Proposal: Replace Poison with Alchemy

[bcadren]

Alchemy, using magic to change things into other things or in other words, proto-chemistry when we thought we were balancing magical forces to make the change as opposed to chemical formulas. It feels like it more thematically fits the rest of crawl than a simplified 'Poison' spell school. It also opens up some different avenues; into player acid damage (currently Fedhas Madash Oklob Plants and Yellow Draconian 'breath' only) and player water damage (currently phial of floods only).

As a spell school; Alchemy would replace Poison taking over all of its spells and in addition take the spells from Transmutations that change OTHERS and effects outside the body rather than the self. It would also add new effects revolving around acid and water attacks. Similar to Conjurations and Necromancy, Alchemy is very resilient and combines with most other schools, creating a long list of spells.

Acid damage type is always in two parts; the first checks AC, while the second is not resistible (by AC); both parts check rAcid (which already exists, though at present only Jellies and yellow draconians have it and jellies have all three pips). If either part managed to do damage, there is a chance of the spell also lowering the target's AC. [This effect is similar to enemy acid causing corrosion, but more useful to players.] rAcid would be rebalanced as follows:

• rAcid-- [takes 150% damage]: Creatures made of metal or stones; Golems, Gargoyles, Iron Imp, etc.
• rAcid- [takes 125% damage]: Creatures made of exposed bone; Liches, Curse Skulls, Skeletons, etc.
• rAcid (0) [takes 100% damage]: Most natural creatures. (Hydras, Nagas, Spiny Frogs, non-Yellow Draconians etc.)
• rAcid+ [takes 75% damage]: Natural creatures that spawn with Armor (Orc Knight, Hell Knight, Deep Elf Master Archer etc.). Most Demons (Including fiends). Insects (Spiders, Scorpions, Fire Crabs, etc.)
• rAcid++ [takes 50% damage]: Yellow Draconians, slimes. Insubstantial creatures (Wisps, Revenants, etc.)
• rAcid+++ [immune]: Creatures made of Crystal (Crystal Guardians, Wretched Stars, etc.); Jellies.

Water damage type is also in two parts; the first checks AC/2, the second (engulf/drowning damage) can only be resisted by rDrown. rDrown has already spread through Crawl appropriately for some reason (either because of the phials of floods or because of Yredites enslaving Merfolk Aquamancers.

Initial Alchemy Spells:
Current Spells Changed to Alchemy:

• Sting: Conjurations/Alchemy (1)
• Cure Poison: Alchemy (2)
• Sticks to Snakes: Alchemy (2)
• Mephritic Cloud: Alchemy/Air Magic/Conjurations (3)
• Poison Weapon: Alchemy/Charms (3)
• Spider Form: Alchemy/Transmutations (3)
• Sticky Flame: Conjuration/Fire Magic/Alchemy (3)
• Olgreb's Toxic Radiance: Alchemy (4)
• Condensation Shield: Alchemy/Ice Magic (4)
• Leda's Liquefaction: Alchemy/Earth Magic (4)
• Petrify: Alchemy/Earth Magic (4)
• Create Elemental: Alchemy (4) Changed from 'summon elemental', because it forms material into an elemental instead of actually summoning it through a portal.
• Alistair's Intoxication: Alchemy (5)
• Ignite Poison: Alchemy/Fire Magic (5)
• Venom Bolt: Alchemy/Conjurations (5)
• Poison Arrow: Alchemy/Conjurations (6)
• Poisonous Cloud: Alchemy/Air Magic/Conjurations (6)

Proposed Spells:

• Dissolve: Alchemy (1). A utility spell that is nigh useless in combat. Destroys top object of stack of items on the floor. (Primarily used to mop up weapons you don't want to use, but don't want enemies picking up to use against you.)
• Water Ball: Alchemy/Conjurations (2). A basic non-elemental 'throw' level spell of water damage.
• Acid Arm: Alchemy/Charms (3). Gives your weapon additional acid damage.
• Acid Coat: Alchemy/Hexes (4). Tries to cover the target in a coat of acid causing their armor to dissolve away quickly. [lots of AC loss, low damage.] (must by in melee range)
• Steam Cloud: Alchemy/Air Magic/Conjurations (5). Weakly damaging cloud. Mostly useful to block LoS for escape. [Scroll of Fog on tap, that does 1d5 damage to things without rF+]
• Bolt of Acid: Alchemy/Conjurations (6). The Acid Bolt spell!
• Virulence: Alchemy/Hexes (7). Identical to the Naga Ritualist spell. [Tries to lower all non-undead's rPois by one pip; subject to an MR check, temporary effect.]
• Vitrify: Alchemy (7). Temporarily turns all walls in LoS into slime walls. Uses a skill check to decide how much acid damage it does (to you and your opponents).
• Primal Wave: Alchemy/Conjurations (7). Identical to the spell used by Merfolk Aquamancers. Creates temporary shallow water, knocks primary target back and does 'Bolt' level damage in a cone. Can turn shallow water into deep. Can drown opponents.

[dck]

Quick comments on these proposed changes are that fire doesn't need to have its best spell nerfed into working with a school it has no other connections with, Tm have a bad enough early game without having to train a different school for s2s, summon elemental seems underused to me and tying it to poison could be somewhat interesting maybe but lowering its level is going to end up pretty badly due to how the spell works even if it only used poison to determine friendliness.

Out of proposed spells: dissolve is terrible for I hope obvious reasons, water ball is a reflavor of already existing spells (and overlaps with sting strangely anyway), fog on demand forever is overpowered, more charms that just increase weapon damage sounds pretty bad, acid coat is effectively another spell that adds more weapon damage but which you have to apply one dude at a time, BoA is again a reflavor of existing spells (and overlaps with VB), virulence is pointless since new spells that belong to the same school and aren't poison while being better in every way exist, vitrify could be interesting but summon forest exists right now (I think?) and primal wave as it exists in the game right now would just be super-parrow in the hands of players.

[bcadren]

@dck

Quick response, since I'm still around atm:
(1) I included Sticky Flame because of the resistance to it being called 'rNapalm' and the implication that you are applying some actual liquid substance to it. It's more for flavour reasons than practical so I'm not offended if that's shaken off.
(2) Sticks to Snakes was something I never use, even though I often start as a Transmuter. It's moved here because it doesn't affect the caster's own body. If it's too much of a nerf to some Transmuters (I don't feel that it is, unless the Transmuter is of a race with a UC apt of less than 0), it can not move though, with the exception noted because the player has to be touching the object for it to work.
(3) Acid Arm would be analogous to branding spells, yes; though having the possibility to lower a high AC monster's AC can make it vastly more or less powerful than other branding spells.
(4) I'm not sure if Fog on tap is overpowered or not. ?Blink and ?Fear has always seemed like the more relevant escape scrolls than fog to me...and both of those are already available on tap. Also, though it doesn't block LoS, Summon Butterflies has a somewhat similar effect in blocking the paths of arrows, etc. with a swarm of harmless monsters.
(5) I admit, multiple damaging spells in the same spell school combo feels a bit like overlap, but the spells affect different monsters PArrow would do close to nothing on a War Gargoyle, while Bolt of Acid would do a lot and lower its AC; on the opposite side, PArrow is better against insects than the acid could be. Bolt of Magma, Fireball and Bolt of Fire feel like they have a lot of overlap, but are effectively different spells and I feel like (even if they aren't as proposed now) the Acid and Water damaging portions could be made into spells with are situationally more and less useful even if superficially similar. Acid taking over as more useful as Natural monsters become rarer and enemy AC values get higher.

[Leafsnail]

Aren't Transmutations basically a form of alchemy already?

[DracheReborn]

Aren't Transmutations basically a form of alchemy already?

In real-world usage? Sure. But transmutations in crawl generally refer to self transformations, with some exceptions: S2S, Passwall, Alistair's, Petrify, Ignite Poison. So the thematic fit of these spells in Transmutations school is a bit odd, and of these probably S2S is the only one that a Tm character would frequently use (and only because they essentially get it for free).

Anyway, this proposal seems to pop up a fair bit - there's a devwiki page, for instance, and I've seen this pop up in discussions for high level Poison spells. Generally, the argument goes like this: 1) Poison school lacks high level spells; 2) Add Acid spells as high level Poison magic; 3) Rename Poison to Alchemy to broaden the school. It's an idea that I kinda like myself

The problem is, nobody has really come up with good spells for step 2. I mean, an "Acid Bolt" that deals acid-flavour damage is easy enough, but how is it different from any of the other bolt spells? Sad to say, I don't find any of OP's proposed new spells to be compelling. (Well actually, I like Virulence, but that fits in Poison anyway).

So the first step I guess is to come up with new good spells that don't quite fall under Poison school, and use that as justification for renaming Poison to Alchemy.

[Klown]

I was gonna propose a few alchemy spells for the transmutations school(seems easier to get in there than a whole new school) soon, along with Alford the Alchemist, the proposed Unique. Well, even Transmutations could be changed to 'Alchemy' and Transmuter changed to 'Alchemist' with a few new spells to show it off as a new and improved thing.

But poison is pretty annoying and boring to play and play against. I'd rather see all new spells than simply turning all poison spells into 'alchemy'.

I want to see what the devs think of removing poison and adding an alchemy school before wasting time working up more initial spells here. Or adding a bit to transmutations and changing it into alchemy.

[spudwalt]

Not sure we should be adding water spells to stuff players can cast -- one of the few bits of flavor we've got is that Water Magic is a lost art (except to the merfolk of the Shoals). Also, I think a steam spell would be kinda overpowered (the only other "scroll of fog on demand" we've got is an unrandart, IIRC).

I would like to see more player access to acid damage as well as increased usefulness (mostly because I'm currently running a yellow draconian). Stuff like Acid Coat or Acid Arm could be fun to use on orc warriors and stuff.

Also: vitrify doesn't mean "make into an acid", it means "make into glass" (example: the vitrification card, which turns nearby walls transparent).

[and into]

One possibly interesting, and certainly thematic, direction to go with alchemy would be for most of its spells to require a specific reagent or reagents to use. A level 5/6 spell that mimicked a scroll of fog but required a !hw might not be OP, for instance. If you want, reagent could be used up automatically by using the spell, or you could have to wield it first, like stones for sandblast. (Obviously any reagents you are carrying would be added to your (w)ield menu based on your current spell list, same way chunks are added when you have sub of blood.) With additional balancing from item requirements alchemy could produce some strong effects (like fog to block LOS) and also set itself apart rather than just becoming another elemental school.

Some basic criteria or considerations for good reagents:
1.) easy to carry
2.) stuff you either already carry with you, usually (like !curing, ?identify, etc.), food, etc.; or if not, stuff that is easy to adapt to carrying it around (like arrows for s2s)
3.) can be used in spells without a clunky interface; we don't want Crawl to become a cooking simulator

Also I'd suggest not making gargoyles take 150% damage from acid.

[dpeg]

Setting up a new spell school is a lot of work. For example, even if the spells proposed in the OP were all considered good enough, someone would have to come up with numbers, and worry about overlap/differentiation with already existing spells. As I don't think that new spells are in any way high priority, I'd suggest to start much more modestly: propose single spells (that are related to Alchemy and/or to reagents, if you like) and discuss them alone.

The chance to get a whole new school into the game from a tavern thread is zero, in my opinion. As I see it, differentiation between existing spells should still be higher -- and there are attempts to work on this. Examples are Glaciate (to replace Ice Storm), the new conjuration spells or the new summon spells. In short, turning to existing content has higher priority than coming up with completely new stuff.

Moreover, there is a reason why it is easier to invent a new species or a new god (and to actually add it to the game): if a new spell is stronger than the competition, then we have power creep and suddenly made obsolete part of the previously existing content; if a new spell is weaker, then it won't get used. Of course, "you can always balance it out" (a favourite line in proposals), but that's actual work. If you look through the changelog, then you will see how spell balance has been addressed over and over again. Nobody will say, "oh, this time I am skipping on spell X as a challenge" whereas people do say "let's play species Y under god Z even if it is a weak combination". Because spells are used in almost every game, finetuning spell balance is quite hard.

To sum it up: new spells are always welcome, if it is clear what they bring to the game. A vague feeling of coolness is not good enough. As a rough guideline, Crawl has enough spells.

[khalil]

I think what these would bring to the game is a reason to use poison in the endgame.
It has no high level spells, and most endgame monsters have rPois. Adding acid into the school would give spells that can remain useful.

[dpeg]

I am not convinced that end-game worthy spells is a very compelling reason. It's not as if poison was underpowered; I like VM as a book background. You cannot expect to win the game on poison alone, but why should you? You don't expect it to win on translocations either.

Creating formal symmetry (because what you want is basically high-powered damage spells in the Poison school) could easily remove distinction, and this is without taking individual spells into account.

[Leafsnail]

I do think that poison should have some high level spells, though, simply because that would create an additional choice ("should I keep training poison past p arrow"). Players starting as a venom mage might also be disappointed at the lack of high level spells, too.

In real-world usage? Sure. But transmutations in crawl generally refer to self transformations, with some exceptions: S2S, Passwall, Alistair's, Petrify, Ignite Poison. So the thematic fit of these spells in Transmutations school is a bit odd, and of these probably S2S is the only one that a Tm character would frequently use (and only because they essentially get it for free).

So in other words, over a third of transmutation spells. If someone has a good idea for (another) alchemy spell it should really go into Transmutations, because it fits there perfectly and "alchemy" has an almost complete flavour overlap with it ("Morphing oneself" is clearly an extension of "morphing the world").

Poison could do with some more interesting spells, but I don't see how adding acid would help that. That would just basically take away the distinct part of poison magic.

[DracheReborn]

So in other words, over a third of transmutation spells. If someone has a good idea for (another) alchemy spell it should really go into Transmutations, because it fits there perfectly and "alchemy" has an almost complete flavour overlap with it ("Morphing oneself" is clearly an extension of "morphing the world").

The Form spells play more like buffs, really. Generally you want just enough magic skill to get them castable, and overtraining magic is bad because you need to save XP to invest in UC, etc. In this respect they're somewhat similar to Charms.

New S2S, Alistair's, Ignite, and Petrify are different in that you generally want a lot of spell power for these. Most of these spells are actually quite bad at low power. So the synergy with Tm characters who primarily use Form spells for UC isn't great (S2S possibly being the exception). Passwall is a different animal; it's a nice utility spell but it's synergy is with stabbers, not UC chars.

If there are new "alchemy" spells I would hope that they are not in Tm school. S2S is a summon spell in all but name, and arguably the rest could function as easily as single school in Poison, Fire, and Earth respectively.

[and into]

Well unlike charms, you can only be in one form at a time, you can end them (but not immediately), and unlike most charms each form has at least one potentially interesting and meaningful drawback. Charms school has many spells that are basically just buffs, whereas forms are a lot more interesting. I basically think of forms as "charms, except much better designed."

I think it is cool that transmutation has some stuff going on that is not just about forms. Would it be a good thing if a non-UC-using character had absolutely no reason to get transmutation spells? I don't think so.

Speaking of which, I hope a polymorph-type transmutation player spell makes it back into Crawl at some point. Perhaps there is room for one that would be useful (and distinct from wand) if it were not entirely random, but instead guaranteed morphing the target into a lower-HD enemy, avg deduction from HD based on spell power. Call it "Spontaneous Devolution" or something.

[spudwalt]

I'll use a couple of Transmutations spells on Earth Elementalists (Stoneskin and maybe Statue Form), and I'll usually be using a weapon of some sort with those. Admittedly, earth elementalists had more reason to use Transmutations back when stuff like Dig and Leda's Liquefaction were Tmut spells.

[reaver]

I think it is cool that transmutation has some stuff going on that is not just about forms. Would it be a good thing if a non-UC-using character had absolutely no reason to get transmutation spells? I don't think so.

Well, I think if this is a goal (I agree this is a good thing) the best way to do it is to just make forms make sense for non-UC characters. For example, I would enjoy a form which makes you extra stealthy so stabbers would want it. There's also the occasionally proposed "Dj form" or the "Piety cost reduction form" I mentioned on that one thread forever ago.

I just think Charms, Charm-like spells such as phase shift, Transmutation forms, and Summons just shouldn't be spells. Make them "buff stones" or whatever you carry in your inventory and can cast when you want to get an indefinite form change/extra EV/ally/whatever.

[Siegurt]

vapor form, ho!

[Viashino_wizard]

I think it is cool that transmutation has some stuff going on that is not just about forms. Would it be a good thing if a non-UC-using character had absolutely no reason to get transmutation spells? I don't think so.

Well, I think if this is a goal (I agree this is a good thing) the best way to do it is to just make forms make sense for non-UC characters.

Don't Statue and Lich form already make sense for non-UC characters? Statue boosts weapon damage and you don't generally learn Lich for its branded UC attack.

[Sar]

Statue Form boosts your non-UC melee damage by 50%, and also slows your attacks (and all other actions) by 50%.

[Viashino_wizard]

Statue Form boosts your non-UC melee damage by 50%, and also slows your attacks (and all other actions) by 50%.

Exactly. It boosts melee damage regardless of your weapon (or lack thereof).

[Lyrick]

One possibly interesting, and certainly thematic, direction to go with alchemy would be for most of its spells to require a specific reagent or reagents to use.

Equivalent exchange! i like where this is going.... (full metal alchemist)

And heres a spell idea

Stones to bread: turns a bunch of (wielded) stones or sling bullets into a single bread ration. The number of stones required decreases as spellpower increases. Between 10-20 stones/sling bullets will be used. This spell's hunger cost is dependent on your hunger level (if you are not hungry at all it costs a great deal; but if you are very hungry it costs none at all). You can cast this spell even if you are starving.

i've solved spriggan starvation forever

[Sar]

Was it really a problem worth solving?

[wheals]

I think I've perfected Lyrick's proposal:

Aygnire's (could be any name) unexpected arrangement: Turns wielded arrows and clubs into food for vegetarians.

[khalil]

I'd go for bouquet instead, but that's just me.

[Leafsnail]

Wasn't that idea basically tried and discarded with Evaporate?

[Sar]

@Leafsnail:

Spoiler: show

https://loom.shalott.org/learndb.html#eringya%27s_surprising_bouquet

[Leafsnail]

I was referring more to the alchemy proposal but I guess that was a while ago.