New Transmuter spells?

[Bein]

With the transmutations spell school losing several spells (Shatter, LRD, Alter Self), are there plans to introduce new spells? Leda's is nice, but are there other plans?

Something I'd like to see is a Mimic Form, ie you transform into either a fountain mimic or door mimic. You get a stealth boost, and when not moving, wandering monsters do not detect you unless they bump into you. Intelligent monsters who are chasing a player who is running away, and then all of a sudden find a room with a fountain in the corner should have a chance of checking whether that fountain is real or not.

Are there plans to make Dragon Form better? I like the idea of adding GDR to dragon form as mentioned in the wiki. There is the idea of allowing you to choose which specific dragon you take the form of, could this be done with reagents? For example, you could require the player to carry a piece of dragon leather of the dragon type they want to tranform into.

I haven't been keeping up on the commit log recently, so I apologize if I missed any developments regarding these issues.

[dolphin]

Mimic seems like it might go nicely with the Tmut stalker, but it also might encourage tedious play (Mimic, mash 5 until monster is gone| Mimic, '5' until monster is close, stab).

How about some more forms? Currently, Fire, Ice, Earth, Poison, and Necro all have forms. What about Air and Translocations? (I think that Conj or Charms or Hexes would be difficult to make a "form" for, although I imagine that the result would be interesting if you managed to get it in)

[galehar]

I'm all for new forms. I'd love to have one more swimming form (shark?) and one flying form (griffon?).

[Bein]

Wouldn't spamming Mimic be prevented in the usual way of preventing spell spamming? Ie hunger and miscasts? Also there is spell volume to consider, if recasting it is quiet but could be heard from within 3 or less tiles then always waiting until monster is close enough to stab may not work that well.

I agree that other schools should get some forms, particularly Air as it is one of the primary elements. Maybe Sky Creature (ie Sky beast)? Elec res, invis ability, flying would be awesome, but maybe too powerful.

Also more humanoid forms would be nice so that equiment can still be used when needed. Things like "Giant form" that give trample, str/hp boost, dex penalty. I'm guessing the equipment can be transmuted to grow in size as well so that it all still fits

[dolphin]

Ice/Poison/Tmut L5 - Octopus

• Slow movement out of water
• Innate Stealth like halfing or spriggan
• Ability-Invisibility
• Ability-Ink Cloud (water only)
• Poison attack
• Spell duration increased if in water?
• normal HP?

[smock]

Ice/Poison/Tmut L5 - Octopus

• Slow movement out of water
• Innate Stealth like halfing or spriggan
• Ability-Invisibility
• Ability-Ink Cloud (water only)
• Poison attack
• Spell duration increased if in water?
• normal HP?

• Can wear up to 8 rings

[Bein]

Haha

What about non-form spells?

Distort (Transmutation/Translocation) Similar to shatter, but will partially scramble all dungeon features in LOS, including monsters, damaging them if they are moved.

Soften (Transmutation/ Earth?) Temporarily softens all hard matter in LOS, including armor, bone, and some types of hard walls. Makes some undiggable walls diggable, and reduces AC of hard creatures or creatures wearing high AC armor (including your own).

Create Door (Transmutation) Creates a (temporary?) door in a wall (this should work on almost any type of wall, as long as it is only 1 tile thick).

Aquify (Transmutation/ Ice) Turn a tile from rock to shallow water, or shallow water to deep water, much like the rain effect. I don't know if unconfused monsters can yet scramble out of deep water like players can, but they should be able to before this spell were to be implemented. Maybe can be combined with Slow to actually drown monsters.

Create Wall (Transmutation/ Earth) Useful for slowing down pursuers, or making safe stashes. Probably too powerful, maybe this can be mitigated by having a delayed effect (eg the spell "draws in large amounts of air to transform into rock, taking several turns")

In my opinion, transmuters should be the masters of their environment, and right now they are just the masters of their own shape.

[Tiber]

I'm fairly sure that the devs want any more than basic terrain alteration restricted to gods and cards.

Mode ideas though:
Corpse Bomb (transmuation/necro): All corpses in LoS explode
Charged Form (transmutation/air): 75% health and slow moving, but has a fast electric attack and a lightning breath attack. A form that trades defense for offense.

[Bein]

So, right now, the spells that a transmuter, whose abilities are defined as transforming one thing into another, has 3 spells for "altering" the dungeon itself. Dig, Passwall, and Leda's. Dig is low level and practically everyone grabs it, and Passwall has very limited use. Leda's only works on nonflying enemies and also slows yourself down.

Furthermore, many of the nonform transmutations spells are useful only in very specific instances (Alistar's for humanoids, Ignite Poison for snakes/nagas, Polymorph Other). I think more general purpose spells, or at least nonform spells that are useful against things like high tier demons, are needed.

There is of course necromutation which is immensely useful in the end dungeon. However, I actually do not like this spell. One, it is a no-brainer to many characters for many reasons, torment res, rot instead of mutations, and no hunger being the main ones. Two, it is mainly defensive, making it nice for conjurer/summoner types, plus the no hunger makes spamming spells and regaining mana much easier. However, to a transmuter, who focuses on melee to do damage, this isn't that great. The melee bonus is not good in lich form. I'd much rather have something like "Demon form," where you get torment res but you still hunger, with better melee bonus, and for Lich Form to be a pure Necromancy spell. With Dragon form as it is now, I would never choose it over Necromutation to fight pan lords.

To me, right now the transmutation spell class feels like a collection of everybody's form spells plus a bunch of utility/special trick spells. I cleared a Zig for the first time using a DSTr, the trick to it was to learn Tornado. I understand that the Zigs aren't for every character, but is it really only for Conjurer types? If a transmuter needed to modify his environment to make a fight more even for a melee battle against a horde of enemies, wouldn't this be an interesting play style?

[Tiber]

In theory. In reality, optimal playstyle is usually just to hole yourself up in a hallway, or swim in/fly over deep water. That's why branches were created that were specifically free or bare of places to do that, and ways to create such spaces are limited.

[Hushed]

I think a sky beast form would be a great Air/Transmutation addition. Electric unarmed attack, random rain, flight, random invis, stealth+, jewelry only, bonuses based on Air.

I also agree that necromutation doesn't really fit the transmuter playstyle or skill progression, I for one would not be sorry to see it removed or changed drastically.

I would much rather see a Hex/Transmutation demon form- monstrous (level 3 horns, level 3 hooves, level 3 claws, tail), chaos branded effect to unarmed attacks (including auxiliary), cloak and jewelry only, bonuses based on Hex, easy to cast as demonspawn.

At the very least, I think if necromutation is kept as is, that something in your inventory should be cursed every time you leave that form. Dragon form has actual trade-offs for its power.

I also think transmuters need a Charms/Transmutation Jelly form. Resistances across the board, can swim, 4 light melee attacks, eat items for regen, no equipment, bonuses based on Charms, bonuses to Jiyva worshippers.

I have no ideas for translocations/transmutation.

[The Mantis]

Necromutation is a Transmutation class spell because it transmutes. It's to do with necromancy. Necromutation's tradeoffs are that when you become an undead, you become an undead. No one who has experienced TSO will say that Necromutation is not a heavy drawback spell. I don't know if we really need an identical spell for every class, but I do like the idea of form conversion. For one thing, I've read the Lua documentation and it seems to be fairly easy to code- I even tinkered with something half an hour ago for conversion of statues to Daeva.

[galehar]

I also agree that necromutation doesn't really fit the transmuter playstyle or skill progression, I for one would not be sorry to see it removed or changed drastically.

Good that it's not in the book of change then. It's simply not a reason to remove the spell.

[Hushed]

Would you really say that the spells necromutation and dragon form are equal in power? As far as Necromutation being a transmutation spell, it's not like it couldn't just as easily be called something else (undeath) and have the same effects without transmuting anything. Unless I'm missing some key piece of mythos, becoming a lich doesn't actually involve changing more than whether one is alive, so to call it a form is just flavour.

I'm not really advocating removing it per se, being a dual school level 8 spell already means there's not going to be a worry of its overuse. But there's a reason the wiki calls it game changing. It just doesn't seem to be as game changing for transmuters as others (even though that's one of its schools).

[The Mantis]

I think galehar is trying to say, although forgive me if I am wrong, that there's no reason to remove it from the Transmutation school. Firstly, it's a Transmutation spell because it transmutes you, the character, into a lich.

Transmutation means that something changes from one thing to another, eg. you, into a lich.

Therefore Necromutation is in the transmutation/necromancy school because a lich is an undead creature. A lich being dead, its province is firmly in necromancy, and really it's not like Necromutation is something you pick up in a D:2 book.

[galehar]

Dragon form has strong attack and poor defense. Necromutation is exactly the opposite, so it's hard to compare them. I won't go into the details, but the mythology (with the phylactery and permanency) is simply impossible to apply to crawl. A high level tmut/necro spell is what is appropriate in crawl.
It's very useful for anyone who wants to visit tomb/hell/pan due to the torment immunity. I guess the foodless is useful for clearing zigs with fire storm. It's less useful for transmuters because they have other forms with better offense. Why is it a problem?

[Hushed]

Somehow I find it pretty easy to compare dragon form and necromutation.

A problem? Why are any changes made? Because certain features are deemed desirable and others are not. Is a form that is used to ignore the hunger minigame in the extended game really desirable? If you're satisfied with it, my words are obviously not going to convince you. But I don't think it's a far reach to see my point of view that dragon form pales in comparison. The tradeoffs for dragon form are just too many, blade hands lets you do good enough damage while preserving the bonuses from your items and without the EV hit from size.

It's not like Torment immunity can't be added anywhere else, if that's what's desirable.

[galehar]

So, you want to remove necromutation because it is hungerless? That seems pretty minor to me, the food clock is rarely relevant when you can cast necromutation. Or is it because Dragon Form is underpowered?
Torment immunity is also provided by Kiku by the way.

[MrMisterMonkey]

Kiku provides a bit of torment shaving, not immunity.

[Hushed]

If the food clock were irrelevant, gourmand and carnivorous would not be desirable. If it were so minor, it wouldn't be considered game changing. It seems obvious you value it as is, which is fine, but I don't think the discussion is served well by simplifying and trivializing my statements. I don't 'want to remove necromutation because it is hungerless'. I pointed out several issues in theme, balance and playstyle with necromutation. I even clarified I don't want necromutation removed per se (though I wouldn't be sorry to see it go).

Dragon Form -is- underpowered, especially in comparison to necromutation. The only real reason I like it is aesthetic (OMG I get to be a dragon! RAWR!).

Let me ask this, if we had a demon form instead of a lich form with torment resistance, holy word vulnerability, but no dispel undead vulnerability and you were still on the hunger clock, would it be considered a nerf or a buff?

[KoboldLord]

Let me ask this, if we had a demon form instead of a lich form with torment resistance, holy word vulnerability, but no dispel undead vulnerability and you were still on the hunger clock, would it be considered a nerf or a buff?

That would be a significant buff, if you exchanged Dispel Undead vulnerability for re-instating the hunger clock without also messing with the other relevant resistances. Dispel Undead is available to the moderately common shadow fiend, which uses that spell exclusively if you're in lich form. While this is entirely possible to mitigate by careful manipulation of the range of engagement, complications can arise if there are multiple shadow fiends or other impediments restricting your movement. The hunger clock, on the other hand, is still manageable by juggling some combination of amulet of gourmand, ring of sustenance, staff of energy, or even just taking some time to trawl Pan for food.

[Hushed]

I've yet to play a SETm, and I don't think saying Dragon Form isn't underpowered because of a special case for 1 species is very helpful, especially as it does nothing to address the points I've already made.

KoboldLord, I'm afraid I'll just have to disagree, dispel undead is mitigatable. It's not smite targeted, and you don't have to approach each situation in lich form. I guess this conversation to me seems most telling about differences in viewpoints and philosophies approaching spells in game design.

To me spells should be tactical decisions, part of an arsenal for how you overcome obstacles. Necromutation is being treated as a cornerstone for game strategy, like how you treat the hunger clock. That is game changing.

You're not wrong. My expectations and goals are not intrinsically better than yours. The things I find interesting and game behavior I'd prefer to reward doesn't obviate the hunger minigame.

Looking back I wish the conversation had focussed on the cool new forms I suggested rather than on the fact that I wouldn't mind if necromutation disappeared or changed. I should have raised hackles conversationally at a different point. It's not like I have some illusion about how things should be 'fair'. Some things are easier than others, and that's fine. Since I enjoy challenge, it's not like I need my playstyle views to be rewarded by game design choices.

What do you think a translocations/transmutation form would look like?

[KoboldLord]

KoboldLord, I'm afraid I'll just have to disagree, dispel undead is mitigatable. It's not smite targeted, and you don't have to approach each situation in lich form. I guess this conversation to me seems most telling about differences in viewpoints and philosophies approaching spells in game design.

Of course it's possible to mitigate! I included a means of mitigation in the post you're responding to! The hunger clock is also possible to mitigate, and those means include several independent ways that are all more easily accessible than Necromutation.

To me spells should be tactical decisions, part of an arsenal for how you overcome obstacles. Necromutation is being treated as a cornerstone for game strategy, like how you treat the hunger clock. That is game changing.

The only people who treat Necromutation as the cornerstone of post-endgame strategy are the people who have never played the post-endgame. Necromutation is desirable for approximately three types of characters:

#1: Characters who have concentrated on necromancy from chargen or the Temple, and have used it as the main component of their strategy the entire time.
#2: Characters who have concentrated on transmutations from chargen, and have used it as the main component of their strategy the entire time.
#3: Characters grinding to clear a Ziggurat, because xp investment is no longer an opportunity cost.

So we have three backgrounds (transmuter, stalker, necromancer) and one magic goddess (Kiku) that put you on a track toward where you're actually likely to make efficient use of Necromutation in a normal 15-Rune game. For everybody else, Necromutation is too far toward the back-end of two skill trees that basically don't synergize at all until that point.

This is actually fair and appropriate. Contrast Haste, Deflect Missiles, or Controlled Blink, which are good enough to make nearly every semi-casting build make a u-turn if necessary to pick them up as soon as possible.

Looking back I wish the conversation had focussed on the cool new forms I suggested rather than on the fact that I wouldn't mind if necromutation disappeared or changed.

I agree that there should be a flying form, but I'm not sure I'd agree that the sky beast is a good monster to copy. Power roulette is kind of annoying, and it encourages annoying playing practices if only one associated power is the one you want at any given time.

Jelly form I don't like. Being required to eat items to heal is meaningless if you can just let the form expire, and resistances across the board with no equipment makes it a mediocre shooting platform and not much else.

Your version of demon form is probably usable, but I think most players would just stick with Blade Hands instead because it's 'good enough' and allows for most equipment slots. If it was also level 5, I'm not sure anyone would bother with the spell slots just for the auxiliary attacks alone. Chaos brand is also a crippling drawback.

How about a Frogshape spell? It's traditional for casters to be able to turn people into frogs. The player-frog would have felid item restrictions, an activated ability that flicks out a tongue and blinks a small monster closer, a small unarmed combat buff, and increased movement speed in water. Slotted in at level 1, so Fulsome Distillation can be removed from the Book of Changes without leaving transmuters without anything at all to do at level 1.

[roguelikedev]

The only people who treat Necromutation as the cornerstone of post-endgame strategy are the people who have never played the post-endgame. Necromutation is desirable for approximately three types of characters :

#1: Characters who have concentrated on necromancy from chargen or the Temple, and have used it as the main component of their strategy the entire time.
#2: Characters who have concentrated on transmutations from chargen, and have used it as the main component of their strategy the entire time.
#3: Characters grinding to clear a Ziggurat, because xp investment is no longer an opportunity cost.

Agree. I had a big list of arguments, given that it's one of the best spells in the game, but they all felt kind of flimsy.

I don't understand how the threat of Dispel Undead can be compared to that of torment; you may as well compare torment to bolt of fire or the possibility of stepping into a blade trap. Torment alone renders 9 of the game's 13 runes more dangerous to obtain than the orb of Zot, whereas Dispel Undead is just another damaging effect in the crowded late-game category between "deadly serious with 0 fighting" and a crisp hit from Cerebov. This said, I don't think anyone's mentioned the real issues with it: no Regeneration (spell), no potions, no holy wrath. In short, it's a strong ability with serious downsides, i.e. interesting.

Dragon Form seemed (last time I cast it) to lack the crucial "strong ability" component of that equation, which was very disappointing considering the number of min/maxed thalidomide-baby cripples I suffered through trying to get it usable as early as possible. Giant hit to AC + even bigger hit to EV + gain boost to HP = lose tons of HP in every fight = spend most of character's life resting.

... Haste, Deflect Missiles, or Controlled Blink, which are good enough to make nearly every semi-casting build make a u-turn if necessary to pick them up as soon as possible.

Controlled Blink, seriously? It's a strong spell, but it certainly doesn't belong in that company.

What do you think a translocations/transmutation form would look like?

Jurt, the Living Trump... add control tele for the duration of the form; at high power, semi-controlled blink becomes controlled blink and controlled tele loses its error radius. Glow from controlling teleportation is reduced to zero. Blinking can be semi-controlled in uncontrolled areas, and teleportation can be canceled but not targeted. Bestows very high probability (50%/round) teleportitis while active. Any attempt to teleport or banish the user is automatically successful, ignoring magic resistance. The user's primary unarmed attacks inflict distortion effects, but wielded weapons and auxiliary unarmed attacks do not. A great form for emergencies, but annoying to maintain indefinitely; should have a short duration.

[Kate]

Dragon Form's "strong ability" is killing pretty much everything in one or two hits, is it not?

[galehar]

It has been suggested on the wiki to give DF the AC and GDR of the equivalent dragon armour. Makes sense to me and should help make the form more usable.

[roguelikedev]

Shadow fiends will also happily cast bolt of cold against a lichformed player.

I let one hit me with DU a few times. Damages:
23, 41, 51, 24, 44, 44, 25.

So, not very LCS-like damage after all, unless we're talking about one of minmay's transmuters taking advantage of miscast protection to cast LCS at ##........ power.

[galehar]

I've split off the rant about the translocation school.

[Bein]

I typically fight Shadow Fiends while in Lich form (even as "early" as Tartarus), except maybe if there are 2-3 or more, and they are all immediately aware of me (in which case I usually run). If one sees me from a distance I might turn off lich form if I don't think there nequoxes/tormentors around. SFiends don't spam DU *that* often. Keep a wand of healing on hand just in case, but you won't burn through it doing this. Granted I play DS which have higher HP than SE. One very big drawback (imo) of the idea of a demon form, is that it doesn't necessarily get the mutation "resistance" that Lich form has. Not being able to use potions in Lich form only matters for things like potions of heal wounds/might/speed, many of which have wand equivalents.

I think to solve the whole "dig myself into a tunnel and melee" problem should be solved by having some mosters able to cast dig intelligently, not by severely restricting the players use of dig or other dungeon modifying spells. This probably isn't a easy thing to do, so should be the topic of another thread...

Dragon form can kill almost anything in 1-2 hits, but it still needs to kill one thing at a time. Meanwhile it is getting blasted by whatever else is around, and with its poor defensive abilities dragon form is "worth it" for only small battles, but in those cases it's not really necessary at all. In short, there are almost no situations in which dragon form has a use over other forms.

Another idea for a non-form Transmutations spell would be some kind of fog spell. Scrolls of fog are really nice, as it essentially stops all ranged attacks, allows you to escape pretty easily if necessary, and allows a melee character to shine. However, it's too powerful as it pretty much works without limitation against ranged attacks. I'm a fan of using reagents for Transmutations spells, so I think this spell might be viable if limited by requiring a reagent (say a potion of water, but that's probably too easy to get), so that you wont hesitate to use it if swamped by a band of yaktaur captains, but you wouldn't use it to turn a moderately difficult fight into an easy fight. (offtopic: I was originally imagining this as a DS mutation where the DS would emit smoke/fog when hit for high damage)

[roguelikedev]

Evaporating a potion of water produces opaque steam. It's amazingly valuable, particularly in uncontrolled teleport areas.

[Bein]

Evaporating a potion of water produces opaque steam. It's amazingly valuable, particularly in uncontrolled teleport areas.

Sure, but it's not as powerful as fog though. Steam clouds are smaller and dissipate faster. I'm imagining something that you could cast so that you can melee while safe from range hitting monsters, rather than escaping. Also evaporate is quite loud, so a quieter fog spell would be nice for stealthy characters.

[Bein]

I guess I'm trying to think of spells that a melee character would find useful in places like the Zigs. I've never tried evaporating potions of water in a Zig, so I may be wrong, but it seems to me that it wouldn't be very useful as you typically get swamped from many directions.