Yes well I didn't want to talk about the reason why you want that, because I agree with the reason already, but specifically about what I said about characters not having access to many buffs at high level. A buff that gives 2 AC at high levels might as well not exist, just like shroud of golubria. Well maybe shroud is worth casting still but I'd never bother. If all low level buffs were like that, well Crawl doesn't have that many level 5+ buffs. I think that low level buffs can be made to scale well into higher levels. The idea of a spell that gives AC works at low level and it works at high level too, so restricting it to low levels might be a waste.
A spell that gives 30% AC is bad yes, but let's look at
stoneskin because I think it works well as a low level buff that scales into higher levels with exp invested into earth magic. Let's pretend
stoneskin was changed to only work in combat or something so that it doesn't have the permanent buff problem. This spell works well unlike the 30% AC one or repel missiles because a player with no earth magic, or even low earth magic wouldn't learn it (at least probably not after it's changed to not be "permanent"). But if you have high earth magic, is it a no brainer? One could say: "if you have high earth magic, learning
stoneskin and using it in every fight is a no brainer". That sounds like a bad thing at first, but it's not. If you have high earth magic, and if
stoneskin was suddenly level 5 or 6, learning it is hardly less of a no brainer. The increased mp cost makes it a little harder to use, but not by much. In fact what that argument is saying is that "if you have high earth magic, learning an earth magic spell is a no brainer", which is correct, but not a bad thing at all. "Learning iron shot when training earth magic is a no brainer" "If you have high fire magic and high conjurations, learning fire storm is a no brainer". The decision that was made here is to train earth magic or whatever in the first place. The access to earth magic spells is an obvious and good result.
Stoneskin is a little different from iron shot, in that iron shot requires lets say a minimum of 13 earth magic to use, while
stoneskin can be good starting at 0 earth magic and going all the way to 20+. What keeps
stoneskin from being an actual no brainer is that it becomes worse and worse if the player doesn't keep putting exp into earth magic to match the increasing difficulty of the game. We could say something like:
stoneskin requires 13 earth magic to be good at x point in the game. So there's no problem with
stoneskin being flexible and working at all points in the game, because it costs exp. Effectively, at high levels, the only difference between the level 2
stoneskin buff and an imaginary level 6
stoneskin buff is the mp cost. Yeah 2 mp is pretty cheap but is that really so different from 6 mp if it's used on a good buff once in a fight? A little different but not that much. Is it worth making
stoneskin exclusively good at lower levels just because of this difference? In my opinion no. Furthermore, if
stoneskin is too good for a 2 mp cost at lvl 27, just make it scale a bit worse so that it's less good but still worth casting. If
stoneskin also has a drawback like "you have to stay still to keep the AC bonus", it can be a great spell (balanced and well designed) even if it costs 2 mp at lvl 27.
So make low level buffs scale like
stoneskin and they'll be fine. Btw this post has nothing to do with solving the problem of effectively permanent buffs, in case someone thinks it does.
Hurkyl wrote:That "spell" is the proper adjective to refer to something rather than "armor" is just flavor; it's not a reason to go through great lengths to try and avoid "non-tactical" or "non-strategic" such things.
If it has nothing to do with being a spell, and a permanent rmsl effect that you can find doesn't, then don't make it a fucking spell. Make it an item, or an equippable item.