New Feature for V

[bpleshek]

This is a feature i'm adding into my version and was wondering what others thought about it. There has been much discussion about mage's being mostly warriors who can cast spells while spells that do damage are not very useful at high levels. I would like to add a magic power feature to the system. Here is how it would work. All damage would be multiplied by the magic power multiplier. A "normal" character would have a magic power multiplier of 1.0. This would be class, level, race, and equipment dependent. This allows a mage to cast a better spell than an equivalent level ranger or other spell casting class.

Class Multiplier LVL bonus
Mage 1.0 .05
Rogue .8 .04
Ranger .7 .03

Every 5 levels the LVL bonus would be added to the class multiplier so that at level 50, the mage would have a class multiplier of 1.5.

Race Multiplier - Human 1.0
Dunaden 1.1
High Elf 1.15
Half-Orc 0.75

I just made up the numbers for the example, they would have to be balanced.

Equipment Bonus

Certain equipment could provide a bonus of either ego or non-ego values. A robe of Spellcasting[0, +5] (+5) could provide a 1.05 multiplier and they would be additive also allowing for penalties as well, so that Gloves of Accuracy might actually have a penalty to the equipment bonus. The ego values would be [Empower] which would be (+50) or x1.5 and [Maximize] which forces the RNG to not roll, but assume max values for all spells. There could be other ego values such as [Mana-Half] which would reduce mana usage by half, perhaps having this be an activated "spell" that could be used once per 500 turns, [Maximize] too.

Adding it all up

The final damage caused by a spell would then be calculated by the following:

damage rolled(spell based) * Race Bonus * Class Bonus * Equipment Bonus

This could add up quite nicely IF proper penalties for shooting or fighting were added to compensate. Maybe as a mage you couldn't wield any weapon that weighed more than 5.0 regardless of STR without getting a -10 ToHit per 1.0 above 5.0.

Take the following example of a Firebolt for a level 50 dunaden mage with a [Maximize] ego item:

6+(pLev-5)/5 d8 ==> 6+9 ....15d8 MAX 120

Roll 120 damage.

120 * 1.1 * 1.5 = 198 damage

Thoughts?

Brian

[Elsairon]

I like the idea of mages being able to use thier spells as a main attack rather than having to use weapons to keep up.

IMO you're on the right track for that.

[andrewdoull]

I like the idea of mages being able to use thier spells as a main attack rather than having to use weapons to keep up.

IMO you're on the right track for that.

I've written a ten part (so far) article on designing a magic system on the Ascii Dreams blog, with reference to Angband you may want to look at. My main analysis of the problems from the latest part is:

Angband spell casters have a number of problems that I wanted to address in Unangband. Firstly, and most paradoxically, the damage output for spell casters is too low, which means they end up relying on other attacks than their spell books, and spells primarily to provide heals, teleports, cures and so on. Secondly, the mana stat is too inflexible a restriction, particularly at low levels – once a character runs out of mana, they have to run away and rest (until they find rare and powerful mana granting items deep in the dungeon). And finally, every spell caster can learn all the spells they have available to them – there is no opportunity for specialisation at the cost of available spells.

I believe however that there is much more complexity than just boosting damage. Have a read and give me your feedback.

Andrew

[bpleshek]

Well I was going to add another resistance to the mix too, spell resistance but I was going to spell out the details in another post. I'll check out your post.

Brian

[PowerDiver]

Mages are already weak with combat, so I don't see why you need to make them weaker. The reason they fight is because spellcasting is pathetic. I also think your system makes it hard for the player to keep track of what is going on.

Why not simply double the damage of all damage spells, and increase the mana for lower level chars? Perhaps give an additional 4 mana per cLevel irrespective of spell stat.

[bpleshek]

The idea was to make a mage ACT like a mage, not a fighter with spells. He should be a very weak fighter. I wanted to change the power of spells cast by non-mages as well as add to the number of total spells. Angband already has a ton of things to keep track of, fortunately, the computer will do all calcuations for them. The basics is that a mage casts a spell better than a ranger does at the same level and allows for more power if you have the right equipment. It's no different than Might for a bow. x3 becomes x4 is no harder to think of than a +10% spell damage bonus for wearing the "Robe of Vecna". Mages then will look for gear that would add to their spell power or reduce mana usage just like rangers look for gear that increases missile damage.

Also, magic power could also determine "buff" like spell length. Rather than haste self lasting plev+d20 turns it might be plev +d20 * magic power.

Brian

[fyonn]

I agree that high level mages should be able to use spells for attack a lot more. all the basic spells are element based and any decent monster is resistant. that's fine for the lower level mosters but when you get a decent way in, then I think mages need more big damage dealing spells, at lower cost.

I think this could be acheived by making the existing spells more powerful or maybe even adding more non-resistable spells.

for all that, I still don't think a mage should be prevented from fighting. a grizzled level 50 mage has been around long enough to know how to handle himself with a sword. in fact we can even find glamdring, gandalf's own sword and it's not a bad find by any means.

I kind of think that a mage should be able to do serious damage at a distance much like a ranger can with a good bow and arrow set, but lets not remove his ability to hand to hand where he can. after all, he might well run out of mana and need to finish the job.

dave

PS. but then, I miss having GoI in the quiver...

[Atarlost]

I agree on not nerfing mage melee, or if mage melee is nerfed either a "war mage" class should be introduced.

As to how to improve magic, I think mages should be able to do with magic what a fighter can do with a heavy crossbow. A mage should be able to do as much unresistable damage per round as a good ego heavy crossbow firing +9, +9 bolts with an x2 slay applied. I think mana use, max mana, and restore mana availability should be such that a mage can fire off as many good offensive spells as a fighter can reasonably carry crossbow bolts. If mana is not increased or cost decreased to that degree the spells need to do even more damage. Or we can go the other way and nerf bows until they are weaker than melee/magic for everyone except rangers.

[bpleshek]

The reason that a fighter is powerful with a weapon is because of practice. The more he practices, the better he becomes. The same likely applies to spells. The more one uses it, the more one ought to be adept at it. We assume that a mage practices spells much more often than he does swords because he doesn't study it. I wasn't suggesting a total nerf, but the fact is all mages now play as warriors in the end game. They should play as spellcasters. There are plenty of decent small weighted weapons(and more can be added if necessary) but the best weapon in the game(whatever it is) shouldn't be wielded with just a slight penalty for a mage over a fighter. The numbers i used like -10 to-hit per pound was just an example and balance would have to be found, but barring a really unique weapon, the mage should be a spellcaster. I'm not saying that the mage cannot wield a 17.0 pound Battle Axe of Balli Stonehand for the bonuses it provides or the 40.0 pound Mace of Disruption, but you cannot hand this weapon to some mage and expect him to be *nearly* as good with it as the warrior because the mage has his STR and DEX to 18/***. I'm not advocating for a skill based system as that is an entirely different subject and I believe the focus of SA. A warrior cannot use spells at high levels, why should a mage be able to use ANY weapon at high levels at good effectiveness.

Brian

[will_asher]

Something I've been working on with DaJangband, is separating the mage class into two separate classes: the war mage (a class which can actually use magic primarily for combat, and isn't as good at non-combat related spells) and the wizard (pretty similar to the mage now except not quite as frail and not quite as good at the combat spells, focussing more on defensive and utility spells).

I still debating on how to make the war mage suitably powerful in combat magic to make his magic more effective than weapons. I'm thinking one easy way to do it would be to make every item which grants intelligence also grant extra magic power. I'm also going to make him start with extra mana.
Also, in the next version of DaJAngband, there will be aligned weapons. Bad weapons give bonueses to black magic (necromancers, assassins), and good weapons give spell bonuses to those who use the prayer realm. War mages, though they don't use the black realm, will also get a bonus from bad weapons. Aligned character classes also get a penalty for weilding opposite aligned weapons.

[PowerDiver]

the best weapon in the game(whatever it is) shouldn't be wielded with just a slight penalty for a mage over a fighter. Brian

You do not seem to understand the hit scheme. Mages currently have a huge penalty compared to fighters. A mage with the same weapon probably does less than half damage when you account for number of blows and lesser hit rolls, and that is assuming heroism etc. Without buffing spells, a level 45 mage might get as low as 1/3 as many hits on Morgoth as a level 45 fighter with the same weapon. With a xbow, the fighter hits M 50% more often [or equivalently the mage one third less often], which while much closer is still a noticeable difference.

Mage combat is already nerfed, with the exception of unlimited branded ammo. The problem is that mage damage spells are nerfed even more severely.

Take out ammo branding, and double [or triple] the damage of spells, and mages might play the way you want.

[Storch]

Mages

Mages are very interesting to play and require specific play style. I think it is good that their combat is bad. It they were able to deal damage well, the main difference between warrior type and mage type would be lost and with it the different kinds of fun that come from playing different classes.

Late in the game mages are quite a good fighters, but is the equipment with huge bonuses that does the fighting as mages improve only slighly. I think it is good that mage with super weapon and armor is as good a fighter as warrior with common equipment.

Utility spells are excellent and well aligned with mage gameplay. They represent very important aspect of mage - a guy who lives by his wits.

What I do not like in Vanilla is that many spells are useless. For example all the elemental bolts and balls, sleep, slow, confuse etc. are of only very limited use. They are mana inefficient and resisted by many opponents. Good bow and arrows are usually better.

If I created a new variant, I would leave the mage to be a bad fighter, got rid of useless spells and created new ones. Theese new spells should not give the mage offensive power comparable to warriors but rather ability to defeat opponents by tricks, avoiding harm etc. Examples of these spells could be "Smoke screen", effective sleep and confuse, controllable teleport, "ESP", "Stealth", whatever.

BTW, I am not sure if Destruction and Banishments are not too powerfull, but I love them since I prefer not to use AI exploits like antisummon corridors.

If I only had the time for Angband

[bpleshek]

With the magic power idea it makes for great tradeoffs. Do I want another Ring of Speed +10 or a Ring of Magic Might (+25) (ie 25% magic damage bonus).

Powerdiver, maybe you're right about how much it's nerfed already, and my numbers above were most likely too harsh of a penalty, but i wanted to make a mage be a mage. Think of the middle ages. Give a peasant a sword and put him up against a knight and he'll never hit the knight. The mage just isn't trained in martial combat, but rather magical combat. i intend to solve the damage problem with the magic power multipliers. Once you add in class bonus, race bonus, and equipment bonuses the amount of damage a mage spell could do might be staggaring. Wouldn't potentially adding x3.5 damage to the top end of the spells compensate for their current lack of power?

Example:
mage 1.0
high elf 1.25 + .05(per 5 levels)
Robe of Vecna 1.25
Ring of Powerful Magicks 1.25
Amulet of Wizardry 1.1

At level 50
1 * 1.75 * 1.25 * 1.25 * 1.1 = 3.007 (magic damage multiplier)

Mana Storm = 300 +plev *2 = 400 * 3.007 = 1200

Balancing would have to be done to make sure damage power didn't get out of hand, but it would definatly take care of making spellcasters more powerful. Take Ringil for example, unless my math is wrong,

Ringil 4d5 (+10, +10)

Average 10+10=20 damage
slay x2 = 40
attacks x6 = 240 average damage per round

If you had an execute evil weapon the damage would be upwards of 600/round.

And of course creature immunities would also help keep spells in check as only certain spells may be effective and therefore the more efficient spells manawise, may not be feasible.

Add that to the fact that high level multipliers would be late game artifacts or drops and the mage shouldn't become too powerful too early.

Brian

[PowerDiver]

With the magic power idea it makes for great tradeoffs. Do I want another Ring of Speed +10 or a Ring of Magic Might (+25) (ie 25% magic damage bonus).

You need to make up your mind what your goal is.

The reason a mage uses a xbow instead of spells is that spells are too limited to get the job done. Anything you do, at all, that requires a tradeoff to make spells more damaging is directly counterproductive to your previously stated goal of getting mages to spell rather than shoot or fight.

Your ideas may be a lot of fun if properly implemented, or not, I cannot say. However, most of them hinder rather than promote what I thought you were talking about.

For example, the choice quoted, I read as "if you want the speed necessary so Morgoth does not double-move on you, you better shoot instead of spellcasting because after swappng in =speed your spells just lost their punch".

[Narvius]

What would make Mages much more powerful in my opinion:
1. An early 0%-fail chance. You know, like around clvl 10 at int 18/60 for the first few spells.

2. Being able to successfully use all that status inducing magic on uniques.

3. More awesome utility spells.
- lock door / make door indestructible (to fend off either door-opening or door-bashing monsters)
- create door
- melee attack / spell jamming for enemies (actually, uniques should be immune to that one)
- all that awesome status inducing magic foes have - stun or slow, for example
- breath shield (a single-field "rune" that prevents explosion of all breaths that hit it - could be trampled like a rune of protection when walked over by a creature higher-level than you - to avoid killing ancient super awesome instakilling dragons of you-are-dead-now-ness without getting harmed)
- guided phase door
- temporary telepathy (together with permanent it would always detect strange-minded creature and rarely detect undetected ones, similar to permanent + temporary resistance giving immunity)
- temporary passing through walls (severe damage when you get stuck or some short time limit to recast it or cast some other saving spell before instadeath)
- swap place with visible monster (advanced form - swap place with detected monster)
- pickup visible item from afar (detected item would be too powerful - vault clearing without entering it and stuff)
- manipulate monster position (push, pull, teleport to self, teleport detected ones to self)
- ability increasing buffs (stealth, magic device, even fighting)
- stat increasing buffs (temporary)

Some of these would be vastly powerful spells without actually doing any damage, I believe.

4. Weapons for mages. Or, like some (or one? I don't remember) variants do, equippable staves. Probably increasing their power by that (like increasing range of detection staves or a chance to preserve the charge when using one - mages are masters of magic devices, after all, right?). Probably shortened recharge time for equipped Rods...

5. Using rods and wands at increased damage output. Like shooter's might (3x, for example) - a rod of lightning bolts (x3) could be quite useable I think. Rod Might would be depending on intelligence and magic device skills. Combining it with 4. - the rod of lightning bolts (x3) could get another point of might for being equipped (like, a) Rod of Lightning Bolts (x4)...)

...now that I'm reading it again, Mages would be extremely overpowered like that, I think. It's cool nonetheless.