Diversify Poison/VM Start

[bcadren]

Poison has the least spells out of any school at 9. {Sting, Spider Form, Cure Poison, Meph. Cloud, Olgreb's Toxic Radiance, Alistair's Intoxication, Venom Bolt, Poisonous Cloud, P.Arrow}

VM is easily the hardest book start. Sting be the strongest level 1 spell early and your start book likely will carry you until the lair. But, unlike any of the other 'pure mage' backgrounds; once you hit the lair, you must branch out immediately or die from the amount of deadly rPois+ creatures there are out there {Hydras, Spiny Frogs, and Black Mambas} and Poison get's worse and worse to focus on from there on out. It's a bit of a disgrace that's it's billed as a pure caster and unlike the other casters not only has to take up melee early; but has nothing to help in that early of a situation. Wizard also needs to take up melee early. No FE startbook spell to affect rF+++ creatures is more acceptable, because you won't see any early, unless you run into Asrael or go into a Volcano.

Then later, every other spell-school has -something- that will help you in every situation and none of the others crap out so early. You can't use fire to kill rF+++ creatures; which you won't see until Pan, Zot and Gehenna; but when you do see them, you can still use RoF for the cloud immunity and rF++. Nothing in poison will do you a lick of good without Natural holiness creatures around. (In that sense it's also closely comparable to Necromancy; but then Necro has Necromutation, DDoor, Regen and Borg's which are very helpful in hell.) All these other examples are late enough that branching isn't an issue; VM starts seeing immune creatures semi-commonly in lair; then, depending on which lair branches are selected may be near useless or good for the branches. More than half things in snake have rPois, [Salamanders, Shock Serpents, Adders and Anacondas are the only things that don't]; but in Spider most things have rPois- [Emperor Scorpions and Ghost Moths are the only things that have rPois+]; similar with Swamp/Shoals; with almost everything having rPois+ in Swamp and few things in Shoals. Which can mean; if trying to do a VM 'as intended' you might be unable to complete a lair branch because of getting Snake and Swamp (25% chance).

There's also a problem of unpredictability. Orcs, Elves, non-Green Draconians, Merfolk, etc. usually are affected by poison. But, since almost all the poison effects are blocked by one pip of resistance; there's a fair chance you'll randomly get one with a ring or rPois or a Chain mail of rPois and be unable to know why you aren't affecting them. This a chance of randomly resistant for all schools; but a single added pip of rF+ isn't going to keep you from killing the elf completely, just make it harder.

Poison doesn't really have much that unique to it. Cure Poison and Spider Form aren't direct copies of things in other spellschools.

• Meph is fireball targeted; but causes confusion, instead of damage. It's more popular than FBall, because it doesn't require good spellpower to get the confusion effect; being usable by characters with only Int and Spellcasting.
• Olgreb's Toxic Radiance and Ozocubu's Refrigeration are functionally identical; only Olgreb's is cheaper, weaker and damage over time, instead of instant.
• Poisonous Cloud == Freezing Cloud; pretty much functionally identical; except again, poison works over time instead of instant and different creatures resist it. Hell these spells are more identical than Fire Storm and (now defunct) Ice Storm; and Ice Storm was changed for being too identical to Fire Storm.
• Sting and P.Arrow are identical to each other. Single Target; long range. Most powerful spell single-target attack for the early game (Sting); late game (P.Arrow) not that good around rPois+ (Sting) non-Natural holiness (P.Arrow).
• Alistair's Intoxication == Mass Confusion. Only difference is Alistair's affects you too; takes less spell levels to be effective and checks Intelligence and rPois, instead of MR.
• Venom Bolt is the same as every other bolt; except probably the weakest total (fair since it's cheaper) and again damage over time instead of all immediate.

In all these cases the theme seems to be slower and weaker the other spell schools (usually ice) but available for less XP (exception being P.Arrow)'; there's nothing GOOD unique about starting as a VM.

If you tried to be a pure blaster mage with a VM start (it's in the pure caster column so that appears to be the intended playstyle); you may expect a rather early splat. And I realize a lot of the other starts require picking up melee too; but none of them leave you with no help to either escape or deal with a dangerous situation.

Also Fire and Poison Magics have the honors of being the only spell schools where almost every spell causes direct damage (save Ring of Flames for Fire and Cure Poison and Spider for Poison) Fire makes up for being pure damaging by having a lot of unique damage patterns and forms of damage. (And Fire Storm being in the echelons of 'most powerful attack spell in the game') Poison doesn't. Confusion, damage over time. Single Target; Cloud; Full LoS. Nothing else. It could stand to have different effects. I'm not saying what effects; but just...different.

My overall point is; despite the popularity of Meph. Cloud as a side spell [and Alistair's on Transmuters] the overall theme of poison is very VERY bad to focus; with VM being easily the worst bookstart...and I feel we need to do something to diversify the start and/or the spellschool to make the VM start more viable to play the way it appears to be intended to play. Course, a simple solution would be to switch VM to the Warrior Mage category and give it more weapon background to show that it's not a start that can play like the other elementalists; because it just can't.

[duvessa]

I keep trying to get a charms focused character going but none of my charms spells are killing the monsters. This is bullshit and charms needs to be buffed

[twelwe]

Most players who advance beyond the early game also advance beyond starting skills and weapons

[n1000]

Full disclosure: The need to buff VM was discussed with multiple devs and players earlier on irc and many reasons were given for the background's power being fine as-is. Now I will attack a few claims made in the original post.

VM is easily the hardest book start. Sting be the strongest level 1 spell early and your start book likely will carry you until the lair.

These sentences directly contradict one another--unless every book start has a spell that can take the player into lair--and Wr is considerably weaker than VM. Tm is a more difficult start, as well.

you must branch out immediately or die

This is precisely what makes VM interesting among conjurer starts.

No FE startbook spell to affect rF+++ creatures is more acceptable, because you won't see any early

Crimson imps.

Then later...

In my eyes it's not a problem that one of poison magic's distinguishing features is its weakness against enemies in extended. I have used venom bolt extensively in Vaults and Depths on several characters, and almost every character of mine which has had high conjurations skill wants poison arrow. I've even used poison arrow in Pan because its irresistible damage is considerable.

if trying to do a VM 'as intended

Professions in crawl are no more than a set of items, stats, and skills for a character's start. Reading 'intent' in this way is patently ridiculous.

Regarding your spell comparisons: There are some poor conflations here and plain untruths but I will say that the fact that the main special effect of poison spells (besides, you know, poisoning monsters) is applying confusion is pretty boring (lots of spells do that.)

Anyway, bcadren, I think this thread would be more useful if the focus of the discussion is shifted to whether or not poison magic spells are interesting. The strength of VM is fine (as we discussed) and one cannot discuss balance by comparing imagined "intended" styles of character building.

[Pereza0]

I think one of the cool things about VM is that it underperforms in Lair, but it is also a lot more effective than most backgrounds in Orc.

Meph cloud disables many of the bigger threats there and nothing is poison resistant. The book is also quite decent at dealing with stuff in big numbers. This also means you can get the shops and obtain the tools to branch out earlier than most characters

[treerex5]

I keep trying to get a charms focused character going but none of my charms spells are killing the monsters. This is bullshit and charms needs to be buffed

Yeah dood charms need buff it too week i cant live with an offensive spell school tat wont killdthings


I apologise for the above "sentence" (if you can call it that).

[KoboldLord]

You lost me when you claimed that VM was the hardest book start. Did you forget about transmuters and skalds, or are you claiming that they don't count as book starts?

I'm not terribly fond of the start, but I think you're overstating your case substantially. It does have some distinct gameplay elements that it doesn't share with other backgrounds, which is a desirable thing to have in a background. Even if you argue that Toxic Radiance has some tenuous similarities to Refrigeration, the spell that appears in a starting background and is a basic building block of that background's early-game process is going to dominate an ultra-rare level 6 spell that only shows up in one book in the entire game.

The main problem I experience with the background is that there's no reasonable bridge between early-game poison magic and late-game poison magic. The starting book drops off in utility much earlier than other starting spellbooks; you really want to train up something more versatile than Toxic Radiance as early as you can. But you are vanishingly unlikely to actually find any drops that are related to your starting specialty, so you abandon it. Meanwhile, in the game where Poison Arrow does drop the player doesn't much care that they don't have access to any other poison spells. So there's a bit of a thematic disconnect between early poison and late poison that is a bit unfortunate. Possibly a couple more mid-level poison spells to scatter throughout the various books wouldn't be such a bad thing.

[Pereza0]

You lost me when you claimed that VM was the hardest book start. Did you forget about transmuters and skalds, or are you claiming that they don't count as book starts?

I'm not terribly fond of the start, but I think you're overstating your case substantially. It does have some distinct gameplay elements that it doesn't share with other backgrounds, which is a desirable thing to have in a background. Even if you argue that Toxic Radiance has some tenuous similarities to Refrigeration, the spell that appears in a starting background and is a basic building block of that background's early-game process is going to dominate an ultra-rare level 6 spell that only shows up in one book in the entire game.

The main problem I experience with the background is that there's no reasonable bridge between early-game poison magic and late-game poison magic. The starting book drops off in utility much earlier than other starting spellbooks; you really want to train up something more versatile than Toxic Radiance as early as you can. But you are vanishingly unlikely to actually find any drops that are related to your starting specialty, so you abandon it. Meanwhile, in the game where Poison Arrow does drop the player doesn't much care that they don't have access to any other poison spells. So there's a bit of a thematic disconnect between early poison and late poison that is a bit unfortunate. Possibly a couple more mid-level poison spells to scatter throughout the various books wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Yeah, I would like more spells that served as bridge between poison magic and whatever you branch into. Spell level should not necessary go above 6, not every school needs something to destroy everything.

Maybe something involving miasma with Necromancy, something with summoning to compensate for loss of summon scorpions, a Charms spell that gave some sort of benefit at the cost of some negative effect (like slight health loss /poisoning)

[crate]

The starting book drops off in utility much earlier than other starting spellbooks; you really want to train up something more versatile than Toxic Radiance as early as you can.

Venom bolt is a spell which is in the VM book, and it is a level 5 bolt spell. It is really quite good; the only thing that makes it not clearly excellent is that there are a lot of poison-resistant things.

OTR is pretty bad imo.

[KoboldLord]

Toxic Radiance has its niche in the early game, in that it kills multiple things quickly and easily and with less xp investment than Venom Bolt. It drops off really quickly as non-resistant monsters start to have higher raw hp totals, but sometimes you just need an orc pack to die without having to kite them individually all over the level. It's the first spell in the book to get a scroll of amnesia, but I usually do prepare it and use it at least a few times.

I can't think of any reason a character who doesn't have Toxic Radiance in their starting book would ever consider using it.

[Berder]

I think it would make more sense if ignite poison was a poison/transmutations or poison/fire spell instead of a fire/transmutations spell. Fire magic does plenty already and doesn't need ignite poison, poison magic doesn't do very much and could benefit from it.

As a secondary possibility - by no means necessary to the above suggestion - If ignite poison was poison/transmutations and was in the starting VM spellbook instead of venom bolt, that would let the starting spellbook carry a VM through lair.

[bcadren]

Disappointed this got thrown into CYC...

Anyways:

Berder:

Ignite Poison going Poison/Transmutations would need some kind of reflavour away from the flaming-ness; without would likely de facto be a nerf. I do agree it would make the start book something excellent through lair, but Igniting doesn't make sense without the Fire part. It also would be more reliably good in lair branches. Poison/Fire/Transmute [4] or Poison/Transmute [5] or even Poison/Fire [5] (with possible reflavour into transmuting into something other than fire (preferably with only practical difference being some other kind of cloud than flaming when it affects corpses/chunks)).

KoboldLord:

Ozo's Refrigeration is one of my favorite spells; it and Ozo's Armour are the only Ice Spells for which that's true. Used it for crowd control in late game SO many times. Even used it alongside shatter; since it ignores AC and ends up doing more damage to heavily armored foes without rC. Radiance seems like it's used in the same kinds of situations; need to effect a huge area (Orc, Spider) and ignores AC (not that it's that relevant that early). Olgreb's seems like a very early game Ozo's to me. But, yes it stops being useful relatively early.

And another thought:

What if Sticks to Snakes made the jump to two-school? Transmutation/Poison. I know Transmutation doesn't bridge into anything, since it's unlikely a poison-start would turn into a melee character; but it would be a poison buff (and minor Transmuter nerf).

Duvessa:
You were successful in trolling this thread out of GDD. Yes Charms don't directly kill enemies; but your Song of Slaying helps you kill things faster, yes? Haha.

---

Also clarification when I said book start; I meant the rightmost 'mage' column; the 'warrior-mage' column is generally weaker early than the mage column (with Enchanter as possible exception).

---

Edit:

On the need of 'bridges' to other schools. VM makes most sense for races with good Air apt. Only reasonable bridge from Poison to another school is Meph -> Lightning Bolt [Air/Conjurations]

[twelwe]

Duvessa:
You were successful in trolling this thread out of GDD

Is it at all possible that you are not making GDD-quality threads, instead of blaming others for your `disapointment?`Just because you whip up twenty paragraphs worth of words condensed into seven paragraphs about a dead subject doesn`t mean it belongs outside CYC. For someone who loves nothing more than his own vid game ideas, you could perhaps learn from making more concise and to the point arguments instead of drowning your own thoughts out with needless fluff that serves only to discourage people from reading or taking seriously yet another overly wordy post.

[Sar]

Hydras, Spiny Frogs, and Black Mambas

Die reasonably well to Venom Bolt at decent power - except maybe for mambas since their EV is quite high (but that problem is not exclusive to VM).

[Sprucery]

Just for the record, imho VM is one of the easiest book starts, second to IE I guess. This is just my personal experience from winning a VpVM and CeVM and being currently on Zot:4 with a FoVM (only one try with each combo).

[bel]

VM is pretty easy in my opinion. If you want to play more "caster" ish rather than use melee, just worship Vehumet for the spell gifts. Also, someone else made the point that Orc is often easier than Lair for VM because of mephitic cloud. Olgreb's toxic radiance is also great in Orc.

[Kate]

Duvessa:You were successful in trolling this thread out of GDD. Yes Charms don't directly kill enemies; but your Song of Slaying helps you kill things faster, yes? Haha.

Your thread doesn't have any actual proposal other than "diversify poison in some unspecified way, maybe give VM a weapon for some reason". The only person responsible for this thread being moved out of GDD is you, for continuing to ignore the forum rules and for paying no attention to the many people who point out the nonsensical claims you make.

[bcadren]

Duvessa:You were successful in trolling this thread out of GDD. Yes Charms don't directly kill enemies; but your Song of Slaying helps you kill things faster, yes? Haha.

Your thread doesn't have any actual proposal other than "diversify poison in some unspecified way, maybe give VM a weapon for some reason". The only person responsible for this thread being moved out of GDD is you, for continuing to ignore the forum rules and for paying no attention to the many people who point out the nonsensical claims you make.

This didn't break rules. Besides; no real specific proposal, except Beogh could use a buff (also mine) stayed fine and discussion for a week rather than immediately shut down. And it seemed to have been shut down because the whole thing got hijacked into a discussion solely about how early you find Beogh compared to other gods, rather than the original topic.

This felt similar; troll exploited a hole in the argument and thread was hijacked before it started.

I don't have a clear proposal, no; but I do think Poison as a school could use more diversity to it; because it is the most one-dimensional spell school. It's not necessarily that what exists is weak; it's just they all seem to do the same thing, with different targeting patterns. That's literally all I'm saying. There is some actual discussion, but I'm getting exceedingly tired of troll posts. I know poison could never be as versatile as Air, Earth, Ice or Necro; but it could use something different.

[Sar]

and if you read the GDD rules you'll see that it exists for very specific proposals, not for "I think this is bad and how could we make it less bad???" style of threads

questionable statements like "VM is easily the hardest book start" don't help you cause either (maybe you could gather some milestone data to irrefutably prove it though...)

[bcadren]

and if you read the GDD rules you'll see that it exists for very specific proposals, not for "I think this is bad and how could we make it less bad???" style of threads

questionable statements like "VM is easily the hardest book start" don't help you cause either (maybe you could gather some milestone data to irrefutably prove it though...)

It's funny; all my specific proposals are here (posted to CYC); because they are less grounded in current gameplay mechanics and would need more hammering to make it in. Well, not all; but most.

EDIT:
That and those actually take a long time to draft and I was so brokenheartedly pissed the first time a full form proposal of mine was demoted here. It took almost two days to draft and it wasn't worthy of discussion? ...I mean I literally have been...

I'm such a worthless shut-in. I can't even commit to working on my own projects anymore for lack of self confidence to I throw out ideas hoping that someone believes enough in one of them to make me feel like trying to actually work again.
THERE. That's the truth. Leave me alone.

[Sandman25]

bcadren,
Game Design Discussion forum is NOT for discussing game design despite its name, it is strictly for things which are listed in viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7178
If you want to brainstorm something, start a thread in CYC.

[Pereza0]

Being moved to CYC is not the end of the world dude.

I usually only post to GDD gameplay stuff that seems to need to be "fixed" for some reason (eg: Cancel invisibility), CYC I usually like better for anything involving any sort of discussion or brainstorming, or for ideas that are not fully fleshed out. Its not a demotion of any short.

I do think we could do with less snappy responses honestly. If you think someone is wrong you could at least invest a bit of time and thought into trying to flesh out your thoughts on the topic. Just writing sarcastic one-liners stifles discussion and makes the forum feel unnecessarily hostile.

[Lasty]

bcadren, it sounds like you're saying that you're posting ideas here in an effort to receive validation. I think that's a poor choice, both because this site isn't the most receptive and validating place, and because doing work for validation rather than because you really feel passionately about the work isn't all that likely to give good results. Putting a lot of time into something in and of itself isn't enough to get a positive reception.

If you still want to propose DC:SS changes as a form of validation, I strongly recommend you look carefully at the relatively successful proposals of the past and think carefully about why they succeeded to the extent that they did.

[bcadren]

bcadren, it sounds like you're saying that you're posting ideas here in an effort to receive validation. I think that's a poor choice, both because this site isn't the most receptive and validating place, and because doing work for validation rather than because you really feel passionately about the work isn't all that likely to give good results. Putting a lot of time into something in and of itself isn't enough to get a positive reception.

I know you are right. I really need to work on my own games and not focus on this dinosaur that I'm not even part of the development team on. (No offense). I just...don't have the self-confidence for it. I have the skills and the ideas; but my drive died.

[Sandman25]

I know you are right. I really need to work on my own games and not focus on this dinosaur that I'm not even part of the development team on. (No offense). I just...don't have the self-confidence for it. I have the skills and the ideas; but my drive died.

I am sorry to say that but tavern does not look like a place where people can fix their self-confidence except by really bad means like making fun of other people

[XuaXua]

Wasn't there a different thread where I clearly pointed out that bcadren is trolling everyone? I can do that again, but I can also wait and see if duvessmay quotes that post into here.

[Greyr]

There are 57 semicolons on this page

[twelwe]

I know you are right. I really need to work on my own games and not focus on this dinosaur that I'm not even part of the development team on. (No offense). I just...don't have the self-confidence for it. I have the skills and the ideas; but my drive died.

there there, now.

[Arrhythmia]

There are 57 semicolons on this page

now, guess how many of them are used correctly

furthermore, ballistomycetes must be destroyed

[and into]

As a general rule, discussions like "poison magic could use some cool new spells" usually don't go anywhere, because basically everything hinges on what would actually be cool and truly novel to add to Crawl. It is like "These two things are too similar; let's DO something about it!" threads. — Yes, ok. But what? These kinds of threads don't really belong in GDD, simply because they don't really offer concrete proposals. Of course you don't need to have everything worked out to post in GDD, but you need something more substantial than "[poison magic] could stand to have different effects. I'm not saying what effects; but just...different [ones]."

The only concrete proposal I could see was moving VM to a warrior-mage, which I don't think would be unfathomably horrible, or anything, but also doesn't seem necessary and isn't well justified in the OP. (And for the most part this would just make VMs worse and more annoying on D1, as (presumably?) you'd start them with less int and/or slightly lower magic skills, along the lines of the other warrior-mage backgrounds.)

And, also, do not take thread-moves personally.

[twelwe]

one dev told me once that not all ideas are meant to be forwarded with criticism or suggestions. he didn`t know what he was talking about. there are no bad ideas, there are only my ideas, and the devs and everyone else need to seriously consider them or else i might lose respect of this forum. when people post negative in my threads i get so mad because i really spelnd alot of time on videogame ideas. so i know what your`re going thgouhgh.

[bcadren]

As a general rule, discussions like "poison magic could use some cool new spells" usually don't go anywhere, because basically everything hinges on what would actually be cool and truly novel to add to Crawl. It is like "These two things are too similar; let's DO something about it!" threads. — Yes, ok. But what? These kinds of threads don't really belong in GDD, simply because they don't really offer concrete proposals. Of course you don't need to have everything worked out to post in GDD, but you need something more substantial than "[poison magic] could stand to have different effects. I'm not saying what effects; but just...different [ones]."

The only concrete proposal I could see was moving VM to a warrior-mage, which I don't think would be unfathomably horrible, or anything, but also doesn't seem necessary and isn't well justified in the OP. (And for the most part this would just make VMs worse and more annoying on D1, as (presumably?) you'd start them with less int and/or slightly lower magic skills, along the lines of the other warrior-mage backgrounds.)

And, also, do not take thread-moves personally.

On moving to Warrior Mage: VM and En have the same start stats. I don't see a reason to change them. (+0 Str, +7 Int, +5 Dex). Skillwise a warrior-mage move would look like [{2 dodge, 2 stealth, 2 splcast, 4 poison} -> {2 (Weapon), 2 Dodge, 2 Stealth, 2 Spellcast, 3 Poison}] Short is recommendable because of confusion stabs; but not enforced.

As to specific ideas I have a few:

• Some damage with an effect (checking rPois and/or HD to apply); blind, paralyze or slow possible. This would create more of a variety of poison effects without breaking the flavor. Perhaps paralyze could only work at a range (give player fewer para-stab turns); be unique to have a spell that can't be used on a close target at all (as opposed to can at risk, with fBall, etc.) There is no player paralysis and I am very keen on making sure it wouldn't be broken (need some kind of semi-difficult check and a short-ish paralysis duration. Would ultimately be more powerful than Hibernation and Petrify, etc.
• More specifically Dazzling Spray moved over to poison (or something similar without removing Dazzling) with a 'Blinding Venom' flavour. Has a chance to ignore rPois because it only has to get in the target's eyes to work (Check EV twice or something; eye is a difficult target).
• Moving Ignite Poison to part Poison, as Berder suggested and adding that high level in the start spellbook. It's a powerful spell that rarely gets used (Average FE would rather use FBall/B.Fire than train transmutations for one spell; get's used as crowd control by Transmuters and occasionally picked up by later game VMs to make flaming clouds). I would be concerned that the Olgreb's Ignite Poison combo could be pretty broken though (poison everything without rPois burn all that poison). I've personally only used the spell on transmuters as crowd control (getting it as early as lair makes bees trivial, but VM already makes bees trivial). Big help in the Swamp and Snake/Spider too. Loses most it's value later though (creatures with poison chunks drop off).
• Smite (or otherwise single) targeted spell similar to Ignite; flavoured as 'exacerbating the poison inside the target'; adds additional poisoning to those already poisoned (multiplicative damage), poisons those that would be affected by Ignite Poison from their own skin [ignoring rPois, because it's affecting the poison already in their body.]

[Pereza0]

I dislike the "start with a weapon idea". Its more of a nerf than anything. Sting and Mephitic Cloud are good enough to get you to the temple alone. None of the other Warrior Mages have a lvl 1/2 spell that can do anything close to this.

By the time your spells stop being so effective you will have a wide array of weapons (branded too) availabe to choose from. It is likely that you will have found weapons of every type and maybe even some unrandart one.

I would like Ignite Poison to be Poison Magic too, though not necessarily in the starting book.

About Dazzling Spray, VM already gets Meph which IMO is even better than DSpray or Confuse. It might also make VM and En feel to similar