HP-powered wands


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 911

Joined: Thursday, 17th December 2015, 02:36

Post Tuesday, 28th June 2016, 05:33

HP-powered wands

instead of MP-powered, please

Clarity was made to block out intentional berserk, but this was reverted with the justification that a mutation "should not shut down zerkers."
But at least berserk is one of Trog's many benefits, and the one that is likely to get less and less use as you go through the game, becoming more and more likely to get mutated.

Well, what MP-powered wands can do is shut down wand use completely.
In the case of Pakellas, it means almost everything the god is good for, and you become worse than atheist.
Deep Dwarves can become incapable of zapping wands without +MP gear, and might as well dress for their funeral.

MP-powered wands can also be said to have "bad interaction" with MP-draining monsters (they're supposed to shut down your casting, not your wands) as well as guardian spirit.

This is the kind of mutation that often doesn't even influence your character because you have more MP than your wands could reasonably consume. MP is usually not so important a resource, it just determines whether or not you're capable of doing certain special actions (usually, spells). HP is universally important. Switching to HP-powered wands makes each zap more costly but also more available as a choice for the player to make. That makes for a better "bad mutation" IMO.

flavor: change "magical power" to "vitality"
to do: warn/stop players before zapping at low health (crib from Makhleb invocations?)

For this message the author HardboiledGargoyle has received thanks: 2
Sandman25, Tressol

Dungeon Master

Posts: 1051

Joined: Thursday, 12th June 2014, 05:19

Post Tuesday, 28th June 2016, 06:14

Re: HP-powered wands

deep dwarves become incapable of zapping wands without +mp gear?

the only problem i see in your post is the pakellas interaction; everything else seems like it's either working fine (why would we not want an mp mut to interact with other mp-consuming effects?) or the dd thing.

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Tuesday, 28th June 2016, 09:37

Re: HP-powered wands

Solid reasoning, I agree.

Abyss Ambulator

Posts: 1233

Joined: Wednesday, 23rd April 2014, 21:57

Post Tuesday, 28th June 2016, 12:09

Re: HP-powered wands

Genuine confusion here. Who do you agree with?
User avatar

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 33

Joined: Monday, 20th January 2014, 01:12

Post Tuesday, 28th June 2016, 12:15

Re: HP-powered wands

How about instead of using up hp/mp make wands use up additional charges per level of mutation (as if still unidentified)?
wins: yes
User avatar

Slime Squisher

Posts: 338

Joined: Wednesday, 20th November 2013, 11:37

Post Tuesday, 28th June 2016, 12:30

Re: HP-powered wands

HP-powered wands will definitely have "bad interaction" with HP-draining monsters.

For this message the author ololoev has received thanks: 2
ion_frigate, ydeve

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 11111

Joined: Friday, 8th February 2013, 12:00

Post Tuesday, 28th June 2016, 12:39

Re: HP-powered wands

The mutation should be changed because I like to get its first level with many characters, increased wand power is good like increased spell power is (wild magic is beneficial mutation and MP-powered wand does not even increase your miscast rate for wands, it's still zero).
User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 911

Joined: Thursday, 17th December 2015, 02:36

Post Wednesday, 29th June 2016, 05:46

Re: HP-powered wands

PleasingFungus wrote:deep dwarves become incapable of zapping wands without +mp gear?

they can get their total MP pool down to below 3/6/9; -MP mutations help get them there

PleasingFungus wrote: everything else seems like it's either working fine (why would we not want an mp mut to interact with other mp-consuming effects?)


I'm rather befuddled by your outlook: having mutations restrict interactions with your god is a problem and must be fixed. Why is this? (And is that the reason the Forlorn mutation was removed?) Everything else: "meh"; again, why

(I only opened with the Trog/clarity commit because its justification is a much lower priority than this)

what's with every second GDD thread becoming a hunt for "problems" that make Crawl broken....

If powered wands was a new mutation that was just getting created, using HP would be better on all fronts, and I explain some in OP.

But I dunno, maybe someone could show how using MP is indeed better in some way?

ololoev wrote:HP-powered wands will definitely have "bad interaction" with HP-draining monsters.

there is no single monster that often smites an endgame character for 100% HP in 3-4 turns, and I did not start the bad interaction meme, PF did.
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4478

Joined: Wednesday, 23rd October 2013, 07:56

Post Wednesday, 29th June 2016, 06:55

Re: HP-powered wands

As a DD, I'd rather have MP-powered wands than HP-powered wands.
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
Bloat: 17: RaRoPrPh{GuStGnCa}{ArEtZoNb}KiPaAnDrBXDBQOApDaMeAGBiOCNKAsFnFlUs{RoBoNeWi

Swamp Slogger

Posts: 184

Joined: Tuesday, 4th November 2014, 07:22

Post Sunday, 3rd July 2016, 01:25

Re: HP-powered wands

There are characters for whom MP powered wands is a purely or near-purely beneficial mutation (very heavy armour users, Trog followers), yet it is classed a "bad" mutation. Many others still only get benefits from it as they simply cast a few charms then wand as needed if things go south. These things would not be true of HP powered wands.

Whether or not DD damage shaving would apply to the mutation is another question (lots of voluntary damage is subject to shaving, so I imagine the answer is "yes"); if so, I imagine DD would much prefer HP powered. :p
"This spell will have no effect right now because your brain is too dead to use."

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 885

Joined: Sunday, 28th June 2015, 14:44

Post Sunday, 3rd July 2016, 03:16

Re: HP-powered wands

DD^not_Pak prefers mp-powered over hp-powered as hp is a strategic resource while mp is a tactical one.

Swamp Slogger

Posts: 184

Joined: Tuesday, 4th November 2014, 07:22

Post Sunday, 3rd July 2016, 04:24

Re: HP-powered wands

I think it's better to focus on the effects of switching to an HP cost for the majoity of characters for whom both resources are tactical. Hell, for a significant percentage of characters, MP powered wands may as well just be free wand power (Trog followers and heavy armor, as mentioned above).
"This spell will have no effect right now because your brain is too dead to use."

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Sunday, 3rd July 2016, 04:45

Re: HP-powered wands

...You people do realize that the mutation prevents you from zapping wands at all if you don't have enough MP, right?

Swamp Slogger

Posts: 184

Joined: Tuesday, 4th November 2014, 07:22

Post Sunday, 3rd July 2016, 06:24

Re: HP-powered wands

Sure. But that's never been a serious problem for me - generally three boosted wand blasts are going to solve any problems a wand can solve, unless you've pulled the entire level into an open area because uhh... Qazlal or something. To be fair, though, I don't think I've ever had the mutation above the second level (6mp) for any length of time.

Running out of HP causes you not to be able to use wands, too... But I assume your point is it's not a total free ride, even for those characters I mentioned. Fair enough, I suppose, but it's still very much more positive than negative for them... Unless you're tackling Tartarus and are worried about needing a teleport while silenced or something equally corner-case (the solution in that case is to not run yourself completely out of MP in that postgame situation that's 100% optional).
"This spell will have no effect right now because your brain is too dead to use."
User avatar

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1762

Joined: Monday, 14th October 2013, 01:05

Post Sunday, 3rd July 2016, 10:15

Re: HP-powered wands

duvessa wrote:...You people do realize that the mutation prevents you from zapping wands at all if you don't have enough MP, right?
When do you run out of MP on heavy armor melee guy? Usually just if you have spirit shield.
User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 911

Joined: Thursday, 17th December 2015, 02:36

Post Sunday, 3rd July 2016, 18:05

Re: HP-powered wands

, or if you're zapping wands with the MP-powered wands mutation, leaning on god abilities, facing ghost moths or some other source of MP drain like antimagic.

Return to Game Design Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 96 guests

Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by ST Software for PTF.