand, it's much easier to max a given stat (or even just push it to the stratosphere, i.e. more than 18/150) than it is to make it to a high level. So I don't know that I like the idea of basing spellcasting ability solely off of stats either. I suspect that any system wherein finding the spell is equivalent to being able to cast the spell would require being able to find individual spells instead of just spellbooks.

In any event, the biggest problem with the mage class continues to be that lots of newbies want to play casters and therefore pick the mage before they're ready for it. In other words, mages are a hard class to use effectively -- largely due to their low hitpoints. That doesn't mean they're unbalanced; just that you need good knowledge of the game to be able to win with them. As such I have a bit of a kneejerk reaction against making them easier.

Oh, and congrats on your win!

[UglySquirrell]

Thank you . I never meant, making using spellbook as you're only means of attack, just an option. Setting down a rune of protection and smashing things on the head with a hammer well they can't touch you is a lot of fun too. Mostly I'd like some way of recharging mana for big fights, a little less item dependant. Late game I'd pretty much need a staff of the Magi, for the big uniques, even if I'm using weapon attacks.

[Derakon]

You can use spells and attack wands as your sole means of offense if you want to. You can use spells alone, in fact, but you'll need potions of Restore Mana or staves of the Magi for backup. I don't think that will or should change; if you didn't need to recharge mana mid-fight, then that would imply that either the mage has inherently way too much mana, or that the mage's spells are too powerful, or that monsters have too few hitpoints.

There's no denying that mages have more to juggle, if they want to fight effectively, than pretty much any other class. Is that really a problem though?

[Raxmei]

RESTING = : Basically the question is did i make it to a save spot, if the answer is yes, then resting for 30 turns is basically the same as resting 300 turns. Could resting be changed? My goal is always to rest until hp and sp are full OR to rest until i am disrupted. Could rest be automatically as long as you are either full or are disturbed (or maybe as option, if you do not say how much turns you want to rest you rest until full/disturbed)?

Resting already does that. Just hit enter instead of putting numbers in when you want to rest.

[Max Stats]

Resting already does that. Just hit enter instead of putting numbers in when you want to rest.

Then go the next step and create a keymap of R&\r (for 3.2) or R&[Enter] (for nightlies) mapped to a convenient key (I use Tab). Now, whenever you want to rest until full, just press that key. Presto!