Tomb Titivator
Posts: 838
Joined: Friday, 2nd October 2015, 04:47
Re: Time for the biennial tasonir edits the wiki thread
Duvessa wrote:I deliberately didn't make it a monster spell because it would be a fucking terrible stupid monster spell and I'll be literally IRL angry if someone does make it a monster spell.
With due respect, I hope you have better reasons than you'd be angry. I'm still a little peeved that item destruction, encumberance, and longer Dungeon all got removed, but Crawl rolls on wherever various people think it works. Even more logically, I would think there are good reasons Ignition should be an option for ghosts, judging by the other spells they can already cast.
Disclaimer, I'm going to admit I've barely gotten around to actually using Ignition myself yet. It's level 8 -- and I kinda want to add "for heaven's sake" there? (I'm a bit skeptical that it quite deserves to be level 8. But more to the point, it takes forever to even get going in a 3-ish rune game.)
That being said, it's a direct damage spell like many spells on the existing list for ghosts. If a player is actually going to spend the spell slots to have it, then I would expect their ghost at least might have it somewhere. Now, I wondered whether or not it should appear somewhere in the list of explicit spells for ghosts. Or are there some spells that ghosts can have, that don't even show up in the "preferred" lists? I'd assumed the list on the Wiki (below) was explicitly mentioning every possible spell by name, but I'm not 100% sure I haven't missed a caveat someplace.
There are a few ghost spells that are pretty situational. Do ghosts think about targets before deciding whether or not to actually attempt things that could be resisted (e.g. Agony) or might not even fit the situation of the moment (e.g. Animate Dead, Dispel Undead)? It wouldn't be technically all that difficult to say, are there 3 or more possible targets adjacent to player at the moment and if there are, go ahead and fire that Ignition. This could be more risky (bomb the player regardless of whether this is dropping "friendly fire" on monsters too, because those overcooked fireballs will overlap) or more fussy (only drop the bomb if less than a certain HD of mobs/level will be blasted along with the player -- i.e. preference for effectively bombing only player and player summons).
Or it could simply be relatively low in the preference order of spells, if it were included.
Should Ignition be included under ghost spells at the end of the day, I'm not entirely sure. But if not at all and under no circumstances for ghosts, then I'd be still more skeptical that it deserves to be a whole level 8 spell for players. That would suggest to me that it just is way too hard to use effectively -- for a supposed direct damage spell -- for something that's soaking up all of 8 slots.
This is the "preference order" I was referring to from the Wiki (for anyone who's not following):
Conjurations Slots
The ghost wants the following (mostly) direct-damage spells, in order of preference. These spells fill the first, second, and possibly fourth and fifth slots. Note that not all of the spells on this and subsequent lists are possible for players to have. Pan lords are generated using the same code to pick random spells, and they can have such spells. Also, to some extent the code is simply outdated.
Conjuration slot spells: Lehudib's Crystal Spear, Fire Storm, Ice Storm, Chain Lightning, Bolt of Draining, Agony, Lightning Bolt, Airstrike, Sticky Flame, Iskenderun's Mystic Blast, Orb of Destruction, Bolt of Magma, Throw Icicle, Bolt of Fire, Bolt of Cold, Fireball, Delayed Fireball, Venom Bolt, Iron Shot, Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, Stone Arrow, Dazzling Spray, Force Lance, Throw Flame, Throw Frost, Freeze, Pain, Sting, Shock, Sandblast, Magic Dart, Ensorcelled Hibernation, Flame Tongue, Corona
Summonings/Charms Slot
These are the spells the ghost wants for its third slot, mostly Summonings and Charms, again in order of preference.
Self-enchantment/Summoning slot spells: Summon Greater Demon, Summon Horrible Things, Summon Dragon, Haunt, Summon Hydra, Summon Demon, Demonic Horde, Haste, Silence, Iskenderun's Battlesphere, Summon Butterflies, Summon Elemental, Summon Swarm, Summon Ugly Thing, Swiftness, Summon Ice Beast, Animate Dead, Invisibility, Summon Scorpions, Call Imp, Summon Small Mammals, Malign Gateway, Controlled Blink, Blink
Hostile Enchantments Slots
These spells will be chosen for the fourth and fifth slots; if the dead character did not have any of them, the code will then try to pick a spell from the first list, possibly allowing duplicates.
Hostile enchantments: Shatter, Agony, Banishment, Freezing Cloud, Ozocubu's Refrigeration, Olgreb's Toxic Radiance, Mass Confusion, Metabolic Englaciation, Dispel Undead, Conjure Ball Lightning, Paralyse, Confuse, Mephitic Cloud, Slow, Petrify, Polymorph Other, Teleport Other, Dig, Corona
Emergency Spell
This sixth spell will be an "emergency spell". While previously this included Teleport Self and even some ancient self-healing spells, now it only includes Blink (monsters do not distinguish between the controlled and uncontrolled versions).
Feel free to move this somewhere if it's taking up too much space on the thread.
More runes! GnWn (11, 0.21), GhMo^Makh (15, 0.17)
And a Yiuf: (1.4.6, 0.20): ImpGl^Oka (3)