Proposal: Extra spell levels for Sif Muna

[typhen]

I find that the spell slots limit is a limit I come up against during the whole game. But if really starts to become a hard limit in extended when I have 80 slots.

I think it would be really fun if Sif Muna allowed the player to have more than 80 spell slots.

Gameplay Reasons:
- Sif Muna doesn't provide a lot to characters who already have 3 runes and a cboe. This could offer character builds in the extended game that are distinct from what's possible now.
- The number of spell slots needed to win the game is 0. The fun of extended is about tuning & refining & perfecting your character build.
- Many spells are Useful but Not Quite Useful Enough to make the top 80 spell slots. This could encourage more experimentation with unusual spells instead of sticking to the tried and true spellbook.

Flavour reasons:
- Sif, as I understand, is the Generalist Spellcasting God (and the Librarian). It seems thematically appropriate that her followers have a better memory than other people do.
- It also seems thematically appropriate for Sif worshippers to see themselves as smarter than Vehumet and Kiku worshippers.



In a recent game, I forgot a lot of spells during extended, including Ring of Flames, Summon Hydra, and Statue Form. they were Useful and super fun but I wasn't casting them often enough and I needed space for emergency spells like Borg and Controlled blink.

If you are a player who never hits your spells cap then this proposal probably won't change the game for you at all.

I don't think this proposal changes the game balance much -- it gives players more diversity in their spell options, but they have to take Sif Muna to get it.

It's mostly about allowing Sif Muna players to build extremely Generalist wizard archetypes -- even (and especially) in the late game, where every character has access to 95% of all spells.




Here is one possible implementation:
1) passive ability at **: Eidetic Memory. Spell slots from all sources are doubled.
2) When the player enters sif muna penance, all spells are forgotten. and the player's spell slots are reduced to 0.
3) each time Sif Muna takes an action during penance (ie, each time the penance counter is reduced) the number of spell slots increases.

[wheals]

I like this idea, but having abandoning Sif prevent you from casting any spells is a bit over the top.

[WingedEspeon]

Maybe just have the player lose all the extra slots when they leave Sif?

[Pollen_Golem]

Yeah, #2 and 3 are completely gratuitous, and note they apply if you destroy a book for some reason. What's the point of losing spells when you leave Sif? If someone wanted to leave Sif in that case they could easily amnesia whatever they need to, before abandoning. As for spell-slots, it's ok to let players leave with overloaded spell slots IMO like Spell Levels Left: -12, so that you'd need to amnesia a lot of spells to learn anything new, even if leads some players to temporarily take Sif just to have lots and lots of spells at the same time.

[chequers]

Rather than doubling spell levels at a piety cutoff, why not add additional spell levels as a function of 0.4 * piety. You'd max out with double the levels, but your additional spell levels growth would be gradual.

EDIT: after thinking some more, doubling spell levels makes slots essentially meaningless. Since there's a 21 spell slot cap, you can memorise all 5 level 9 spells (45pts), all 8 level 8 spells (64pts) and still have 51 points for your remaining 8 slots (so you could fill them all with level 6 spells).

I think the only way to give extra spell levels would be to add a fixed amount as a capstone ability, eg add 9/27 levels at ****** piety.

[duvessa]

Extra spell slots is basically what Sif already offers with the cheap amnesia.

EDIT: after thinking some more, doubling spell levels makes slots essentially meaningless. Since there's a 21 spell slot cap, you can memorise all 5 level 9 spells (45pts), all 8 level 8 spells (64pts) and still have 51 points for your remaining 8 slots (so you could fill them all with level 6 spells).

You're assuming the character trains spellcasting to 27, which is flagrantly bad skill training. Also, that cap should really be raised to 22 now that the selective amnesia spell is gone.

[prozacelf]

Yeah, #2 and 3 are completely gratuitous, and note they apply if you destroy a book for some reason. What's the point of losing spells when you leave Sif? If someone wanted to leave Sif in that case they could easily amnesia whatever they need to, before abandoning. As for spell-slots, it's ok to let players leave with overloaded spell slots IMO like Spell Levels Left: -12, so that you'd need to amnesia a lot of spells to learn anything new, even if leads some players to temporarily take Sif just to have lots and lots of spells at the same time.

Sif wrath did used to have random amnesia of spells as a possible penalty anyway. I don't think it would be too harsh to randomly amnesia spells to get someone back down below their normal spell slot limit.

[typhen]

I like this idea, but having abandoning Sif prevent you from casting any spells is a bit over the top.

Yeah, #2 and 3 are completely gratuitous, and note they apply if you destroy a book for some reason. What's the point of losing spells when you leave Sif?

Oh cool -- I thought it would be needed for balance (since this is a buff, it could come with a nerf) but if we don't need that, then great! This makes the proposal simpler.

As for spell-slots, it's ok to let players leave with overloaded spell slots IMO like Spell Levels Left: -12, so that you'd need to amnesia a lot of spells to learn anything new, even if leads some players to temporarily take Sif just to have lots and lots of spells at the same time.

No, I don't think this would be OK -- because then the Hypothetically Optimal Way to do 15-runes and megazigs would be to go Sif, get every spell memorized, then go Makhleb.
This proposal cannot buff Makhleb players in any way. That would piss Sif Muna off.

So Sif will need to blast your memory at least partially clean with her amnesia, when you leave her, if you're over your natural spell slot limit.

Rather than doubling spell levels at a piety cutoff, why not add additional spell levels as a function of 0.4 * piety. You'd max out with double the levels, but your additional spell levels growth would be gradual.

Yeah, that would work, too. We could also mix both mechanics -- piety cutoff + scaling.

The main issue I'd have with piety scaling is: my number of spell slots is the strategic resource I spend a lot of time (and spreadsheets) planning around, so I need to know it *exactly*.
I don't know my exact Piety.
If I cast Sif's Amnesia a few too many times, or press 5 too many times, then my spell slots could suddenly be reduced by 1, which could get fiddly and irritating.
So if there's piety scaling, it should give the max benefit at any piety 160 or higher.
Alternatively, scale it with the number of ****** visible in the main game screen. It's just too annoying if it's opaque.

EDIT: after thinking some more, doubling spell levels makes slots essentially meaningless. Since there's a 21 spell slot cap, you can memorise all 5 level 9 spells (45pts), all 8 level 8 spells (64pts) and still have 51 points for your remaining 8 slots (so you could fill them all with level 6 spells).

That's a really good point I hadn't considered.

Question for the tavern: why does this cap even exist? I've hit it in a few games and it always frustrates me -- it's an interruption to my plans. It seems to me like the best way to deal with this cap is to remove it, but that's because I don't understand what it's for.

Extra spell slots is basically what Sif already offers with the cheap amnesia.

True, but not during combat. It takes multiple turns to learn a level 8 spell during combat. So we need to prioritize Important/Emergency spells over Experimental/Quirky/Interesting/Niche spells.

You're assuming the character trains spellcasting to 27, which is flagrantly bad skill training. Also, that cap should really be raised to 22 now that the selective amnesia spell is gone.

Yep! Flagrantly bad skill training, but is it uncommon amongst the player base?
For me, after about 6 runes I usually find the thing that I need the most is -more- -spell- -diversity-.... if I can get a few Summons, Translocations or Emergency Necromancy spells online, it will provide a ton more benefit than getting a few more levels of Dodging, or learning a new spell school (that I don't have the spell slots to make use of).
This *seems* optimal to me, but it goes against the advice of excellent players, so it probably isn't.

However, what I do know is if I want to play optimally to get my 15 runes, choosing Sif Muna over Makhleb or TSO isn't optimal

Sif wrath did used to have random amnesia of spells as a possible penalty anyway. I don't think it would be too harsh to randomly amnesia spells to get someone back down below their normal spell slot limit.

Yep -- hostile amnesia actions were removed in 0.15 (according to badwiki) and I assume this was because it would be super annoying for Sif to take away a spell, forcing you to ctrl-f to your spellbook and memorize it again (yawn).
In this case though, we definitely need to reduce the player's spell slots when leaving Sif, somehow, because it'd be totally exploitable.



A little analysis for how optimal players might make use of double spell slots:
The benefits of training Spellcasting are primarily these two:
- extra spell slots
- extra spellpower/success for all spells, at a rate of 1/4 of other spell skills

So for optimal players, this proposal makes Spellcasting less attractive because the player is already getting Enough spell slots from a low level of spellcasting skill.
On the other hand, it can also increase the benefit of Spellcasting -- because if the player is planning to use at least 4 spell skills (and their aptitudes aren't too crazy), then Spellcasting is an efficient skill investment.
And, as they train more spellcasting, they get more slots, which means they can take up more schools of magic, which makes Spellcasting more attractive....
Interesting positive feedback loop -- it increases the benefit of training 4+ magic schools, which increases the value of Spellcasting, which further increases the number of slots available.
The feedback loop will eventually be slowed down by logarithmic skill training costs, and by the 21-spell cap.


Therefore, I think that an Optimal player running Sif Muna would either have:
- lower Spellcasting skill than usual, with heavy focus in 3 or less schools of magic
or
- higher Spellcasting skill than usual, lower skills in the other schools of magic, and spells picked from every school

[duvessa]

The spell cap exists so that all your spells fit on the z? screen at the minimum terminal height (24 lines). 2 of these lines are used for other text, and 1 line is reserved for the Selective Amnesia spell even though it was removed ages ago, so the cap is 21.

[The Ferret]

fortunately it's the 21st century and scrolling has recently been invented

we truly live in the future

[Pollen_Golem]

The benefits of training Spellcasting are primarily these two:
- extra spell slots
- extra spellpower/success for all spells, at a rate of 1/4 of other spell skills

- extra maximum MP pool this is a very substantial benefit

[partial]

remove on-tap amnesia
give player 2x spell levels

[kuniqs]

And what happens when you renounce Sif Muna? You lose those spell levels, but what spells exactly you do lose?

[njvack]

Two possibilities:

1: You forget *all* spells on abandoning Sif, and need to go learn them again

2: You're "over-limit" and need to forget some spells before you can cast anything. If you don't have enough scrolls, you should have plenty of books to destroy...

[archaeo]

Extra spell slots is basically what Sif already offers with the cheap amnesia.

True, but not during combat. It takes multiple turns to learn a level 8 spell during combat. So we need to prioritize Important/Emergency spells over Experimental/Quirky/Interesting/Niche spells.

I'm not sure what memorization mid-combat really has to do with this proposal, but I also don't think that it's a problem that the game encourages you to prioritize important spells over unimportant spells.

A more flavorful ability, imo, would be if Sif stopped gifting books, but simply added spells to a single "virtual" book, or directly (and permanently) to your memorization screen. That way, you would get the advantage of a wide spell selection that only required having time to memorize new spells.

[1010011010]

I don't like the spell level system.

FR: players know 10 spells max.

[ydeve]

The benefits of training Spellcasting are primarily these two:
- extra spell slots
- extra spellpower/success for all spells, at a rate of 1/4 of other spell skills

- extra maximum MP pool this is a very substantial benefit

Not if you train Evo higher than spellcasting

[prozacelf]

Extra spell slots is basically what Sif already offers with the cheap amnesia.

True, but not during combat. It takes multiple turns to learn a level 8 spell during combat. So we need to prioritize Important/Emergency spells over Experimental/Quirky/Interesting/Niche spells.

I'm not sure what memorization mid-combat really has to do with this proposal, but I also don't think that it's a problem that the game encourages you to prioritize important spells over unimportant spells.

A more flavorful ability, imo, would be if Sif stopped gifting books, but simply added spells to a single "virtual" book, or directly (and permanently) to your memorization screen. That way, you would get the advantage of a wide spell selection that only required having time to memorize new spells.

Virtual library of Sif (or all?) spells would be way cooler. I think it's even mentioned in the dev wiki.

[Hurkyl]

fortunately it's the 21st century and scrolling has recently been invented

we truly live in the future

You assume the benefit of allowing more than 21 spells exceeds the drawbacks of a spell menu that occasionally has to scroll. :p (also, I'm pretty sure the ancients knew about scrolling too; programs like vi and edit existed!)

[Sprucery]

The benefits of training Spellcasting are primarily these two:
- extra spell slots
- extra spellpower/success for all spells, at a rate of 1/4 of other spell skills

- extra maximum MP pool: this is a very substantial benefit

Not if you train Evo higher than spellcasting

Note that Evo and Invo give only half as much MP as Spellcasting.

[kuniqs]

Maybe give sif worshippers a passive ability to memorize any spell in 1 aut?

[partial]

And what happens when you renounce Sif Muna? You lose those spell levels, but what spells exactly you do lose?

let the player choose or

make it random (another lil punishment for leaving siffy)

[Siegurt]

"Your mind is full to bursting, please select a spell to forget"

Then we can make an abyss critter that does temporary spell level damage, wouldn't everyone just love it?

[RBrandon]

What's next, damage that destroys items in your inventory?

[Sprucery]

What's next, damage that destroys items in your inventory?

Then traps that make you forget the level map...