New Feature for V

[awldune]

What if Mages could cast two spells/round after a given clvl, like the Ranger's extra shots?

Might be enough to encourage spellcasting if we also reduced mana costs for the attack spells.

[Atarlost]

Extra shots, like spread blows, are needed to compensate for the single target nature of bows and melee. Since area effectig magic is available fast casting is unneccessary.

What the mage needs, well everyone actually, is to have bows/crossbows brought down to the same damage level as melee or lower. Then you only need to bring magic up to the level of melee, rather than making it compete with Harad firing seeker bolts of slay evil(+9, +9)

[buzzkill]

Not that I play V but (maybe someday), how about defensive spells that toggle on/off. They consume a low amount of mana to initially cast, then consume a little mana periodically (based on spell level, caster level), then consume more when stressed (in the case of a shield type spell).

[will_asher]

DaJAngband has a wizard lock spell which creates doors, a telekinesis spell which picks up objects from a distance (must be in line of sight), and temporary telepathy spell (though it doesn't have the extra effects you mentioned when combined with permanent telepathy).
I also plan to implement wieldable staffs, including a Staff of Mana which allows you to cast spells using staff charges rather than mana.
I might consider a couple other of your ideas also. I like the idea of a temporary walk through walls spell or a breath shield spell (though I would use breath shield as a timed effect which gives damage reduction vs breath weapons instead of it being a rune on the floor).

[Nick]

The next version of FA is planned to have a big update of mage spells. The centrepiece of this will be more runes, for example:
Rune of the Elements - this increases the power of elemental spells cast while
the player is standing on it, and decreases the power of elemental monster spells
that pass over it.

As currently with runes of protection, there will be limits on how many can exist at once.

[Narvius]

By the way, another obvious idea I forgot:
Temporary high resists.

[aeneas]

By the way, another obvious idea I forgot:
Temporary high resists.

I think this is a really bad idea. I guess potions of rPoison have made it into V now, and I think even that is a bad idea.

[rdermyer]

Maybe the breath shield spell wouldn't prevent the explosion of the breaths, but you place it in front of you and when the breath passes over it, that's when it explodes. You know, put it in the hallway 5 or 6 squares ahead of you and when the dragon/hound/whatever breathes at you, then the explosions would trigger at the rune instead of hitting you.

[will_asher]

..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

I would really like to do something similar to this, but I can't figure out how when all the variables and functions seem to be declared as integers.
How could you do 120 * 1.1 when it would truncate it to 120 * 1 ?

[zaimoni]

I would really like to do something similar to this, but I can't figure out how when all the variables and functions seem to be declared as integers.
How could you do 120 * 1.1 when it would truncate it to 120 * 1 ?

120*11/10 works (or, if you want to emphasize, (120*11)/10).

[PowerDiver]

How could you do 120 * 1.1 when it would truncate it to 120 * 1 ?

It's not a problem. Unless you go to some effort, the compiler computes 120 * 1.1 as a floating point operation.

eddie@linux:/tmp> more test.c
#include <stdio.h>
main() { int x = 120 * 1.1; printf ("%d\n", x); }
eddie@linux:/tmp> gcc test.c
eddie@linux:/tmp> ./a.out
132

[Atarlost]

The Angband community doesn't like floating point math. What you actually do is multiply 120 by 11 and then divide by 10, or even 110 and divide by 100 if you think you might ever want a 25% or 33% boost.