Armour Ego: Spellfocus

[Velikolepni]

Currently many spells become significantly less useful during the late game due to limits to Spellpower. This is a bit unfortunate since there are no direct equivalents to some spells like Ensorcelled Hibernation, Tikuma's dance, Dazzling spray and some others. Thus the suggestion to introduce an armour ego that removes the spell power cap on all spells in exchange for increasing the mana cost of every spell by around 3 (2 is not enough, 4 might be too much). To avoid swapping during a fight to cast some high level spells cheaply, this should be an armour ego.

Such an item would be quite beneficial to a lot of characters. For example, Wizards followers of Chei that haven't had the chance of finding some higher level spell books could use it to boost Magic Dart to roughly the levels of IMB. The rarity of it should be about the same as the rarity of the "archmagi" ego for robes and it might be appropriate to limit it to only some kind of armours like helmets.

[Lyrick]

What was the point of the cap in the first place?

Also, are you talking straight up no power cap (no hard cap), no arbitrary cap (hard cap 200), or increasing the maximum spellpower?

This would be a little logical if it only increased maximum spellpower by a few pips. But entirely removing the cap is crazy.

(do not meddle in the affairs of wizards)

[Psiweapon]

And what about armor ego which makes the armor penalty hamper spellpower *instead* of making failure chances bigger?

[duvessa]

Currently many spells become significantly less useful during the late game due to limits to Spellpower.

Pretty sure that's the point of the limits to Spellpower, yes.

[johlstei]

gonna EH the whole game except cocytus

[Velikolepni]

What was the point of the cap in the first place?

Also, are you talking straight up no power cap (no hard cap), no arbitrary cap (hard cap 200), or increasing the maximum spellpower?

This would be a little logical if it only increased maximum spellpower by a few pips. But entirely removing the cap is crazy.

(do not meddle in the affairs of wizards)

I suggest that wearing the armour with that ego should set the power cap of all spells at 200. I am open to the suggestion that wearing it should increase the cap to above 200 (but not much more). After all it is balanced by an increase in the cost of all spells by around 3 so I think that it would be worth it.

[Floodkiller]

What was the point of the cap in the first place?

Also, are you talking straight up no power cap (no hard cap), no arbitrary cap (hard cap 200), or increasing the maximum spellpower?

This would be a little logical if it only increased maximum spellpower by a few pips. But entirely removing the cap is crazy.

(do not meddle in the affairs of wizards)

I suggest that wearing the armour with that ego should set the power cap of all spells at 200. I am open to the suggestion that wearing it should increase the cap to above 200 (but not much more). After all it is balanced by an increase in the cost of all spells by around 3 so I think that it would be worth it.

The only spells where uncapping spellpower is balanced by an increase in mana cost would be destructive spells, since those are the ones you expect to cast more than once in a fight. Hexes, on the other hand, would become a one or two cast victory (200 spell EH) against everything not immune to magic, and the only downside would be needing to rest after fights more often.

The only way that this could be balanced is if it had a substantial downside (like, Robe of Misfortune or -50% Max HP substantial).

E: Corrected.

[Sandman25]

Mass Confusion and Enslavement are already capped at 200.

[Siegurt]

Also, since there's no hexer staff/ring it's near-impossible to actually achieve 200 spellpower with hexes (requires 75 int with only 1 spell enhancer (archmagi), and "only" 50 int with 2 spell enhancers (if there were a second one for hexes), assuming 27 spellcasting, 27 hexes, and in the case of some spells 27 of some other skill)

Even without it's cap, you aren't going to see 200 spellpower confuse spells.

(Incidentally, with *no* enhancers, it requires a mere 112 int to get to 200 spellpower...)

[stickyfingers]

Spear of botono is a hex enhancer, also hat of high council, wild magic mutations and !brilliance enhance all spells

[Velikolepni]

The only spells where uncapping spellpower is balanced by an increase in mana cost would be destructive spells, since those are the ones you expect to cast more than once in a fight. Hexes, on the other hand, would become a one or two cast victory (200 spell EH) against everything not immune to magic, and the only downside would be needing to rest after fights more often.

The only way that this could be balanced is if it had a substantial downside (like, Robe of Misfortune or -50% Max HP substantial).

According to the wiki, the only hexes spells with power cap under 200 are:
Confusing Touch(50), EH(56, but due to stepdowns, effectively 50 as well), Dazzling spray (100), Spectral weapon (100), Tikuma's dance (100), Summon Guardian Golem (100) and Summon Mana Viper(100).

My understanding (please correct me if I am wrong) is that spellpower only determines duration and health for Summon Guardian Golem and Summon Mana Viper. At any rate, uncapping these spells should not be a problem, because for 8-9 mana I would expect to get something substantial. The damage of Dazzling spray is small anyway and spellpower does not affect the chance to dazzle, so that is not a problem. Confusing Touch and Tikuma's dance should also not be a problem since Mass Confusion exists and its power is uncapped. This leaves only EH as a potential troublemaker, but its effect as a stab enhancer is not much more powerful than that of confuse, which is a level 3 spell with uncapped spell power.

[Hurkyl]

Well, you can get good stab with an executioner's axe if you get lucky with equipment; is it really a problem to have supercharged hexes on rare occasion?

[Hurkyl]

The only spells where uncapping spellpower is balanced by an increase in mana cost would be destructive spells, since those are the ones you expect to cast more than once in a fight.

And increasing their mana cost would make them suck.

Flame Tongue does the most damage of the level 1 spells at the 25 power cap. At, say, 100 power, it would average 17 damage per hit. (although shock would benefit the most from this, due to double-zaps)

Airstrike, I think, does the least damage of the level 4 spells. At 100 power, it averages over 19 damage per hit. Throw Icicle, by comparison, averages over 31 damage per hit.

If we're imagining this ego being used to offer more variety for conjuration usage -- i.e. allowing low-level conjuration spam to scale up to the mid and late game -- then I think adding 2 MP to the mana cost would be too much... unless you really were imagining keeping the low-level spells strictly inferior to mid-level spells. Heck, 1 MP might already be too much.