Make high level necromancy better for Undead species.

[stefan3iii]

One of the strange things about playing an undead caster or hybrid is how poor the necromancy school is in the end game. Revivification, Death's Door, Necromutation are the only three lvl8 necro spells and are all uncastable. The lvl 6 and 7 spells are Simulacrum, Haunt, and Death Channel of which you only ever need to choose one for your preferred method of spamming minions. So if you want to roleplay an end game undead necromancer type you don't actually have many spells to choose from. It doesn't feel right that the undead species are discouraged from training high level necromancy.

One possible solution is to add new necromancy spells that can only be used by undead (and necromutated?) characters. Another possibility is to add or replace high level necro spells that undead can actually use.

- Undead Touch: Single target 1 range spell, only usable by undead. High unavoidable, irresistible damage, Drains stats and gives it to the caster for period of time up to a cap. Tweak dmg/stat drain/duration to suit the desired level of the spell.

- Blight: Level 7 Necro/Hex spell. AoE centered on player that grows in radius with spell power. All grass/trees/etc transform into their blighted version, like the kind you find in the Crypt. Plant like creatures all take massive damage. All other non-undead creatures take less damage and receive Sickness and Weak. The player will also get Sick, but this of course would not affect Undead or Rot immune characters.

- Cloud of Rot: Level 6 Air/Necro spell. Like poison/freezing cloud, but with miasma! Usable by living casters, but of course much better if you're undead since you'll be immune to your own clouds.

- Death Locust Swarm: Level 9 damage spell on a single target. Short duration high damage over time, that can spread to other enemies. Starts out on one target, and then duplicates on a nearby target after a couple of turns, and continues spreading and multiplying from there. Cannot spread offscreen, and probably has a maximum number of times it can spread. Does not effect skeletons. This would be different from the other lvl9 nuke spells in that it is very mana efficient, but takes longer to actually do the killing then ice/fire storm, and doesn't distract the enemies the way tornado/singularity/discord does.

[duvessa]

Just let undead use revifification and ddoor, let mummies use regeneration, and be done with it.

[Igxfl]

Yeah, except for Necromutation, there's no reason undead couldn't use all the existing high-level Necromancy spells.

[mps]

Undead have relatively good necromancy apts, largely, I would guess, because they can't cast/wouldn't benefit from ddoor, borg, and lichform. I don't think this is the only case of apparently high apts being mitigated by unavailability of relevant spells, weapons, or armor. Another option might be bringing back some form of symbol of torment suited to use by undead characters.

[ion_frigate]

Undead have relatively good necromancy apts, largely, I would guess, because they can't cast/wouldn't benefit from ddoor, borg, and lichform. I don't think this is the only case of apparently high apts being mitigated by unavailability of relevant spells, weapons, or armor. Another option might be bringing back some form of symbol of torment suited to use by undead characters.

Undead have relatively good necromancy apts, almost certainly, for simulational reasons:

Ghouls and Mummies are unchanged (0/100) from Linley's Crawl: http://www.swallowtail.org/crawl/species_skills.shtml

Vampires, added in late 2007, had their Necromancy aptitude improved from 100 to 90 (and hence +1) not too long after their introduction: http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a= ... f8d2135904 ; the comments for the commit said that it was part of a general improvement: if you click on the diff for skills2.cc, you can see a lot of their aptitudes were improved, and the diff for newgame.cc shows that they were given better stats.

[Lasty]

To be fair, the level 4, 5, and 6 necromancy spells are great all game and are perfectly usable by undead.

[stefan3iii]

To be fair, the level 4, 5, and 6 necromancy spells are great all game and are perfectly usable by undead.

For sure, but it also means there isn't much reason to train necromancy beyond level 15 or so, depending on your int. The best necromancy focused characters are going to be non-undead.

Allowing undead to cast DDoor and Revivification would be great, but would need some new flavor text to explain how that works. If you read the existing text it would make no sense for undead to cast them.

[Hurkyl]

To be fair, the level 4, 5, and 6 necromancy spells are great all game and are perfectly usable by undead.

But why stop there?

I've gotten the feeling that few people care whether or not there is a magic game beyond level 6 spells. It this impression actually accurate?

[Lasty]

It's important that there's good magic in the game past level 6 spells, but it's not important that there's good magic in the game past level 6 spells in every school for every character. It's not a bad thing for different characters (and different species) to have different incentives about which skills to train and to what degree.

[edgefigaro]

It's important that there's good magic in the game past level 6 spells, but it's not important that there's good magic in the game past level 6 spells in every school for every character. It's not a bad thing for different characters (and different species) to have different incentives about which skills to train and to what degree.

It feels off that undead don't have access to the powerful necromancy spells. I think that this specific case of undead characters having these incentives to train necromancy to this degree is not good for crawl.

[duvessa]

It's important that there's good magic in the game past level 6 spells, but it's not important that there's good magic in the game past level 6 spells in every school for every character. It's not a bad thing for different characters (and different species) to have different incentives about which skills to train and to what degree.

new features in 0.18: high elves can no longer cast chain lightning, nagas can no longer cast blink

seriously, if you have an actual justification for special-casing a single species to not be able to cast regeneration or alistair's, instead of saying "it's not bad for the game to be unbalanced", i'd like to hear it

[Sandman25]

seriously, if you have an actual justification for special-casing a single species to not be able to cast regeneration or alistair's, instead of saying "it's not bad for the game to be unbalanced", i'd like to hear it

Seriously? Does it require the same skill to win Gr/Mi as it does for Op/Mu? The game is unbalanced by design, it's kind of difficulty setting

Edit. Also I wonder why Fe cannot use weapon, Op cannot wear armour, Mu cannot quaff potions but everyone is able to cast Fire Storm or Magic Dart.

[Hurkyl]

It's important that there's good magic in the game past level 6 spells, but it's not important that there's good magic in the game past level 6 spells in every school for every character. It's not a bad thing for different characters (and different species) to have different incentives about which skills to train and to what degree.

In the general setting, this argument seems self-contradictory to me; lack of options forces characters to converge moreso than they would if there were options.

In this particular instance, though, it's just really weird, since the game feels like it can't make up its mind if mummies should train Necromancy or not (I can't really speak for the other undead races). Regeneration is particularly strange, since other sources of regeneration work fine for mummies.

[Sandman25]

In the general setting, this argument seems self-contradictory to me; lack of options forces characters to converge moreso than they would if there were options.

How is that? Troll can wield GSC and Sp cannot equip even Great Mace. Do you think they converge more than if everyone would have the same capabilities?

[stefan3iii]

From my perspective it's not an issue of balance, it's fine that some species are better at some things than others. But thinking about "lore" or whatever you want to call it, it's surprising that undead are bad at necromancy. If I was a new player to the game, and I thought it'd be fun to be a powerful vampire necromancer I'd be pretty disappointed to find out that I can't actually do that and should've played as a human instead.

It's doubly confusing because the undead tend to have good aptitude in necromancy and have necromancer as preferred backgrounds, so a novice will be encouraged to train it . That's probably a good decision for winning the game, but it will still feel bad when they find out they can't actually use any of the fun toys that high level necromancy has.

[Hurkyl]

In the general setting, this argument seems self-contradictory to me; lack of options forces characters to converge moreso than they would if there were options.

How is that? Troll can wield GSC and Sp cannot equip even Great Mace. Do you think they converge more than if everyone would have the same capabilities?

I don't think I'd wield a GSC on a Sp even if I could. But there are a lot of places where most players do have similar capabilities; I'm reacting more to the "every spell school" part than the "every species" part. E.g. nobody has high level Poison magic and few characters have high level Ice magic.

[Lasty]

It's important that there's good magic in the game past level 6 spells, but it's not important that there's good magic in the game past level 6 spells in every school for every character. It's not a bad thing for different characters (and different species) to have different incentives about which skills to train and to what degree.

new features in 0.18: high elves can no longer cast chain lightning, nagas can no longer cast blink

seriously, if you have an actual justification for special-casing a single species to not be able to cast regeneration or alistair's, instead of saying "it's not bad for the game to be unbalanced", i'd like to hear it

Who brought up special-casing a species? My understanding was that we were talking about spell restrictions associated with an attribute (being undead) that several species share. Admittedly, being undead blocking the self-healing Necromancy spells seems to be entirely for flavor reasons rather than balance ones, unless it's related to the balance of lich form.

Designwise, I see no issue with the idea that undead species are good at necromancy but can't use the top-end effects from the school. That means they have a different relationship to the school than other races, and that seems like a legitimate aspect of species differentiation.

[bel]

Since the non-use is mostly for flavour reasons, it does seem weird for flavour reasons that undead can't use high necromantic spells.

There is no design principle which is violated or satisfied by undead not being able to use these spells. It is rather arbitrary and probably only a product of history that things are this way. Lich form is a different thing, though I suppose necromutation could stand a buff, since some people seem to think it is underpowered for a lvl 8 dual-school spell.

[duvessa]

Who brought up special-casing a species? My understanding was that we were talking about spell restrictions associated with an attribute (being undead) that several species share.

If mummies aren't allowed to cast regeneration or alistair's because they're undead, then why are ghouls and vampires allowed to cast regeneration and alistair's?

[njvack]

Well, vampires are only kind of undead, so that kind of makes sense. Why Ghouls are different is totally confusing to me. Maybe Gh is "wet undead" and Mu is "dry undead?"

Ddoor not working for undead makes sense for flavor reasons as the spell is currently described; you can't be in death's door if you're already dead. Regen and Borg really don't; if they're unavailable for flavor reasons, the flavor needs a buff, IMO.

Alistair's flavor doesn't make much sense as it is; it should really confuse all non-brainless creatures, and there's no hint that it shouldn't be castable by mummy / lich players.

So my feeling is either let the spells work for undead players or write better textual support for them not working.

[Lasty]

If mummies aren't allowed to cast regeneration or alistair's because they're undead, then why are ghouls and vampires allowed to cast regeneration and alistair's?

Oh, heh. I didn't realize that was the case. IMO, Regen should be the same for vampires/ghouls/mummies, and I don't care in which direction it goes in. IMO, no one should be able to cast Alistair's.

Edit: For that matter, it drives me crazy that regen from Trog's Hand heals deep dwarves, but not the spell Regeneration or items of regeneration. That bugs me way more than the business w/ undead and Necromancy.

[Sar]

It's actually consistent with stuff like gods' malmutations overriding rMut, Xom potions working on mummies etc. Gods' powers are ~special~

[jejorda2]

I could understand the argument that since mummies have no hunger clocks, regeneration doesn't work because its main cost is increased hunger. And it would be annoying/scummy to keep regen on all the time as a mummy. But no worse than Ozo Armour or other charms.

[Sandman25]

Can we remove regen spell instead? It is optimal to use the spell instead of simple 5 with many characters and it is not easy/interesting.

[duvessa]

I could understand the argument that since mummies have no hunger clocks, regeneration doesn't work because its main cost is increased hunger. And it would be annoying/scummy to keep regen on all the time as a mummy. But no worse than Ozo Armour or other charms.

So why are mummies allowed to get regeneration from items then?

[njvack]

I could understand the argument that since mummies have no hunger clocks, regeneration doesn't work because its main cost is increased hunger.

That would make sense except that, assuming other forum threads are true, you use less hunger healing while regenerating than you do when you aren't -- the increased hunger cost is more than offset by the faster healing.

[dowan]

Or cast spells, use evokables, use invocations, exist, etc...
If their thing is no hunger, and they do almost everything that causes hunger for everyone else, why not just allow them to do everything that causes hunger for everyone else. It'd be like designing a race that couldn't suffer miscast effects, and then saying "Obviously they can't cast spells with a high chance of failure, because their main risk is miscast effects."

[jejorda2]

I could understand the argument that since mummies have no hunger clocks, regeneration doesn't work because its main cost is increased hunger. And it would be annoying/scummy to keep regen on all the time as a mummy. But no worse than Ozo Armour or other charms.

So why are mummies allowed to get regeneration from items then?

Nobody takes off and puts on troll leather armour while resting to heal.

[duvessa]

nobody would take off regeneration spell if it didn't expire on its own

[bel]

I would rather Mu get regen than Vp lose regen spell. Vp already have slow regen from their blood level, losing regen would make them painful. As in tedious, not hard.

[archaeo]

Nobody takes off and puts on troll leather armour while resting to heal.

They do with the amulet of regeneration, though.

I think I might be with Sandman25 on this; regen is an awfully boring spell. Ideally, we wouldn't have a spell that makes it strictly and obviously optimal to never hit 5 unless you cast it first. And it's not like you just cast it once, I often see regen time out at least once before I'm done resting.

Instead, make regen equipment/ammy effects phase in like gourmand, and replace the spell with something more like, say, song of slaying (dirge of regeneration?) or powered by death or the like. I'd then go ahead and just let everybody, including DD, use the spell, as long as it required killing dudes or otherwise being in combat but quickly went away after combat was over.

[bcadren]

I think I might be with Sandman25 on this; regen is an awfully boring spell. Ideally, we wouldn't have a spell that makes it strictly and obviously optimal to never hit 5 unless you cast it first. And it's not like you just cast it once, I often see regen time out at least once before I'm done resting.

What's really bad is that this is (almost) the only use of the spell. Unless you get it really early (pre-lair) the extra regeneration amount is probably not going to actually swing a battle in your favour. Yet it's a go-to "Make sure you have" before hell, since 5ing there is so horrible.

[Siegurt]

I think I might be with Sandman25 on this; regen is an awfully boring spell. Ideally, we wouldn't have a spell that makes it strictly and obviously optimal to never hit 5 unless you cast it first. And it's not like you just cast it once, I often see regen time out at least once before I'm done resting.

What's really bad is that this is (almost) the only use of the spell. Unless you get it really early (pre-lair) the extra regeneration amount is probably not going to actually swing a battle in your favour. Yet it's a go-to "Make sure you have" before hell, since 5ing there is so horrible.

Yeah, Abyss is improved by the presence of regen immensely as well.

[bel]

Regen is useful when you are not resting but moving. It is of course also useful when 5ing, but it is not identical with it. Of course, one could say that "it is optimal to not move till you are full health", but sometimes circumstances don't permit this.

[Berder]

Unless you get it really early (pre-lair) the extra regeneration amount is probably not going to actually swing a battle in your favour.

With a decently durable character and a chokepoint, many battles last long enough for regen to expire if you cast at the start. Regen is like +15 HP depending on spellpower. So if you are getting hit for an average of <15 damage per turn - and if the battle lasts long enough for regen to expire, you definitely are - it makes sense to cast regen. It also makes sense to recast it mid battle if the battle lasts long enough. Here I'm thinking of vaults:5.

[kuniqs]

My issue with Regeneration is that it's very tedious over time to use it (think being in Lichform all the time) but, since using Regen is optimal, you kinda want to punish yourself with it.
Here's my take:
Regeneration works like rMisl - it does not expire until you heal fully. You can't cast it if you're at max HP. This way you can't cast it before a possibly tough fight as Yet Another Buff, and it will not expire during battle. It also makes it a bit more strategic - since casting it takes a turn, and you can only cast it when wounded (threatened), you have to think if spending that turn on Regeneration will be worth it.

While we're at it, make it possible for Deep Dwarves to use Regeneration and +regen items. No healing makes them extremely streamlined - you are either a necromancer or worship Makhleb/Trog. Gets boring over time.

[Hurkyl]

You can't cast it if you're at max HP. This way you can't cast it before a possibly tough fight as Yet Another Buff,

Unless I have memorized a spell that does a small amount of self-damage.

[dowan]

What if regen worked kinda like rmsl, and just stayed on forever, but each time you take a hit, there's a chance for it to be removed based on your spellpower vs the damage of the hit. That would make it more spellpower dependant, and require less recasting.