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cut Haste spell, replace with cooler charms

PostPosted: Friday, 16th September 2016, 21:54
by luckless
The point of getting Haste as a spell is that you can use it for all moderately dangerous fights (as opposed to very dangerous ones where you'd probably use a potion/wand anyway). In my opinion this is bad for at least two reasons: (a) it adds tedium, in much the way Phase Shift/Stoneskin did (especially when you factor in waiting out the contamination), and (b) making Haste a nonrenewable resource may make late game challenges a bit easier to design.

In addition to these benefits, and maybe more importantly than them, cutting Haste would open up design space for more interesting (and active) offensive high-level Charms. Ideally I think Charms should be for players who want to rely on melee for most of their damage, but want a more involved playstyle more like that of dedicated offensive casters. A few ideas:

  • a spell that gave your melee attacks an AoE effect, maybe hitting a line past your target, or a cone like Sauron in LotR;
  • a spell that let you bypass a portion of your target's AC based on spellpower, but quickly drained your MP;
  • a spell that periodically teleported you to a random monster in LoS, but could be cancelled instantly & at will and had a chance of confusing monsters you ended up next to;
  • a spell that moved a target monster next to you;
  • a spell that gave you a chance to instantly cast a (random or preselected) Conjuration at the target of each melee attack (but at the normal MP cost), sort of like a combination of Infusion and Spellforged Servitor (or, really, Arcane Combat in ToME).
Thoughts?

Re: cut Haste spell, replace with cooler charms

PostPosted: Friday, 16th September 2016, 22:04
by dpeg
I agree with the reasoning about the Haste spell. Since it is pretty hard to reach agreement on a good replacement, so I'd suggest to axe first and discuss the replacement later.

Re: cut Haste spell, replace with cooler charms

PostPosted: Saturday, 17th September 2016, 18:29
by luckless
Makes sense. Another possibility worth considering may be to just combine Charms and Hexes back into a single school.

Re: cut Haste spell, replace with cooler charms

PostPosted: Saturday, 17th September 2016, 18:39
by Shard1697
Honestly, minus haste and some of the other "problem" spells which have gotten cut over the years, I could see it happening.

Re: cut Haste spell, replace with cooler charms

PostPosted: Saturday, 17th September 2016, 18:41
by duvessa
Haste does suffer from the usual charm problems and should be removed like the rest of the buff spells. However, I'll point out a few things.
1. Both luckless and dpeg are assuming that a replacement is needed in the first place. I am not convinced it is. Divinations didn't need replacements. I don't see why Charms does.
2. Haste is not actually as bad as stoneskin/phase shift/ozocubu's/etc. because the contam prevents you from maintaining it while exploring. Waiting out contam is obnoxious too, yes, but much less so than maintaining buffs during exploration.
3. I do not believe removing the Haste spell specifically will make lategame challenges any easier to design; you should assume the player has access to haste whether the spell exists or not (it's a rare spell now, so there are already many Crawl games in which the spell doesn't exist). The difference between having the wand and having the spell is small.

Re: cut Haste spell, replace with cooler charms

PostPosted: Saturday, 17th September 2016, 20:54
by Siegurt
I would personally like to see the freqency of potions of haste increased and the spell and wand removed along with the associated contamination.

Alternatively i would like to see a poste haste slow similar to post swiftness -Swift

Re: cut Haste spell, replace with cooler charms

PostPosted: Sunday, 18th September 2016, 00:06
by Implojin
dang, I thought this was going to be a twelwe thread

Re: cut Haste spell, replace with cooler charms

PostPosted: Sunday, 18th September 2016, 01:32
by lethediver
Is haste wand still going to be in the game?

Re: cut Haste spell, replace with cooler charms

PostPosted: Sunday, 18th September 2016, 03:44
by jwoodward48ss
Haste is pretty cool, just a bit OP and overused. Reducing it to a consumable would do the trick. I don't think there's anything wrong with wands of healing/hasting/teleportation. The multiple choices are different and can induce strategic choice.