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In another recent post, it was suggested that the spell be removed, which I fully support. It seems a little out of flavor that the magical fighter can go berserk, which precludes all casting.

In terms of a replacement spell for War Chants, I would have liked to suggest Sure Blade, except that it only applies to short blades.

Other ideas for a replacement spell:

Swiftness L2 - but it is already overused and utility for everyone, not just fightery types. However, if Swiftness were bumped to L3, that might fix a few issues, but that is for another thread.
Ozzie's Armour L3- but it's limited to robe, leather, steam, troll, and mottled armours.
Stoneskin L2 - but it branches into 2 schools that buffy fighters don't use much, Tmut and Earth.
Poison Weapon L3 - potentially very OP. Of course, I think Berserk is pretty powerful also. I prefer this one.
Resist Poison L4 - I also like this one, but it detracts from Envenomations.
Teleport Other L3 - It is NOT Blink, but trains Translocations, and can potentially get rid of baddies you can't handle
Passage of Golubria L4 - Probably not. However, it isn't used much, and being in a popular book might change that. And it's fun.
Control Teleport L4 - A Charm/Translocation
Insulation L4 - A Charm/Air - fitting but possibly situational and OP
Tukima's Dance L3 - Thematic, but would detract from Tukima's books

I think Ozocubu's armour. Crusaders use light armour anyway, at least until mid-game. I'd like to also replace fire brand with another ice/charm defensive spell to give crusader a focus on ice and defensive buffs (so it opposes nicely with the fire/conjuration [url=https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:background:reaver&s[]=reaver#synergy_with_melee]offensive reaver I proposed[/url]).

ice-based hybrids are pretty good, but there's no need for a starting build, and even if it goes in, there's no need to appropriate the crusader background. i don't know, i like them as they are, and if berserker rage is overpowered or conflicts with trog i like the idea of substituting it with poison weapon, which falls in nicely with the brand spells, gives them greater flexibility, and more means to train "elemental" schools for whatever books they find later on (and does not nerf the background too much). tukima's not bad either, but i've never really used it.

i've always wondered why the berserk spell cannot target monsters.

wouldn't it be a much more meaningful spell if you can cast it on monsters?

the only source of targettable rage is needles of RAEG.

and they are rare enough as it is.

since rage is enchantments so it will also depend on the HD of the monster to be affected. so it won't be any more overpowered than Confuse.
the positive sides to being a targettable spell is that it can be usefull to buff your allies, or somewhat cripple weak mages.

compared to Haste, targettable RAGE is only suitable for melee allies, hence even if rage is targeted, it won't be an equivalent substitute to Haste, but it becomes more meaningful.

imagine spriggan enchanters, with both Charm + Targetted Rage. that be an awesome early game mechanic.

barasia wrote:compared to Haste, targettable RAGE is only suitable for melee allies, hence even if rage is targeted, it won't be an equivalent substitute to Haste, but it becomes more meaningful.

I might try targeting enemy summoners, conjurors, and archers.

Too bad you can neither use nor unwield that bow, Nessos...

A targeted Hex/Charm Berserk would be awesome, especially in conjunction with Enslave or Confuse, and even more especially when MR moves from a binary Success/Fail to a gradient. Summon Hydra would be massively powerful with such a spell, considering that each attack would be Might/Hasted.

Of course, it would make Orc Warlords pretty beastly when they berserk the orc knights around them.

It would absolutely have to be L5+, though.

I love this idea. Though it does still seem odd that a magicky kinda fighter would have a spell to make him berserk, losing all magical ability. Making others go crazy and berserk and stupid, sure. Perhaps it should be Frenzy, instead of Berserk, and Confuse (flickering on and off?) the target in addition to making it berserk. That would keep you from using the spell on yourself too much, but still powerful when used on allies or enemies.

I like frenzy as a higher level spell. It would give berserker to berserkers and be great hate for ogre mages and the like.

I also second the ice sub-theme for crusaders. The "ice wizard" background is gone and I hope the same fate befalls "ice conjurers". So I don't think there's too much starting skill in ice magic.

Frenzy seems more a like a transmuter's schtick! Frenzied spider form, blade hands or statue form would be lots of fun. Probably too much fun....

Targeted berserk makes a lot of sense. Moving to hexes also makes sense (assuming that we're keeping the split for 0.8 or bringing it in for 0.9). Making it higher level also makes sense.

Almost any currently non-targeted spell could conceivably be used as targeted.

targetted rage makes sense, and some current implemented targetted enchantments also makes sense, such as targetted Invisibility, and targetted Haste.
maybe we can have targetted swiftness, levitation, poison resist, flight etc.
but other non-targetted spells may not make sense.
such as targetted Necromutation, or even targetted Ice/Statue forms.

lets jsut agree on the awesomeness of targetted rage for now.

dolphin wrote:Of course, it would make Orc Warlords pretty beastly when they berserk the orc knights around them.

No, it shouldn't be Orc Warlords that have it. It should be Ogre Mages

There's no reason that targeted rage has to work on yourself. You can have a flavorful reason for this: "Your growing rage prevents you from finishing the spell"

I think a "berserk other" spell would be hard to balance. See how good BiA is. However, a frenzy spell could be fun. You could use it either as a debuff on enemy casters, or as a dangerous buff on allies.

galehar wrote:I think a "berserk other" spell would be hard to balance. See how good BiA is. However, a frenzy spell could be fun. You could use it either as a debuff on enemy casters, or as a dangerous buff on allies.

Well, that is one option... another is to nerf berserk for monsters. Really, it doesn't seem fair: they can go for many steps without fighting/butchering and still retain rage, their rage lasts ridiculously long, and they typically reinvoke it right away. It would be nice if Rupert would occasionally faint as his rage wore off! :evil:

vintermann wrote:
galehar wrote:I think a "berserk other" spell would be hard to balance. See how good BiA is. However, a frenzy spell could be fun. You could use it either as a debuff on enemy casters, or as a dangerous buff on allies.

Well, that is one option... another is to nerf berserk for monsters. Really, it doesn't seem fair: they can go for many steps without fighting/butchering and still retain rage, their rage lasts ridiculously long, and they typically reinvoke it right away. It would be nice if Rupert would occasionally faint as his rage wore off!

I have an issue with that as well. Berserk enemies are boring tactically because it's very difficult to run, and there's no strategy besides "kill them quickly". I'd like to see stuff like increased vulnerability to poison (blood is pumping faster), or lower MR and/or resistance to confusion (since they're already not thinking clearly).

Getting back to the main topic, frenzy would work. Another option would be to tie success rate to spell power and the monster's HD.

Could we split this thread into "Crusader Berserk replacement spell" (see options at top, possibly new spells) and "Frenzy Spell"?

For what it's worth, I like adding Poison Weapon in place of Berserk Rage. It's a startlingly good early brand, and it works on a lot of the things you'd be berserking on anyway, so it wouldn't be an overly brutal early-game nerf to the crusader background. It also completely supersedes any reason for the Arcane Marksman to exist, so that bit of background clutter can stay cleaned up permanently.

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Remove Berserk Spell; Replacement

Remove Berserk Spell; Replacement

Re: Remove Berserk Spell; Replacement

Re: Remove Berserk Spell; Replacement

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Re: Remove Berserk Spell; Replacement

Re: Remove Berserk Spell; Replacement

Re: Remove Berserk Spell; Replacement

Re: Remove Berserk Spell; Replacement

Re: Remove Berserk Spell; Replacement

Re: Remove Berserk Spell; Replacement

Re: Remove Berserk Spell; Replacement