Shouldn't poison magic have some high level spells?

[lethediver]

Right now, poison magic peaks with two level 6 spells. I mean, given that you are "supposed" to transition from poison magic to another school anyway, this makes sense.

But, two arguments:

1) So what? Lots of high level spells are sub-optimal late game, but people still use them. For fun, for flavor, for variety.

2) Shouldn't we aim for poison magic, as a school, still being at least somewhat relevant late game? The idea of, "okay, most schools are supposed to be balanced so you can master them and have your character be powerful. However, with poison magic, this logic does not apply, because... erm... ah... uhh..." Not the best argument there dewd.

Some possible solutions I can see (from best to worst):

1) Add some acid-related spells to poison magic. The easiest fix, though I vaguely recall it being scoffed at in some other thread. Acid is resisted by very few (any?) enemies in Crawl. This perfectly fills the need for late game, high level spells which are actually relevant.

2) If not acid, give PMs *some* spell that penetrates poison resistance, similar to how a curare needle works. Ex: toxic touch, a lvl 8 poison spell with 1 range that has the same effect as a curare needle, with slightly better success rate, no miss, and does some irresistable damage.

3) The worst solution: just give them some very powerful lvl 8/9 spells that stick with the boring, silly theme of everything-in-this-school-must-be-nullified-by-rPois-which-most-monsters-have. (Ok, poison arrow and alistairs are still mediocre vs such enemies, rather than being completely useless, but still).

What do you all think?

[njvack]

This has come up a bunch of times before; the end tends to be "it's OK if poison doesn't have super late-game efficacy, it's like short blades and beogh and yred and stuff"

[Hurkyl]

"It's okay for Poison to be ineffective late game" is very different from "it's better for Poison to be ineffective than to be effective late game".

[ydeve]

Option 3) has been addressed somewhat recently. When Singularity was removed, everyone and their dog were suggesting new lvl9 transloc spells. And the answer was lvl9 spells aren't going to be added for the sole purpose of making all spell schools have them.

I believe poison magic doing acid spells is somewhere on the "will not do" list.

I think it's interesting to have some skills peak in usefulness midgame, only to fall off endgame. It promotes interesting decisions where you choose when to swap over. We have another background that's sort of like this, though Wz needs to look for the tools to get through Lair, not endgame.

[lethediver]

Option 3) has been addressed somewhat recently. When Singularity was removed, everyone and their dog were suggesting new lvl9 transloc spells. And the answer was lvl9 spells aren't going to be added for the sole purpose of making all spell schools have them.

I believe poison magic doing acid spells is somewhere on the "will not do" list.

I think it's interesting to have some skills peak in usefulness midgame, only to fall off endgame. It promotes interesting decisions where you choose when to swap over. We have another background that's sort of like this, though Wz needs to look for the tools to get through Lair, not endgame.

I agree, but the complete dearth of spells higher than 6 doesn't feel like "dropping off in effectiveness", it feels like a red flag warning chars not to invest in a school thats not intended to see ANY use late game.

I found this excerpt "Refused and Rejected Concepts" list.

"Adding acid spells to the Poison Magic school.

Poison is already well-defined, adding spells that bypass all of its drawbacks/advantages does not improve it.
Acid damage is not very different from plain nonelemental damage for players, since acid resistance is so rare and the monster corrosion effect is mostly insignificant."

Ok, I can kind of get behind that. It leaves the question though: why not just do what every other elemental school does and have high-lvl spells that do a solid percentage of irresistable damage?

This would jive with the comments Im seeing saying poison magic needs to be mediocre, but not useless, late game. It would still be vastly worse than having say, Firestorm, which still wrecks a lot of late game enemies (undead primarily), or Glaciate which is good vs a lot of demons. Or Tornado which is good vs everything. Or Shatter which is good vs everything not flying.

[advil]

I don't know, I recently ran a poison mummy with the staff of olgreb and I think I'd been seriously underestimating how useful poison is throughout the entire (non-extended) game, with only minimal training. Especially ignite poison, but also poison arrow. It's certainly true that there are things poison doesn't work so well on in the late game, but I think this is true of every school except perhaps earth to some degree, and pure conjurations. And even earth it's usually helpful to have something else because of poor range on everything except LRD. Basically, I have almost never found it to be a good idea to focus on just one school of damage magic, and poison is just somewhat more skewed than the others in this respect. But for example, poison arrow is maybe the best spell out there for dealing with orb guardians.

L9 spells are fun, but they don't really represent the schools they appear in, and the lack of an L9 is not really characteristic of whether the school is underpowered in terms of winning the game.

[Siegurt]

Ok, I can kind of get behind that. It leaves the question though: why not just do what every other elemental school does and have high-lvl spells that do a solid percentage of irresistable damage?

FWIW poison arrow already does a solid percentage of irresistable damage.

[ontoclasm]

Ok, I can kind of get behind that. It leaves the question though: why not just do what every other elemental school does and have high-lvl spells that do a solid percentage of irresistable damage?

You mean Poison Arrow? The fact that it's level 6 is a good thing, how do people not get this. It's a level 8 spell that happens to be 2 levels cheaper and easier to cast.

Poison Magic only has a "problem" if you're obsessively focused on extended. Which, well, most people are. So maybe the solution is to see it for what it is: a ridiculously good school for a normal, 3-rune game. Take the exp you save from not needing 22 levels in two different schools to cast your ~main nuke~ and get other cool stuff.

[lethediver]

Im aware of Poison Arrow guys, but its irresistable damage on par with 1 tile of any other elemental school's 20+ tile hitting ultimate spells, the latter of which have extra effects and (3/4 schools) do elemental DoT.

I really feel like it makes sense for the elemental schools to be on par with each other. Any other school's mage WILL have to transition into other skills and schools of magic, but no FE, IE, AE or EE has to deal with the problem of "my main starting skill doesnt provide anything resembling an end game offensive option so I have to wind up as something completely different from what i started."

No way is Poison Arrow a lvl 8 spell Onto. PA is the same level as Discord and Chain lightning? Discord can deal with whole screens, chain lightning can take out arch-liches with a few shots. You're pulling my leg for sure.

In summation, I don't feel like there is a solid argument against adding a decent lvl 8/9 option to Poison Magic. There are some rationales for why the status quo is ok, but they could just as easily apply to removing Tornado or Firestorm. Why not just have ppl transition into Ice Magic if they want to use powerful late game spells? The logic isnt quite there. There is ultimately no downside to adding some poison magic late game spells IF they are the right ones. The potential gain here outweighs the negative (which doesnt exist).

[Elystan]

1. Poison arrow is my go-to single-target attack spell. Mostly because it has very good range and it poisons poison-resistant enemies. I'd take poison arrow over iron shot any day and probably LCS too. It's okay against demons, very good against anything without rPois, and I usually learn dispel undead.

2. Olgreb's toxic radiance is broken as hell if you're playing a gargoyle or an undead. Have you ever tried spider as a gargoyle/undead with OTR? If you can deal with the demonic crawlers, ghost moths and emperor scorpions the rest is free xp. Granted, it's not as useful as ozocubu's refrigeration, but it comes in a starting book and doesn't take nearly as long to get online. It trivializes everything from orcs to yaks.

3. Poison magic is relevant in vaults, it's relevant in depths, it's relevant for most of Zot. It's lacking in extended but that's okay.

[ZipZipskins]

The negative is removing differentiation and diversity from the various schools of magic, not "no negative", and are we really going around this mulberry bush again

[ontoclasm]

I don't feel like there is a solid argument against adding a decent lvl 8/9 option to Poison Magic

Nobody's come up with one. Acid is an awful idea. "Firestorm but poison" is an awful idea. Sorry, it's just true. Nobody's telling you to stop trying; do you really think if you come up with an amazing, distinctive idea for a level 8 Poison spell that the devs are gonna say "Nah, we'd rather not?" The problem is that poison -- the damage type and status effect -- just doesn't work that well in extended, due to undead and demon resistances. So it's difficult to make a level 8 Poison Spell that's a) actually a Poison spell, not something else crammed in just because, b) worth casting ever, and c) balanced outside of extended. Luckily, however, Poison Magic is fine as-is, so such a spell is not necessary.

"It's not needed" is a different thing from "we would reject it if found."

[lethediver]

The negative is removing differentiation and diversity from the various schools of magic, not "no negative", and are we really going around this mulberry bush again

The assumption here I don't agree with is "any >lvl6 spells in poison magic necessarily removes differentiation and diversity from the various schools of magic". For example, Air magic and earth magic both have high level spells in a way that enriches diversity rather than adding to it. In essence creating (imo) a better kind of diversity than "this school of magic simply has no high level spells whatsoever while these other schools do".

Im sorry if this has come up before, but i wasnt there for those conversations, so Im going to continue looking at the world through the optimistic, bold and naive eyes of a youngster with so much to give.

[lethediver]

I don't feel like there is a solid argument against adding a decent lvl 8/9 option to Poison Magic

Nobody's come up with one. Acid is an awful idea. "Firestorm but poison" is an awful idea. Sorry, it's just true. Nobody's telling you to stop trying; do you really think if you come up with an amazing, distinctive idea for a level 8 Poison spell that the devs are gonna say "Nah, we'd rather not?" The problem is that poison -- the damage type and status effect -- just doesn't work that well in extended, due to undead and demon resistances. So it's difficult to make a level 8 Poison Spell that's a) actually a Poison spell, not something else crammed in just because, b) worth casting ever, and c) balanced outside of extended. Luckily, however, Poison Magic is fine as-is, so such a spell is not necessary.

"It's not needed" is a different thing from "we would reject it if found."

This is actually the response I was looking for and the reason i posted to CYC before posting to GDD. If its theoretically possible to add spells to the school at this point, then I feel more assured in going forward and attempting to design some. However, the latter would be a waste of effort if there was zero interest in the former.

[duvessa]

Parrow isn't anywhere close to good enough for level 8 jeez. It's not much better than iron shot or bolts against non-rPois stuff, and substantially worse against rPois stuff. And the damage is only 30% irresistible, it's an awful spell against rPois+++ monsters, people just don't realize there's a difference between rPois+ and rPois+++ so they see it works ok on hydras (~50% damage) and assume it will be ok against nonliving and undead too.

Also you can hardly blame people for suggesting "firestorm but X" when there are 6 different "bolt of X" and glaciate is a real spell that is in the game...

[Sphara]

OP do have a point here imo.

Parrow is strong as hell even with moderate spellpower for the opponents that do not resist it. So the question I see here is, why train Poison Magic beyond even 10 points unless you're going for some fancy poison title?

Venom bolt is strong but HARDLY worth training PM over 10 points. And like everyone knows, Parrow is not a guaranteed spell.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

do you really think if you come up with an amazing, distinctive idea that the devs are gonna say "Nah, we'd rather not?"

happens all the time

[ZipZipskins]

Sure but the solution for that isn't more storm of X surely

[Sar]

it's an awful spell against rPois+++ monsters

Those monsters are not very common in a regular game, though? Especially now that most demons aren't poison-immune. Mostly undead and things like oofs.

[Sphara]

I would not suggest some very high level poison school spells should be added. As long as there is a major benefit training conjurations instead, I would be fine with the removing of the whole PM school. Merging with Air maybe, i dunno?

If it is not worth training a lot, why is it there? You could ask the same about the Slings (very few builds want that) but better not derail this topic into that.

[lethediver]

I would not suggest some very high level poison school spells should be added. As long as there is a major benefit training conjurations instead, I would be fine with the removing of the whole PM school. Merging with Air maybe, i dunno?

If it is not worth training a lot, why is it there? You could ask the same about the Slings (very few builds want that) but better not derail this topic into that.

Im fine with this as an alternate solution - just remove all the poison spells and have poison be a weapon ego only. At the moment, poison feels like it is in a weird space between being an actual, full fledged school of magic and not existing.

[bcadren]

"short blades"

Uhh...I've totally stabkilled hell lords...(stealth and blowgun + QBlade or Dagger ways)...and I've totally used a QBlade + Warp Weapon as my primary melee for all of extended before...

[lethediver]

"short blades"

Uhh...I've totally stabkilled hell lords...(stealth and blowgun + QBlade or Dagger ways)...and I've totally used a QBlade + Warp Weapon as my primary melee for all of extended before...

My last win gave me a newfound appreciation for the distortion brand. Teleporting pan lords and just walking up and taking the rune lol.

[bcadren]

That said; poison does actually have a dubious position. It's the only spellschool of practically no use in extended (Yes you can use P.Arrow to snipe a Hellion at the edge of your LoS, but you can do that with a Great Sling, so meh). [If you have access to P.Arrow and trained Conj I do recommend having it to get a first hit in before major enemies come into range for stronger conjurations; but I wouldn't recommend training Poison that high for P.Arrow]

The lower level poison spells (especially Olgreb's and Ignite Poison are extremely powerful situationally; especially in Spider, Orc, Elf and Vaults; but drop out of usage for Depths/Zot and Extended because Poison Resistance (and Immunity) become too common. You can say similar of Necro (especially Death Channel, which is plain BROKEN on living floors; seriously try it, easily the most powerful level 6). But then it doesn't drop out of usage until well into extended (once areas either have no corpse-dropping enemies or the corpse dropping enemies are weak compared to the deadly enemies; even that is less true now because Spectral Iron Giants and Iron Giant Simulacra in Dis will work pretty effectively against Hell Sentinels and Fiends)...and if you find the Necronomicon, generally ONE of these spells is usable for you in extended (Death's Door or Necromutation, generally) and poison has no equivalent. ALL of that said, there's no point in higher level poison spells unless there were more non-Poison resistant enemies in extended or the spells were defensive on tier with Necromut, which is hard to imagine. IE if you want high level poison spells, you need enemies that are susceptible to the current ones later so you'll have something to use the higher level ones on when you get them.

[kroki]

why not give the player a castable version of naga ritualists rP- spell?

[bcadren]

why not give the player a castable version of naga ritualists rP- spell?

You have any idea how bad that would be? A spell that's only function is to make other spells work?

[prozacelf]

I think this topic https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8006 is the most extensive discussion about the topic that I was around for. Poison magic is pretty much exactly the same now as it was before that discussion, I'll note.

[Croases]

Here are the main problems I think Poison Magic has.

1. Its early game is tedious. Sting encourages kiting, OTR encourages kiting plus Cure Poison plus resting afterwards, there are a whole bunch of enemies (phantoms, necrophages, ice beasts, player ghosts, high-end zombies) that you can't really kill and have to kite across the level so that you can park/stair dance/approach from another stair. It is important to have resistant enemies, of course, but no other elementalist faces nearly as many at this point of the game (AE and EE have nothing resistant, FE only has imps, IE gets Throw Icicle so they don't care overmuch about cold resistance).

2. It loses steam much sooner than it ought to. Lair has multiple black mambas and spiny frogs, which have poison as their sole resistance; facing them as VM is no different than facing eight levels of molten gargoyles as a FE or AE. One major reason that rP is given willy-nilly to every monster, I think, is Mephitic Cloud, which brings me to my first suggestion: remove it. I don't think anyone would disagree that a Crawl without it is better than a Crawl with it, and while it does have one interesting aspect (HD-based resistance), that can be moved to another Poison or Poison/Hexes spell.

3. It has no utility options, being limited to "kill non-rP things" and "kill non-rP things even harder". Ice Magic and Air Magic have a whole load of charms that make it attractive to dip into them even if you won't ever use their offensive options, while Earth couples well with Transmutations and even Fire, the designated offensive school, has its share of utility in Inner Flame and Ring of Flames. Poison instead gets Cure Poison, a spell that is in the game mostly because there are other poison spells that necessitate it, and Mephitic Cloud, which doesn't do anything that other poison spells can't.

Now, I am not really versed in game design, but here are a couple of suggestions on how to improve the school.

a. A Poison/Charms spell that poisons you and gives you slaying/spellpower/SH/EV/AC/you-name-it bonuses depending on how poisoned you are. As with ambrosia, you'll need to have the detrimental effect to keep the beneficial effect going, you lose the benefits if you cure your poison. Interesting in that you can adjust your bonuses by using other self-poison spells, but must carefully consider whether the damage you'll be taking from poison will be lower than the damage you won't be taking from the enemies.

b. High-level spells that move the focus of the school from "kills non-rP enemies" to "uses non-rP enemies to kill everything". These may include: Poison/Hexes nerve control spell that forces an enemy to move in a single direction (hitting things if they're in the way, low-risk mini-Discord), Poison/Necromany tissue degeneration spell that gives a non-rP enemy hyperactive ballistomycete-style explosions every turn (couple with Inner Flame for extra fun), Poison/Transmutations possession spell that instantly kills a (damaged?) non-rP enemy, moves you into its position, and gives you its speed/attacks/resistances for the duration (that's right, shard shrike form... actually, Antaeus form too).

c. Remove Mephitic Cloud, and concurrently remove the gratuitous proliferation of rP in the game. At least one Fiend ought to lose it, as should a couple other major demons, and probably either of mambas or spinies.

[ydeve]

Removal of Mephitic cloud has a huge impact on the Wz background. Without it, the rest of the spells don't quite pull enough weight. Edit: I think it's one of the most fun spells in the Wz spell book.

Wz is like VM in that its starting book isn't enough to really get through Lair. Maybe instead of viewing VM as a caster, you should look at a more hybrid approach.

[Sprucery]

Mephitic Cloud, which brings me to my first suggestion: remove it. I don't think anyone would disagree that a Crawl without it is better than a Crawl with it

I disagree, for one.

[ololoev]

This has come up a bunch of times before; the end tends to be "it's OK if poison doesn't have super late-game efficacy, it's like short blades and beogh and yred and stuff"

But Yred was buffed lately, why can't poison be buffed too?
Poison tends to be a supportive school for a tabber. Adding some high-level acidic stuff would be great since you can greatly reduce that AC++++es that some tough enemies have.

[1010011010]

Removal of Mephitic cloud has a huge impact on the Wz background. Without it, the rest of the spells don't quite pull enough weight. Edit: I think it's one of the most fun spells in the Wz spell book.

Blink, conjure flame I'd argue are better. Add magic dart and call imp and the book very usable without resorting to MC, I've played many wizards without MC. MC is loud, and takes some luring to be any safe.

[ydeve]

Magic dart is barely useful after D1-3. Blink doesn't help you kill things, which Wz needs. Flame cloud is much harder to connect with a target and much easier to use with access to MC anyway. MC disables the opponent and gives infinite free stabs. I'm really not sure what your point about luring is.

[Siegurt]

Here are the main problems I think Poison Magic has.

1. Its early game is tedious. Sting encourages kiting, OTR encourages kiting plus Cure Poison plus resting afterwards, there are a whole bunch of enemies (phantoms, necrophages, ice beasts, player ghosts, high-end zombies) that you can't really kill and have to kite across the level so that you can park/stair dance/approach from another stair. It is important to have resistant enemies, of course, but no other elementalist faces nearly as many at this point of the game (AE and EE have nothing resistant, FE only has imps, IE gets Throw Icicle so they don't care overmuch about cold resistance).

2. It loses steam much sooner than it ought to. Lair has multiple black mambas and spiny frogs, which have poison as their sole resistance; facing them as VM is no different than facing eight levels of molten gargoyles as a FE or AE. One major reason that rP is given willy-nilly to every monster, I think, is Mephitic Cloud, which brings me to my first suggestion: remove it. I don't think anyone would disagree that a Crawl without it is better than a Crawl with it, and while it does have one interesting aspect (HD-based resistance), that can be moved to another Poison or Poison/Hexes spell.

3. It has no utility options, being limited to "kill non-rP things" and "kill non-rP things even harder". Ice Magic and Air Magic have a whole load of charms that make it attractive to dip into them even if you won't ever use their offensive options, while Earth couples well with Transmutations and even Fire, the designated offensive school, has its share of utility in Inner Flame and Ring of Flames. Poison instead gets Cure Poison, a spell that is in the game mostly because there are other poison spells that necessitate it, and Mephitic Cloud, which doesn't do anything that other poison spells can't.

Now, I am not really versed in game design, but here are a couple of suggestions on how to improve the school.

a. A Poison/Charms spell that poisons you and gives you slaying/spellpower/SH/EV/AC/you-name-it bonuses depending on how poisoned you are. As with ambrosia, you'll need to have the detrimental effect to keep the beneficial effect going, you lose the benefits if you cure your poison. Interesting in that you can adjust your bonuses by using other self-poison spells, but must carefully consider whether the damage you'll be taking from poison will be lower than the damage you won't be taking from the enemies.

b. High-level spells that move the focus of the school from "kills non-rP enemies" to "uses non-rP enemies to kill everything". These may include: Poison/Hexes nerve control spell that forces an enemy to move in a single direction (hitting things if they're in the way, low-risk mini-Discord), Poison/Necromany tissue degeneration spell that gives a non-rP enemy hyperactive ballistomycete-style explosions every turn (couple with Inner Flame for extra fun), Poison/Transmutations possession spell that instantly kills a (damaged?) non-rP enemy, moves you into its position, and gives you its speed/attacks/resistances for the duration (that's right, shard shrike form... actually, Antaeus form too).

c. Remove Mephitic Cloud, and concurrently remove the gratuitous proliferation of rP in the game. At least one Fiend ought to lose it, as should a couple other major demons, and probably either of mambas or spinies.

A couple nitpicks: AE have sky beasts and eel as early resists, 2. Mephitic cloud is an aoe confusion, the only other aoe confusion is level 6 , and hex based, mephitic cloud is pretty unusual in its role. 3. Mephitic cloud has a pretty low upper bounds for hd of critter it could effect, I pretty sure you could not confuse a major demon that didn't have rP with it. I don't believe that mephitic cloud is the primary reason for the large number of rP critters, particularly not the later game ones.

[Siegurt]

Personally, I would just like poison magic to have a summon or two, it seems like poison is natural fit for summons (summon scorpions was nice but awkward mechanically and boring)

A poison themed summon could very easily serve as a way for poison magic to do non poison damage

(Heck make s2s transmutations/ poison and add it to VM's starting book)

[CanOfWorms]

2. Mephitic cloud is an aoe confusion, the only other aoe confusion is level 6 , and hex based

Actually, Alistair's Intoxication sucks less now!

[Kaelii]

I have a probably really bad proposal for a high level poison spell:
Foo's (something eldritch? Yog Sothoth's?) Toxic Revelation - After a brilliant spark of inspiration, one extremely skilled poison mage learned a way to not only poison flesh and blood, but even poison the very nature of magical energies that all beings draw upon for a brief period.
Irresistably corrupt's the magical energies of target Foo (smite targeted enemy? all vision? AoE? line targeted enemy?) for a period (5?) causing number (rather low) poison damage (maybe super minor to poison resistant/immune enemies?) per turn and a SPELLPOWER based chance for them to miscast/cantrip any spell (and/or spell like abilities?) while affected (Possibly dealing bonus partially irresistable poison damage if it DOES cause a miscast/cantrip).

Base damage shouldn't be particularly high as it is not intended as a dedicated kill/clear spell. The primary draw should be a poison school specific and sufficiently powerful tool to mess with specific types of enemies (not physical attackers, ranged or otherwise), although only temporarily and without completely removing said enemy's threat like confusion/silence can.

You might argue that it could be easily or should be a hex. We don't really need another high level hex, and there are (hopefully) enough fiddily bits to keep it feeling rather poison school.
The full amount of poison damage inflicted for just casting it can easily be tweaked (does it scale off spellpower?).
I'm not sure if it should be MR resistible (doesn't really feel like poison if it is, but it might need to be for balancing reasons?)

[kuniqs]

We need a 9lvl charms/hexes/translocations spell gayz

[lethediver]

We need a 9lvl charms/hexes/translocations spell gayz

Charms, hexes and translocations already have very high level spells, capping out at 8. Poison magic caps out at 6, a full 2 levels lower than any school in crawl.

[dpeg]

In my opinion, the problem of Poison Magic is not at all the lack of higher level spells. That is fine, and has been sufficiently explained. The real problem is what Croases pointed out: a lot of Poison spells are about kiting and waiting out damage.

For reference, I really like to play VM, and I think they make a great background for when you want to play a caster with an open mind (because you will have to branch out, but it's not clear to which schools).

[bcadren]

Unless more things in extended were poison susceptible, there wouldn't be a use for a high level poison spell comes down to being the issue. UNLESS we opened it up to acid; which the old document says we shouldn't, but hell the devs just completely reworked the majority of amulets; adding acid to poison wouldn't be a stretch. Acid effects are historically virtually irresistible (only yellow draconians, and the J genus (except: Slime Creatures and Oozes) are resistant/immune)...

UNLESS, the strongest Poison attack spell and the strongest Necromancy attack spell are the same level (6); after that necromancy goes into all defensive things for it's level 8's (Borgjnor's, Necromut, DDoor)...a DEFENSIVE poison effect that's stronger could do...but what would that even be? Ambrosia on tap?