Preparation for Angband 4.2.1: classes

[Adam]

@Adan--can't bring back attack potions without getting rid of use-ID. Detonations and Death mean it is impossible past the early levels in old versions of V. I suppose you could make them leave you with 1 HP (min) instead.

Good point, i did not think about this issue. Thanks for pointing it out.

[wobbly]

I'm not a big fan of throwing potions. I mean I'd be a little confused why a dwarf is throwing its beer at me, but apart from that I don't think they work that way. Halls of Mist has throwing powders and Sangband has alchemical grenades. I'm not sure either really fit but they are certainly ideas.

[wobbly]

• Backstab

There's a little check in critical hits "is debuffed" that's checking for held, stunned or confused. Even if you don't add in full on backstab I feel this should be checking sleep & possibly fear.

[DavidMedley]

That's an easy add, should the powers that be approve it. The value of it is +10 to-hit for the crit calc only.

[archolewa]

I was imagining that only Rogues can throw potions offensively, and they have a high device skill, so youd have to make sure the potions do something different from wands.

One option is that you dont add any potions, and when a Rogue throws them, they do the inverse of what they do when you drink them. So CCW does damage and inflicts a bunch of statuses. Obviously the damage would need to be capped, or potions of Life would make Rogues insanely OP.

The idea is that crafty Rogues are able to poison or tweak the potions a bit. After all there is a fine line between medicine and poison.

[Bogatyr]

Gotta speak up for mages -- I think the 4.2.0 recharge/tap behavior is spot on and adds a lot of fun and new strategies to mages and should remain as is. Mages are masters of magical energy and devices: storage, retrieval, and usage (device bonus), it makes sense that they are very good at it.

They are also masters of battlefield management, and they must be, because with low HP they cannot stand in the open against any single or group enemy with instakill attack potential. Dimension door is great as is in 4.2.0, don't mess with it further.

Mages have crap HP, crap STR, crap fighting, so they need just compensation to remain fun: 4.2.0 has already seen the loss of several key utility spells (spear of light and stone to mud) that requires burning two precious inventory slots to make up for. The price of the mage is early game tiptoe-ing and the compensation should remain great end game power.

If fast cast is seen as too overpowering in the endgame, give it a character speed dependent backoff curve. Since it replaces haste self, always a key moment in any mage's maturation, reducing it below 2x in the early game (where character speed is 1.0) is far too much of a penalty. If mana storm is too strong, give it a higher failure rate.

Summary: I find mages in 4.2.0 *FUN*. I did not like the loss of utility spells at first, but the compensation from recharge, device bonus, tap, fast cast, and dimension door made up for it. If those are going to be nerfed, there should be equivalent compensation. I hope they're not, because again, they're fun!

[Bogatyr]

In fact, I'd like to see tap *expanded*. Why not be able to tap any magical item (except for artifacts) to "suck out" their enchantments and convert them to mana (leaving them +0+0 afterwards)? All of a sudden, those piles of useless "good" items now have a viable use! Just like how all the useless wands/staffs are a pleasure to encounter now with tap!

[Saru]

+1 to letting tap disenchant items for mana. I'm in the camp of not nerfing mages since I think that their downsides compensate for their strengths nicely, while still keeping them interesting. Although I guess if they get nerfed I can continue playing old versions

[Bogatyr]

+1 to letting tap disenchant items for mana. I'm in the camp of not nerfing mages since I think that their downsides compensate for their strengths nicely, while still keeping them interesting. Although I guess if they get nerfed I can continue playing old versions

Sure, but then you don't get all the new goodness, which is why it's worth speaking up for behavior that is fine and doesn't need tweaking.

The mage already suffered a huge loss of utility and other spells (I'm missing *Destruction* a lot, spear of light, stone to mud, elemental brand, enchant, etc.) with the spellbook overhaul. The new tap/recharge behavior goes a long way to make up for those losses....except if it's nerfed, then there's much less compensation.