Angband Philosophy II: Magic

[Nick]

which list are you looking at?

Well, I was kind of comparing to my own expectations, which were fairly low...

I suspect you are also coming from the point of view of someone who plays optimally - I certainly use Cure Poison for a while, for example, because I will let myself get too poisoned and then realise it's going to kill me. I have to disagree with Chaos Strike, too - that's the spell of choice against high level uniques.

There's also the question of casting for fun - polymorph and earthquakes in the town, etc.

One of the issues, too, is that the game has changed around a lot of these spells. Trap/Door Destruction, for example, was more useful when there were still jammed doors. And I balance changes have probably affected the Priest spells badly.

All that said, I'm inclined to think that mages and priests could probably do with 5-6 books, and half-casters 2 or 3.

[AnonymousHero]

I 2nd people looking at this system. Also consider that a poscheng mage/priest selects 2 realms. At 11 realms this creates 11x10=110 unique mage options, all from 1 class. Without considering race. With only 4 realms, 4x3 still creates 12 options to play with.

Regarding Entro[0]/Poscheng: Another IMO interesting aspect of a few of the classes is that they can learn spells from books, but don't have to carry those books around in the dungeon. In particular, the Samurai (and I believe Ninja?[1]) learn techniques from special books that they find, but they once learned they don't need to carry the books around. Of course they're more limited in how many "spells" they can cast (as compared to magely types) before running out of SP, but I found this is a very interesting twist on spell casting. (And quite thematically good for classes like Samurai/Ninja. Perhaps there could be an idea lurking here for an Antimagic Warrior-type class...)

[0] If not sure, but I think the Samurai class originated in Entroband. No, wait, that would have been the Japanese Hengband, wouldn't it?

[1] pls no rage! It's been ages since I played one. However, Golem Samurai is among my favorite race/class combinations. I'm not sure why, exactly, I think I just find the idea of a Golem Samurai incredbly cool, especially if you imagine the Golem as a golem from the Discworld universe.

[Nomad]

Stair Creation: I just hate that this spell exists

Not useless if you want to dive fast or if you want to safely leave the level and can't for whatever reason use Teleport Level.

Still useful to me for diving quickly, and if not playing forced descent, to scum DL 98 and DL 99 for end-game equipment.

I assumed this was a philosophical objection to the spell's scummy/cheat-ish nature rather than a suggestion that it's useless. (Sort of like I have a philosophical objection to the existence of Satisfy Hunger scrolls/spells and refuse to use them because if you're going to have a hunger mechanic you shouldn't just immediately render the whole existence of food irrelevant, dammit.)

As to the rest of fizzix's list, I think the only one of those spells I personally get any use out of is Cure Poison, and as it is that's a bit too costly/late-learned to be relevant to anyone except maybe mages. (Playing as a rogue, by the time I've got 9 SP to spare, I've also got enough HP to wait out poison. If it was a book one spell costing 3 SP or so, I'd find it way more useful.)

Maybe we should have a poll thread for spell-usage by class and find out which spells people actually use when they're playing a given class of character, which ones they don't but might if they were cheaper/learned earlier, and which ones are just universally agreed to be useless. It might be feasible to pare the spellbooks down from 9 per realm to something like 6 without actually losing much of note.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I mostly agree as well, with some exceptions:

Trap/Door Destruction: perhaps after traps get overhauled

I sometimes use this to safely open chests without getting "pricked" and, now that Nick has fixed the "look" command so that known traps previously identified can now be specifically distinquished, to clear traps for which @ is not resistant, e.g, reduce dexterity dart.

Cure Poison: Overtime poison damage is a joke after level 3

I still find this useful in the earlier stages until I'm sufficiently along in stat gain and h.p. room.

Stair Creation: I just hate that this spell exists

Still useful to me for diving quickly, and if not playing forced descent, to scum DL 98 and DL 99 for end-game equipment.

Prayer: see chant

This as well as Bless and Chant I still use, especially for race combinations or stats that make 2-Hit pathetic for awhile.

Remembrance: Costs way too much, XP drain just isn't a big deal by the time you get this spell

Sometimes, but just for the convenience of not carrying !Restore Life.

Additionally, I'll never cast anything except for a buff/heal/utility spell with a rogue, ranger or paladin.

I'll still use Magic Missile and Orb of Destruction, but other than that, pretty much true.

[Derakon]

While I mostly agree with your list, fizzix, I do have some comments.

Wonder: Costs way too much, too risky

This is readily fixable by making it cheap. You use Wands of Wonder sometimes in the early game, right? Being able to cast Wonder for, say, 2 mana might be worthwhile.

Slow Monster: Costs way too much, get it way too late
Mass Sleep: this spell is a joke, right?

More generally, status ailment spells are a problem, as I've pointed out in the past. They're currently either too good or useless. This is fixable, but requires overhauling them.

Acid Ball: I can't ever remember choosing this ball spell over others, except as a way to cheaply ID artifacts by destroying all the others

Depends on how early you get Raal's, but yeah, it's not great.

Stair Creation: I just hate that this spell exists

Not useless if you want to dive fast or if you want to safely leave the level and can't for whatever reason use Teleport Level.

Earthquake: completely useless

I've used it to partition a vault and avoid getting into an encounter with an enemy I couldn't fight and couldn't teleport away. That is one hell of a niche use, but I liked that I'd found a use for it.

Rend Soul: Costs too much

IIRC, it's your highest DPS against non-evil targets for a brief window. Still pretty niche, mind. But by the time you can cast it, mana costs are not a huge barrier to spell use as you should have a stock of Restore Mana potions.

Holy Word: Costs too much for the useless side effects. Dispel Evil is better.

Doesn't this also provide a bigger heal than Healing's 300HP?

Annihilation: Too costly.

And always deals less damage than the wand. It only barely out-damages Orb of Draining, and costs substantially more.

[fizzix]

I've had a look over the spell lists, and they're IMHO not too bad.

which list are you looking at?

The following spells are ones I never cast with any class:

Confuse monster: costs too much, rarely works
Trap/Door Destruction: perhaps after traps get overhauled
Cure Poison: Overtime poison damage is a joke after level 3
Sleep Monster: see confuse monster
Wonder: Costs way too much, too risky
Polymorph Other: too risky
Slow Monster: Costs way too much, get it way too late
Mass Sleep: this spell is a joke, right?
Acid Ball: I can't ever remember choosing this ball spell over others, except as a way to cheaply ID artifacts by destroying all the others
Stair Creation: I just hate that this spell exists
Earthquake: completely useless
Bedlam: See mass sleep
Rend Soul: Costs too much
Chaos Strike: chance to polymorph makes this spell useless


Slow Poison: See cure poison
Scare Monster: see confuse monster
Cure Serious Wounds: Cure light wounds, and heal are the only healing spells ever worth casting.
Chant: If the improvements on Bless also improved the buffs they'd be worth it. Right now they only improve the duration, so they're pointless
Sanctuary: Sigh...
Neutralize Poison: See cure poison
Cure Critical Wounds: See CSW
Cure Mortal Wounds: See CSW
Turn Undead: perhaps if it damaged undead
Prayer: see chant
Holy Word: Costs too much for the useless side effects. Dispel Evil is better.
Alter Reality: This is just a more expensive way to cast teleport level. Except in ironman games where it clearly is "cheating"
Probing: Can't remember ever casting this spell, but perhaps I would if there were monsters I didn't know!
Cure Mortal Wounds: See CSW
Remembrance: Costs way too much, XP drain just isn't a big deal by the time you get this spell
Unbarring Ways: this is just trap/door destruction
Enchant Weapon: By the time you get this you don't have anything worth enchanting anymore
Enchant Armor: Same here
Elemental Brand: Same with enchant weapon
Annihilation: Too costly.

Additionally, I'll never cast anything except for a buff/heal/utility spell with a rogue, ranger or paladin.

[Derakon]

Separating INT and WIS mana pools only seems meaningful if classes has access to spells that use both. Otherwise, that just an unused UI element, like showing Mana for a Warrior.

Right, which is why I suggested that classes should have spells that do both. For example, we could think of the WIS-based pool as providing "power" and the INT-based pool as providing "shape". An indiscriminate spell like Fireball then would take a relatively large amount of WIS mana and less INT mana, while something that needs more care, like say Haste Self, would have only a small amount of WIS and a larger amount of INT. You'd always need at least 1 of both to cast any spell.

[Rydel]

Separating INT and WIS mana pools only seems meaningful if classes has access to spells that use both. Otherwise, that just an unused UI element, like showing Mana for a Warrior.

[Raxmei]

On the topic of Int and Wis both having an effect, a few D&D 3.5 classes have multiple attribute scores that affect their casting in different ways. For example, the stat that determines bonus spell slots and maximum spell level is sometimes not the same as the stat that governs the difficulty of saving against the caster's spells. In Angband terms it could be set up such that Int determines failure rate and spells known while Wis determines SP.

[wobbly]

I'd recommend to anyone who is going to participate in this conversation to also check out the way the spell realms are divided in zangband, and maybe even the *hengbands (not much different) if they haven't already. Each zangband realm has only 4 books iirc.

There may be an increased # of realms, but each realm is much more focused than the Vanilla ones. I've never understood why each Vanilla realm has 8 spellbooks, it's pretty ridiculous.

I 2nd people looking at this system. Also consider that a poscheng mage/priest selects 2 realms. At 11 realms this creates 11x10=110 unique mage options, all from 1 class. Without considering race. With only 4 realms, 4x3 still creates 12 options to play with.

[Zireael]

Separate INT and WIS mana is a good idea!

[Nick]

Quality of discussion here never ceases to amaze me.

except debo

[debo]

That's one I hadn't thought of. Good to see opening cans of worms is a team sport

Mp = mineral points
VP = vespene gas points

[Nick]

If we did have separate "INT mana" ("willpower"?) and "WIS mana" ("mana"?), then you could have most spells cost varying amounts of the two, giving the player an extra resource pool to worry about.

That's one I hadn't thought of. Good to see opening cans of worms is a team sport

[Ingwe Ingweron]

.... However, I think Angband might be more interesting (story-wise) if the player weren't sure if he/she was the good guy or the bad guy....

I've often cackled, he...he...he..., as @ snatched the Massive Iron Crown from Morgoth's corpse and donned that helm to become the all powerful ruler of Angband and, not imprisoned on level 100, recalled to town to conquer the World! He...he...he...