Proposal: Multi-projectile spells

[morik]

Some examples:

Chaotic Barrage:
- lvl 4 spell
- Range 6
- fires 1-5 projectiles in a line. Fires all of them instantly (not over multiple turns).
- each projectile is chosen randomly amongst: throw flame, throw frost, magic dart, sting, and a single-target shock ball (similar damage to the shock spell), with the range changed to 6, and the power cap increased a little when determining damage
- at low spell power, shoots 1-3 projectiles. (25%, 50%, 25% chance respectively)
- at high spell power, shoots 2-5 projectiles (10%, 20%, 30%, 40% respectively)

Steel Rain:
- lvl 8 spell
- shoots 3-6 iron shots with a LOWER power cap (so less max damage per shot). Spell power affects probabilities of the # of shots.

Etc.

Some notes:
- can send a bunch of damage at one target, similar to single target damage spells
- can clear a line of weaker enemies, similar to bolt spells
- can also clear a medium-strength enemy, and then several weaker enemies behind them

The spells would need to be balanced such that in a given situation, they are not as good as a more narrowly focused spell.
E.g., against a line of medium-strength enemies, a bolt spell of the same level should be superior.
Against a stronger enemy, a single-target damage spell of the same level should be superior.

What's the point of these then?
- They allow a player to decide to trade off some hitting-power for additional flexibility.
- The randomness of the effect makes them fun to use... it adds a little bit of tension every time you cast it.

[partial]

- can send a bunch of damage at one target, similar to single target damage spells
- can clear a line of weaker enemies, similar to bolt spells
- can also clear a medium-strength enemy, and then several weaker enemies behind them

The first item is covered by bolt spells, and the latter two are covered (more flexibly) by AoE/cloud/LoS targeted spells. If you want spells that can damage lined-up enemies, then maybe a penetration effect on some bolt spells would be less complicated to implement.

For the record, a huge ice spear that can pierce soft enemies would make a great spell.

[Tiktacy]

The second one sounds meh, but Chaotic barrage sounds awesome, +1 from me.

[morik]

@partial:
At a given spell level, single target spells do a good bit of damage, while multi-target spells do less damage, or do damage over time (e.g., clouds).
I'm proposing a new type of spell which is in between; more damage on average than a ray to a single target, but less on average than single target spells.
At the same time, this new type of spell can clear weak enemies (all multi-target damage spells tend to be good at clearing waves of weak enemies, though the shape of the spell determines its flexibility... multi-projectile spells would be equivalent to bolt spells for weak enemies in a line).

Against a line of medium to tough enemies, expect less (or a lot less, on tough enemies) damage than a bolt spell.
Example: there is a line of 5 death yaks. Lightning Bolt can hit them all, doing its damage to each.
A multi-projectile spell would probably just hit the lead one; you'd have to get a high # of projectiles doing decent damage to kill the first one. So maybe at most you'd hit 2 yaks. (And of course some of the projectiles could miss the first yak, hitting one behind it.)

If instead it were a line of 5 orc warriors, I'd expect the results to be somewhat similar between a bolt spell & a multi-projectile spell of lvl 5, say.

And against a single death yak, or 2 death yaks, a lvl 5 multi-projectile spell would be superior to lightning bolt.

@Tiktacy: yeah, I didn't put much thought into the 2nd one .

[Wahaha]

You will find it very hard to make a spell that fits between single target and aoe when bolt spells already do both at the same time very well. That doesn't mean that the mechanic of multiple projectiles can't be interesting, but it's harder to justify such a spell now. I don't think that it's interesting enough unless the projectiles are of random types, but that's probably too similar to Makhleb's ability.

One possible problem with multi-projectile spells is having to wait for the projectile animations. 5 projectiles = 5 animations per cast. There's a thread in GDD about an option to reduce animation speeds because of ranged animations taking too long (ranged is 1 projectile at a time, but to be fair ranged generally needs more shots to kill something than spells).

Also I'm not sure if it's possible code-wise for a monster to die in the middle of a multi-projectile spell cast.

[Bloax]

I don't think that it's interesting enough unless the projectiles are of random types, but that's probably too similar to Makhleb's ability.

Blink is a Lugonu ability, Raise Dead is a Yred ability, wizardry is essentially Vehumet's bonus, two staves channel mana like Sif Muna.

Item<->Spell<->God ability interconnections are nothing new, and certainly nothing that should be absolutely avoided at all costs.

[Siegurt]

You will find it very hard to make a spell that fits between single target and aoe when bolt spells already do both at the same time very well. That doesn't mean that the mechanic of multiple projectiles can't be interesting, but it's harder to justify such a spell now. I don't think that it's interesting enough unless the projectiles are of random types, but that's probably too similar to Makhleb's ability.

One possible problem with multi-projectile spells is having to wait for the projectile animations. 5 projectiles = 5 animations per cast. There's a thread in GDD about an option to reduce animation speeds because of ranged animations taking too long (ranged is 1 projectile at a time, but to be fair ranged generally needs more shots to kill something than spells).

Also I'm not sure if it's possible code-wise for a monster to die in the middle of a multi-projectile spell cast.

It is possible, I've written a patch a couple months ago in response to an earlier suggestion for a multi-projectile spell, it got a little interest, but was never added to the game (At least not so far).

Here's the patch:
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=7760
Here's the suggestion if you're interested:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9854&hilit=glaciate

[damiac]

Isn't dazzling spray already this spell?

[Azrael]

Isn't dazzling spray already this spell?

No. Dazzling Spray only fires at a target once; it can just lock onto more than one targets. The OP's proposal is for spells that fire more than one projectile at the same target or targets beyond/behind the first.