Angband 4.2.0

[Nick]

It just seems to me that rather than darkening a room or large cavern, etc., a necro could wrap themselves in darkness, like you have done for some of the new monsters (black huorn). A necro that did this would be able to cross a large lighted room without losing sight of everything in the room as he does when he casts darkness and he can no longer keep track of all those monsters.

I have thought quite hard about this, and I don't think I want to do it - here are my reasons:

1. Spell design - it's not obvious to me what the duration, radius, level, mana cost and fail rate of such a spell should be. It seems that it has potential to be not at all useful, or too useful; this plays into the other reasons too.
2. Philosophy - necromancy is meant to be a dark art, and against the natural order. Necromancers are designed to be hard and awkward to start, and to constantly need to make sacrifices and tradeoffs for their powers. I feel that the current tension between darkening a room for better spellcasting and leaving it lit for better vision is a good representation of this.
3. Overlap - the use case for this spell overlaps considerably with create darkness. If it were to replace create darkness, then the player would lose the functionality of room mapping; if both were kept, it's a bit redundant. In addition, the necro's vision radius increases with level so that not being able to see monsters is a diminishing problem.

All that said, necromancer is a new class and likely to need tweaking; I don't want to discourage suggested improvements. I'm not altogether against the idea. I just feel that it goes some way to removing the intentional difficulties of the class, and risks losing its distinctiveness.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Why do you want this?

It just seems to me that rather than darkening a room or large cavern, etc., a necro could wrap themselves in darkness, like you have done for some of the new monsters (black huorn). A necro that did this would be able to cross a large lighted room without losing sight of everything in the room as he does when he casts darkness and he can no longer keep track of all those monsters.

[Nick]

I would like to suggest an additional spell for Necromancers, "Shroud of Darkness". When cast, it would create a radius of darkness that travels with the @, just as the radius of light does when carrying a lantern.

Why do you want this?

[DavidMedley]

darkness that travels with the @

Not bad! The necro already travels with a shroud of darkness. I think the key is the necro's darkness needs to fight against the light, which is where a spell like this might come in. Rooms might need to have increasing levels of light for this to work, tho... if it's always just magnitude 1 ambient light then the whole idea of necros casting poorly in the light will be moot.

I'm getting much better at manipulating light and dark now. Stand in dark, use rod of light toward what you want to see... not too bad.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I would like to suggest an additional spell for Necromancers, "Shroud of Darkness". When cast, it would create a radius of darkness that travels with the @, just as the radius of light does when carrying a lantern.

[Nick]

As a Druid under the "Fox Form" spell, is there a command that will terminate the spell? Or must you attempt a command that isn't possible while shapechanged and then respond to the ensuing "Change back to your original form? [y/n]" prompt?

Yeah, 'm' is the one.

[fruviad]

As a Druid under the "Fox Form" spell, is there a command that will terminate the spell? Or must you attempt a command that isn't possible while shapechanged and then respond to the ensuing "Change back to your original form? [y/n]" prompt?

[Derakon]

Welp. Guess I'm just going senile then.

[Werbaer]

Hm, maybe I'm getting my memories conflated with variants then, or with the pre-2.9 days (and given that ZAngband branched off of 2.8.something, those are in many ways the same thing...).

Oops, made a typo.
Had been this way at least since 2.7.9v6 (the Ben Harrison Code rewrite)

[Derakon]

Hm, maybe I'm getting my memories conflated with variants then, or with the pre-2.9 days (and given that ZAngband branched off of 2.8.something, those are in many ways the same thing...). I guess this also points to me not paying much attention to basic Slay weapons!

[Werbaer]

[...] it looks like all of the basic slays are just that: a slay with no other abilities. I'll admit it's been awhile since I played; is this new?

Has been this way at least since 2.7.9v6

[DavidMedley]

Yeah... stuff like "of Morgul" "of Gondolin" and such have an array of often complementary powers, which is cool. Slay Demon could/should have Resist Fire, and so on, so these weapons are more viable as switches.

[Derakon]

I was going to say that Slay Undead gives See Invisible, but I just checked the gamedata and it looks like all of the basic slays are just that: a slay with no other abilities. I'll admit it's been awhile since I played; is this new?

As I recall, it used to be that Slay Undead gave SI, Slay Troll gave regen, and a few others had miscellaneous powers, but now it looks like you have to get a *Slay* weapon for that. And even then, the *Slay* weapons all give a random resistance or power, with the only thematic elements being which stat they boost. I gotta say I feel like this reduces the window in which a Slay/*Slay* weapon would be plausibly useful to minuscule size.

[DavidMedley]

Here's an unrelated request: Can slay undead, or at least *slay undead* come with hold life?

[DavidMedley]

Alright, I guess Smite Evil can be good. I was wrong. The price tag and fail rate both seem very high, though.