The Problem with --VM (and Poison Magic)

[bcadren]

The problem with --VM isn't that the spells aren't suitably powerful, in fact against suitable targets they are the most powerful starting spells possible. (Venom Bolt is the most powerful starting spell by total damage dealt at similar spellpower; OTR and Alistair's are the only full LoS start spells).

It's that the book has no flexibility (has no utility spells to help you deal with other threats) and that poison resistant things are far too common to rely on the book for long. Several high-tier lair threats are immune, like Spiny Frogs, Hydrae and Black Mambas. And there's a 50/50 chance of it being useless for each lair branch (virtually no use in Snake and Swamp). You may even run into packs of wights before lair that are immune.

No other spellschool has to put up with so much immunity so early and the starting book (and for the matter the spellschool) has no flexibility to do anything to help with these encounters.

I can also say that the start book is very unilateral; offering less variety than --IE, --AE or --EE. --FE is similar, but, --FE has to deal with far fewer immunities in early game (or for that matter the whole game).

Also, now that cure poison has been removed; --VM is the only book start without at least 2 spells of of level 1 and 2. (All others except necromancer have a level 2; Necromancer has two level 1's). Also, since Meph is a 3 school spell, there's a significant early game experience gap between Sting and Meph Cloud.

Before Orc was made so much harder than Lair; --VM could make up for some of its weaknesses by clearing orc first, since Wargs are the only rPois threat there; with the harder orc this is no longer the case (as easily).

I'm not making any specific suggestions at this time just stating facts. Poison and Fire are both similarly unilateral (no real utility spells all damage dealing); but fire is much more viable generally.

In short, Meph, OTR and Venom Bolt are great spells; but when none of them deal with a black mamba at all and you die in Lair due to rPois monsters; it makes you question ever investing in the school at all.

Note: I did personally win FeVM on the first try; but that character both had felid speed to help with things and had a lucky book acquirement book of fire, which allowed much more versatility out it's existing poison spells with Ignite Poison and allowed to branch into fire when resistant monsters were starting to become common. It otherwise would have likely died trying to avoid all the immunes or switching into melee.

[vergil]

I agree on this. Poison magic got severe issues, and should be reworked.
Ice got it's own problems too.

つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Giff more spells つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Remove immunity つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

[goodcoolguy]

Sting is just a problematic d1 spell. It misses a lot and it hits with low damage and no poison a lot. It's resisted by oozes.

Poison magic isn't particularly problematic overall.

[Croases]

What makes Poison Magic especially infuriating is that it already has a decent secondary gimmick (damage-over-time and poison counters), but no poison spell does anything with it, bar Ignite Poison (which is one of the best-designed and most useful PM spells). A series of PM spells that use poison counters to buff the spellcaster/kill rP enemies could give a new spin on the school.

That said, I was also thinking about how to revamp PM, and here's some spells that I could come up with. Many of these are potentially unbalanced and/or bad ideas in general, but let's hope they get the ball rolling:

  Code:

Absorb Poison (Poison/Charms 3)
RMsl/DMsl style spell that makes you recover X HP whenever something in your LoS dies with X poison counters on them, effectively allowing you to turn green rats/orcs/other non-rP small fry enemy into extra health. Spellpower determines the maximum amount of total HP you get before the spell needs recasting, possibly with a multiplier on the health gained (if up to 4 HP per dead, poisoned monster seems too excessive).

Asphyxiate (Poison/Air 3)
Replacement for Mephitic Cloud, since Poison Magic doesn't need two confusion spells in its starting book. Short-range spell that acts similarly to the water elemental engulf special, dealing some asphyxiation damage each turn (which overlaps thematically with poison since it's also a damage-over-time effect that mostly affects the living). Gives VM something to do against mambas/hydrae/spiny frogs, all of which are breathing but rP, and allows you to single-target silence a fair number of spellcasters. Try it with elves!

Olgreb's Toxic Overdrive (Poison/Charms 5)
Poisons you for 15-20 damage, ignoring rP, then grants you up to poison counters/2 AC/EV and poison counters/3 slaying (numbers subject to change). Stacks with poison from other sources, so you can get 200 AC by camping on poison clouds (and then promptly die), but the bonuses decrease rapidly and the effect ends when you're no longer poisoned. Cannot be used by the poison-immune or if the spell would kill you (could be a threshold like "<50% or <25 HP, whichever is greater").

Orb of Obstruction (Conjurations/Poison/Air 6)
Replacement for Poisonous Cloud, conjures an OoD-style orb that intermittently trails poison mist clouds and explodes for a burst of the same when it hits something. Poison mist clouds are exactly what it says on the tin: they block LoS, poison things, and any breathing monster in them has a 25% chance to fumble their actions (Foo gasps for air!). Decent escape utility (not quite a scroll of fog, obviously, but good uses in hallways), allows you to do the cloud kiting thing more effectively.

Poison Possession (Poison/Transmutations 7)
Requires an adjacent poisoned target. You have a (spellpower x number of poison stacks on target)/(target's current HP x 25) chance to instantly kill that target and move to its square. You then gain its remaining HP as "temporary HP" (think Divine Vigour), this decays rapidly and the spell ends when you no longer have any remaining. As long as the spell continues, any damage you would take is deduced from your temporary HP, and your base UC damage is equal to the first attack of the monster you possessed. Try it with juggernauts!

[Shard1697]

Sting is just a problematic d1 spell. It misses a lot and it hits with low damage and no poison a lot. It's resisted by oozes.

I remember a fun game a bit ago as DrVM where I killed one (weaponless) goblin, and then the second enemy I ran into was an ooze... cast sting at it 3 times, doing no damage, tried to melee it and got outdamaged, and then had to pillardance to recover all my HP before trying to melee it again with 0 skill unarmed.

[Sprucery]

I know I'm crazy but VM is my best background with 18.18 win-%.

[bcadren]

I know I'm crazy but VM is my best background with 18.18 win-%.

You know that's fair, it is very powerful against targets it does effect. I could say the same of, say, fire...but fire effectively works on everything in early game (the exceptions [Red Imps] and the Unique Azrael isn't relevant enough of a threat to freak out about your school not affecting things; (imps are borderline harmless and can be dealt with without killing them and an early Azrael should probably be avoided by everyone anyways.))

[yesno]

remove VM and As, bring back thief and stalker, give stalker a book with a new envenom weapon spell, swiftness, meph cloud, lrd, and pog 8)

[lethediver]

Yet another beautifully written, irrefutable post about the plight of venom magic goes ignored by the devs. How much longer will the campaign of hate and apathy towards VM go on? How much longer must we suffer?

Maybe Uchiha Madara from Naruto was right. The injustice of this foul world is too great to be allowed to continue. Just end it all. End existence. Maybe THEN the devs will understand our pain.

[Queen Cassie]

Didn't Ignite Poison once cause poison-based monsters to erupt in flames without having to have the poison status? Why was that taken away? It was one of the best features of that spell, back in the day, and helped make Venom Mages stronger because they actually had a decent attack spell against poison-based monsters.

[vergil]

Didn't Ignite Poison once cause poison-based monsters to erupt in flames without having to have the poison status? Why was that taken away? It was one of the best features of that spell, back in the day, and helped make Venom Mages stronger because they actually had a decent attack spell against poison-based monsters.

It was awesome to clear Spider that way.

[bcadren]

Didn't Ignite Poison once cause poison-based monsters to erupt in flames without having to have the poison status? Why was that taken away? It was one of the best features of that spell, back in the day, and helped make Venom Mages stronger because they actually had a decent attack spell against poison-based monsters.

It was Fire/Tmut level 5, instead of Poison/Fire/Tmut level 3 back then. And it can still be used to clear (most of) spider in combination with OTR. (no effect on Ghost Moths or Emperor Scorpions, sweeps everything else).

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Turn Ignite Poison into a buff you cast upon yourself. You get a status effect that effectively casts current Ignite Poison every turn, plus turns all poisoning into fire damage as soon as it occurs, before checking resistance. So: use a weapon of venom to hit anything from a spider to a golem, the amount of poisoning is calculated (based on dice rolls and the amount of damage you did), and before checking poison resistance/susceptibility, the poisoning is turned into fire damage that is inflicted immediately, all at once. Bump IP's spell level.

The maximum amount of poisoning a monster can get is astonishingly limited. I played trunk, could not believe how much I saw "... looks as sick as possible!" That explains everything.

[PleasingFungus]

Turn Ignite Poison into a buff you cast upon yourself. You get a status effect that effectively casts current Ignite Poison every turn, plus turns all poisoning into fire damage as soon as it occurs, before checking resistance. So: use a weapon of venom to hit anything from a spider to a golem, the amount of poisoning is calculated (based on dice rolls and the amount of damage you did), and before checking poison resistance/susceptibility, the poisoning is turned into fire damage that is inflicted immediately, all at once.

i actually thought about implementing it this way when i changed ignite poison. (well, triggering at the end of every turn, but same difference). but there didn't seem to be any actual design advantage to it, just added complexity

[bcadren]

i actually thought about implementing it this way when i changed ignite poison. (well, triggering at the end of every turn, but same difference). but there didn't seem to be any actual design advantage to it, just added complexity

From a player perspective it's a significant buff to the spell, like the difference between Death Channel and Animate Dead tier of buff and both a one turn version and a passive multi-activation have different uses. One time use is better if you want to build up poison and purge it all at once (you want to kill Nergalle without her activating Death's Door; you trapped a bunch of monsters in a Poisonous Cloud); the passive is better as a partner to venom weapons, OTR or curare needles, every time you add poison, it immediately damages.

Also, if both existed it wouldn't be the first time a "instant effect" and "passive buff" version of the same spell coexisted. DChan and Animate Dead (yes I know there are other reasons Spectral things are better than Zombies, but the activating on death is the biggest difference); Dispersal and Disjunction...

[Shard1697]

It's just more convenient to have a "constant" version of something. It's why I never learn abjuration, but always get aura of abjuration if I can.

[bcadren]

It's just more convenient to have a "constant" version of something. It's why I never learn abjuration, but always get aura of abjuration if I can.

Abjuration is gone. Aura is the only version.

[Shard1697]

Shows how much I missed it!

[infinitevox]

My initial suggestions to help fix Poison Magic:

1.) Unilaterally remove Poison Immunity from all living creatures - If it lives and breaths, there's bound to be something out there that's "poisonous" to it
2.) Undead and Constructs would still be immune, obviously
3.) Oozes, Jellies, & Elementals are rPois. Most Demons too
4.) Special living monsters, like uniques or magical beasts, that have rPois/immunity could be re-evaluated on a case by case basis - This might be a tad tedious, but worth it imo overall and could be done a little at a time
5.) Poison now stacks on affected monsters the same way it does the player - If this is already the case, it really doesn't seem like it from the player standpoint currently and might warrant tweaking: see below
6.) Add/Create a couple new status effects that poison can inflict, either using existing spells or by creating a couple new spells utilizing Poison/Necromancy/Air/Hexes/Transmutation spell schools as needed

Could be one or all (depending on power/level) of: Corrode, Asphyxiate, Rot, Sickness, Slow, Confuse, Sleep, Paralyze, Blind, Deaf, Vertigo, Polymorph, Malmutate, Flee/Fear, Drain, Enslavement(?), Weak, etc...
- An increase in poison stacks could also give an increasingly higher chance of afflicting different status effects, so as to give incentive to keep casting/attacking if kiting were perceived as a potential problem -

Thematically, it would still make sense.
"Foo" can inflict its own poison on you, but that doesn't make it resistant or even immune to a different type of poison. (Using arsenic instead of venom to kill a spiny frog for a slightly more "real world" example)

Poison magic basically becomes slightly re-tooled to be more in line with what I believe the original intent was:
- Less direct damage, and more emphasis on lasting status affliction/damage over time effects.

This way it cuddles up a little closer to Necromancy & Hexes and a little further from Conjurations. (Separating more things from Cj is something I think would also go a long way to helping with over all game balance, but that's a big discussion for another day)

*Edit* Added more possible implicit status effects

[jwoodward48ss]

Well, you'd need quite a bit of arsenic to kill the spiny frog in a reasonable amount of time. But I get the point. Just being pedantic here.

Also, like the theme/playstyle tweaking suggestions.

[infinitevox]

Well, you'd need quite a bit of arsenic to kill the spiny frog in a reasonable amount of time. But I get the point. Just being pedantic here.
Also, like the theme/playstyle tweaking suggestions.

;P
If anything, that supports my overall argument! It goes from directly damaging and killing the spiny frog outright to more of a Death/Damage over Time status
(However you could substitute radiation, then, as I feel reasonably certain most people would consider it a form of poison. Especially considering how quickly it can kill and its debilitating side-effects...)

[PleasingFungus]

My initial suggestions to help fix Poison Magic:

1.) Unilaterally remove Poison Immunity from all living creatures - If it lives and breaths, there's bound to be something out there that's "poisonous" to it

this happened a version or two ago. that's why you can poison plants now

also imps, etc

[HardboiledGargoyle]

From a player perspective it's a significant buff to the spell

Yeah it is. Especially if done as written: "the amount of poisoning is calculated (based on dice rolls and the amount of damage you did), and before checking poison resistance/susceptibility, the poisoning is turned into fire damage". So it would make venom great against most undeads and the like.

From attack.cc: http://git.develz.org/?p=crawl.git;a=tr ... ef/source;

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1574         defender->poison(attacker, 6 + random2(8) + random2(damage_done * 3 / 2));

On average, this adds roughly (9+damage*3/4) ticks of poisoning to the target, up to some limit.
If those degrees were instead damage points inflicted directly, that would be a hell of a brand.

From spl-damage.cc:

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1630     // poison currently does roughly 6 damage per degree (over its duration)
1631     // do roughly 2x to 3x that much, scaling with spellpower
1632     const dice_def dam_dice(pois_str * 2, 12 + div_rand_round(pow * 6, 100));

I honestly did not know this and thought poison DOT was just quickly converted into immediate fire damage.

If ignite poison was something you toggled, you could directly shoot Poisonous/Mephitic clouds as fire clouds, instead of setting them up - every turn counts, more so than when creating zombies.

Also, I don't understand by which reasoning a status effect seems like "added complexity". A player would just toggle it and shoot parrows/needles/etc until monsters die. That seems simpler to me. When I have Ignite Poison, I have to keep guessing whether or not casting it will kill a monster in the same turn, or if I should keep PArrowing it first.

If Ignite Poison was like this and level 6 Fire/Poison/Transmutations, fire and transmutations would probably be the less useful skills if you want IP. So most players getting IP would over-train poison to get IP castable, which flips the usual dynamic of focusing on conjurations at the expense of poison, even with venom mage chars.

5.) Poison now stacks on affected monsters the same way it does the player - If this is already the case, it really doesn't seem like it from the player standpoint currently and might warrant tweaking: see below

From a little wizmode experimentation, it looks like player poisoning is uncapped, so you can get poisoning that will take thousands of hit points if not cured. However, poison damage is capped to 10 HP/turn under normal circumstances. That actually sounds like a good way to handle monster poisoning. Why are they treated differently? There's a 5-figure poisoning enchantment. It looks complicated so it's hard to tell that everything works right.

[infinitevox]

My initial suggestions to help fix Poison Magic:

1.) Unilaterally remove Poison Immunity from all living creatures - If it lives and breaths, there's bound to be something out there that's "poisonous" to it

this happened a version or two ago. that's why you can poison plants now

also imps, etc

Hah, awesome. And here I thought they (imps) were rPois and I was just getting more lucky with Rng.
I recall seeing plants poisoned in recent games, but I honestly don't think that one has ever come up enough for me in the past that I noticed the difference.
Still good to know. I'll have to try it out on Oklobs, Thorn Hunters, and Shambling Mangroves in the future.


Aaaand, a bit off topic, but this seems like as good a place as any to mention this...
I was thinking of codifying a new poison/disease based weapon brand as a patch/pull suggestion, following one of these options:
Blight - Could scale based on Poison Magic, depending on which option, similar to Pain & Necromancy

1.) Adds [Rot] to attacks, stacking - perhaps not as strong as Drain for killdudes purposes, but you get full XP per kill instead of reduced
2.) Adds [status] on hit. [Status] = Blind, Rot, Sickness, Weakness, or Vertigo - could limit to 1 total status per target, or a chance for 1 status added per successful attack, ignores MR
3.) Adds [Bleeding] status - can spawn on any weapon, higher % chance on Piercing/Slicing weapons

I guess I really feel like Poison should be more of a utility spell school, and not a true direct damage school. Hence the affects and trying to add them to poison magic things.
(Side Note: I was also thinking that maybe Scythes should always cause Bleeding innately, not as a brand, but I'll save that for the next Scythe Reform topic)

[Shard1697]

I do feel like it could be cool to have other status effects like Slow attached to some poison magic... I think if poison magic is supposed to be good against things that don't resist it, but fall off as more resistant enemies show up(and enemies have bigger HP pools), it should feel more powerful against what it works on. As it is I feel about as strong using fire or ice or whatever, except those work on basically everything.

[ximxim]

Have all poison effects from spells have a chance to turn into curare at high spellpower.

[infinitevox]

Have all poison effects from spells have a chance to turn into curare at high spellpower.

That's not without precedent... Cold damage can already cause Slow on cold-blooded monsters.
It would be a nice addition to allow all the elements a secondary effect gated by spellpower or something.
Air (Elec) - Weak/Disarm/Vertigo/Bounces/Chains
Earth - Corrode/Daze/Blind/Gains AoE
Fire - Burn/Combust/Gains AoE
Ice - Slow Movement/Slow Attack/Freeze
Necro (Vamp here?) - Drain/Rot/Vamp?/%chance to raise skele on death - necro not really an element, but to keep a "balance" between schools and potentially brands...
Poison - Curare/Sick/Rot/Blind/Lots of options here

Some of those are obviously a lot more powerful than others, but the overall idea has some merit.
Could actually tie those secondary effects into the Spellcasting skill, which would give incentive to actually put points into it beyond just when you need a couple extra slots or a bit of mana.
>.>

[jwoodward48ss]

Drain does not reduce XP!

[infinitevox]

Drain does not reduce XP!

Wat? That's news to me >.>

[Sprucery]

Drain does not reduce XP!

Wat? That's news to me >.>

I assume this was changed already in 0.15, when draining was changed to not decrease monster HD permanently.

[jwoodward48ss]

It's been slightly nerfed, though, since the drain effect is temporary. But not against you, hehehe.

[Arrhythmia]

Also, if the PC gets drained, and then gets undrained, they'll have the same XP as a character who was just never drained in the first place.