Mage brainstorming

[Tobias]

IMO we should revisit removing the pointy penalty, and this time take the BLESSED flag out with it. In v4, of course.But there's no reason we couldn't vary this. Wands could get more charges. Or, as an alternative, mages could put a *rod* in the shooter slot (but not wands or staves), and being in it would double its recharge speed. Or something.

I was imagining something like this. I was only calling them staffs, for flavor.
I think it should work like an artifact activation and recharge.

Or how about mages getting a possibility of using a staff or wand like a rod if they hold it in their shooter slot.

[Magnate]

The problem with class-specific stuff is that it's useless to characters that aren't in that class. We already have that problem with the Blessed affix. It throws off the power calculations and creates new categories of junk.

IMO we should revisit removing the pointy penalty, and this time take the BLESSED flag out with it. In v4, of course.

I could see mages wielding wands in their shooter slots to be able to shoot them faster or something, though as it stands wands have few enough charges that this wouldn't be that useful for general combat.

But there's no reason we couldn't vary this. Wands could get more charges. Or, as an alternative, mages could put a *rod* in the shooter slot (but not wands or staves), and being in it would double its recharge speed. Or something.

[Derakon]

The problem with class-specific stuff is that it's useless to characters that aren't in that class. We already have that problem with the Blessed affix. It throws off the power calculations and creates new categories of junk.

I could see mages wielding wands in their shooter slots to be able to shoot them faster or something, though as it stands wands have few enough charges that this wouldn't be that useful for general combat.

[Estie]

Yes weapons not used for weaponing become "stat sticks". Typically for casters, or ranged weapons for melee users. I even had a fun warrior once who wielded a stat-pickaxe and used a launcher for the last fight.

Its a widespread phenomenon not restricted to Angband; WoW has it too, for example. Personally I never had a problem with it, to the contrary I find it quite amusing.

Speaking of WoW: some classes there get class-specific items which can only be used by the intended class and goes into the ranged slot. I could see something similar in Angband: a holy symbol maybe, which only priests and paladins can use and which must be equipped in the "b" slot to have effect.

[Tobias]

One thing, which might make sense for a mage:
Magic staffs for the shooter-slot. A Staff, which gives nice resists, and Activation. But has no shooting capability.
When I play my mages, I try to avoid using shooters for flavor and a more fun playstyle. But I usually end up carrying an artifact shooter anyway just for the resists.

[Therem Harth]

I always thought it was strange that the player got that but NPCs didn't. Oh well.

At any rate a lot was strange and unbalanced about the Exile games. But they were still generally fairly difficulty, at least for me... Especially when you played a one-character game, and most especially when those obnoxious web-slinging spiders showed up.

[ekolis]

Ooh, Exile, been ages since I played that... One mechanic I do remember as unusual was the "mercy hitpoint" - you know how in Angband you can survive if you wind up with exactly zero hitpoints? Well in Exile, not only could you survive on zero HP, you actually got bumped "up" to zero if an attack would have taken you from positive to negative HP! Thus the only way you could die was to take a hit WHILE you were at zero HP; this made it much easier to survive!

[Therem Harth]

I'm kind of partial to the system used by Spiderweb Software's Exile games.

- Strength controls hitpoints and damage
- Dexterity controls dodge chance and hit chance
- Intelligence controls spell power

Of course Exile is different because you can use skill points to increase any stat. In V there are no skill points, so I'd say Intelligence would also have to contribute to mana (and maybe dexterity to avoiding bad spell effects and dodging bolts and arrows). And Exile is also totally unbalanced in a lot of ways (infinite scaling of Heroism-type effects, bad effects that skip the player's turn and cannot be resisted at all, etc.).

[ekolis]

Crawl gets by with only three stats (STR, DEX, INT); in Angband, on the other hand, roughly half your stats are "dump" stats, which ones in particular they are depending on your character class! I think we could safely get rid of WIS (merge it with INT) and CHA (pretty useless to begin with); Crawl only gets away with a lack of CON stat by tying hitpoints to a "Fighting" skill instead, which probably wouldn't work for Angband (feel free to prove me wrong though)!

[Magnate]

Well then, CHA (charma) could affect 'holy' casters similarly, they having curried more or less divine favor.

I'd prefer to see the six primary stats get less important rather than more. Instead I'd like to see racial traits and object flags that add directly to mana, casting skill (== "effective clev"), reduce failure rate, etc. etc. These kind of things could also be done as class skill distinctions, but I'm conscious of Derakon's warning in a previous thread about tieing too many things to clev leading to grinding for xp.

[buzzkill]

I always thought that Dexterity should affect arcane spell fail rates.

Well then, CHA (charma) could affect 'holy' casters similarly, they having curried more or less divine favor.

[fizzix]

I'm definitely in agreement with dynamic spell lists (i.e. scribing) and different types of (empty) book having different effects on casting. Also more sophisticated armour penalties (for both casting and melee). If anyone would like to "do a Derakon" and step up to code any of this, that would be cool.

I always thought that Dexterity should affect arcane spell fail rates.

[Magnate]

They were given to specific uniques because of the general difficulties involved in finding specific artifacts. Making the Dungeon books artifacts meant that either a)Massive scumming would be needed to find the set or b)a guaranteed method of obtaining them needed to be added.

It was also a good opportunity to try out the miniboss concept, which had been discussed for years and never implemented. It's definitely not ideal, and I suspect it'll change at some point when someone has a better idea, but it's tolerable for now.

I'm definitely in agreement with dynamic spell lists (i.e. scribing) and different types of (empty) book having different effects on casting. Also more sophisticated armour penalties (for both casting and melee). If anyone would like to "do a Derakon" and step up to code any of this, that would be cool.

[Zyphyr]

The fact that specific monsters now drop those spellbooks honestly feels really weird to me, and I can't remember why it was done -- fortunately it's still possible to find the books without killing those specific monsters, though they seem to be incredibly rare at the moment (as are all artifacts).

They were given to specific uniques because of the general difficulties involved in finding specific artifacts. Making the Dungeon books artifacts meant that either a)Massive scumming would be needed to find the set or b)a guaranteed method of obtaining them needed to be added.

[Derakon]

I don't see a problem with that :P They may get the best ranged combat and a few other goodies, but it just seems so static. I thought the point of roguelikes was finding that awesome artifact Katana (+62, 0) with half a dozen runes, a couple slays, and just enough drawbacks to make it an interesting choice. Or maybe getting a high level ego item with those 2 resistances you needed to make the final plunge to the boss. Or lucking out and finding a really useful upgrade on the first visit to the weaponsmith. The most we can hope for as a mage is getting a good wand/stave/staff at a timely visit to a shop.

I see what you're saying, but I always felt that the dungeon spellbooks filled this niche. The fact that specific monsters now drop those spellbooks honestly feels really weird to me, and I can't remember why it was done -- fortunately it's still possible to find the books without killing those specific monsters, though they seem to be incredibly rare at the moment (as are all artifacts).