Brainstorming: unarmed non-TM caster

[The Ferret]

This is 100% motivated by the fact that Confusing Touch is an awesome spell that encourages a slightly different play style, but is not in any starting book and is only found in 1 unrand book so it's pretty rare.

Stats - STR +2, INT +5, DEX +5

Skills:

Fighting - 1
Unarmed Combat - 3
Dodging - 1
Spellcasting - 1
Hexes - 2
Charms - 2

Starts with:

+0 robe
bread ration
Book of Disablement:

1 - Infusion - Charms (or something else? not really any suitable L1 spells I can think of)
2 - Confusing Touch - Hexes
3 - Tukima's Dance - Hexes
3 - Regeneration - Charms/Necromancy
5 - Silence - Hexes/Air

Everything is 100% negotiable except Confusing Touch in the starting book (which is, again, the entire point).

(Basically this is probably just "the Felid start".)

[dynast]

My experiences with confusing touch is that it needs to be reworked otherwise its only effective for stabbing, which requires weapon swapping/boots of assassin or drowning foes near water, its not worth spending actions in melee range to a target, doing no damage until the confusion procs out to then have very few turns where the target might still hit the player during confusion.

[Pollen_Golem]

strange that confusing touch isn't in the book of disablement...
edit: sorry, confusing touch is level 2 now

[byrel]

This is the new default troll background. Confusing touch is amazing on trolls, letting them do things like kill hydras, and drastically limiting damage done to themselves. Tukima's is the one other hex I often pick up on trolls. Regeneration isn't bad on them. Silence gives them a tool vs late-game threats.

[Sar]

Confusing touch is amazing on trolls, letting them do things like kill hydras, and drastically limiting damage done to themselves.

Large rocks allow you to do these things as well, and more! And there's even a background that starts with some!

[Pollen_Golem]

Confusing Touch is far too strong as-is to be added to any starting book - it's resisted by HD instead of MR, unlike the Confuse spell, which makes it very effective on almost anything for the entire game. It should probably become a bit easier to resist by high-end monsters really, if anything.

[bcadren]

Confusing Touch is far too strong as-is to be added to any starting book - it's resisted by HD instead of MR, unlike the Confuse spell, which makes it very effective on almost anything for the entire game. It should probably become a bit easier to resist by high-end monsters really, if anything.

I lost a character to it not working on a Death Yak (in melee range with a powerful creature me doing no damage)...so I'm going to disagree. It's a good spell, but it's not THAT good.

[tasonir]

For a level one spell, you could go animate skeleton to stick with the regeneration/necromancy subtheme! Probably too useful, even though I'm generally too lazy to use skeletons. As for confusing touch being too strong compared to confuse, confuse can be cast at range and gives you several chances to make it work for "free" (ie, you aren't getting hit while trying). It's far stronger. Obviously it won't affect MR immune monsters, but generally speaking. I'd rather have confuse with a 20% success rate than confusing touch with 35%.

I've experimented with confusing touch a few times, but the whole deal 0 damage part of seems like too much of a downside. Maybe make it only deal 0 damage when it successfully confuses, and if you fail to confuse, it still deals normal damage? I ended up just punching things for damage instead.

[The Ferret]

I just realized that a far cleaner alternative would be to toss CTouch into the Book of Battle, the Skald's starting book. An armed Skald likely won't bother memorizing it. (The downside is that a newbie Skald may memorize it anyways, expecting it to work and getting very confused.)

Unfortunately it seems that a CTouch start is unlikely to see the light of day