Hexes

[Wahaha]

Maybe the hexes school should have good spells that don't improve stabbing then. And I mean good spells, the mediocre mass confusion and discord are not good enough. It will never be worth training hexes for non-stabbers even if darkness was level 5.
Edit: this post and the rest were moved from another thread, I didn't start this thread.

[byrel]

Confusing touch, invisibility and tukimas are all legit on nonstabbers. So is dazzling spray.

[bel]

Spectral weapon is good too.

[Siegurt]

As is fulminant prism.

[File200]

Confusing touch, invisibility and tukimas are all legit on nonstabbers. So is dazzling spray.

I grant you invisibility and tukima's, but nothing else.

[mps]

Looks like this conversation needs a list.

The definitive mps list of good hexes:

1. spectral weapon
2. this space intentionally left blank
3. silence
4. invisibility if it were level 5
5. darkness if it were level 5

That is all.

[dowan]

There are some spells that while even better for stabbers, are good for everyone.
Confuse, dazzling spray, tukima's, invis,
Then there are some hexes that benefit everyone pretty equally
Silence, darkness, corona, slow,
Leaving really just EH as only really good for stabbers

I don't think it's true that hexes are only good for stabbers, I think it's more that if you're going to use hexes, you might as well stab. Another possible issue is that hexes need good investment because they work off spellpower, so you can't just grab confuse and get it castable, you need to dedicate enough XP for it to effect targets worth confusing.

For example, as an AM who decides to invest in hexes, confuse is still a great spell, even if you don't use a short blade at all. Filling an enemy with arrows as they wander around aimlessly kills them just as well as a dagger stab, if not as quickly.

Mass confusion just doesn't last long enough, I think it could use a buff there.

Some hexes are basically throwaway garbage after the first few levels, like corona and slow.

[radinms]

come back enslavement!

[Lasty]

I agree with dowan -- many hexes, particularly confuse and cause fear, are great for pretty much all characters. The reason is that there are a lot of dangerous enemies with remarkably low MR throughout the game, and all enemies are pretty harmless once confused or running away. A small investment in Hexes can give you a reliable way to safely handle a large number of otherwise dangerous monsters and situations.

[byrel]

Confusing touch, invisibility and tukimas are all legit on nonstabbers. So is dazzling spray.

I grant you invisibility and tukima's, but nothing else.

Confusing touch and dazzling spray are both resisted by HD instead of MR. They're like mephitic cloud, except affecting rPois monsters and not being triple school and not making a ton of noise. (And not being a cloud spell, hence requiring extra casts if it fails.) I don't think anyone would argue that mephitic cloud is only useful on stabbers.

[mps]

Repeat after me: If it depends on spellpower, it's not good for most characters.

Good spells have effects that do not depend heavily on spellpower.

I rarely use all my fear scrolls in a game, usually not even close. Yet their effect is way more powerful than cause fear essentially always and certainly on any character with a sensible amount of hexes. Similarly, I start dropping confuse wands early and don't seem to be any worse off for it, even though I always train evocations, an actually useful skill that increases their spellpower. The small number of situations where fear or confuse seem genuinely useful are well-covered by scrolls and wands. While I'm sure having spammable fear and confuse would prompt me to use both more, I still don't see the value on actually good characters. Saying that it's good on all characters is nuts -- sure, they'd be okay if you could get dedicated hex-user like spellpower for them, but obviously that's not a good idea through the part of the game where they'd be of much use anyway. Exchanging AC and EV for hexes in midgame is crazy for most characters.

[byrel]

Repeat after me: If it depends on spellpower, it's not good for most characters.

Agreed. Which is why hexes that don't depend on spellpower (say, confusing touch, invisibility and dazzling spray) and hexes with huge boosts to effective spell power like tukima's are good on everyone. And EH/confuse is a bit weak on most characters.

Edit: I think I should pitch tukima's a bit. It will have a >50% chance of disarming an ettin or hellknight with minimal training. It creates a dancing weapon ally that never times out till the target is dead, which causes both distraction and a ton of bonus damage. It means you never get hit by distortion (or holy wrath or flaming if vulnerable) weapons on anything without a huge amount of MR. It means you can disarm the reaching weapons in a pack before they can get to you, and you can have those extra attacks on your side.

[radinms]

back to 0.16 and start at AM.
worship Cheibriados and spam Enslavement, Cause Fear!

[bel]

I use confuse/enslave wands all through the game, if I train some evo (even 10 or so is good). Convokers/sentinels in Vaults, and draconians in Zot, pretty much everything in spider are good targets.

[nago]

Plus tukima's dance weapons kill outside Los, and I can't check right now but I think they're also faster than normal speed so you can get lots of cheap kills!

[byrel]

Plus tukima's dance weapons kill outside Los, and I can't check right now but I think they're also faster than normal speed so you can get lots of cheap kills!

Yeah, distortion QB + tukima's is insane. A TP away is basically a kill, since the weapon will hunt them down and kill them.

[radinms]

sadly, tukima's weapon by the player is slow.
(Maybe spellpower)

[byrel]

I'm not sure how the move speed goes. I know giant clubs, etc are slow, but I think lighter weapons are faster. Not 100% sure, since I mostly use it on heavy weapons in or close to melee range.

[byrel]

For an anecdote, I found confusing touch fairly early on a troll of Chei I'm playing and proceeded to use it (with some judicious bend time use) to kill all the hydras in lair. If a hydra is confused, it mostly doesn't attack you. I trained Hexes to 4.5 for that, mostly to get the fail rate down (I was using a shield with minimal training.) I used it to kill a frost giant in an ice cave, and 4 catoblepas's. It's good.

[Wahaha]

If these supposedly good spells were actually good, it would be worth getting hexes with non-stabbers. But it's not. Aside from spectral weapon, which is OP and only level 3.

[partial]

Confusing touch, invisibility and tukimas are all legit on nonstabbers. So is dazzling spray.

I grant you invisibility and tukima's, but nothing else.

confusing touch is FILTHY on trolls

[Berder]

sadly, tukima's weapon by the player is slow.
(Maybe spellpower)

Yes, it gets faster with spellpower.

[edgefigaro]

I think hexes are the most versatile spell tree, except for maybe necromancy. Certainly they are my favorite spells. If their were a hex god (no, not sif muna, what a boring god) I would pray regularly.

[Lasty]

My experience with hexes on low-to-moderate int characters is remarkably different from Wahaha's and mps's. Both confuse and tukima's have good success rates even at fairly low int/investment against low MR sometimes-threatening monsters like most merfolk, ironbrand convokers, vault sentinels, draconians, ettins, deep trolls, ugly things, and more. With a moderate investment, the list expands to several more threats, like vault wardens, tengu reavers, fire/ice dragons, stone giants, fire/ice giants, and caustic shrikes.

In one recent game I took out most of the shoals by hitting the dangerous merfolk with confuse and tukima's and then walking away -- safe, reliable, no commitment to dangerous terrain.

[Utis]

I'm starting to develop an infatuation with Slow in early D and Lair. For just a little skill investment, you gain what against many early threats is for most practical and tactical purposes effectively a 2MP glow-less haste. Obviously, I'm talking about one on one encounters and about being able to start casting it from far away, which is what should happen if you play carefully in early D.

Once you made that little investment, the cost for the next upgrade in Hexes would seem marginal and thus set you on a road to develop hexes fully. It's like crack, I suppose. I'm still exploring and experimenting with it, but that doesn't seem like a bad thing, though. None of my test chars has found Tukima's early enough for me to evaluate it. But high power Mana Vipers seem to be awesome.

EDIT: Correction: It's not 2MP, effectively, since in the described situation it will take more than one casting most of the time. It is lvl2, though.

[njvack]

As is fulminant prism.

Why on earth is prism conj/hex? There's nothing hexy about it.

[Siegurt]

As is fulminant prism.

Why on earth is prism conj/hex? There's nothing hexy about it.

I think because they wanted to give conjurers something else in their starting book that used the hexes skill.

The closest I can think of to why it might be a 'hex' is that it is sort of a trap like thing, but that sounds pretty lame to me.

[Berder]

It's because it hexes... the floor... with a prism status effect.

[njvack]

maybe it's a hexagonal prism?

[Sprucery]

maybe it's a hexagonal prism?

Just change the tile to a hex and that's it.

[ontoclasm]

WITCHES