Gloves and speed boosts

[wv_wxman]

Xor the Gnome Mage found this on Mughash's body:

s) the Set of Gauntlets 'Golamir' [3,+11] <+2>
     Dropped by Mughash the Kobold Lord at 550 feet (level 11).
     
     +2 speed.
     Provides resistance to nexus, disenchantment.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

Being only level 13, Xor would love to use this, but is not happy that they will cut down his SP. He wonders why randart gloves with a speed boost are not afforded the same mage-friendly status as those that raise DEX or provide free action. He hopes that in the future that this may change.

Come on, make a gnome happy?

[AnonymousHero]

Xor the Gnome Mage found this on Mughash's body:

s) the Set of Gauntlets 'Golamir' [3,+11] <+2>
     Dropped by Mughash the Kobold Lord at 550 feet (level 11).
     
     +2 speed.
     Provides resistance to nexus, disenchantment.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

Being only level 13, Xor would love to use this, but is not happy that they will cut down his SP. He wonders why randart gloves with a speed boost are not afforded the same mage-friendly status as those that raise DEX or provide free action. He hopes that in the future that this may change.

Come on, make a gnome happy?

His hope may be in vain, but it might be the case that the gloves are worth wearing (occasionally) anyway.

[quarague]

First, I think this is a very rare situation, no ego gloves or standard artifact gloves give a speed bonus, IIRC. Additionally speed on randarts is relatively common on boots but fairly rare, ie unlikely in all other slots.
Balancewise I would rather advocate that mages get the SP penalty for all gloves, no matter what mods. This makes fairly little difference in the beginning, because you only loose a few AC but is somewhat annoying late game, when mages are very strong anyway.

[MattB]

Balancewise I would rather advocate that mages get the SP penalty for all gloves, no matter what mods. This makes fairly little difference in the beginning, because you only loose a few AC but is somewhat annoying late game, when mages are very strong anyway.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Nicely weighted against the mage in the endgame.

[jevansau]

I think the one I find most annoying is randart gloves with an int bonus, but no dex or FA. If dex and FA stop the mana reduction, so should int.

Of course, just penalizing for all gloves seems reasonable too.

[Estie]

I dont think there is need to penalize the mage like that. The classes arent and shouldnt be balanced, wether the mage has one less equipment slot doesnt matter.

A more interesting situation would occur if a) AC had meaning and b) there were magi-mods, like the ToME2 spellpower. Then you could make a robed guy who gets hit easily but has the tools to avoid it and delivers the big damage from afar, which is the usual mage stereotype in games.

The melee classes have to cover magic defenses and stats with their items, get what little physical defense is available along the way (AC) and their main focus is to increase their damage output with non-waepon items without losing too much defensive properties.

Fighter: "You are wearing those FA gloves now, but if you can get FA from another source, you can equip those awesome gauntlets of power which would double your damage!" This is interesting play.

Mage: "You are wearing those FA gloves and you can switch them out for dex ones if you cover FA, but you dont really care either way." This isnt.

Proposed mage: "You basically never want to wear any gloves." This isnt, either.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I dont think there is need to penalize the mage like that. The classes arent and shouldnt be balanced, wether the mage has one less equipment slot doesnt matter.

A more interesting situation would occur if a) AC had meaning and b) there were magi-mods, like the ToME2 spellpower. Then you could make a robed guy who gets hit easily but has the tools to avoid it and delivers the big damage from afar, which is the usual mage stereotype in games.

The melee classes have to cover magic defenses and stats with their items, get what little physical defense is available along the way (AC) and their main focus is to increase their damage output with non-waepon items without losing too much defensive properties.

Fighter: "You are wearing those FA gloves now, but if you can get FA from another source, you can equip those awesome gauntlets of power which would double your damage!" This is interesting play.

Mage: "You are wearing those FA gloves and you can switch them out for dex ones if you cover FA, but you dont really care either way." This isnt.

Proposed mage: "You basically never want to wear any gloves." This isnt, either.

+1 to everything Estie said here.

[Estie]

Here is an idea: how about having dex increase casting speed ?

I dont know how difficult this would be to implement, but with fine tuned speed it should be possible. While this would raise the physical stat dex to about the same level of importance as the traditional intelligence (wisdom) for the mage (priest), it would offer equipment dilemmas similar to those the melees are facing.

This doesnt solve everything for the mage class in one swipe, but it could be a start.

A quick look at balance:

Doubling the casting speed at 18/200 dex seems too much; while there are warriors that do 500 damage to Morgoth and those that do 1000, it is much harder to achieve that amount than just maxing out one more stat.
So a factor of 1,5 feels about right. Does that offer enough breakpoints along the way ?

What about the hybrids: they want to increase dex for reasons of their own, does this shift focus for them ? I think not. Even with dex affecting casting speed I would prefer str for them as it is now, for the same reason I put all starting points of a paladin into str and none in wis. Wether you detect traps faster has no impact and a paladin orb or ranger magic missile that does 50% more damage still cant compete with their traditional attacks.

Implementing it would make the game easier (!), since I doubt it is a good idea to lower casting speed for low dex, so overall toons do more damage. But it affects only 2 classes, I think its worth it. Yes, I think I like my idea