Crazy Charms idea: passives

[TeshiAlair]

So there has been talk of turning some charms into armour egos such as repel missiles and shroud, which makes tons of sense. However, there are a few cases where the spell is fairly core to the job's identity, most prominently Ozo's Armour.

What if memorizing certain spells added them as a toggleable passive? So, memorizing Ozo's gives you the effect permanently (obviously weaker at first) at the cost of reducing your mana by 2-3 while it is up? Maybe something like "The words of the book infuse your soul and change you permanently." You would have to have skill minimums to memorize it.

This would be a bit wonky, but I think it would open up design space, remove the charms issue, but still keep mana a relevant factor in usage.

[Bart]

This was already proposed before, but I don't have time right now to search for original topic. There are two main issues as for me:
- permanent cost is irrelevant for melee characters, but crippling for conjurers.
- the cost does not scale over the length of game - 2MP is a lot at XL7, but nothing at XL27
As soon as you try to fix these, it turns out that toggleable passive would require quite complex mechanics.

[dpeg]

For those of you who are interested in the topic, I started a c-r-d discussion where I suggest to remove the numerical buffs as spells. Not sure anything will happen there, but I am convinced that these make bad spells.

If you want something like Ozocubu's Armour to be a strategic decision, make it an armour ego. If you think that spellcasters are crippled without the spell (which they aren't in my opinion), then remove the bandaid and buff them directly.

[pubby]

Tested on a branch years ago had permabuffs take 10 aut to activate and deactivate, and gave each buff a significant downside. Ozo had rF-, Phase Shift delayed teleport time, etc. Amount of benefit they provided was based on cast success, so 50% success = 50% Ozo AC.

[TeshiAlair]

This was already proposed before, but I don't have time right now to search for original topic. There are two main issues as for me:
- permanent cost is irrelevant for melee characters, but crippling for conjurers.
- the cost does not scale over the length of game - 2MP is a lot at XL7, but nothing at XL27
As soon as you try to fix these, it turns out that toggleable passive would require quite complex mechanics.

Both of these issues seem irrelevant. Let's take Ozo's

There are two cases right now: 1. Use Ozo's before every fight 2. Don't.

In the latter case, then it doesn't really suffer from the "charms problem." In the former case, it is effectively -3mp perma at the beginning of the fight but it does regenerate. So, making it a perma -1mp WHILE TOGGLED doesn't seem unreasonably crippling.

As far as cost scaling, 3mp per cast is an insignificant cost at XL 27 as well, what's your point?

[Bart]

There are two cases right now: 1. Use Ozo's before every fight 2. Don't.

Disagree. Not in early game, where I discover an enemy, decide whether I am going to melee or need protection and based on that, I cast Ozo or save mana for offensive spells. Later in a game - agree.

As far as cost scaling, 3mp per cast is an insignificant cost at XL 27 as well, what's your point?

3mp is a significant cost at xl5 and I cannot spend it blindfolded before every fight. 3mp is enough to kill an adder with Freeze, but Ozo won't make me kill the stupid snake with +0 dagger.

Both of these issues seem irrelevant

I don't see yet explanation why you think that the second one is irrelevant as well.

[Hurkyl]

I don't see yet explanation why you think that the second one is irrelevant as well.

I don't see yet an explanation of why you think the second one is relevant. Nor how it's substantially different from the status quo (which is something that he did explain).

(remember that alleged improvements don't have to make things perfect; they just have to make things better than they are now)

[Hurkyl]

IMO, the actual problem with a proposal like this is that you trade "cast before every fight" with "often toggle the ability off after fights and back on again before the next fight".

[HardboiledGargoyle]

often toggle the ability off after fights

and why would you want to do that?

[ZipZipskins]

DRAINING SOLVES EVERYTHING DRAIN THE CASTER WHEN BUFFS TOGGLE OFF