Class/magic feature branch

[wobbly]

Protected a dump in fox form:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=21703

Probably should say fox on it somewhere. The claw & biting is cute by the way

[bron]

I found a tiny bug:

Playing a Half Troll Paladin. I read WoR, then drop all my copies of prayer book one in order to free an inventory slot and pick up some additional loot. While I'm waiting for the recall to kick in, I cast "Bless", using the books on the ground. I then hit "n" to repeat that action until the recall happens. I now hit "n" again (after the recall; standing on the stairs on the surface), and the Bless prayer is cast, even though the book is now M.I.A.

[wobbly]

I didn't have much trouble with kitties on the priest (though half-troll has much more hps) but certainly being fast non-evil they end up in melee range before you know they're there. I used phase followed by light beam down the corridor when I met one. They may not be evil but they still don't eat that many orbs. I did however see a kitty pit which probably would of been fatal without portal (I might of been lucky there 650' boldor's drop).

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=21696

Edit: A half-trolls str means I probably had more toys in backup, I'll maybe try a smaller priest after the druid, though I still haven't played necromancer. hmm.

[Pete Mack]

Yes. For ironman, you can't plan on meeting early out-of-depth monsters the way you can for ordinary play. There are probably too many things you need to spend extra money on !oil,etc, for the unlikely cases. (And you can't dive as hard either.)

[fizzix]

I got an ironman hobbit rogue to the midgame. My first attempt died do to misclicking and stepping on a trap on a dungeon level before 10. The trap summoned 5 uniques and phase wasn't enough to avoid death. (Should summon traps really be that deadly?)

Here are my thoughts.

The early game for priests can be kind of brutal. Running into an OoD monster (like grip or fang) on dlevel 1 is usually a death sentence. In fact unless you are playing a strong class, it can be quite hard to kill anything until you get bless online. I would recommend having priests automatically start with bless, or if preferred, making bless the only level 1 spell. (I'd also lower the mp cost to 1).

Priests have a tough time with non-evil monsters, especially fast moving ones like cats. In the past this was mostly ok, because you got portal around level 7. But portal is now in a dungeon book and this makes the early-midgame very hairy. (In normal games you just buy _Tele, so maybe this is still ok) I would recommend giving priest a survival spell early. Something like hold monster or scare monster might be good enough. But if you wanted to be more flavorful, you could imagine a spell called "pacify" which is a single, smite target (ball radius 1) spell that causes any non-evil monster to be healed to full health and fall asleep with max sleep.

Orb of draining is super powerful, but I think a priest spell that devastates undead/demons would be a very flavorful addition and would prevent them from being one trick ponies. Something like "bolt of holiness" which only affects undead and does a healthy dose of damage to undead and demons would be a nice addition. It would be in the town books and maybe unlocked at level 20-25 or so.

Dispel Evil and Dispel Undead are both too costly and too inefficient to be anything but mop-up spells in the late game. They have no business being in the town books I think.

The pointy penalty is still annoying and frustrating. It seems to me that this is a good candidate to remove when doing a major class rebalance.

I greatly miss having access to detect doors and stairs and sense surroundings. There were many levels where I had to explore more than 2/3 of the level before finding a stairs. I had an especially frustrating cavern level, where I had to backtrack through the whole level to find the one stairs, since I was stuck with radius one light. (The cavern and labyrinth levels really need to be either redesigned or removed. They are not fun.)

I also miss (slightly) having upgraded bless spells that don't wear off after so few turns. These spells (holy chant and prayer) were problematic and somewhat pointless in the old version, but maybe we can improve them somehow.

Another spell I miss is resist heat and cold. This was a very important spell for a low-hp class. I feel like priests should still have it.

Also what happened to cure/slow/neutralize poison? This isn't super important, but getting rid of poison helps a lot to avoid the tedium of waiting out poison so you can rest.

I can't cast it yet, but the Heal spell in the first dungeon book is super costly. Maybe this is for the best. If I ever get to the late game, I'll mention how this went.

For dungeon books, it might be worth considering how DaJ did book drops. Basically it dropped, book 5, book 6, book 7, etc. and what book that was depended on what class you were playing. So if you got a dungeon book drop it was always for your class. The other dungeon books just didn't show up. Since we have many more book types, I think this would help cut down on clutter.

One possible bug in gameplay. call light should light up adjacent walls to stairs. I found that it didn't when I was trying to navigate without wielding a light (I've been having some light problems this game... another thing that only happens in ironman games)

[wobbly]

Something interesting I noticed using a light staff with a teleport ring on. The order of effect seems light->teleport->map update. e.g I see the light spell flash but the room isn't mapped. Not sure if that's intended. Another hassle with fox form. The str drop often makes you encumbranced & you can't drop stuff without changing back, so you need to keep a mental note of how much weight to keep spare & double check.

[PowerWyrm]

Do you have a save file?

Savefile attached. Simply read the *Remove Curse* scroll, choose the cursed ring of speed and the game closes.

[Sphara]

They are nature realm books, but only for rangers.

Oh dear Thanks.
I just NATURALLY assumed druid is pretty comfortable with any nature magic.

[Nick]

Playing druid on angband.live.

I've found Survival Skills- book several times over but cannot browse it or learn anything from it. Running at XL28 already. That is a druid book, right?

Now I found something what I assumed being a high-tier druid book, Forest Craft. Same thing. Cannot even browse it. What gives? Am I getting something terribly wrong?

They are nature realm books, but only for rangers.

[Sphara]

Playing druid on angband.live.

I've found Survival Skills- book several times over but cannot browse it or learn anything from it. Running at XL28 already. That is a druid book, right?

Now I found something what I assumed being a high-tier druid book, Forest Craft. Same thing. Cannot even browse it. What gives? Am I getting something terribly wrong?

[Nick]

what is the rational with the different book pricing?

Carelessness and inconsistency on the part of the maintainer

One of the things I'm hoping to get from this comp is feedback on the book prices and dungeon/town - I already think the 3rd mage book probably should be a town book.

[wobbly]

Played the priest & it seemed still good, unfortunately mucked up before getting all the books for a closer look, but certainly played mostly the same up to where I got. Just moved mapping onto a staff.

Going to have another go with the druid, hopefully get far enough for some coments, but first what is the rational with the different book pricing? This mostly matters for ironman or otherwise starting without ?recall. A priest gets the 2nd book & orb which is good, it'd be painfull without. A druid is fairly hard pressed to buy the 2nd & still have enough for an ironman start. I think it would be reasonable to get access to the 2nd book & the mapping spells. Haven't looked at mages or necromancers to comment.

[Nick]

Uh oh...

c) a Carnelian Ring of Speed <+6> {cursed, ??}
     Found lying on the floor of a cavern at 3750 feet (level 75)
     
     You do not know the full extent of this item's powers.
     It paralyses you every now and then.
     +6 speed.

I'm playing with "Know every rune" birth option, so I should know all properties here. If I try to read a scroll of *Remove Curse*, the game closes/crashes.

Do you have a save file?

[PowerWyrm]

Uh oh...

c) a Carnelian Ring of Speed <+6> {cursed, ??}
     Found lying on the floor of a cavern at 3750 feet (level 75)
     
     You do not know the full extent of this item's powers.
     It paralyses you every now and then.
     +6 speed.

I'm playing with "Know every rune" birth option, so I should know all properties here. If I try to read a scroll of *Remove Curse*, the game closes/crashes.

[Huqhox]

There are two or three priest spells that matter: detection (PB6) and Heal300 (PB4.) Orb is good in until your melee catches up with damage. And TO with zero fail is good. But unlimited heal is just crazy good.

Orb is great for hitting stuff out of LOS. Q's (especially Emperor Q) become relatively easy with it once you know where they are, and death molds (and jelly pits in general) are a breeze.

The GV Hell Pit is also terrific fun as a priest, you can just fire OOD into the far end and take most things out before they can get into range to retaliate

It's something that makes other classes (including mages) quite a pain because apart from ball effect spells (that potentially damage floor items) LOS is required (excepting when you can hit stuff with the not in LOS but the square behind is exploit, which isn't a common situation) and one of the things that makes Priest easily the most fun to play, IMO