The Tavern

There have been random mutterings about having an Air/Transmutation form for a while. What about using the existing Sky Beast monster? The flavour is there: it was horribly transmuted; it flies; it is electrically charged (Static Discharge); and it is rElec. That seems to me to fit the bill of being flavourful with respect to Air and Transmutations.

L4-5 Air/Transmutation (Replace Blade Hands and move BH to Transfigurations?)

Electrocution-branded attack OR passive Static Discharge (every 1d5 turns during attack?) Note that Flying halves damage by SD.
No HP gain like Ice Form, possibly HP loss (Spider or worse HP)
Flight
rElec

Possibilities

Robe of Clouds effect, but with temporary puddles instead of permanent ones. (100-200 turns for shallow, 500-100 for deep?) I'd like a similar affect for Fedhas Rain and Robe of Clouds as well.
Airstrike?

Bad Ideas

Flickering Off/On Invisibility? -> kiting
Swiftness? -> already very common and OP
Repel Missiles? -> already very common and OP

it actually sounds nice. there should be an early, flying form, and it's way better than a hippogriff or something of the sort. i'd stay away from buffs (like repel missiles or innate swiftness, and invisibility would just be silly, even if it's not controllable: flickering on and off would encourage kiting).

flight and an electricity-based attack are interesting by themselves. rElec would be nice, and i don't think it'd be too strong, even if it were a level 4 spell (as insulation), which i find reasonable.

occasional, passive static discharges (with or without rElec) might be nice and lend some flavour, but they don't mirror enemy sky beasts.

I'd leave in rElec. Take away the random invisibility and robe of clouds effects for player sky beasts.

I like the idea of a flying form, although I'm sure a better and more thematic name than sky beast could be used (as this wouldn't mirror an actual sky beast). I really like the passive static discharges, although I think if this was without rElec, it might make it an unfavourable choice. However, I don't know quite what area it fits into in the transformation zoo. For instance, we've got spider for speed and cling, ice beast for poison resist and water walking, statue form for pummel and hardness, and dragon form for being a dragon.

So Dragon form is the flying transmutation really, so I don't know where this would fit, especially transmutations has quite a balanced power growth. I'm not sure though, as mentioned an air/transmutations is needed, especially if it could fit a gap not already filled.

Bim wrote:So Dragon form is the flying transmutation really

I wouldn't say that given how hard it is to cast. You might learn ice form to do swamp or shoals, but you're not going to learn dragon form just for its flying ability. I believe a more accessible flying form could fit in the Tmut school. Sky beast is a possibility.

Definitely wouldn't learn it 'just because', but it is an awesome spell, especially with two rings of +5 protection Ehehehe. Perhaps if Dragon form could be trans/air/fire (or even just air?) so that it could go sky beast -> Dragon form? as not to have too many extra side schools in, and give a bit of a progression in the random sides schools of transmut.

Bim wrote:as not to have too many extra side schools in, and give a bit of a progression in the random sides schools of transmut.

Tm IS the school of side schools, beyond playing a straight up Wizard.

Tm IS the school of side schools, beyond playing a straight up Wizard.

True, I play as a Tm farrrrrr too much! However, having two spells from the same school could make it an interesting branching out school, similar to stoneskin and statue form?

I really like this. I think Flight and rElec alone make this worthwhile as something around a level 6 or even 7 spell. An electricity-branded melee attack is also appropriate. I don't think the passive discharge is necessary, an air caster will probably have static discharge anyway and you're already giving them two spells for one casting

This also indirectly gave me an idea for a new electricity-themed monster set. I'll write more detail in a separate thread, but it's basically a flying "Thunder Bug" that has a kind of lifecycle going Larva->Cocoon->Flying->Queen.

I like this idea too, especially if it ends up being a level 5 spell to replace Blade Hands in the Tr starting book. Simple damage boosts are boring.

However, I don't think you can call it a Sky Beast Form without the uncontrolled invis (which might be fun if it can be implemented properly). If that can't be done, I'd rather make it a different flying animal altogether. Some sort of low-HP wasp form with a slowing attack maybe.

Ploppy wrote:I like this idea too, especially if it ends up being a level 5 spell to replace Blade Hands in the Tr starting book. Simple damage boosts are boring.

However, I don't think you can call it a Sky Beast Form without the uncontrolled invis (which might be fun if it can be implemented properly). If that can't be done, I'd rather make it a different flying animal altogether. Some sort of low-HP wasp form with a slowing attack maybe.

This is some really severe thread necromancy. What, did you bookmark this page and then come back to it three years later?

Since Transmutations is still the thinnest spell school (it and poison being far less than all the others)...I'd be for something like this, sure...but definitely NOT replacing blade hands. That would be like murdering the Tm start.

reaver wrote:
Ploppy wrote:I like this idea too, especially if it ends up being a level 5 spell to replace Blade Hands in the Tr starting book. Simple damage boosts are boring.

However, I don't think you can call it a Sky Beast Form without the uncontrolled invis (which might be fun if it can be implemented properly). If that can't be done, I'd rather make it a different flying animal altogether. Some sort of low-HP wasp form with a slowing attack maybe.
This is some really severe thread necromancy. What, did you bookmark this page and then come back to it three years later?

Oh, that would explain the mageykun post. . . It's a really awesome idea, I don't know why the devs didn't expand on it.

Hell yes, this is thread necro. I haven't played the game in 3 years and started playing again a few months ago. This was the thing I thought had the most promise and that I cared most about before I left. Transmutations is my favorite school, more than Translocations or Ice, because of the flexibility and diversity, and also needs the most love and attention, IMO.

Bwoooooo, zombie thread!

I'd be up for a flying, electric Transmutation. I've often felt that the game kinda discourages learning both Air Magic and Transmutations, since there's no overlap between the two schools, and there's a bunch of overlap between Earth Magic and Tmut (Stoneskin, Petrify, Statue Form, Passwall...). As it stands, most of my transmuters end up learning Earth/Fire spells; if this spell existed, I'd be more likely to have my Transmuters branch into Air Magic, and from there, I'd be more likely to use Ice Magic, too (since there's some nice synergy between Ice and Air with Freezing Cloud and some of the charms and stuff).

Not sure about replacing Blade Hands in the starting spellbook, however, especially given how that's the only place you can get Blade Hands outside of artefacts. Plus, Blade Hands is a good spell for any transmuter to learn (not every transmuter I run is going to learn Ice Form; I don't even use Spider Form all that much outside of the first gnoll/orc packs).

spudwalt wrote:I don't even use Spider Form all that much outside of the first gnoll/orc packs

This is unwise. Spider Form is very good for a long time thanks to its combination of Venom branded UC and increased movement speed. You can kite any speed 10 or less melee dude to death easily (goliath/boulder beetles, ogres and yak packs, for example).

On my last Tm I used it exclusively through Lair.

Viashino_wizard wrote:
spudwalt wrote:I don't even use Spider Form all that much outside of the first gnoll/orc packs

This is unwise. Spider Form is very good for a long time thanks to its combination of Venom branded UC and increased movement speed. You can kite any speed 10 or less melee dude to death easily (goliath/boulder beetles, ogres and yak packs, for example).

Both of those are good points, and I do pull out Spider form for beetles and early ogres/orc warriors, but I generally dislike kiting things extensively. I'd much rather stand and fight an ogre or herd of yaks than drag them around half the level slowly plinking them to death. That's also why I dislike playing pure casters -- when you run out of MP, you're forced to run away from things until you can start killing things again.

You don't have to kite every enemy in Spider Form - it gives you sky-high EV (which only gets better as you train Dodging). Of course it also tanks you AC but typical earlygame Tm doesn't have a lot of that anyway.

The spider form love is totally justified, but friendly reminder that this is GDD. Let's stick to talking about a possible new air/tmut form that's at least as cool as spider form (tall order I know), even if it isn't as powerful. Thanks!

If were to try to code this myself (a somewhat unlikely possibility, given my inferior knowledge of C), what files should I have a look at?

I don't really see what niche this spell is supposed to fill. Looking at the thread I'm getting the impression that it's supposed to be a "flying" transmutation, but
1. Other low/mid-level transmutations (Spider Form, Ice Form) offer watered down versions of flight already that are acceptable for most purposes (unless you want to fly over open lava)
2. Flying isn't really that important a thing to have as a spell, you don't need it that often and rings/potions of it are fairly common
3. If you really want flying in spell-form that badly you could learn the Flight spell for a similar investment

So that leaves the rElec effect as its unique selling point vs Ice Beast, but Insulation was removed so I don't think that's enough to make it interesting. I would also definitely not like to see it replace Blade Hands. BH may be simple, but it is still distinct from the other transmutation spells and has a clear and interesting tradeoff/opportunity cost.

and into wrote:The spider form love is totally justified, but friendly reminder that this is GDD. Let's stick to talking about a possible new air/tmut form that's at least as cool as spider form (tall order I know), even if it isn't as powerful. Thanks!

I don't think it's good idea to pretend that existing spells don't exist when you're designing new ones.

duvessa wrote:
and into wrote:The spider form love is totally justified, but friendly reminder that this is GDD. Let's stick to talking about a possible new air/tmut form that's at least as cool as spider form (tall order I know), even if it isn't as powerful. Thanks!
I don't think it's good idea to pretend that existing spells don't exist when you're designing new ones.

No, one shouldn't ignore existing spells, but in GDD one should talk about existing spells in terms of their design, and should avoid getting too deep into discussions of how best to use spider form on a transmuter. The discussion hadn't wandered too far afield yet, but if it had continued I would have needed to split it off anyway into Advice.

@ Leafsnail, primarily

I suppose I wasn't trying to fill a niche. Rather I was trying to fill a perceived void (Tm/Air) in a flavourful and different way. Judging from early daggers of electrocution, Elec seemed pretty strong on UC for early game, and it seems to peak in usefulness mid-game so I figured that L4-L5 was the right spot to drop it. I don't think I was trying to make something that was a 'flying form'; rather, flying seems like an iconic attribute of Air magic.

Do spells need niches that precede them? (I missed the addition of the new batch of Conjurations and Battlesphere and so on, so I don't know how that process went.) It seems like there are a few Bolt of Foo, Shard of Foo, Summon Foo, that would apparently occupy the same niche, but they don't seem to compete much, ie. just because you got Bolt of Poison doesn't mean you won't also get Bolt of Fire, right?

---

On another note, I think an aura of Static Discharge or a version of the Robe of Clouds effect would round out the form in terms of flavour (with the slight side effect of dramatically increasing damage output or reducing incoming damage [stumbling in shallow water]), but they would need to be compensated for, by Inacc I think, and possibly some other negative effect.

I like the idea of introducing a level 2 form, but I have trouble envisioning a Sky Beast Form that would fit into this slot. I also think that following the sky beast theme directly is unlikely to achieve much that isn't already achieved by spider form and ice beast form. I'm also not sure there's a lot of design space left for new, good forms. Some design space that's left over includes constriction, reaching, cleaving, fast-acting forms (as opposed to statue form), and unused partner schools, but I'm not sure there's a great proposal in there for an electrical form.

Here are some counter-proposals:

Electric Cloud Form (level 2)
Transform into an electric cloud, merging all non-jewelry. In this form you fly, take extra damage from air strike, are immune to elec. Unarmed attacks deal the same damage as outside form, but are electric damage, meaning that rElec enemies take greatly reduced damage. Passively cast a weak Static Discharge effect when attacked. (Motivation: give a weak form that offers something no other form does, e.g. no offensive enhancement, but some defensive enhancement)

Giant Shock Serpent Form (level 6)
Transform into a giant version of a shock serpent, gaining substantial EV and +10-20% HP and increased move speed but merging all non-jewelry (rings are worn around body?). In this form you gain elec immunity, constriction and deal additional electric UC damage as well as a reactive electrical attack. (Motivation: give a Air/elec full transform niche that also explores constriction and reactive elec damage).

Electric Form (Level 6)
Transform into formed electricity, merging (all? no?) equipment. Move and act 1.5 times faster, but also take 1.5x damage. Gain rElec, rN+ (if merging all equipment, possibly add non-living resists, call Electric Golem form). UC gets elec brand and cleaving. (Motivation: add a "haste-form" with a relevant drawback that also covers the air/elec form niche and acts as a counterpoint to statue form at level 6).

The Tavern

New Spell: Sky Beast

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