Mennas and wand of flaming

[Sandman25]

I am not sure if Mennas was generated with wand of flaming or if he picked it up from the ground but I believe he should not use it as it deals almost no damage to player at the depth where Mennas generates.
It took 76 turns to kill Mennas and he used wand of flaming 31 times (and I thought 24 zaps is max for the wand)

  Code:

You kill Mennas!
Items here: ) / [[
a blessed scimitar of holy wrath; a large shield; a wand of flame {zapped: 31}

 67560 | Crypt:1  | Noticed Mennas
 67636 | Crypt:1  | Killed Mennas

[Sar]

Junk wands got their zap limit increased significantly due to ID changes.

Edit: clearly the solution is to make monsters' HD influence wand damage output. Mennas zaps a wand of flame! Ouch, that really hurt!

[Sandman25]

Junk wands got their zap limit increased significantly due to ID changes.

Edit: clearly the solution is to make monsters' HD influence wand damage output. Mennas zaps a wand of flame! Ouch, that really hurt!

Yes, this solution works fine for Orc Knights throwing stones (if it wasn't changed recently)

[KoboldLord]

We could also just remove trash-tier wands. They're functional for the first section of the game, but a wand of fire is just as functional as an emergency player tool during that first section of the game, and it continues to be plausibly relevant much later. You often won't even identify the trash wands until after they are completely without any value.

Removing wands in general is also appealing. The ammunition model leads to hoarding, which leads to tedious behavior whenever there is the possibility that it will conserve charges. A use-item should be something that the player wants to actually use, not something that the player wants to avoid using if at all possible.

[and into]

Yeah it makes a lot of late uniques a good deal less dangerous when they have wand of magic darts or the like.

Removing wands in general is also appealing. The ammunition model leads to hoarding, which leads to tedious behavior whenever there is the possibility that it will conserve charges. A use-item should be something that the player wants to actually use, not something that the player wants to avoid using if at all possible.

I think getting rid of the low tier wands would push the items more toward "something the player wants to actually use." When you have three or four hex wands that accomplish similar things, it encourages one to use the least useful one you need to use to get by. If there were fewer but better wands, you'd want to use them because they are good, but when you use them would be a meaningful choice. Perhaps ?recharging could be made rarer, as well.

Incidentally, now that there is only one kind of ?enchant weapon, would it make more sense to have rods powered up by enchant weapon? (You are increasing the +s on it along with the capacity, after all... I dunno seems more intuitive to have rods improved by ?enchant weapon.)

[jejorda2]

Incidentally, now that there is only one kind of ?enchant weapon, would it make more sense to have rods powered up by enchant weapon? (You are increasing the +s on it along with the capacity, after all... I dunno seems more intuitive to have rods improved by ?enchant weapon.)

I'd rather see rods not be usable as melee weapons than see enchant weapon scrolls apply to them. Just let them be used without being wielded.

[EugeneJudo]

We could also just remove trash-tier wands. They're functional for the first section of the game, but a wand of fire is just as functional as an emergency player tool during that first section of the game, and it continues to be plausibly relevant much later. You often won't even identify the trash wands until after they are completely without any value.

Removing wands in general is also appealing. The ammunition model leads to hoarding, which leads to tedious behavior whenever there is the possibility that it will conserve charges. A use-item should be something that the player wants to actually use, not something that the player wants to avoid using if at all possible.

Even later on in the game you still would not want to deal with a spore and a pure melee character could make use of the wand to take it out at range. All races can use wands but not all races can throw things.

[Wahaha]

Early a wand of flame is "good and useful". A wand of fire is "incinerate anything (or multiple things) in 2 turns". It's a big difference. An easy solution is to not generate low tier wands after a certain depth.

[Siegurt]

Also for much of the game low-tier wands are better than throwing things, I have killed hydras with wands of flame/frost, And personally, when I am playing a melee focused character, I use my low-tier wands to beat up approaching critters that will take more than one or two hits from my melee weapon to kill, it's rare that i have extra wand charges sitting around unless I'm playing a character whose focus is on ranged damage (whether with spells or ranged weapon) through at least the bottom of the lair.

I also never use ?recharging except on the top tier wands, (And an occasional very useful rod) and I rarely have too many (or even as many as I'd like) recharging scrolls, so I don't see that removing some or all of the lower-tier wands would necessitate lower generation of such scrolls.

I'm not sure what:

You often won't even identify the trash wands until after they are completely without any value.

means, since presently wands auto-identify on pickup (Type, not charges) and even in 0.14/0.15 you would just zap a wand when you picked it up to find out what it was as soon as you got it, prior to that you would still zap it to find out what it was, but it required a little bit of setup to make sure it caused a 'visible' effect so you could identify it, so you've always been able to figure out what a wand was immediately on getting it without using a scroll.

In D:1-5 the lower-tier wands are very very useful, and can make a very large difference, not as an emergency 'get out of jail' card, but as a "do a lot of damage or kill something nasty before it gets into melee with me" tool, in that sense a /fire is a HUGE step up from a /flame, and I think it'd probably be way overpowered.

[Sar]

What happened to "make evo influence the chance of getting a puff or a bolt" proposal? Is it considered to be too much of a nerf?

[KoboldLord]

I think getting rid of the low tier wands would push the items more toward "something the player wants to actually use." When you have three or four hex wands that accomplish similar things, it encourages one to use the least useful one you need to use to get by. If there were fewer but better wands, you'd want to use them because they are good, but when you use them would be a meaningful choice. Perhaps ?recharging could be made rarer, as well.

The trash wands are only part of the problem. The other part is the chase wands, heal wounds, teleportation, and haste. The wands in one of these tiers are not like the wands in the other tiers, and it doesn't make sense for them to be sharing a resource like recharging scrolls. Once you strip out the too good and the too bad wands, you're basically left with a disposable rod. In which case, why not just spawn more rods? Rods are great, on a mechanical basis. They do a fun and useful thing, and then they come back so you can use them more. You get a strong effect, but you can't easily stockpile them to brute-force a solution to an error in judgment on your part.

Even later on in the game you still would not want to deal with a spore and a pure melee character could make use of the wand to take it out at range. All races can use wands but not all races can throw things.

Most melee-type characters are better off spending the item slot on a throwing weapon, which are even more common than trash wands. 'Ranged weapon for FeBE' is too narrow a character set to justify the inclusion of multiple item types.

Early a wand of flame is "good and useful". A wand of fire is "incinerate anything (or multiple things) in 2 turns". It's a big difference.

Only if a monster is shooting the wand at the player. When the player is shooting the wand at the monster, it doesn't matter whether that ogre gets gunned down at max range in exchange for three flame charges or gets instantly dead at max range by one fire charge instead. Either way, the player has spent charges removing the threat and now has 20,000 more monsters to deal with before the end of the game.

An easy solution is to not generate low tier wands after a certain depth.

I'm under the impression that this is actually a more radical idea than just cutting the item bloat wands in the first place.

means, since presently wands auto-identify on pickup (Type, not charges) and even in 0.14/0.15 you would just zap a wand when you picked it up to find out what it was as soon as you got it, prior to that you would still zap it to find out what it was, but it required a little bit of setup to make sure it caused a 'visible' effect so you could identify it, so you've always been able to figure out what a wand was immediately on getting it without using a scroll.

In my last game, I found my first wand of flame in Swamp and my first wand of frost in Vaults. I had fire and draining before Lair and cold was available in Orc. In theory, it is good to have tiers of items so you can work your way up the tiers, but wands have absolutely no mechanism making a tier system function in this way. The better wands require no additional xp investment and aren't even noticeably more rare, and they instantly completely eclipse the lesser versions.

What happened to "make evo influence the chance of getting a puff or a bolt" proposal? Is it considered to be too much of a nerf?

In principle, I like the idea, but I've been told that it causes trouble with targeting. A projectile and a penetrating beam would frequently have completely different desired paths from the player's perspective, and if the wand suddenly flips from one version to the other it created an undesirable skill breakpoint in evocations.

I suppose I could see making evocations have a much steeper effect on wand damage, so both the projectile version and the bolt version plain suck at 0 evocations but they are both viable to continue using throughout the game if you keep evocations up, but there's still probably no reason to have two fire damage wands in the first place.

[Sar]

Oh right, targeting, that's a problem.

[and into]

Oh right, targeting, that's a problem.

On the other hand, wand of random effect exists, and is an even bigger mess in this respect (what with digging and hex-like targeting and fireball thrown into the mix!) so really it would not be nearly as bad as something that already exists in the game. A wand of fire that either shoots out a puff or a bolt would be fine, ditto for cold; give it pathing for a bolt spell but then if you don't surpass the check, you only hit the one in front. That's no worse than targeting for a bolt spell, which already exists in wand and spell form.

[Sar]

Well I also kinda wanted for a Fire wand to have a small chance to Fire Storm your enemies at really high Evo...

[Jeremiah]

Well I also kinda wanted for a Fire wand to have a small chance to Fire Storm your enemies at really high Evo...

It could have a chance to do a rod of ignition type effect at high evo instead (though this could cause problems with damaging yourself when it triggers.) Or just a bolt that leaves flame clouds in its path.

[and into]

There would definitely be times you would not want your wand to leave flame clouds behind. Realistic scenario: You are trying to retreat through a corridor while something nasty, only to find a few ugly things or kobolds or whatever have blocked it. You would want BoF, but no flame clouds. Also would be annoying in many cases with allies.

Honestly just compressing flame/fire into one wand would be an improvement and wouldn't realistically create any situations in which you would not want the better effect to trigger. (You can fire with . to ensure you don't hit an ally behind your target, regardless of whether throw flame or bolt of fire triggers.)

[Wahaha]

I'm under the impression that this is actually a more radical idea than just cutting the item bloat wands in the first place.

It isn't because some item generation is already affected by depth. Certain scrolls like immolation don't appear before a certain D level. Unless that was removed, if it was then it might indeed be more radical. I also believe some item weights change with depth? There's no problem with making useless wands not generate after a certain point. It has less impact than any other solution in this thread.

When the player is shooting the wand at the monster, it doesn't matter whether that ogre gets gunned down at max range in exchange for three flame charges or gets instantly dead at max range by one fire charge instead.

If the fight happens in a vacuum where the monster is a melee monster and appears at the edge of los yes it doesn't matter. This kind of situation does happen regularly and yes the two wands are kind of the same in this situation. Except I'd be more reluctant to use /fire charges than /flame charges because /fire is so much better in many other situations that aren't a melee monster approaching from the edge of LOS.


Combining fire and flame into one wand based on evo is probably ok but note that this effectively removes wands of fire from the early game and removes wands of fire from the whole game for characters who don't train evo. Removing them from early game is good when monsters use them, because I think they're too strong in monster hands. Oh Ijyb had a wand of fire, my fault for not immediately excluding him until I have 80+ hp. Oh this random orc has the ability to repeatedly hit me for 25+ damage from range.
Removing them from players in early game is probably fine. However removing them from players for the whole game who don't train evo is kind of bad because fire/ice wands are a nice tool in lair and midgame that every character can use (for killing hydras for example) and I don't see any reason to change that status.

[neil]

Removing them from early game is good when monsters use them, because I think they're too strong in monster hands. Oh Ijyb had a wand of fire, my fault for not immediately excluding him until I have 80+ hp. Oh this random orc has the ability to repeatedly hit me for 25+ damage from range.

Being able to generate with a good wand despite his low level is what makes Ijyb special. Orc knights and sorcerers are the weakest orcs who can generate with a "high-tier" offensive wand (paralysis, fire, cold, lightning, draining, disintegration) outside of Sprint. The threshold is 5 HD, and orc warriors are only 4 HD. To be fair, though, that doesn't keep them from picking them up off the ground.

(Edit: spelling, and more information about the restriction)