Spellcasting specialist species

[sanka]

Just a brainstorming idea, comments are welcome.

I think I would like to try out a species which is very strong in one magic school, but unable to use others. Like this:

Spellcasting: +4
Choosen magic school: +4
All other magic schools: -3
Fighting: -2
All other: 0

Get same hp as a human and same mana as a deep elf.
Unable to memorize spells that do NOT belong to the choosen magic school. If she wants to use mephitic cloud, then she must choose conjurations, or air, or poison.

If it feels too weak, maybe get +5/+5 in spellcasting/choosen school. If choosing charms or conjurations would be too strong, do not allow them. (I do not think it's too strong - remember, that translocations are not allowed then, so no blink. This species will not be clearly better than others. Maybe better at the begining of the game and much weaker later. Also, if a magic school is too strong for this species, it maybe an indication that that school is a little owerpowered.)

I won't mind if its not very strong. I do not like power creep with new very strong species, and I would rather like to have new, interesting challenge species.

[jackalKnight]

Spriggans are actually quite close to this. The only difference is +3 to Spellcasting rather than +4.

[sanka]

Spriggans are actually quite close to this. The only difference is +3 to Spellcasting rather than +4.

I don't think you understand the proposal - maybe my english is not clear enough. Spriggans can memorize any spell. This species is forbidden to memorize spells that do NOT belong to the choosen spell school. Also, spriggans has bad aptitudes in some schools. This proposed species may choose those as well.

It think choosing the magic school can happen two ways: you must choose one at character creation, or the choise is made when you memorize enough spells that only one school is common. In the second case, only those spells can be memorized that have a common school with all memorized spells. Scrolls of amnezia or Sif's ability is disabled on this species. The school aptitude is changing to +4 only when the school is selected.

[mageykun]

I don't think it's made it's way onto the list of things that will never be done, but I think races with selectable aptitudes are frowned upon.

Honestly, I don't think the concept is strong enough to stand on it's own. That, and draconians kinda fit this niche now- expect there the attribute distribution is randomized. You want to chose a different attribute distribution? Choose another race. That's what they're there for, and why we have so many.

[sanka]

I understand that why choosing your aptitudes is bad in most cases. However, this suggestion is not about choosing the aptitudes.

You need to choose the ONLY school you can learn spells from. So if you choose conjurations, than you are UNABLE to learn swiftness, blink, repel missiles, etc, but you can memorize mephitic cloud or fire storm. So what is unique is not that you can choose the aptitudes - it's the severly limited spellcasting in one way and very strong spellcasting in an other.

I do not think that giving ALL magic schools a fixed +4 is that much different for this species, altough somewhat stronger. The aptitude changing is mostly for flavour and maybe to weaken the species a little bit.

[sanka]

Yes, that's what I feared. But maybe it can be adjusted.

First, give aptitudes relative to that school's power, so air won't get 4, but only 2, so you are not much better than a high elf (with better spellcasting but worse fighting). If some shools are too underpowered, they may get even better aptitude (+5).

Second, you may disable some schools from selecting entirely , only keep those that are fun to play.

[mageykun]

I guess I misunderstood your focus. Being locked into one school of magic is a more interesting gimmick than movable attributes.

The thing is though, the apps don't matter. If you can only use one spell school, it's gonna level up fairly quickly by merit of getting all the xp that normally gets spread out over several schools. The +4 doesn't matter.

The problem is then, of course, you need some other positive. What's the trade off for being school locked? (Maybe an innate level of the ring of fire/ice/etc effect for that element?)

[sanka]

I do not think that the aptitudes do not matter. Try to play with a DE conjurer or a minotaur one in wizard mode, set attributes to the same, only using the first book for some time, no melee - you will se that the DE will learn the spells much quicker.

Also, you can change the aptitude to +5, if +4 is too few. But I like your idea - if the species is too underpowered, than maybe we can give her a free power boost for the selected school - like mummies get one for necromancy (I think).

[sanka]

And then multischool spells only can be learned if all spell schools are choosen?

If only one is enough, then it will still provide a broad spell selection, altough the choice between cha/trl/trm would matter a lot (as well as conj/hex/summ, but that's not so hurting, since they use different play style I think).

If all school is needed, than this race is unable to use cloud spells, since they use too elemental schools. Not a problem with me, tough. Even this can result in a stronger race than the originally suggested, but it's hard to guess for me.

I think the main difference is that with your proposal it's more likely to play a pure caster, while mine mostly will result in a hybrid play style - one school is not enough in most cases without melee.

[sigfried von murdock]

Seems more like a class idea rather than a race, even though aptitudes are racial.

If this was to be implemented I would want to see "Red mage" play style implemented. If a character can be allowed to master in only one school of magick and murder with it, I would like to see a jack off all trades spell caster available that cannot progress past the first few basic level spells.

[MrMisterMonkey]

it's called "wizard", but you have to play it that way yourself
(you can decide how to play your characters)

[sanka]

Seems more like a class idea rather than a race, even though aptitudes are racial.

If this was to be implemented I would want to see "Red mage" play style implemented. If a character can be allowed to master in only one school of magick and murder with it, I would like to see a jack off all trades spell caster available that cannot progress past the first few basic level spells.

The problem is, that crawl has the tradition of being only a "starting package" - so I do not think that a class that restrict the character is acceptable. In fact, specialist classes do exist for every magic school. But they are able to learn other spells, of course.

A god would be better in this case - but it would conflict with already existing "specialist" gods : vehumet and kiku.

Also, about the "jack of all trades" caster - I like my proposal because almost all of my casters tend to be a "jack of almost all trades", and therefore so similar after the beginning of the game.