Corpse Rot: Make it targetable?

[njvack]

As noted in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=20290 Corpse Rot is really good but really annoying. If you want to position a monster on a corpse, you can usually do it with enough effort, and miasma is great so taking pains to do so is worthwhile. But gating a spell's usage on how annoying the spell is to use is not very good.

Also it's a L2 spell that doesn't care about spell power so by the midgame you'll probably be able to cast it with int and spellcasting alone, and 2 spell slots is a small investment even if you don't use it much.

So what if it worked like:

Casting Corpse Rot requires a corpse in LoS. It lets you target a cloud of miasma, consuming the corpse. Variables that could be tweaked:

* Allow or disallow placing the cloud on a monster
* Change the valid range for the corpse
* Change the cloud targeting range
* Make the spell sometimes consume a corpse without generating a cloud

Some of those could depend on spell power. (I hope they wouldn't.)

At a first cut, it might be sane to allow placing the cloud on a monster (to minimize the power of cloud AI cheesing), allow consuming the corpse from anywhere in LoS, and allow targeting to player-adjacent squares. Making it follow Conjure Flame's mechanics (perhaps in this case, the player needs to stand on the corpse) might also work.

If it's too strong this way, maybe make it multi-school or higher-level -- after all, Conjure Flame is L3 conj/fire.

[crate]

Conjure flame is level 3 conj/fire and is ridiculously overpowered, so yeah, usable corpse rot would have to be increased in level since it's just better.

[genericpseudonym]

Why not add a "greater corpse rot" spell that allows the targeting described in the OP?

Make it level 5+ or something, and allow it to use allied zombies as fuel (turning them into skeletons in the process).

[njvack]

I think crawl needs AT MOST one corpse rot spell

[dynast]

Meanwhile poison magic is crying over the corner.

[ion_frigate]

Or how about just making it a targetable L5 Necromancy/Poison spell, and removing the corpse requirement entirely? It could be renamed to something like Conjure Miasma, which would clue players in to the fact that it works like Conjure Flame.

[Lasty]

Currently, every spell that creates a targeted cloud on top of a monster is a triple-school L6 spell, and all of them have worse cloud types than miasma. Y'all are dramatically underestimating how much XP these proposed revisions should cost.

[njvack]

Currently, every spell that creates a targeted cloud on top of a monster is a triple-school L6 spell, and all of them have worse cloud types than miasma. Y'all are dramatically underestimating how much XP these proposed revisions should cost.

Except Mephitic, which is L3, but yes.

Even as it stands, Corpse Rot is way too cheap. Its utility is mainly limited by tediousness, unless you're with kiku in which case woooo miasma!

actually good god how is this spell L2 necro

[crate]

it's level 2 because it's "balanced" by annoyingness just like evaporate was

[Arrhythmia]

remove the spell and make it a, i don't know, *** kiku activated ability. you could even have it skip the corpse drop step and just make you fart out miasma.

[Shard1697]

actually good god how is this spell L2 necro

apparently just because it's too annoying for basically anyone to actually use more than once or twice per game. why yes, I would love to x->v every tile with weapons/armor on it to see if there's a corpse underneath before I cast so that I don't miasma myself or block somewhere I want to move, thank you(this at least could be solved by implementing targeting squares-aka, you cast spell, all tiles that will be affected are highlit yellow, you can either press enter to actually cast or esc to cancel cast)

I am in favor of this becoming a god ability because it is Very Powerful and that could help a lot with "what level should this be" questions, and could have piety cost so it wouldn't be optimal to use every fight that has corpses(thus less annoying)

[PleasingFungus]

a targeting highlighter seems perfectly reasonable, though ofc it could be wrong, since you're not allowed to see things at the bottom of stacks. could make it only affect seen corpses, but then it'd be weird when you kill an orc, can't corpse rot, but then walk over and discover a corpse lying under an orcish spiked flail or w/e. you could make corpses from killed monsters automatically 'seen', but that would encourage Tediously Optimal Behaviour involving xving every killed monster from afar to see if it dropped a corpse, according to the reasoning for just not making the contents of every pile auto-revealed

[duvessa]

Guys there's actually an easy way to fix broken spells that's better than adding new targeters and gimmicks and god abilities, none of which would magically make the spell not-broken
R E M O V E C O R P S E R O T

[ydeve]

You'd also get extra entertainment watching a few silly people scream that this is the "last straw" and ragequit.

[Arrhythmia]

Guys there's actually an easy way to fix broken spells that's better than adding new targeters and gimmicks and god abilities, none of which would magically make the spell not-broken
R E M O V E C O R P S E R O T

corpse rot is basically a kiku ability anyways so it might as well be officially codified as one.

[eliotn]

Why not make it a targeted cloud (with more corpses) or smite targeted poison (with less) that takes corpses in LOS to fuel? 1 small corpse gets some poison, but with more corpses in LOS it builds it up to a corpse cloud effect.

[Arrhythmia]

Why not make it a targeted cloud (with more corpses) or smite targeted poison (with less) that takes corpses in LOS to fuel? 1 small corpse gets some poison, but with more corpses in LOS it builds it up to a corpse cloud effect.

because that still has all the ridiculous interface issues that corpse rot currently has (except for kiku worshippers, where you just fart out miasma in the squares around you, so it might as well just be changed to that)

[njvack]

tbh simply removing the spell sounds like a fine choice; otherwise replacing it with a kiku "miasma fart" ability with a piety cost gets at what the spell is actually good for.

I know I have made this joke before but if someone does this and calls the ability "Death's Odor" I will buy them like a hundred beers.