In Everquest, they called it Tashani

[ddubois]

It's an un-resistable debuff that reduces magic resistance. It was important to land early in difficult fights (especially versus raid/boss monsters) to increase the likelihood that subsequent debuffs would be able to penetrate the monsters's magic resistance and take effect. It seems to me this is a spell that should exist in Crawl. The Hexes school is a bit on the weak side, and this would give it more utility. It should also let Enchanters continue longer along their chosen career path without feeling forced to move into a different school of magic to augment their increasingly obsolete staple spells. Lastly, it might make decision of what to do with Enslavement/Confusion/Paralyze/Slowing wands more interesting. (Right now it's a "no-brainer" to turn them off in auto-pickup post-Lair, since you almost certainly have something better to do with your 52 slots.)

[galehar]

It exists in crawl, it's the scroll of vulnerability. Maybe a bit too rare. Although, I don't think turning that effect into a spell is a good idea. A hexes enhancer staff would be better.

[BlackSheep]

There was discussion about making resisted Hexes cumulatively lower MR temporarily. Is that being considered at all?

[galehar]

Well, it hasn't been dismissed, but nobody seems to be interested in designing or coding it either.

[Tiber]

It's not just that nobody wants to code it. Coding might actually be the easy part. It's more that beyond the basic idea, nobody's quite sure how to balance it.

Making it an effect of getting hit by a staff of enchantment might work. It's one of the few magic staves left that doesn't have an on-hit effect, and it wouldn't be overpowered because you'd have to spend turns hitting them in melee. I could also see the staff dispelling enchantments or applying random enchantments like a limited staff of chaos.

[dpeg]

+1 for galehar and Tiber

I agree that the staff idea (could also be a weapon ego) has more potential than trying to boost Hexes by themselves: reducing MR from failed attempts sounds good, but is hard to make scum-proof, to convey and to keep balanced.

[crate]

Staff of enchantment already boosts hexes, unless I missed something, so it has an enhancer staff. Unless you mean changing what the enhancer staff does, which is probably reasonable because very few people use staff of enchantment as-is.

[Bloax]

Well if we're on the topic of the design of reducing the effective MR after consecutive attempts at hexing something, I have some weird thoughts.

Namely that the effective MR would be reduced by the amount that the hex rolled, which was lower than the target's MR.
Though we'd have to divide it by something, because that would make MR breaking kind of easy. (Perhaps by 2/2.5/3?)

As another note, this would actually make the "Easily resists/Resists/With some effort/Struggles to resist" actually relevant.
Because it would mean that if it struggled to resist, the next shot would deal with a much lower MR.

The staff of hexes could then reduce that division (To 1.25/1.75/2?? Kind of unsure), along with the ability to reduce the monster's MR when you whack it with it.

Though for balance, the current stage of MR "breaking" should probably halve if you switch spells.
So that if you use a cheap spell to break the MR to easier use a more expensive spell, it wouldn't be as effective as breaking it with the latter.

How they'd regain MR is a good question however. I'm thinking that multiplying it by ( 1+((MaxMR-CurrentMR)/MaxMR) ), with the previous results of the ((MaxMr-CurrentMR)/MaxMR) added to the current value. (Divided by 2?)
Of course cutting off at the maximum natural MR. This process could happen every two turns. (This would actually mean that you could use a ball of energy to get more mp without the counter resetting. Which would be coolio.)

But of course this is just my mad ramblings, in case someone would be interested.

[ddubois]

Scroll of vulnerability is definitely too narrow and rare for it to change gameplay in the manner I'm thinking about. Like, I think it would be interesting if my Earth Elementliast had to decide whether or not to dip into Hexes for "Tashani" to keep Petrify relevant, or just unmem Petrify when he gets high level to make room for spells that will work (which is what he currently does).

[Roderic]

If I'm not wrong in warcraft 3, druids of the talon had the fairy fire, which acts as a mild debuff as well as a corona hex. Maybe the MR decrease could be added to the corona spell to make it more useful along the game.

[palin]

If this has to be considered, why not going with the full throttle and add some form of Dispel Magic (I think it should be Hexes)?

[varsovie]

If this has to be considered, why not going with the full throttle and add some form of Dispel Magic (I think it should be Hexes)?

It's already in the silence spell and the anti-magic brand.

[palin]

If this has to be considered, why not going with the full throttle and add some form of Dispel Magic (I think it should be Hexes)?

It's already in the silence spell and the anti-magic brand.

I don't think anti-magic and silence would dispel haste or the like once cast.

[Roderic]

If this has to be considered, why not going with the full throttle and add some form of Dispel Magic (I think it should be Hexes)?

It's already in the silence spell and the anti-magic brand.

I don't think anti-magic and silence would dispel haste or the like once cast.

then you mean "purge" to remove charms and hexes

[Bloax]

Because we all know that "Dispel Magic" is something entirely different from removing all magical status effects, and thus must be given some other, non widely recognized name.

amirite guys

[neil]

It's called purple draconian breath.

[palin]

It's called purple draconian breath.

You can call it Spongebob if you like, I was not referring to the name but to the effect. I'm sorry I'm just being D&Dist, if you are more Magic oriented I can call it "Disenchant", the effect should be that of removing enchantment (from foes) and hexes (for you or your allies). Think of dispelling haste or Yred damage mirror...

[sanka]

He ment that it's called purple draconian breath now in the game.

[Bloax]

Because surely everyone can just find a book with that and learn to use it, right?

It's not like it's restricted to a single race on which you'd have to be lucky enough to get the one exact color on.

[BlackSheep]

It's a rare effect on purpose.

[Roderic]

Other draconians have breaths similar to spells like those of fire or frost so making a "disenchant" or "purge" targeted hex for any caster does not sound odd.

[danr]

I don't see anything wrong in principle with this idea. There are also other spells that sort of have the effect of undoing magic by others:
- Slow (on an enemy that has hasted or berserked itself)
- Abjuration / Mass Abjuration
- Polymorph other - I'm not sure but I'm guessing a monster loses its enchantments when you polymorph it (if you ever bother to, I don't, there are even monsters (shapeshifters) that do this to themselves, why would I do it for them?)
- Silence (not quite, but prevents them casting them in the first place)

In general I like the idea. It creates a sort of game of magic chess, instead of just hitting each other with stuff, there's like an arms race.

I think "Dispel Magic" "Cancellation" would be a good name for it. It could remove both good and bad spells which could create interesting decisions.

For the record, I don't think I've ever used a scroll of vulnerability. It's too rare to rely on and it's effects are decidedly mixed.

[palin]

I think "Dispel Magic" "Cancellation" would be a good name for it. It could remove both good and bad spells which could create interesting decisions.

In my opinion it should "Cancel" all spells up to a certain level based on spellpower (definitely starting higher that SP1 for the base) and NOT checking MR (otherwise it risk becoming an irrelevant spell later in the game).

I think something like:

Cancellation, level 4 Hexes.
Dispells all the hexes and enchantment on target creature from level 3 at minimum power up to level 9 to maximum power. It has a chance to have a 3x3 area of effect which increases with spellpower, like Mystic Blast.

The area of effect should make the spell more interesting and avoid no-brainer situations.

Please comment if you see some abuse in this.

[BlackSheep]

Which effects would this cancel in actual gameplay?

[Roderic]

The advantages of cancellation are removing invisibility, haste, berserk (?) from others for your benefit; cancelling inner flame maybe is useful too. Anything else?

If hex or charms in foes are too few, maybe a temporary or permanent effect on ego brands to render them mundane. Nice if you find some distortion or electrocution weapons against you.

And remember that OP talks about a degradation of MR, probably to use more effectively the next hex. So they are two different spells, or maybe add MR decreasimg with cancellation of enchantments.

An a third one could be the "steal enchantment", where you move the charm to you from other. This could be applied with ego brands too, stealing temporarily a brand to your weapon.

[palin]

Just copying from the wiki and removing instantaneous effect spells:

* Corona
* Confusion by confusing touch
* Paralysis
* Slow
* Sure Blade
* Ensorcelled Hybernation
* Inner Flame
* Tukima's Dance
* Cause Fear
* Enslavement
* Silence
* Invisibility
* Confusion by Mass Confusion
* Darkness
* Fire/Freezing brand from spell
* Repel/Deflect missiles
* Shroud of Golubria
* Sure Blade
* Swiftness
* Flight
* Ozucubus' Armour
* Poison Weapon
* Regeneration (from the spell)
* Control Teleport
* Insulation
* See Invisible
* Excruciating Wounds
* Warp Weapon
* Haste
* Ring of Flames
* Death's Door

I think we should include monster-only spells (like Yred deep dwarves' mirror damage) and Charms-like effects like Necromutation or Mermaid's mesmerization (if cast on self)

I'd definitely want this to be a monster spell too.

[Bloax]

Yes, you have the list of spells it'd help the monsters against you with.

[palin]

Yes, you have the list of spells it'd help the monsters against you with.

Just dispelling invisibility on Sigmund and on Orc Wizards would be enough. Maybe we should lower the spell to level 2.

[Roderic]

Yes, you have the list of spells it'd help the monsters against you with.

Just dispelling invisibility on Sigmund and on Orc Wizards would be enough. Maybe we should lower the spell to level 2.

Too similar to corona...

I'd rather go to ego item brands, because monsters are not as smart to charm their weapons but using them branded instead. A debuff of their weapon would act as removing fire brand, pain brand, freeze brand as if it were previously casted.

[Bloax]

Whoah, now there's something that makes sense. (Also for stuff like taking a couple of quick slashes at the monster to put it to sleep and stab it to death.)

[palin]

I'd rather go to ego item brands, because monsters are not as smart to charm their weapons but using them branded instead. A debuff of their weapon would act as removing fire brand, pain brand, freeze brand as if it were previously casted.

Suppressing brands seems too powerful to me...

[Roderic]

Make them switch off temporarily as if the weapon were "hexed" I think that removing brands to render weapons useless is too powerful.

Another option could be "steal brand", where you move the brand to your weapon if it is possible, for an amount of time, as a charm would did, although in this case the imbalance in doubled before the combat.