from Maggot to Morgoth

[Mondkalb]

Oh! New thought: the element rings, if nothing else, should have an activation for magical protection of related element, providing double defense in one package. Which is almost like immunity, only weaker

Don't they do that already?

[OOD Town drunk]

Don't they do that already?

Shit maybe, I always find speed first so I never even consider using them, so I dunno

[OOD Town drunk]

Well it's good to know a couple of my suggestions were so good that they decided not to wait until I came up with them and just went ahead early. Somebody is lucky I'm not an angry person. I've heard of families disappearing for such gun-jumping

[OOD Town drunk]

I forgot to add: jk lol haha n case anyone doesn't realize the facetiousness of my words

[Raajaton]

I actually find the elemental brand spell to be quite useful, although more for ammo than for melee weapons. If you run out of decent ego ammo, taking some say magic seeker arrows, giving them an elemental brand, and then enchanting weapon on them to get their to-hit and to-dam up can make them nearly as powerful as some of the ego ammos you find.

[Timo Pietilä]

I actually find the elemental brand spell to be quite useful, although more for ammo than for melee weapons. If you run out of decent ego ammo, taking some say magic seeker arrows, giving them an elemental brand, and then enchanting weapon on them to get their to-hit and to-dam up can make them nearly as powerful as some of the ego ammos you find.

Priest/Paladin branding spell works only for melee-weapons. It could be useful if you find it early, but as it is currently it's kind of useless spell.

hmmm... how about making it duration-spell with brand attribute given to player instead of weapon, so that it works with any weapon. Make it cost a lot and last only few turns so that you don't run around with constantly acid-branded Glaive of Pain.

[Raajaton]

Oh ok. I most recently played a rogue and had been frequently using it on my ammo. I didn't realize the prayer equivalent worked differently. My mistake.

I do like your idea.

[Pete Mack]

hmmm... how about making it duration-spell with brand attribute given to player instead of weapon, so that it works with any weapon. Make it cost a lot and last only few turns so that you don't run around with constantly acid-branded Glaive of Pain.

NPP has this, but it's x2 for all 5 brands. One of the better Druid spells!

[Derakon]

I think it'd be reasonably balanced if the various elemental rings activated for:

* Ball attack spell, plus
* temporary immunity, plus
* temporary branded attack

I think that'd be reasonably balanced compared to other rings available at the time (largely, big Ring of Damage, big ring of +stat). Sure there's some potential for "abuse" by swapping the rings on and off, but I don't think it'd be a huge issue. Also I don't think that elemental rings need to compete with rings of speed; they aren't constrained to showing up that late.

[Oramin]

RE: Elemental Brand

Gotta love those Maces of Disruption of Flame (+15, +15) ...

As for some of the others.

The various Bless spells stack. I always used them for pre-buffs.

If you're having a problem with losing 6 levels, maybe you need to change your play-style instead of changing the game? Don't melee life-drainers.

Agreed on the home storage space.

Immunity should be rare. Something, however, should be done about Rings of Flame/Ice, etc. I don't recall ever having occasion to use one.

[Mondkalb]

Maybe they could have a random activation - rings in FAangband can be activated for various benefits, like trap detection, identify, protection from evil, blessing ...

[Derakon]

The various Bless spells stack. I always used them for pre-buffs.

Bless, Chant, and Prayer all provide the same buff, just with differing durations. That buff does stack with Heroism and Berserk, which are each separate buffs though. Between the three of them you get something like +25 to-hit, +40 temporary HP, and -5 AC...or something like that.

[Oramin]

Oops. I was most recently playing a Rogue and I mixed up the Mage/Priest pre-buffs. I stand corrected.

However, they don't all need to be useful. Later spells substitute for earlier spells. With Mage spells, MCG substitutes for MAB (IIRC). With Priests and Paladins, I run with Protection from Evil up all the time and then pre-buff with Prayer before going into combat. Those two spells do quite nicely.

[Gorbad]

If the step is finally taken to split monster damage into physical and elemental parts, a ring with one elemental immunity might not be so out of balance, until that time however, it's too much.