Siegurt wrote:I suggested a long time ago that we revamp charms into spells that are only useful to cast in combat, (by actual having effects that are only useful when critters are around to fight, rather than by spending shortening the duration)
And mostly there was no response at all.
Here are some examples:
Shroud of golubria: when you move, the spell ends
Rmsl: i still think this would be more fun as the previous "wind wall" proposal, pretty much you spawn clouds in your los that have a chance to deflect missiles (and of course they disappear when they leave your los, like all clouds)
Spectral weapon: I would just have the summoned weapon not move at all, it should also be dismissable in case you summon it somewhere annoying, since you wouldn't be able to swap with it.
Of course this only solves the "it is tedious and optimal to cast these spells when you are out of combat, just in case" problem, it doesn't change the no brainer-ness of them (that the investment is nearly always worth it for low level charms at least at some point)
Probably to solve that, the effects of low level spells would need to be very low or nonexistent against higher level critters. (for example critters could get a hd-based chance of bypassing SoG)
Also, I personally think charms are better when they are powerful, but apply to less situations. More situationally useful charms that you would cast only in some circumstances would mean you wouldn't drop your entire list of memorized spells on every combat, but rather make a hopefully intelligent choice about what would be useful.
Anyway doing all of that is more work, but imho way more worthwhile than removing charms outright.
This all does sound really good, but the chief problem i see is that it is REALLY hard to design a spell that isn't still gameable without prohibitively short durations.
For example, non-moving shroud ... it's still optimal to back off when you see an enemy, shout from out of range, activate shroud along with all other relevant buffs, and lure enemy into melee range (utilizing corners if the enemy is ranged). This didn't solve the problem of out-of-combat tedium, it actually exacerbated it, assuming a player who is dedicated enough to fully abuse your spell mechanic.
Same thing applies to non-moving spectral weapon... shout or whatever to grab enemy attention, retreat behind a wall, cast in a spot adjacent to you, wait for enemy to fall into trap.
For 'wall of wind' - this spell achieves exactly the same thing as rMsl (preventing some missiles from hitting you), just on a timer. Same problem remains - the winning move is always to activate the spell pre-fight, and that means prior to almost any fight.
Conversely, with extremely short durations, there really just is no conceivable way a player can bring buffs forward into a fight using pre-fight preparations. Which means that such preparation gets eliminated.
I'm not saying it would be
impossible to design Charms spells to prohibit pre-fight set up without these short durations... but at the moment, I'm not seeing how it can be done in a way that isn't highly convoluted. Perhaps if you could come up with a bulletproof example. I see loopholes in all the ones you listed thusfar.
I definitely agree with you about it being better to use Charms situationally instead of them always being optimal - that's half the reason I like this solution, because with short durations you can only pick 1, perhaps 2 at max, charms to have active at once - any more than that is a waste of turns/MP. This means you have to choose carefully.
In the end,
I feel there is room to merge our two approaches. For example, if your spectral weapon doesn't move AND lasts only 4 turns, casting it before being in melee range of an enemy is inefficient. At best, you have time to prep your spectral weapon, and no other Charms, limiting the amount of prep work that can be done. And i'm sure there are situations where you'd rather have a high chance of reflecting missiles, or a few turns of running speed, or whatever the case may be, depending on the positioning, monster set, terrain, etc. in a given fight. The more situational the spells, the less likely players will simply be driven to "shroud, tab tab tab, shroud, tab tab tab".
So the end goal should be spells that are situational, short duration, and powerful enough to justify the former two caveats.