Class/magic feature branch

[Ighalli]

Druid problems

The druid can self-level up to 10 (as a human) by casting his spells in town and buying the 2nd book. The first casting of fox form takes you straight to 3, and from there satisfy hunger puts you to 4, cure poison to 5, confuse monster straight to 7, and so forth until sense surroundings leaves you stuck at level 10 with 439 experience.

I tested all of the starting priest spells and none of them give you more than 4 xp. The mage spells only give you 2 xp.

Also, if you attempt to enter a shop in fox form, you get "There is a scream and the door slams shut!", which is amusing. Unfortunately, changing back doesn't let you into that store, any other stores, or even your own home. I descended and immediately came back, but I'm still unable to interact with any town buildings.

Edit: Casting heroism for the first time took me from level 6 to 9.

[Sky]

close the game and relaunch it.

[Nick]

The druid can self-level up to 10 (as a human) by casting his spells in town and buying the 2nd book. The first casting of fox form takes you straight to 3, and from there satisfy hunger puts you to 4, cure poison to 5, confuse monster straight to 7, and so forth until sense surroundings leaves you stuck at level 10 with 439 experience.

I tested all of the starting priest spells and none of them give you more than 4 xp. The mage spells only give you 2 xp.

Yes, I haven't put a lot of effort into balancing the XP for casting a spell the first time (nor really for fail rates). Thanks for reporting.

Also, if you attempt to enter a shop in fox form, you get "There is a scream and the door slams shut!", which is amusing. Unfortunately, changing back doesn't let you into that store, any other stores, or even your own home. I descended and immediately came back, but I'm still unable to interact with any town buildings.

OK, I have seen some problems like that, but thought they were fixed. Will check.

[Tibarius]

new angband classes

Well, fine if you guys like it. I dislike playing this way, and so i expect the game will loose me as player. That should not reduce the work of Nick, but for me the stuff presented in the last version is not Angband anymore.

[Darin]

fox form oddity

Been playing around with the Druid class and it is a lot of fun. One oddity is that in fox form I can't pick up objects as expected, but I can pick up gold. Maybe my fox form has a collar that doubles as a money belt?

[Hrrunstar]

maybe nothing but I see the following error on start up in a win 10 system:

Parse error in C:\Users\Jeremi\Documents\My Games\angband-win-4.1.2-47-gecdb7011\angband-4.1.2-47-gecdb7011\lib\tiles\shockbolt\graf-shb.prf line 458 column 5: : unrecognized sval

and then all creatures are text characters and money is $, tiles for other things - minor

[Sky]

found a bit of an issue with Shape Change. if you are in animal shape, you cannot revert back if you are blind or confused.
in order to un-blind or -confuse yourself, you need to revert back (to use potions). essentially if you get blinded or confused, your only option is to hold down the arrow key and hope to survive.

[mrfy]

Well, fine if you guys like it. I dislike playing this way, and so i expect the game will loose me as player. That should not reduce the work of Nick, but for me the stuff presented in the last version is not Angband anymore.

By "last version" do you mean 4.1.2, or the future magic revamp version we've been talking about in this thread? You're more than welcome to continue playing 4.1.2, or to make your own changes as you were talking about previously. From the discussion it sounds like Nick is making it easier to make your own version of the mage class, it's just unlikely to make it back into Vanilla.

There's nothing wrong with continuing to play 4.1.2, if that fits your play style.

[olivertheorem]

Long-time lurker/player, first-time poster. Been following this thread with much interest, and I am intrigued to see just where Nick's concept leads.

Posting in response to Tibarius' concerns that Nick's direction is in the wrong direction. If I have read your posts correctly, Tibarius, your primary concern is that a mage in 4.1.2 has too few "power steps" compared to other classes, due to reliance on spellbooks for much of their power, and that Nick's concept is only going to exacerbate that problem. To the contrary, I think it mitigates it somewhat.

While, yes, there will be fewer "power steps" based on spells, as Derakon mentioned the greater reliance on devices (gnome auto-ID ftw) means that while a few steps are lost on spells (due to fewer books), you gain more steps due to the greater reliance on equipment. For example, take lighting spells, now lost to the branch mage in the spellbook. The power curve now makes this mage rely first on scrolls, then on wands/staves, and finally on rods of Illumination (rooms)/Light (corridors). Thus, what was one step (lvl 3 spell in book 1 if memory serves) is now at least 3, smoothing the power curve.

In short, if you take the mage's power solely as being from spells, your concern is valid, but since the equipment side still exists and will be a greater share of the branch mage's power, once tuned the branch mage ought to have a smoother power curve than the existing one, even if a given playstyle is now more dependent upon equipment.

All of that said, I find your idea of a spellbook that you fill with spells found in the dungeon (black market too maybe) to be rather interesting as well, and if you were so inclined to develop it into a variant I'd give it a go. Some interesting directions you could go with that, again if you were so inclined.

[mrfy]

All of that said, I find your idea of a spellbook that you fill with spells found in the dungeon (black market too maybe) to be rather interesting as well, and if you were so inclined to develop it into a variant I'd give it a go. Some interesting directions you could go with that, again if you were so inclined.

I'd also be interested in trying out Tibarius' variant, if he makes one. I'm also content with seeing where Nick's ideas take the magic classes. So far, I've liked what I've heard, but I'm still playing 4.1.2 at the moment.

[PowerWyrm]

I don't think having more or less spellbooks is an issue. The Mage class is already very powerful with the big boost in magic devices, so you can pretty much play comfortably without ever using a spell. Hell you even can win the game with an egoless bookless hobbit mage!

The problem is that currently you still have a spell system based off D&D with many spells that you never use and just cast them to get the exp off them. So getting less spells per class is actually a good idea. If it was me, I would have removed the spellbooks completely and make spellcasting based off skills that are learned automatically as the character levels up, and compensate the advantage of not having to carry books by reducing the number of inventory slots for spellcasters.

Say we keep the spellbooks... now the problem is that with more classes you have more spellbooks, which means less chance of finding the ones you need in the dungeon. What we would need is some kind of adjustment for drops that would give slightly more chances to find your own classes' books compared to all other books.

[Sky]

while in fox form, you sometimes can see the item you are walking on, and some other times you can't.

[Sky]

do a druid's shapeshifted melee attacks cause confusion?????

[Tibarius]

While, yes, there will be fewer "power steps" based on spells, as Derakon mentioned the greater reliance on devices (gnome auto-ID ftw) means that while a few steps are lost on spells (due to fewer books), you gain more steps due to the greater reliance on equipment. For example, take lighting spells, now lost to the branch mage in the spellbook. The power curve now makes this mage rely first on scrolls, then on wands/staves, and finally on rods of Illumination (rooms)/Light (corridors). Thus, what was one step (lvl 3 spell in book 1 if memory serves) is now at least 3, smoothing the power curve.

But i don't like using wands / staves / rods basically. Too much hazzle to inscribe items to not have them rely on inventory position and then check for available charges etc. I just play with spellbooks and see in the main screen my mana supply - ready - go! Most of the time i even do not care for activateable items unless they have soooo much more power than my spells but that is mostly true for very low level mages.

So the direction the main game goes is very bad for my playing style.
=> Me the player is forced to rely on things i don't want to rely on. The game stops being fun for me.

For the main concept i just state the following:
(1) The dungeon gets darker the deeper you go. So light is basically an essential for any class that targets mainly in non-melee. => and all non-melee classes had the light spell available.
(2) There are pickaxes and the mage classes had access to stone to mud. I think that is an essential for 'sneaky' classes. I use it often to move shortest way to stairs, or connect tunnels or dig attack tunnels for bolt spells.

Besides that loosing haste self at around level 30-35 is an extreme difference since speed is maybe the main power boost a character can get. Loosing that with no compensation is just a pain if you compare old mage to new mage.

I like druids concept and i think light/priest spells required an overwork.
But destroying the mage class is just not required. And if we would be pricky about the magic realms separation - then fire/water(ice)/acid/elec spells would surely NOT belong to the arcane realm because they are natural effects.

I am willing to design a class relying solely on spellbooks (or preferable) on spells alone (that is without recharge possibility) . If Nick is willing to support me in this cause i am done within 24 hours with the first class.txt file. If it happens in the next days before my next job starts. I could either design the necromant path, or a new class like wizard (even tho wizard and mage would maybe not be too distinguished).

[olivertheorem]

But i don't like using wands / staves / rods basically. Too much hazzle to inscribe items to not have them rely on inventory position and then check for available charges etc. I just play with spellbooks and see in the main screen my mana supply - ready - go! Most of the time i even do not care for activateable items unless they have soooo much more power than my spells but that is mostly true for very low level mages.

So the direction the main game goes is very bad for my playing style.
=> Me the player is forced to rely on things i don't want to rely on. The game stops being fun for me.

That is a piece I don't think you had stated before, at least not explicitly, and it does explain why in your posts you generally don't mention items. The greater clarity on your playing style is appreciated, and I understand better now why you disagree with Nick's direction.