Kaelii wrote:I'm going to start with this, and bring up the rest a bit later.
man I was just analyzing what it meant to directly construe the results Bart noticed as "aha, see this? of course it's an issue!" and noted that if you do that, you have to do the same for encumbrance's casting penalty, or find extenuating circumstances for it, which you sought out to do. But of course they're different. They use different systems and interact differently, e.g. XL gives you MP for spells and can give you STR for armor. You can find similar extenuating circumstances for perma-charms. You mention various strategies for heavy armor chars. There would also be various strategies to approaching perma-charms. Whatever is forgivable - nay, not even an issue - about armor's penalty to casting, same goes for perma-charms.
Kaelii wrote:In regards to #1: Spells are your core tools for spellcasting backgrounds. Summoners, Conjurers, what have you. They care about mana, ESPECIALLY in the earlier stages of the game where these buffs are most relevant.
In the early game, these buffs are usually
not relevant because you don't have them. What starting books have buff spells? Warpers and skalds start off with buff spells but these backgrounds are not of the summoner/conjurer mold. Repel missiles is in two starting books, plus ice elementalists and arguably necromancers are also, erm, impacted. They're few enough to be individually analyzed and, if necessary, changed. And let's say you find a perma-buff on D:1 that would cripple your caster. Is that so different from finding +0 plate mail, which happens to be bad for your char, not necessarily a caster, on D:1?
Anyway, what's wrong with a starting spell being bad for you sometimes? Some starting book spells are seldom memorized. You talk as if it would be a bad thing if learning a spell was suboptimal sometimes. I doubt anyone would seriously say, "But some air elementalists might choose not to cast RMsl for a while. That is unacceptable."
Kaelii wrote:But for characters who are DESIGNED to care about spells, having their own special case tools cut off ... is a problem.
Changing buff spells does not cut off those characters' tools. Learning and casting a spell that sets your max MP to 1
would be a choice available to the player, which the player can reject. The player already has to make a choice of what spells to learn due to spell slot limits. For example, many people approach Wizard as a hybrid need-to-pick-up-a-weapon background by default, and gladly set aside the spamming of magic dart.
Kaelii wrote:That is a misalignment of design. A spell should be a tool that spellcasters decide if they need/want, while a non-spellcaster should sacrifice much more in order to get something out of their element.
I don't know what you mean by "misalignment of design" and the rest makes a binary distinction between spellcasters and non-spellcasters (who still cast charms, huh?) and each of their lots, whereas Crawl's system is much more fluid than that.
Kaelii wrote:In regards to #2: The difference between 2 mana at XL 7 and 2 mana at XL 27 is the player has simply played more
man - same goes for regular spells, and anything that uses fixed HP/MP as a cost. Their relative impact is also diminished as you progress through the game. Somehow it's a sign of bad mechanics all of a sudden, if the effect is toggled, rather than activated in combat?
Kaelii wrote:spells (including charms) are tools for spellcasters. Any competition they have should probably NOT be aggressively competing with other spells
Well, why not? You even mention some ways they compete, by design, right after saying that they shouldn't. Though you might think they compete
too much. I have no opinion on that. The rest of your post resembles reflective thought rather than persuasive speech, as you explore the idea of perma-charms. Then apparently (I'm not sure tho) you say charms
not competing with each other is a problem? Well, why?
Kaelii wrote:These are components to charms not fitting as a reasonable spell school, unless you have an idea in mind for charms, that still fits them being a spell (and competing with other spells in a similar manner to other spells)
But why should charms fit a "reasonable spell school", and why should they compete with other spells like other spells? It does not strike me as a good goal to have every spell school resemble all other spell schools. In fact we do have the spellcasting skill, which is very different from all other magic skills, and the conjurations skill, which has few single-school spells and mostly acts as an XP sink for blaster casters.
dpeg wrote:HbG: Wont't waste more of my time talking to you.
doesn't change much; you haven't
really been talking
to me. By your own admittance you are repeating your opinion on expiring charms, which I see and agree with. I would not miss seeing Charms go without replacement. I, on the other hand, struggle to find ways of conveying my perspective on perma-charms, and grapple to understand yours. Unsuccessfully. I would welcome you rejoining the conversation. Then again, what is a man if his word means nothing?