High level Transmutation spell ideas/reworking dragon form

[tasonir]

There are currently no pure transmutation spells that are higher than level 5: blade hands. The final 3 form spells are all aligned with other schools, particularly statue form, which gets an additional bonus the more earth magic you have, but gets no bonus from transmutations. Necromutation is generally only considered worthwhile if you're investing in necromancy for other spells (reviv/d.door, etc), dragon form is fairly terrible if you ever find yourself against more than one monster. I suppose it could be considered pure transmutations if you're a draconian, but it generally isn't, so pendants go home.

Proposal: a level 8 (or anywhere from 7 to 9, depending on balance) pure transmutations form that provides bonuses without many penalties, to be versatile and fit many different play styles. I'm not entirely sure what the specifics would be - I'm thinking along the lines of a small AC and EV boost (roughly +5 each, scaling with spell power?), a 10-20% damage buff, and resistance to mutations/rot? Maybe rAcid as well? Is this actually interesting? Right now I'm not melding any armor, should it meld armor in return for bigger effects?

Should I abandon the idea it being pure transmutations and give it a secondary school so that there's more design space? Trying to avoid elemental associations turns it into a "give me better stats" kind of form. Maybe combo it with air for a (non-stacking) swiftness, large EV bonus, no AC bonus?

In short I feel there's a hole for high end transmutations, but I'm not really sure how to fill it.

[tasonir]

I wouldn't mind buffs to dragon form, I do think it needs them, although I don't think just making it single school would really make it that great. My last late game draconian transmuter who could cast the spell lost both AC and EV going into dragon form. The melded +2 enchanted armors gave more AC than the spell, and of course dragon form has low EV. The huge health helps a lot, but I just hate the lack of defenses. Raising the AC bonus somewhat would be my suggestion.

Crystalline form was an attempt to make a form that would give you more defenses rather than take them away. maybe even add some SH - you deflect blows/missiles with your hard and smooth crystal structure? I probably wouldn't put any added health in it, although if there was some it should be much lower than the +50%. I also wanted a form that doesn't meld armors like necromutation, but isn't for heavy necromancy casters.

[Siegurt]

What immediately came to mind was this:

http://www.dansimmons.com/art/gallery9.htm

[tasonir]

Feature request: crystalline form has the DS spines mutation.

[pratamawirya]

Crystalline form sounds quite similar to statue form, i.e both boost defense and offense.

[XuaXua]

How about allowing simultaneous transmutations to combine? Stone Dragon Form with Blade Claws and a Beastly Appendage.

[Speleothing]

My initial impression was somewhat similar to Siegurt's. But I started thinking about how we could make the form more interesting than just a slightly-different Statue Form, if we want to sick with the crystal theme.

So how about a spell that gives an AC boost that is slightly less than Statue Form's, but provides the Dragonskin Cloak's chance-at-resistance effect? As an added boost, it could also have a high chance at branding your Unarmed Attacks (either random brand, or whatever you were hit with last). Throwing on Spiney Body would be fun too, and perhaps better than branded UAs.


The other high level spell idea that sprang to mind, dropping any crystaline flavor, would be an Energy Body form - almost the opposite from Statue Form, it would be Tmut/Air and turn you into something similar to an Electric Golem. This has the 'benefit' of having antitraining with Earth, so you may only end up with one or the other unless you're pumping Tmut very hard.

[tasonir]

Crystalline form sounds quite similar to statue form, i.e both boost defense and offense.

If this is the test for uniqueness really nothing else could ever possibly exist. Spider form boosts offense and defense, ice form boosts offense and defense...Any form spell will do one or the other, and probably both.

Lately I'm thinking combining with air would allow for more interesting mechanics, although I do miss having a pure transmutations spell. Example air form:

Hurricane form, level 8, transmutations/air
permanent (as long as the form lasts) swiftness, flight
Possible repel missiles (too much?)
+5-15 EV, scaling with either spellpower, air magic, or both
-1 aut (.1 turns) to all actions (attacking, spell use, item use) (I'm not sure if this should stack with haste, or if it's crazy overpowered, etc.)
rElec
Ability to push monsters back with gusts of wind (basically force lance, although I think it would have higher range, use breath timer)

[tasonir]

My initial impression was somewhat similar to Siegurt's. But I started thinking about how we could make the form more interesting than just a slightly-different Statue Form, if we want to sick with the crystal theme.

So how about a spell that gives an AC boost that is slightly less than Statue Form's, but provides the Dragonskin Cloak's chance-at-resistance effect? As an added boost, it could also have a high chance at branding your Unarmed Attacks (either random brand, or whatever you were hit with last). Throwing on Spiney Body would be fun too, and perhaps better than branded UAs.


The other high level spell idea that sprang to mind, dropping any crystaline flavor, would be an Energy Body form - almost the opposite from Statue Form, it would be Tmut/Air and turn you into something similar to an Electric Golem. This has the 'benefit' of having antitraining with Earth, so you may only end up with one or the other unless you're pumping Tmut very hard.

I definitely like reusing dragonskin cloak's effect, it's a rather cool effect which is very very rare to find (I never have, in fact). Random brands might make it a bit too variable, but as long as it wasn't complete chaos (ie, only pick from brands that deal damage, no haste or healing brands like chaos has) it would probably be fine.

[Bim]

My thought for transmutations has always been that it should turn from being a school of just 'offence and defence' and instead be more situational. I know everything in the game can be reduced to one of the two - but you know what I mean, you're either using blade hands if you need to kill something/lots of things quickly or statueform if you're going to duke it out.

So for instance you could have hurricane form for relec, repel missiles etc., lava form (resistance to fire and physical damage, vulnerability to magic), Water form for rC and some sort of engulfing mechanism and so on. These are rough ideas, and it'd probably be better to not just them give you straight resistances/buffs, but I do feel transmuters should be a lot more flexible than just becoming an unarmed tank.

[galehar]

without many penalties

You didn't suggest any penalty. This is one of the thing that makes transmutations different from other buff spells, they are strong but come with drawbacks.

How about allowing simultaneous transmutations to combine? Stone Dragon Form with Blade Claws and a Beastly Appendage.

And this is the other distinction: they are mutually exclusive.

[jejorda2]

How about something like: melds all armour, enhances all spell schools (archmagi), can't move, can't melee, restores mp on kills, spines, resistances. So after you've spent the game using unarmed combat, if you've got enough conjuration skill to cast attack spells but not enough to make them hurt, this kind of fills the gap.

[pubby]

how about making dragon form single-school for non-draconians so that it isn't awful

I feel like the secondary type of tmut spells makes training a lot less straightforward. It's good that players need to decide how to train skills other than transmutations.

I'd rather see it tied more closely to fire magic - have it boost other fire spells such as ring of flames or something. Also, it wouldn't hurt to have a tmut/fire spell in the starting book so players actually had the option of training towards dragon form earlier.

[crate]

Well here's the thing with dragon form.

There are 2 options.
1) It's grossly overpowered for dr, and a decent spell for other races. (This isn't the case.)
2) It's good for dr and bad for other races (actually this is being generous; it's not really that great for dr!)

The thing is that dr get to cast dragon form at roughly half the xp cost, and then additionally when they do cast it they get about twice the AC of any other race in dragon form and also get a better breath and sometimes even better resists. This kind of bonus for one race toward a specific spell is completely unreasonable, but even with this bonus the spell happens to not really be amazing ... which just shows how worthless dragon form is for any other race.

So basically I think there are two things that make sense. Either make dragon form not cost twice as much xp if you are not a dr, or make the spell way better to begin with and also make it tmut/fire for draconians again.

[Mankeli]

Well here's the thing with dragon form.
There are 2 options.
1) It's grossly overpowered for dr, and a decent spell for other races. (This isn't the case.)
2) It's good for dr and bad for other races (actually this is being generous; it's not really that great for dr!)

Dragon form was potentially really good for octopodes when they could still use 8 rings with back in 0.10 (?). BTW, why was that removed? Even as playing an octopode, I felt more safe and powerful using statue form and eight rings than dragon form and eight rings.

[pubby]

also make it tmut/fire for draconians again.

Or make the secondary school match the draconian's color. ie for white draconians it's tmut/ice.

[rebthor]

Well here's the thing with dragon form.
There are 2 options.
1) It's grossly overpowered for dr, and a decent spell for other races. (This isn't the case.)
2) It's good for dr and bad for other races (actually this is being generous; it's not really that great for dr!)

Dragon form was potentially really good for octopodes when they could still use 8 rings with back in 0.10 (?). BTW, why was that removed? Even as playing an octopode, I felt more safe and powerful using statue form and eight rings than dragon form and eight rings.

It was removed because there are only 4 limbs on a dragon. A statue octopode is still an octopode.

A better question would be why doesn't everyone get to wear 8 rings as a spider or why does blade hands not destroy or meld the rings you were wearing. And please don't take that as a real suggestion devs. I'm already upset that you took my tongue-in-cheek question about insects to nerf Ely :p

[crate]

also make it tmut/fire for draconians again.

Or make the secondary school match the draconian's color. ie for white draconians it's tmut/ice.

this is dumb special casing which is another thing that I would like to see removed from dragon form
besides, what second school is purple? charms? how about yellow?

[njvack]

what second school is purple? charms? how about yellow?

purple dracs can only cast dragon form if they're following trog

yellow is tmut/acid, of course.

<ducks>

[Mankeli]

Well here's the thing with dragon form.
There are 2 options.
1) It's grossly overpowered for dr, and a decent spell for other races. (This isn't the case.)
2) It's good for dr and bad for other races (actually this is being generous; it's not really that great for dr!)

Dragon form was potentially really good for octopodes when they could still use 8 rings with back in 0.10 (?). BTW, why was that removed? Even as playing an octopode, I felt more safe and powerful using statue form and eight rings than dragon form and eight rings.

It was removed because there are only 4 limbs on a dragon. A statue octopode is still an octopode.

Well, yeah, I get that (and had heard it before) but I was thinking about some actual gameplay reasons. This comes a little bit too close to the line of questioning like "does dragons really have eight limbs" in which you of course reply "dragons don't actually exist so in a fantasy game they can have as many limbs as it's seems fit on a balance perspective" .

I've had only one very high level octopode dragonformer (15-runes and beyond) but a couple of octopode statue formers and the latter seemed easier or at least the former wasn't horribly owerpowered compared to the latter. Of course, I could be wrong and only had bad ring luck or something.

[tasonir]

well you have more dragon form exp and certainly more octopode end game experience than I do, but here's my dragon form DrTm: http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/tasonir/mor ... 084149.txt

Just the relevant parts:

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.13-a0-1502-g99810c3 (webtiles) character file.

459700 tasonir the Wrestler (level 24, -9/273 HPs)
             Began as a Yellow Draconian Transmuter on June 7, 2013.
             Was a High Priest of Cheibriados.
             Mangled by a stone giant (29 damage)
             ... on Level 5 of the Vaults on June 8, 2013.
             The game lasted 06:13:59 (52489 turns).

tasonir the Wrestler (Yellow Draconian Transmuter) Turns: 52489, Time: 06:14:01

HP  -9/273       AC 27     Str 43      XL: 24   Next: 21%
MP   6/41        EV 22     Int 32      God: Cheibriados [*****.]
Gold 4653        SH  0     Dex 27      Spells: 13 memorised,  1 level left

Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : .     - Unarmed
Res.Cold  : + . .   Warding    : +   (armour unavailable)
Life Prot.: + + .   Conserve   : .   J - melded +0 buckler {AC+3}
Res.Poison: +       Res.Corr.  : +   n - melded +2 wizard hat
Res.Elec. : +       Clarity    : .   j - melded +2 cloak {rCorr, Cons}
Sust.Abil.: . .     Spirit.Shd : .   p - melded +2 pair of elf gauntlets
Res.Mut.  : .       Stasis     : .   q - melded +2 pair of dwarf boots
Res.Rott. : .       Flight     : +   o - amulet "Vinolo" {Ward +Blink rElec rN+}
Saprovore : . . .                    D - ring of protection from cold
                                     R - +5 ring of protection

@: dragon-form (expiring), repel missiles, regenerating, about to teleport,
phasing, flying, very slow, quite resistant to hostile enchantments, stealthy
A: spit acid, acid resistance, unfitting armour, (acidic bite), AC +12
a: Spit Acid, End Transformation, Bend Time, Temporal Distortion, Slouch, Step
From Time, Renounce Religion, Evoke Blink
}: 3/15 runes: barnacled, silver, gossamer


27 AC in dragon form, including a +5 ring of protection, so really 22 ac, at level 24. I just fail to see how that's enough to actually make the form useful, and if I wasn't draconian it'd be pathetic. I actually had more armor when I wasn't in dragon form, due to having +2 on all slots and +3 ac from a buckler of protection. And much higher EV, although how much I lost I don't recall. The 22EV I had in dragon form is obviously boosted by Chei as well as phase shift. I was trying everything to get more defenses and couldn't get past the 20's, really. Certainly that's enough for more careful players, but I charge things and need more

P.S. If the high level transmutation spell we get is a reworked dragon form, I'm fine with that.

[snow]

You could always lower dragon form's level to like level 5 or 6 or something.

[Siegurt]

Some random Ideas:

Cloud form:

Insubstantial cloud-like form, Gains EV bonus, immune to physical damage (Reduced to 0 after the fact, does not reduce damage done by brands), immune to negative energy attacks (bolt of draining, agony, torment), Gains mutation resistance and poison resistance, moves at normal speed, cannot attack normally (Gains an alternate unarmed attack) or cast spells, drink potions, or evoke Items (Can Invoke god abilities, read scrolls), can smother a single adjacent creature (damage same as constriction, automatically hits, does no base unarmed damage) damage to that creature (provided it actually breathes, no smothering undead or jellies) *does* take normal damage from elemental damage, and the elemental portion of weapon attacks, takes full damage from silvered weapons, constantly flying, gains a stealth bonus, casting cloud form cancels invisibility, repel missiles, deflect missiles, haste etc. etc. (Basically anything that is an enchantment on your body) All equipment of any sort is melded. Takes additional extra damage from airstrike (above and beyond that of simply flying) and, should there be a monster that casts it, Tornado.

Elemental transformation:

Become an elemental, merge with an adjacent element, basically the transformation version of 'summon elemental' uses the spell-school of the appropriate element for spell power, which effects duration, unarmed attack strength and AC/EV of the form.

Chimeric merging:

Absorba living beast into one or both arms with and gain unarmed aux attacks and resistance/movement bonuses along the same lines as box of beasts creates chimeras now. When the spell duration ends the creature gets a free no-ac attack on you as it rips itself from your body (It can be cast up to two times on two different creatures, taking them out of the game short term and giving you some bonuses for a while.) It would meld shield arm (both ring and shield itself) then weapon-arm equipment into the transformation.

Alternately we could add a necromantic component to it and have it use corpses instead of living creatures. (This sounds both like a lot of work and potentially really fun if done right)

[One-Eyed Jack]

27 AC in dragon form, including a +5 ring of protection, so really 22 ac, at level 24. I just fail to see how that's enough to actually make the form useful

Fire storm doesn't give you any AC either

[tasonir]

27 AC in dragon form, including a +5 ring of protection, so really 22 ac, at level 24. I just fail to see how that's enough to actually make the form useful

Fire storm doesn't give you any AC either

Which means that it gives MORE ac than dragon form, as dragon form takes away AC and EV. Because dragons are weak and totally not armored.

[1010011010]

I was thinking about the lack of high level transmutation spells, I also wanted it to be pure transmutation and slightly ridiculous and so dreamt up:

GIGANTOFORM!

essentially makes you really really big, no, bigger than that. Boosts HP and strength by a margin, obvious evasion penalties increased metabolism but no spell casting hindering.
Here's the kicker; this spell mechanically works more like a charm although thematically a transmutation, and can be combined with other transmutation spells. layering over transmutations can be excessive but having an exception can be fun.

thematically this is mutating body cells to bigger proportions, unlike other spells that copy you into a template, this one takes a high understanding and control of the transmutation school.

I would like to see the brilliant mental images in future CIP threads of giant stone octopodes or blade paw felids, as well as "you call that a dragon. This is a dragon!"

[One-Eyed Jack]

27 AC in dragon form, including a +5 ring of protection, so really 22 ac, at level 24. I just fail to see how that's enough to actually make the form useful

Fire storm doesn't give you any AC either

Which means that it gives MORE ac than dragon form, as dragon form takes away AC and EV. Because dragons are weak and totally not armored.

Dragons have 10 AC and 8 EV

[tasonir]

Monster and player defensive stats use a different scale. No player capable of casting a level 7 spell would expect to end up with those defenses; I had ~20 and 10 respectively, and they were far too low.

The AC from dragon form is less than a human wearing an enchanted mottled dragon armor with no secondary armors at all and any armor skill greater than 0. Or put the MDA at +0 and throw in 2 secondary slots at +2, whatever floats your boat. If you have a +2 plate, no secondary slots, and 2 armor skill, morphing to dragon form lowers your ac. And then lowers your EV, as you're huge.

[One-Eyed Jack]

Transmutations are supposed to have drawbacks. That's why they're not charms.

[XuaXua]

Level 9 Transmutations spell which allows you to merge with your armour, rather than absorb it.

[crate]

I don't think dragon form is awful if it's just not two-school. Draconian dragon form is reasonably good right now. But dragon form for non-dr is just so much worse than blade hands that there's no reason to bother.

[njvack]

Transmutations are supposed to have drawbacks. That's why they're not charms.

I think Charms would be better for having some drawbacks (other than hitting 'zc' 300 times in a game), too.

(Plus: some Charms *do* have drawbacks. Regen isn't compatible with good gods. Swiftness reduces stealth.)

[khalil]

Don't charms cause glow? Does that count as a drawback?

[XuaXua]

Dragon Form: not only do you need Transmutations and Fire, you need Unarmed Combat and probably a good defense skill as well.
By the time you can cast it and use it reliably, any utility from using the spell is lost based on the location.

[Baldu]

I think what i dislike the most of dragon form is the trample, it screws with my tactics every time i fight more than two guys. As long as i use dragon form to kill a single target and then get out of form i find it acceptable, but thats incredibly boring for such a high level spell, especially since it only seems to do about ~25% more damage than blade hands, which is in the starting book.

I've come to the conclusion that while it is a cool spell, it is always optimal not to learn it and rather use the xp elsewhere. Instead of my toolbox containing dragon form, it could have phase shift and controlled blink, or mystic blast and orb of destruction, or lrd and iron shot, or very high dodge, or very high evocations, or or or or or or or....

As for my suggestion of improvements to transmutations, i'd propose making dragon form a level 7-8 single school spell which would have an (a) menu item for disabling trample, and having a new level 8-9 spell called empower, which would make whatever current transmutation better for a certain number of turns, ideally with a different effect for each form (for example spider/ice forms could gain poisonous/freezing cloud breath, statue could get 100% torment immune, dragon could get AC boost and no cooldown breath, and ??blades?? something).

[jejorda2]

Blade feet.

[Bloax]

Blade hands getting a three-tile cleave. :v

[Lasty]

I still think Jelly Form has potential.

Level {7? 8?} Transmutation/Poison
* Merges all items (while keeping benefits? If not, needs some defensive boosts.)
* grants rPois, rAcid+++, resist asphyx and LRD/shatter
* adds acid damage to melee
* adds acid beam attack similar to acid blobs (via Fire command instead of via ability menu?)
* creatures attacking you take acid damage
* +20% hp
* Can't use evokables or consumables (also merged in).

[DracheReborn]

How about Incorporeal Form - can't attack or cast spells or pick up items, but can't be damaged either. Basically a high level escape spell. If that's too powerful, take a permanent HP or MP hit.

Btw, I'd favor making Dragon form more powerful over lowering its level or making it single school. Dragon form should be awesome As it is, I learned it once for the novelty, then stopped using it.

[Siegurt]

How about Incorporeal Form - can't attack or cast spells or pick up items, but can't be damaged either. Basically a high level escape spell. If that's too powerful, take a permanent HP or MP hit.

See "Cloud form" suggestion earlier in this thread

[DracheReborn]

How about Incorporeal Form - can't attack or cast spells or pick up items, but can't be damaged either. Basically a high level escape spell. If that's too powerful, take a permanent HP or MP hit.

See "Cloud form" suggestion earlier in this thread

Doesn't seem quite the same. I'm going more for "you can't affect anything but nothing can affect you either". Yours seems more complicated, and maybe is the better idea.

[jejorda2]

There used to be an air/transmutation spell called Air Walk. I think it was taken out around 0.4 because it was too powerful and couldn't be reworked. Incorporeal Form sounds like it is along the same lines.

[reaver]

There used to be an air/transmutation spell called Air Walk. I think it was taken out around 0.4 because it was too powerful and couldn't be reworked. Incorporeal Form sounds like it is along the same lines.

No it wasn't. It was removed for overlapping with Death's Door. The spell made you drop your whole inventory and gave you a bunch of negative resists.

[tasonir]

I think what i dislike the most of dragon form is the trample, it screws with my tactics every time i fight more than two guys.

Bonus fun fact: this movement is unaffected by Chei, so you can move and attack in .5 turns rather than taking the 2 turns to step somewhere. Of course, as trample isn't consistent, it can be rather hard to abuse this, but it sometimes works out in your favor.

[Utis]

also make it tmut/fire for draconians again.

Or make the secondary school match the draconian's color. ie for white draconians it's tmut/ice.

this is dumb special casing which is another thing that I would like to see removed from dragon form

It's flavour. Flavour shouldn't go before game mechanics, but nevertheless it's important; the game needs also to tell a story. If the fact that it's special casing is the only problem with pubby's suggestion, then I think it's fine, Dr should have a special relation to dragons.

[reaver]

I'd prefer for dragon from to work like draconians for everybody - roll draconian color at the start of the game for each character, then make you turn into your respective dragon whenever you cast it. It might be bit weird flavorwise, but I'd be easy to explain that it transforms you based on your personality or whatever and draconians just see an earlier demonstration of their color. I think it'd be interesting to have a spell which works slightly differently each game.

[Tiber]

I'd prefer for dragon from to work like draconians for everybody - roll draconian color at the start of the game for each character, then make you turn into your respective dragon whenever you cast it. It might be bit weird flavorwise, but I'd be easy to explain that it transforms you based on your personality or whatever and draconians just see an earlier demonstration of their color. I think it'd be interesting to have a spell which works slightly differently each game.

I was thinking that for non-draconians, it should pick a color based on your highest elemental school (defaulting to fire if all are 0)
Fire/Ice - self explanatory
Air - Storm
Earth - Iron
Necromancy - Shadow
Poison - Swamp

It could also just make you a random dragon, but that might be bad, especially if you turn into an ice dragon in front of an Orb of Fire.

[XuaXua]

This still doesn't help that Dragon Form is sub-optimal when you are able to utilize it reliably.

[1010011010]

I'd prefer for dragon from to work like draconians for everybody - roll draconian color at the start of the game for each character, then make you turn into your respective dragon whenever you cast it. It might be bit weird flavorwise, but I'd be easy to explain that it transforms you based on your personality or whatever and draconians just see an earlier demonstration of their color. I think it'd be interesting to have a spell which works slightly differently each game.

I was thinking that for non-draconians, it should pick a color based on your highest elemental school (defaulting to fire if all are 0)
Fire/Ice - self explanatory
Air - Storm
Earth - Iron
Necromancy - Shadow
Poison - Swamp

It could also just make you a random dragon, but that might be bad, especially if you turn into an ice dragon in front of an Orb of Fire.

I had a similar thought although being trained in air didn't make you a storm dragon in stats but just the colour and breath and resists since some dragons are better than others