Blink Other Close/Reverse Force Lance

[tasonir]

New spell: Blink Other Close/Reverse Force Lance. Not the final name.

Basically just a spell to pull monsters in towards you. It should probably not deal damage, so it isn't quite like force lance. It could either work by pulling straight in towards you, or be more of a "blink" in that the monsters ends up on a random tile next to you in any direction.

Spell school could either be pure translocations, or translocations/hex. Spell level depends on how resistible (based on HD or MR?) it is, if it checks for things like monster weight, etc, but I'd probably say around a level 5 single school or level 4 dual school feels about right. Could easily be either line of fire or smite based, but I'd probably go for line of fire.

Use case is obvious - you're a melee character and there's a pack of yaktaurs you'd rather not walk 4 steps to reach them as they turn you into a pincushion.

[red_kangaroo]

What about calling it Fetch?

I'd say let it be beam-targeted pure Tloc with HD check. Beam-targeted because of the 'traction beam' feel, which is cool, and because smite-blinking something weak right next to you so the big guy has to wait is awful. Beam-blining not so much as it means you still have to think ahead to build your meat shield. Also, HD check because it differs form the number of MR resistable effects we already have, and that is also why pure Tloc, as Hexes are mostly MR resistable.

I think this spell sounds promising.

[DracheReborn]

Iskenderun's Grasping Hand (ok that was a D&Dism)

I actually have some code for a spell very similar to this, which I may put up in mantis once I clean it up. No idea whether it would be accepted though.

[jejorda2]

Call it Apportation and let it work on items if no enemy is in the space. That has always been too useful as a low level spell anyway.

[HilariousDeathArtist]

I had to.

[tasonir]

In the initial post I was very general about options that could be implemented in different ways, but here's an attempt to make a more concrete version of it. If something is problematic, feel free to adjust.

Dimensional Pull (Working name)
Level 4 Translocations spell
Beam targeted, attempts to pull the first monster hit by the beam towards the caster. On success the target is always pulled all the way into melee range, even over water/lava, as long as the target has a safe final tile to land on (you cannot pull something into lava, unless it's a salamander). Can be resisted by HD, by the formula HD > 3d(spellpower/8)*.

*Spellpower formula is especially rough draft - will likely need tweaking! The intention of this is that at roughly 50 spellpower you can succeed at pulling most HD 10-15 monsters, although unreliably. At 100 spellpower you can pull 10-15HD monsters reliably, or unreliably pull higher HD monsters. Over 100 spellpower you should start to be able to pull almost anything reliably.

I left out anything about monster weight/size because it seems like the player would have to remember a lot of special cases. If one has to be used, size has fewer discreet steps than weight and would be easier to remember that spriggans are little and dragons are huge, but I'd rather keep it simple.

I especially like that it's a translocations that cares about spell power. I tried to keep it not requiring too much spell power though, because there's no translocations enhancers (other than archmagi, which the melee characters who would likely use this will not wear).

[Yermak]

Arcane Lasso?

I like this idea. There are couple of potential uses aside of pulling range attackers:

• Instead of pulling that yaktaur you can pull a kobold to serve as a shield. Even better option with low spellpower (and of course when such a kobold is available).
• Running away and about to enter a corridor? Again, make that kobold the leader of pursuing party.
• Make allies not resistible to this spell and we'll have excellent ally rescuing method.

[BrewFall]

Cigotuvi's Scrabbling Grasp

[Patashu]

Chei would be really good with this spell.

In fact, I feel like this spell would be really powerful in general, because it would let you do things like snag monsters away from packs/unexplored edge of LoS and make it almost certain you'll be able to fight them one on one (so I'd like to try it out to see if I'm right )

[tasonir]

It definitely is a powerful spell, with many tactical uses besides just pulling things in to melee them. That's why I proposed a version where it'd be somewhat unreliable without high spellpower, as a way to try to keep the power level reasonable. The level could be increased as well, if needed.

Another option is to let a monster that is pulled by it create noise, either at the first location or the final, to try to keep it from being too easy to split up packs.

[nago]

I'd call it enslavement

Edit: to be clearer: enslavement already does pretty much what are you wishing for, actually being even better, because you also gain a temporary ally.

[damiac]

Except enslavement doesn't just put them next to you, and checks MR, and is hexes, not tloc, and can't be used to block LOS, and.... well I hope you can see, it's almost nothing like the proposed spell... at all.

That's like saying "well you could just walk up to them, and that would put them next to you". Or "We don't need blink, because you can just walk to another square!"

[tasonir]

There's also a rather huge difference between "Get next to me immediately if this spell works" and "walk over here in 6 turns", especially when the second one also includes the option "But maybe you'll just start attacking nearby things instead".

I'm not looking for allies, I'm looking to apply my sword to their skull; them being allied gets in the way of that. You can attack allies of course, but I believe I'd get a confirmation every time. A huge interface screw.

[duvessa]

Well the point is there's a level 4 hex already in the game that gives you something better than an instant kill, so there isn't a lot of design space left for MR-checking stuff.

[Patashu]

Well the point is there's a level 4 hex already in the game that gives you something better than an instant kill, so there isn't a lot of design space left for MR-checking stuff.

That's why this spell checks HD instead of MR.

[Speleothing]

It's also generally more likely that a melee character might train Tloc to get for Blink, Apportation, and Shroud than hexes.

[Finerminer]

I wonder why there isn't a spell like this...I really love the thought of it. Really aids hybrids who focus more on buffing than spellcasting.

[tasonir]

Well the point is there's a level 4 hex already in the game that gives you something better than an instant kill, so there isn't a lot of design space left for MR-checking stuff.

I generally try to err on the side of underpowered rather than overpowered. If you think that letting it bypass MR/HD checks entirely and just always work is fine, then I'd be glad to see it implemented that way. Maybe raise it to a level 5 or 6 spell.