Halls of Mist is here!

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Maybe goddesses would punish improper behavior in their altar rooms? For example, Eostre might punish the player for killing anyone in her room.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Killing something on an altar seems like a natural thing to do.

kill puppies for satan!

Yeah, goddesses would like you killing certain kinds of enemies. A goddess might give you a mission when you visited her altar -- something to be done on the current dungeon level, or maybe the next one. Succeed and you will be blessed; fail and you get her curse. You are not required to accept the mission, of course.

[buzzkill]

It'd be neat to be able to trigger off the altar with a specific item of some sort, related to the god's portfolio -- maybe getting a blessed that has a lessened duration:

Killing something on an altar seems like a natural thing to do. The XP award of the kill could determine the value/duration of the blessing. Killing a unique on an altar should always count.

Secrets: Kill something with high alertness, thus protecting secrecy. Maybe things that are always awake, things that are supposedly stealthy, like thieves and big cats.

Conflict: Kill something powerful. The bloodier the better. Optionally, kill many things.

Transformation: Kill anything that has teleport or healing abilities.

Purity: Kill an undead or a demon.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Eh? How so? Where is that documented? What determines if a monster is 'small'?

I just meant that if a monster has so few hits that any hit would kill it, having two or more blows is much better than having only one.

Another idea - I was thinking about altars. Sometimes I come across levels full of them, but as someone who's stuck in the early game (the first half of the dungeon), I have never had an ego item to spare in order to try one out -- especially since I don't know if the benefit I'll get will be useful.

Well, it's meant to be a sacrifice. I don't want it to be too easy.

I think if you continue playing the new version with more item drops, you will come across "bad" ego items eventually. Ego items are quite common in Mist actually.

Besides, a lot of Priest's and Templar's effectiveness comes from easier access to blessings. Making it easier for other classes would make these two less special.

[Starhawk]

Heavy weapons have other drawbacks, like being very unreliable against small monsters.

Eh? How so? Where is that documented? What determines if a monster is 'small'?



Another idea - I was thinking about altars. Sometimes I come across levels full of them, but as someone who's stuck in the early game (the first half of the dungeon), I have never had an ego item to spare in order to try one out -- especially since I don't know if the benefit I'll get will be useful.

It'd be neat to be able to trigger off the altar with a specific item of some sort, related to the god's portfolio -- maybe getting a blessed that has a lessened duration:

Secrets: Scrolls of Identify - or better yet, an unidentified item (keeping secrets). You could also go with Scrolls of Darkness if you wanted it to be esay. Or spellbooks of a certain power level.

Conflict: Weapon or armor worth a certain amount of gold. Or luring a monster onto the altar and killing it there.

Obsession: Gold (obsessing over wealth). Mushrooms of Hallucination (obsessing over drugs). Spellbooks of a certain value level (obsessing over power).

Transformation: Powder of Transformation! Or a wand of polymorph, if it's still in the game - haven't seen one yet.

Purity: Cure Critical Wounds potion - or a Remove Curse scroll - or something like that. Maybe a Cure Disease potion if you're being generous.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Have been playing mostly priest and rogue characters. I have some suggestions from my experience:

Priest:
1. I find the remove taint spell not that useful in its current form. The problem is that if you are fighting a demon and are tainted, casting remove taint does not protect you from getting tainted again the next round. Would suggest that the spell also grant temporary protection against tainting.
2. I've always found that the chant spell does not add much over bless. Perhaps it could give an additional advantage - maybe a slightly higher bonus.

Remove Taint could bless you for a little while if you were tainted. Bless protects from taint.

I'll reduce Chant's mana cost to 4 and make the effect last longer. That should make Chant useful.

3. I think that healing spells should heal a bit more to make them useful.

I just did earlier today! What do you think about these changes:

- Potion of Healing renamed to Cure Mortal Wounds. Potion of *Healing* renamed to Healing.
- Cure wounds spells and items altered. They used to cure either a percentage of wounds or a minimum amount of hits; now they cure a percentage of wounds *plus* some hit points. Potions and spells of the same name now heal the same amount -- potions do cure extra status effects, though. Here's how much they heal:

	Cure Light Wounds: 15% of damage + 5 hits. (Spell & Staff.)
	Cure Serious Wounds: 30% of damage + 10 hits. (Spell & Potion.)
	Cure Critical Wounds: 45% of damage + 15 hits. (Spell & Potion & Recover proficiency.)
	Cure Mortal Wounds. 60% of damage + 20 hits. (Spell & Potion.)
	Healing. 75% of damage + 25 hits. (Spell & Potion.)

4. One small bug - I cast resist heat and cold on a circle of permanence but it was still temporary.

Thanks, fixed.

General suggestions:
1. Stealth: I like the way stealth in Sil is increased if you are surrounded by walls.
2. Would be nice to have additional dungeon features that would enhance strategic playing. Maybe sunken areas where you have penalties to defense and need to jump to get out of but maybe get some protection against breath attacks. Also maybe make statues give some bonus to protection against missiles.

I'm not sure whether I like stealth increasing in tunnels. I've been trying to move fights from tunnels to rooms, where there's more room for tactical play.

Additional dungeon features sounds nice. I'll think about your ideas.

I'm considering adding chaotic and aether versions of the current terrain features. They would manifest around monsters from Chaos and Aether. If you can think of good ones, let me know!

[Squeak]

Have been playing mostly priest and rogue characters. I have some suggestions from my experience:

Priest:
1. I find the remove taint spell not that useful in its current form. The problem is that if you are fighting a demon and are tainted, casting remove taint does not protect you from getting tainted again the next round. Would suggest that the spell also grant temporary protection against tainting.
2. I've always found that the chant spell does not add much over bless. Perhaps it could give an additional advantage - maybe a slightly higher bonus.
3. I think that healing spells should heal a bit more to make them useful.
4. One small bug - I cast resist heat and cold on a circle of permanence but it was still temporary.

General suggestions:
1. Stealth: I like the way stealth in Sil is increased if you are surrounded by walls.
2. Would be nice to have additional dungeon features that would enhance strategic playing. Maybe sunken areas where you have penalties to defense and need to jump to get out of but maybe get some protection against breath attacks. Also maybe make statues give some bonus to protection against missiles.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I suppose that part of the issue is the frequent treelike structure of the levels, which means that a small region can cut them in half. That means that if you want to avoid a region and its monsters altogether you can be in trouble if the component you're in is devoid of stairs.

I think I've managed to make this much less of a problem in the next version. I added some random extra tunnels after all the rooms are already connected. It took a bit work to make the resulting dungeon look tidy, but I'm pretty happy now. There will still be problematic levels occasionally, but quite often will be able to find another way around a tough monster.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

On another note, been trying out some big/strong characters to try out the heavy-weapon charge ability you added. Wow! That's powerful stuff! Although the tradeoff of playing dumb brutes with no Lore is a little rough.

It's powerful but I don't think it's unbalanced. You don't have room to charge in every fight. Heavy weapons have other drawbacks, like being very unreliable against small monsters. And you need to invest in both STR for being able to swing the weapon and DEX for the Jumping skill. (Jumping is defined very loosely here, it's more like Running in this case.)

[Starhawk]

I can't replicate this one. What else was happening?

Nothing special really. I was running away, getting chased by Mughash and a couple of his kobold crew. I shot him with a wand of calming and got the success message. When I <l>ooked at him, his status included "calmed" but he was still swinging at me. I think I was standing on a table, can't imagine that would make a difference.


On another note, been trying out some big/strong characters to try out the heavy-weapon charge ability you added. Wow! That's powerful stuff! Although the tradeoff of playing dumb brutes with no Lore is a little rough.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

That's not going to work. Teleportation has always been about distance. To teleport and then still be in the same room, even if it rarely occurs, is a deal breaker. I'd say anywhere within the level except within LoS of previous location (or approximate hack). Warrior types aren't going to be carrying around a stack of teleport like in Angband, probably just one or two. They gotta work.

Hey, there already was a minimum distance check in the code!

You get perfect information about Teleportation when browsing the spellbook. "Displaces you to a random place on the level." Extra info: "at least 26 squares".

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I pacified Mughash the Kobold Lord and he kept right on kicking my butt (and showed as 'calmed' when <l>ooking at him). Intended?

I can't replicate this one. What else was happening?

[Starhawk]

I pacified Mughash the Kobold Lord and he kept right on kicking my butt (and showed as 'calmed' when <l>ooking at him). Intended?

[buzzkill]

Bam! Pow! Zap! Batman the roguelike!

I very nearly suggested this, and still like it, but knew it would never pass the flavor test. Alternatively, Bam! Bam, Bam, Bam! Bam!, Bam-Bam! (BBBand).

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Now that I've decided to change the mana system, what should we do with the upcoming Halls of Mist competition?

Creating your own character with no restrictions doesn't seem that good an idea in this situation.

Should we have a non-spellcaster comp? That way the mana system version wouldn't matter. We've already had a FayAngband Rogue comp. Templar would be cool -- but I've already changed the class a little in my dev version. (I've greatly simplified the proficiencies. For Templars that means that they now have Fencing always "on" and have no special proficiencies.) Warrior or the "new" Templar are the best non-spellcaster options.

Or should I playtest the new mana system with one class, say a Spellsword, and make sure it works well enough for the comp? I like the idea of competitors making their own Spellswords to showcase the possibility for different "builds".