Wahaha wrote:But adding MP drain to say, swiftness in it's current form, would take it from an 'tactically and situationally useful low-level spell' to a 'spell I will never cast'
Swiftness is possibly the most boring spell in the game right now because it's only useful if you're about to move to up stairs and rest. That's the only situation I would ever cast it in. Adding mp drain and removing the slowness would make it useful in a lot more situations while giving it a fair drawback. It's hard to imagine why you would never cast it (unless you thought the slowness remains, but I said it wouldn't remain in the opening post, but then again judging by our earlier exchange I'm not sure if you read it). It's ok if you think mp drain is "VERY uninteresting (and actually counterproductive)" because in the end you can just say it's a matter of opinion, but please treat the idea fairly.
To answer the earlier post about rmsl, I don't know why you removed the quote about the centaur in your reply when it's probably the best counter-argument to your claim. I think it shows that a low level air elementalist would benefit from using the spell sometimes, and if that's the case the spell is useable even in the "worst case" scenario of a low level character. BUT I do agree that wind wall is probably a better spell.
Sorry about excluding that quote, it wasn't intentional just bad editing (I started to rearrange and reply part by part and then realized I just wanted to reply to the whole thing.)
So here's what (I percieve) happens when an early (Like you are level 4ish and on D:3) centaur comes into view, and you rely on MP to do damage:
When you *don't* have rMsl:
* You attempt to get out of LOS and get around a corner, if you can't (Or believe you would die before you got there) then you use consumables to escape, or failing that you slug it out and try to kill it before it kills you.
If you have the *current* version of rMsl:
* You walk into LOS of a centuar, you already have rMsl up, so you duck around a corner if you can, but probably you can just kill the centaur (or approach it and kill it at point blank range if there's no way to get out of LOS) Maybe you use consumables if you really are just that underpowered, but you have your full MP to kill it with, so you can probably kill it.
If you have the *prior* version of rMsl:
You *might* obsessively cast rMsl, but you probably don't, both because it's annoying and because it leaves you down MP and might leave you short of MP you need to kill things. If you don't already have it up, you cast it as soon as the centaur shows up, then you pretty much follow the current rMsl strategy, except you probably have less mana, but you might be able kill centaur, if not you're in the same boat as "you don't have rMsl"
If you have the proposed version of rMsl (which drains mana):
You can cast rMsl to reduce your odds of dying, however you don't have enough mana to use your MP to kill the centaur *and* use rMsl to keep you alive, so you must now use a consumable to escape or get out of LOS (because you can't simply walk away from centaurs) Your next action if you do get out of LOS is to either kill the centaur or escape using a consumable (This is the same set of choices whether you cast rMsl or not, except casting rMsl gives you more turns to get out of LOS) the problem is that if you do get out of LOS, and you *don't* cast rMsl, when you get adjacent to the centaur, you have MP with which to kill it (as with the current version of rMsl, and with the "you don't have rMsl at all"), if you *do* cast the proposed version of rMsl, you almost certainly do not have the MP to kill it, so you must escape using a consumable (or perhaps try to beat on it with an untrained shortsword or something) In short what casting rMsl does in this situation is delay the number of turns before you must use a consumable to escape (from immediately to "a few turns later") So ultimately what this version of rMsl does for a character in this exact situation is "cause you to use some turns"
Now there's some alternatives, you could reduce the additional MP drain to the point where it would not be significant to make the difference between whether a level 4 character would be able to kill said centaur or not, however if it was that insignificant, it would certainly not be a deterrent large enough to cause a *high level* character to have to make a tactical decision about whether to use the spell or not, it would still be a "no-brainer" just as it is now. You could also possibly get in a situation where rMsl would give you enough turns to get to a staircase or something, which means it's not "no use" but it's certainly not as useful as it is for non MP-reliant, or high level characters.
Now the situation I described *only* applies to characters who are sufficiently low-level that they've really only had the chance to train one sort of "killdudes" and who also have a very small MP pool, *and* who have a killdudes skill which relies on MP.
It's my opinion however, that these are the *exact* sorts of characters who *should* be able to use said type of spell to good effect. In fact it's my opinion that these are the *only* sorts of characters who should be able to maximally use a low level buff, and that the further you are from "A low level primarily spellskill trained caster type" the less useful a low-level buff spell should be. That is to say, if you're high level, low level buffs should be nearly useless, and if you don't have XP in spell casting skills, *all* buffs should be nearly useless.
Adding MP drain to buffs makes them less useful for everyone (with sufficiently high MP drain, it might in fact, drop them below the "no brainer" threshold), however it makes them the *most* less-useful for low level characters who primarily focus on spell skills, which is why it's the opposite of what I'd like to see. I believe that a better change is to make buffs rely on sufficient training, and have a natural drawback which makes them obsolete once you've gone sufficiently past their intended level-use range (For example Shroud of Golubria's usefulness is inversely proportional to the amount of damage that a creature can do, so it's great against a hobgoblin, but near-useless against a stone giant)
Regarding swiftness: It's actually still pretty darn useful to get around a corner or into a choke point so you don't get surrounded by packs (it also helps drawing individual members off a pack so you can kill them singly), I actually still use it quite a bit and believe it's actually probably still too powerful as a level 2 spell for this exact reason. It's certainly less useful than it used to be as an escape spell, however even if you can't get to a staircase, using less turns to re-position yourself tactically is still pretty good (and the slow movement doesn't matter if you aren't moving and are just killing stuff) You're correct though I didn't read carefully enough (and actually just not recently enough) to notice you proposed removing the slow down while adding the MP drain. That would still mean that it wouldn't be useful as a repositioning tool for low-level MP-reliers, which is counter to my opinion on who should be able to use low-level buff spells, although it might be useful as a high-MP escape (depending on what the MP drain actually was) as long as you weren't running from something faster than you, but it wouldn't be useful as a low-MP escape (or at least it'd be less useful than it is now).
In short I believe that adding MP drain to low level spells doesn't address "low level charms spells being a no-brainer to learn and cast for high level characters with no XP investment" it
does address "Its optimal (and tedious) to cast some buffs out of combat, in some cases to spam them continually" it also hamstrings the *intended target audience* for those spells.
I believe there are better ways to address the problem that adding MP drain addresses, which might also address buff spells other problems, or at least retaining their use in the one part of the game where they *aren't* broken (i.e. Casting by level-appropriate characters with skill investment used tactically, because it's optimal to do so, because your MP budget is so low)