Mage Spells

[Timo Pietilä]

The advantages mages have over priests:

* Haste Self
* Temporary resistance to acid/elec/poison
* Door Creation
* Higher-damaging attack magic (but also more expensive)
* Several utility spells (blink, teleport, identify) show up earlier
* Better device skill

Don't forget banishments. Mass and normal banish at will is great tool for survival and getting rid of annoying things that are in your way to your whatever goal you have at the moment.

[Derakon]

Sorry, you're right -- banishment and mass banishment are big factors in the mage's favor. Magic Missile is no longer their best attack spell, though, as spell costs were re-regularized; now IIRC Meteor Storm and Rift are tied for best efficiency and of course Mana Storm has the best DPS. The various elemental bolt spells are also significantly more useful.

I covered Identify under the "earlier utility spells". Though personally, I only view that as helping to make up for the mage's pathetic Strength, since he can't afford to carry a big stack of ID scrolls or a staff of ID.

The mage's basic recharging spell is worse than using scrolls (as is the priest's only recharging spell), though if you're going to take advantage of the mage's better device skill I could believe you'd end up casting it frequently anyway, since the alternative would be carrying scrolls into the dungeon (c.f. noodly arms).

[Cold_Heart]

Way to convenienly forget about the best attack spell (magic missile), best recharging, identify from shop book at 11, banishment and mass banishment.

[Derakon]

The advantages mages have over priests:

* Haste Self
* Temporary resistance to acid/elec/poison
* Door Creation
* Higher-damaging attack magic (but also more expensive)
* Several utility spells (blink, teleport, identify) show up earlier
* Better device skill

The advantages priests have over mages:

* Big healing spells
* Orb of Draining (cheap, effective, and shows up early)
* Banish Evil
* Detection
* Clairvoyance (EDIT: and Sense Surroundings, much earlier)
* Slightly better melee
* No need to kill Kavlax
* +d2 hit die (~+50 HP at level 50)
* Less noodly arms (+2 relative STR)
* Much better constitution (+3 relative CON)

[Philip]

And because of 0% heal, *heal, teleport, teleport away and orb of draining. Mages get somewhat more powerfull damage magic, door creation, teleportation and also have a lot of wasted spells.

[ekolis]

And yet even with all these "wasted" spells, priests are still easier than mages.

Likely because priests can actually melee, whereas mages are totally helpless in that regard...

[Derakon]

Healing schemealing. The current reason to use a less effective spell is because it's more mana efficient. A scaling healing spell should (in my perfect world) only be able to be cast at maximum efficacy. It the casters is in need of lesser healing he can quaff potion or rely on regeneration (or go without). That's the down side. The up side is that there are now a number a free spell slots that can be imaginatively filled with useful spells.

Well, if that's all the upside you need, there's tons of slots available already:

* Remove Curse
* Teleport
* Chant
* Prayer
* Slow Poison
* Scare Monster
* Sanctuary
* Turn Undead
* Everything in Holy Infusions

And yet even with all these "wasted" spells, priests are still easier than mages.

[buzzkill]

Having a spell that scales with character level can certainly work, but it's not straightforward to implement well. How do you handle the cost of casting the spell? It should scale with the spell's power, or else you end up with a ridiculously powerful spammable spell. But then you lose the option of paying less for less healing -- unless you want to implement some kind of "how much power do you want to spend" prompt, which would be a completely new interface issue.

Healing schemealing. The current reason to use a less effective spell is because it's more mana efficient. A scaling healing spell should (in my perfect world) only be able to be cast at maximum efficacy. It the casters is in need of lesser healing he can quaff potion or rely on regeneration (or go without). That's the down side. The up side is that there are now a number a free spell slots that can be imaginatively filled with useful spells.

[Derakon]

Having a spell that scales with character level can certainly work, but it's not straightforward to implement well. How do you handle the cost of casting the spell? It should scale with the spell's power, or else you end up with a ridiculously powerful spammable spell. But then you lose the option of paying less for less healing -- unless you want to implement some kind of "how much power do you want to spend" prompt, which would be a completely new interface issue.

I will grant this is more of an issue with attack spells, where you generally want some combination of spells that are good at dealing with weak targets and spells that shove huge amounts of mana around for big damage -- but it still applies to healing spells too.

ToME 2 has spell power scaling with spells, as well as a type of spell where you can choose the power you put into it, but the latter is buggy as hell and the former has a few balance issues.

[Cold_Heart]

There should be one general (HP) healing spell and it should scale with character level.

This makes sense.

[buzzkill]

There should be one general (HP) healing spell and it should scale with character level.

[mixer]

I believe that biasing the learning of spells but still random would give the result that I wish and give the balance that you wish for. I agree that the middle heals cost too much for use in the middle of combat. I do normally play a Dwarvern Priest. I have been playing this game for over 24 years and I remember having to dropping books to be given the wanted spell so definitley don't want to go that way.

[Therem Harth]

Cold_Heart: ToME 2 did that, and it didn't really work. See for instance Melkor followers' infamous auto-Curse ability. Or any Alchemist. This guy in particular should drive the point home.

Mind, T2 was a very fun game. But IMO it would be even more fun if some things had been nerfed early on. Instead the power levels were allowed to explode, pushing some classes into anime superhero territory... And leaving others in the dust.

[Philip]

I sincerely hope Cold_Heart is joking. Nerfing is always a good solution if one thing is overpowered, it's usually a good solution if 3/4 of all the objects of a certain type are overpowered.

[Derakon]

That, and also making a game a bit more difficult in some other aspect, is one good way to do it.

I hope you realize that I was being sarcastic. If you have a situation in which the game is generally balanced except for one overpowered thing, then nerfing that overpowered thing is exactly equivalent to powering up everything else, except that the nerf is far easier to implement than the powerup -- and thus, less likely to introduce other over powered things. Nerfs are every bit as important as buffs when it comes to balancing games.

Moreover, a game in which every imbalance is addressed by powerups will have a very different feel than a game in which powerups and nerfs are used more even-handedly. It'd be like the difference between a tabletop roleplaying game where everyone gets fully kitted-out in magical gear and one in which the entire party has a single magical item between them that they must carefully treasure. Both can lead to satisfying gaming experiences, but they're very different gaming experiences.

In this particular case, it's not obvious that CLW is necessarily overpowered, but it is true that it's overpowered by comparison with CMW and CSW. Thus a nerf isn't necessarily a terrible idea.