Angband Philosophy II: Magic

[MattB]

Also, if we are going to have a death/necromancy realm, I hope we can come up with something better than 'necromancy' as the realm title

Rocketry?...

[Cold_Heart]

I would like to have a magic user class that can have access to every magic school.


PS: nature is good.

[desstorm]

I think there is some work to do (especially rogue was dumb magic-wise. having books that were not worth carrying or keeping)

I'd prefer cleaning up first the existing books. There are spells that are NOT used -ever- due to class due to uselessneess.

Clean it out and once the two simple holy-arcane lines are proper (is that an english word?) again you should expand, not before.

A lean and mean magic system HurrayHurray

[AnonymousHero]

proper (is that an english word?)

Yes, it's a proper word. Or, perfectly cromulent as some would say.

[Cold_Heart]

I'd prefer cleaning up first the existing books. There are spells that are NOT used -ever- due to class due to uselessneess.

Candidate #1 from me: Annihilation. 60 mana? and can not target demon/undead/golems, seriously?

Clean it out and once the two simple holy-arcane lines are proper (is that an english word?) again you should expand, not before

I think it's usually been called divine and arcane, not holy and arcane.

[Nick]

Quality of discussion here never ceases to amaze me.

Here are a few more random thoughts to further confuse the issue:

• debo's comment about the number of books set me thinking. We tend to talk about Angband as a game of inventory management a lot, but is it? Having unlimited inventory slots would certainly make the game easier, but how much? Maybe freeing up slots by needing less books would just leave space for more marginal items to be carried, and make the game more interesting.
• The idea of things being better left to variants is one that often comes up, and one I've probably used in the past. I now think, though, that arguments of what should go in Vanilla should be made without reference to variants. I would certainly like V to be amenable to varying (in fact that was one of my big motivations), but I think that needs to come after. The only consideration that should be used as to whether to make a change is whether it improves the game - by which I mean it moves it closer to some shared ideal we have of what Angband is. My experience so far is that this tends to emerge from discussion - although I will certainly get it wrong sometimes, and not everyone will agree with every change.
• I really like the way song is done in Sil, and I think it's worth thinking about doing something similar at some point, but I think that one needs a lot of discussion
• The spiritual/physical approach is in some ways just another way of looking at the game as it is. Expanding as I suggested to include opposite realms to the Arcane and the Holy seems like a fairly natural (!) way to expand that, but it's not the only way - the O/FA/NPP approach is just to have new realms with no particular relationship to the old ones. If we were to go ahead with such an expansion, I think we would need one of two approaches to spellcasting stats and mana:
  1. Replace INT and WIS with a single stat which determines fail rates and mana or
  2. Have one stat controlling the physical axis and one the spiritual axis, and have two separate mana pools (named, say, spirit and mana)
  
  I like the second one better, in conjunction with making those stats more important elsewhere (an expansion on what WIS currently does for saving throws)
• I've had a look over the spell lists, and they're IMHO not too bad. A couple of notable features: the most spells per class is 57 for mages, but rangers get 54; there are 13 spells that every spellcasting class gets.
• With the way classes are defined in 4.x, it's really easy to have the same book being completely different for different classes
• I think the current classes do a pretty good job of feeling different from each other, and I'd like to maintain that with any new classes.
• It would be good to have an NPP druid comp

OK, enough blathering, I need to try and fix some bugs and get 4.0 out the door.

[Derakon]

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.

[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...

[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

[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]

Quality of discussion here never ceases to amaze me.

except debo

[Zireael]

Separate INT and WIS mana is a good idea!

[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.

[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.

[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.