Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform


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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 04:25

Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Make Yara's a Monster spell on

Ogre mage (spell set 1, replaces confuse)
Deep Elf Sorcerer
Lich,
Ancient Lich,
Pan Lord. Doesn't Dispel Magical Flight or Forms.

Don't put it on demons. Put in non demon based extended game content and put it in those branches.

End Charms Reform and bring back Phase Shift because that spell really held the school together.

Edit: Have monster yara's give contamination to the player according to the number of dispelled effects.
Last edited by edgefigaro on Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 01:31, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 05:57

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

no opinion on the monster's spell but don't bring back phase shift it was a bad spell
take it easy

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 06:00

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

I'm not a huge fan of the idea of multiple monsters gaining a spell that removes almost any buffs(but not all!) and malmutates me.

Why shouldn't it apply to flight and forms, if it were to exist as a monster spell?

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 08:18

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Tiamat ends forms with her dispelling bolts, so I think Shard's view makes sense.
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 10:14

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

edgefigaro wrote:Make Yara's a Monster spell on

Ogre mage (spell set 1, replaces confuse)
Deep Elf Sorcerer
Lich,
Ancient Lich,
Pan Lord. Doesn't Dispel Magical Flight or Forms.

Don't put it on demons. Put in non demon based extended game content and put it in those branches.

End Charms Reform ...


why

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 10:36

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

The main reasons for buff reform is that casting temporary buffs is a tedious no-brainer the vast majority of the time, even out of combat. Adding a handful of situations where casting buffs in combat isn't a no-brainer does nothing to stop this from being an issue or make buff reform unecessary.

edgefigaro wrote:bring back Phase Shift because that spell really held the school together.


How did a short-duration evasion buff hold together a school that's otherwise focused almost entirely on repositioning? Phase Shift had all the problems that buffs had, had no real connection to the translocations school from a gameplay standpoint, and even from a flavor standpoint it would have made more sense as charms/translocations rather than purely translocations.

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 14:10

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Charms reform is based around this idea that charms are no brainer spells, create degenerate play. But the only reason they are no brainer spells is that there is so little that interacts with them. Put in threats that punish the player if they are charms dependent.

Phase shift isn't as important as ending charms reform. Charms have been getting weirdified and removed by charms reform, and it is completely unnecessary if you just make threats that are stronger if you are charming.

Bringing back phase shift is mostly a throwaway line. I miss the spell, and I really miss the higher tloc spells, and I am rarely building into higher tloc spells any more because summon forest is so rarely picked up.

Not dispelling forms and flight is included to avoid being one shot by an unresistable magical spell while you are flying over water/lava. Kind of an edge case.

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 15:37

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

edgefigaro wrote:Charms reform is based around this idea that charms are no brainer spells, create degenerate play. But the only reason they are no brainer spells is that there is so little that interacts with them. Put in threats that punish the player if they are charms dependent.

Phase shift isn't as important as ending charms reform. Charms have been getting weirdified and removed by charms reform, and it is completely unnecessary if you just make threats that are stronger if you are charming.

Bringing back phase shift is mostly a throwaway line. I miss the spell, and I really miss the higher tloc spells, and I am rarely building into higher tloc spells any more because summon forest is so rarely picked up.

Not dispelling forms and flight is included to avoid being one shot by an unresistable magical spell while you are flying over water/lava. Kind of an edge case.


In this case we will have another no brainer: everyone will ignore Charms spells. What's the point in training Charms if you get more vulnerable as result. You can take a look at necromutation, some very experienced players believe it is a newbie trap. You have to make new Charms give something comparable to immunity to torment to split opinions and I doubt it is a good idea (haste is tested to be removed as too powerful even without spamming it)
Last edited by VeryAngryFelid on Saturday, 1st October 2016, 15:39, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 15:38

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

I believe it would be better... to remove Yara's altogether...
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 15:57

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

What? Charms being countered by 1) a mob in elf with rarespawns in vaults and depths, a 2) a single spellbook in one of 5 spellbooks on an ogre mage, 3) liches, alichs, and Pan Lords don't always need to get the spells, but I don't understand how the game picks spells for them.

I specifically am not advocating for yara's being a common threat.

I am not saying all caster mobs in all the zones should have access to yaras. I'm saying a few mobs should have access to it, and thinking about charms in the context of no brainers therefore we need to introduce downsides to the charms spell effects needs to stop. Its a poisonous though process.

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 16:30

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

edgefigaro wrote:What? Charms being countered by 1) a mob in elf with rarespawns in vaults and depths, a 2) a single spellbook in one of 5 spellbooks on an ogre mage, 3) liches, alichs, and Pan Lords don't always need to get the spells, but I don't understand how the game picks spells for them.

I specifically am not advocating for yara's being a common threat.

I am not saying all caster mobs in all the zones should have access to yaras. I'm saying a few mobs should have access to it, and thinking about charms in the context of no brainers therefore we need to introduce downsides to the charms spell effects needs to stop. Its a poisonous though process.


then we return to previous state: phase shift is a no brainer and I can use channeling energy to have it on during autorexplore.
there is a dilemma here: either the spell is good and we always have it on during autoexplore in some bracnhes or the spell is not good and then we always ignore it saving xp.
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 16:52

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

And I am specifically saying that removal of Phase Shift messed with the Translocations school outside of the context of Phase Shift as a no brainer as an individual spell, and the charms reform allows you to state in truth the following:

VeryAngryFelid wrote:there is a dilemma here: either the spell is good and we always have it on during autoexplore in some bracnhes or the spell is not good and then we always ignore it saving xp.


I have no qualms with this reasoning, I just don't think it tells the whole story just narrow due to the charms reform push. Tloc as a school has a gap in usefulness in the midgame now because of this, and this gets ignored.

I am specifically stating that monsters can have more interactions with Charms instead of strangifying all the spells themselves. Examples: Spell effects can dispel charms at 1per 10aut. Enemy monsters can eat charms and become more powerful.

This line of reasoning is completely ignored in favor of tweaking the actual spell effects and availability, which is all I see discussed (see: haste discussion, invis removal, ozo's, phase, and charms reform in general).

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 17:30

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

edgefigaro wrote:Tloc as a school has a gap in usefulness in the midgame now because of this, and this gets ignored.


I hope it is intended. glaciate/fire storm is so powerful that people go for it despite having a gap in level 7-8 spells.
cblink is very powerful too. if anything, I would move passage of golubria to level 6 and blink to 3-4. gap problem solved ;)
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 18:34

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

When people talk about charms being "no brainers" what is really meant by that?

with the exception of not wasting mp/hunger on popcorn, arent most spells no brainers? You always want to be shooting monsters with your strongest available direct damage spells. You always want to have a pog escape route active. You always want to have summons up whaling on threats and body blocking.

Where does this idea come from that spells need to be brainers? cant spells just be....good?

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 18:36

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

charm spells can be casted without monsters in view so it is a good idea to have them active when you are exploring. new ozo armour or repel missiles don't have this problem.
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 18:38

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

lethediver wrote:Where does this idea come from that spells need to be brainers? cant spells just be....good?


no, they can't. if every character who finds a spell, instantly learns it and tries to make it castable, we have op spell. animate skeleton, blink, summon butterflies, spectra weapon, regeneration, passage of golubria etc.
it means that the spell is too powerful for its level.
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 18:41

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
lethediver wrote:Where does this idea come from that spells need to be brainers? cant spells just be....good?


no, they can't. if every character who finds a spell, instantly learns it and tries to make it castable, we have op spell. animate skeleton, blink, summon butterflies, spectra weapon, regeneration, passage of golubria etc.
it means that the spell is too powerful for its level.


Then cant we just make them higher level?

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 18:44

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

VeryAngryFelid wrote:charm spells can be casted without monsters in view so it is a good idea to have them active when you are exploring. new ozo armour or repel missiles don't have this problem.


This seems like more of an interface problem than balance problem tho. Solution is to just rMsl ify all the charms spells and maybe give them a constant max mp drain equivalent to casting cost to maintain current balance.

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 19:00

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

lethediver wrote:Then cant we just make them higher level?


it seems we can't. I suggested it many times.
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 19:02

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Spells like Phase Shift and Stoneskin were boring as hell anyways, and I don't want ogre mages and liches to malmutate me because I had the audacity to use heroism or haste myself

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 19:04

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
lethediver wrote:Then cant we just make them higher level?


it seems we can't. I suggested it many times.


The difference is, back then didnt have me on your side. With a tavern luminary like myself backing you, the devs will have no choice but to heed us.

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 21:03

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

lethediver wrote:This seems like more of an interface problem than balance problem tho. Solution is to just rMsl ify all the charms spells and maybe give them a constant max mp drain equivalent to casting cost to maintain current balance.

We can't do that either. Devs don't like the idea that you can raise AC by training Earth skill and without spending an equipment slot. :(
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 21:40

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

I can understand disagreeing with the reasoning behind charms reform, but it seems like some people just don't understand it.

The bad charms that got removed, like Phase Shift, were essentially equipment that you put on in your spell slots. Optimally, you would keep it up all the time, but even in practice, you could have it up for every non-trivial fight. This is easily the most tedious thing in the world; imagine if every time you wanted the 2 AC from your minotaur's hat, you had to put it on before your fight, and it fell off as soon as you were done.

The usual response to this is that charms could be made permanent and toggleable, or be given greater drawbacks like contam. None of these ideas solve the "equipment in spell slots" issue; given that spells like Phase Shift and Stoneskin literally just act like rings of EV or AC, it's some silly design pileup to keep them around. This is especially true in the mid and lategame, when all non-Trog characters can pick up spells. Letting permanent charms "drain" MP, as lethediver suggests above, is completely meaningless to the average non-VS melee dude, while it makes them completely useless for the casters who would be most likely to benefit from a playstyle that involves them.

There's really no way to fix charms. They should all be made into equipment or consumables.

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 22:22

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

archaeo wrote:There's really no way to fix charms. They should all be made into equipment or consumables.

I am entirely unconvinced this is a true statement. I believe this is what the devs believe and are working in this direction.

Once cast, charms are hard to get rid of. !cancellation is rare. There is one ability of flavor of one monster in one zone in the game that interacts with them, and the discussion on the forums is completely based around the fact that they present no brainers.

They don't present no brainers if you the game interacts with them more than they do now.
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 22:41

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

After thinking about it, I think making charms undesirable around 5 monsters is a bad idea for exactly the same reason that making flight undesirable around 3 monsters is, it just becomes this weird cognitive burden on the player to remember to not cast a charm in front of them, while casting charms in front of everything else.
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 22:56

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Invisibility is very useful in some areas (lair), near useless in other areas (slime), and situationally useful beyond that (zot). This is due to the abilities of the monsters, namely see invisible.

Charms, as a school, can be interacted with by making them stronger in some zones and weaker in others according to what spawns there. Just like every many other spells, god abilities that exist in the game.

I propose yara's is an interesting way to do this. Yara's, as a spell (1) adds contamination (this is already a part of invis and haste) (2) is does damage and is irresistible like Hellfire, (3) presents interesting tactical mechanics as a line of sight hellfire. Enemies won't cast it if you are adjacent to an enemy, and you can use line of sight to gain a better position on the mob.

Point (3) is a very good thing, it makes tactical crawl more fun. This cognative load that has been such a burden under the current charms reform becomes a positive because the player is rewarded for intelligent positioning around the spell to keep their buffs up.

Charms interacting with monsters can be a fun thing in crawl.
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 23:06

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Sure, but the difference between sinv and Yara's is that if I'm inattentive around sinv the worst that's happened is status quo; if I'm inattentive around Yara's then suddenly I'm either dead or horribly mutated. That doesn't sound fun.
take it easy

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 23:10

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Nitro Snail:

HD 15
HP 100
Speed 7
Slow Aura
Enchantment Drain Aura


Enchantment Drain Aura saps 1 life/magical effect on player/snail action, snail gains 1 speed for every magical effect on player.

i.e. 4 magical effects = -4 HP on player each time snail moves, snail speed = 11

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 23:14

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Arrhythmia wrote:Sure, but the difference between sinv and Yara's is that if I'm inattentive around sinv the worst that's happened is status quo; if I'm inattentive around Yara's then suddenly I'm either dead or horribly mutated.


Damage and the amount of contamination can be balanced. Yara's is a way better mutation mechanic than malmutate.

Arrhythmia wrote:That doesn't sound fun.

Can I ask you to think about this statement?
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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 23:23

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

edgefigaro wrote:
Arrhythmia wrote:Sure, but the difference between sinv and Yara's is that if I'm inattentive around sinv the worst that's happened is status quo; if I'm inattentive around Yara's then suddenly I'm either dead or horribly mutated.


Damage and the amount of contamination can be balanced. Yara's is a way better mutation mechanic than malmutate.


I don't think that's true; the things malmutate makes me do (worry about terrain, reposition) are the things that make crawl fun for me, in the same way I think damnation and torment are good enemy abilities. Yara's means I need to remember to not drink potions around certain monsters, and I generally think that having to "remember to X around Y" (e.g., cancel flight against titans, ring swap against elemental attacks) are times when crawl is at its worst.

Arrhythmia wrote:That doesn't sound fun.

Can I ask you to think about this statement?


Okay but I don't know what conclusion you expect me to come to.
take it easy

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 23:25

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Gluttonous Slime

HP 75, Damage 25
HD 13

Each Time Gluttonous Slime hits you with a melee attack, it dispels one magical effect. If it dispels a magical effect, it doubles HP and Damage (the slime creature mechanic.)

Spawns in slime and spawns from TRJ

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2016, 23:43

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

I think the main problem with monsters specifically designed to punish (rather than merely being impervious to) charms is that they basically force a lot of tedium.

Players are going to do this:

1) keep charms up as much as reasonable given hunger cost

2) if they see a monster such as outlined in this proposal, retreat, rest/get pelted by missiles until charms wear off, return to charms-counterer, attempt to isolate and kill with no charms active

3) keep resetting and retreating until isolation of that monster is possible, possibly requiring re-activation of charms to slay intervening small group encounters and then backtracking upstairs to deactive charms yet again

No saavy player is ever going to attempt to maintain charms around a monster that has the capacity to punish them to a serious degree, like what you envision. The winning move would invariably be using luring and isolating tactics to split monsters into groups; those which punish charms and those which dont, and then only use charms around the latter groups. This would necessarily involve a great deal of tedium.

Compare this to a monster who is simply immune to charms (such as by having sinv) - player sees monster, player elects to use a different non charms reliant method to kill it or avoids it forever if not possible.

If charms were all canceallable at will, this might be slightly more bearable. I only say slightly, because luring and splitting would still be optimal basically to the point of being mandatory, and still require many turns of grindy abusive tedium.

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 00:15

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

I don't pack split and kite each deep elf annihilator when I take down the elf vault. I kill swarms of elves, reacting the to the mobs as I can. Sometimes I am forced to retreat.

LCS is a more dangerous threat than yara's.

Not all mobs need to be punishing. You just need to have some monsters -interact at all- with the fact you have magical effects on your character.

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 00:15

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

archaeo wrote:None of these ideas solve the "equipment in spell slots" issue (...) Letting permanent charms "drain" MP, as lethediver suggests above, is completely meaningless to the average non-VS melee dude, while it makes them completely useless for the casters who would be most likely to benefit from a playstyle that involves them.


There was already a solution used by the devs for this problem though, was there not? Simply restrict the spell based on what equipment the player is wearing. Ozo's armour only worked if you had on leather armor or lighter - in and of itself, enough of a restriction to ensure casters got benefit from the spell while armoured fighters could not.

Any variation on this basic theme could solve the problem. Phase shift, for instance, could give greater EV gains when the player was less encumbered. Stoneskin could raise the player's AC to a certain maximum, and give only like +1 or 2 AC if player was already above that maximum. And so on for the rest of charms...

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 00:36

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

lethediver wrote:
Players are going to do this:

1) keep charms up as much as reasonable given hunger cost

2) if they see a monster such as outlined in this proposal, retreat, rest/get pelted by missiles until charms wear off, return to charms-counterer, attempt to isolate and kill with no charms active

3) keep resetting and retreating until isolation of that monster is possible, possibly requiring re-activation of charms to slay intervening small group encounters and then backtracking upstairs to deactive charms yet again


Stop listening to this player when designing the game. Occasionally you'll watch one, and they'll be streaking and that's fine. That's not how people crawl for fun though.

I was watching a game the other day, in snake, a novice-journeyman player had a gargoyle in CPA in snake 4. He hit a teleport trap, landed him in the rune vault. 10 other players were watching, a number of vets, and we all said tele away.

He thought Fight.

He hasted and tore up all the naga in that vault. And then he laughed at us.

Design for him too.

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 00:38

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

What?

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 00:44

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

@archaeo: The so-called charms reform was nothing so well-reasoned as "well, spells should not be like equipment for reasons... of design..." It was a bizarre jumble of conflicting commitments. There was talk about how charm-like spells are too cheap mp-wise for some characters, but existing commitments to a spell system where casting costs, spellpower, and failrates are all tied to a single number, the spell level, meant this was an insoluble conundrum. There is absolutely no reason it has to work that way and plenty of reason to think it's not good for it to work this way. There was talk about how max mp costs don't fit the crawl spell model, which again comes down to the same commitments to a particular spell model which does not work especially well. Then there's the fact that there already is equipment that gives you spell effects, e.g. +blink, +inv, rmsl, and spells that already have the quality-of-life persistence supposedly so problematic for every other charm-like, r/dmsl. (Perhaps we should also include -cast among offenders re: spells as equipment, since switching gives you all your spells back.)

The truth is there are plenty of games with spell models that include persistent effects that cost max mp and they generally work quite well, a hell of a lot better than the crawl model. In a game where you can literally gain spells by putting on certain equipment, some spells really do stay on in the way equipment does, people fill forum threads with earnest posts about how you should recast spells constantly while you explore, "charms reform" was not the right place to put on the fantasy hipster hat insisting on a bright line between equipment and spells that never existed and get all contrary where other games have been successful with a simple, convenient model that could easily be imported to crawl.
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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 00:54

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Idk OP, I guess it could be interesting to have a player sitting there trying to decide whether to re-cast haste after being dispelled or positioning to try and avoid a dispelling monster while still dealing with other monsters. I think my main issue is that the effects you're proposing are either really complicated, or so strong (Yara's) you never even want to RISK them hitting you.

Maybe start simple with a monster that has dispelling touch or dispelling breath, could be interesting addition to next version.

However, i still don't really see how any monster addition would "fix" charms. They're still tedious to use, now they will just be tedious and occasionally risky to use. And using them will still be a no brainer whenever one of these monsters isn't in LoS which isn't a huge improvement over the status quo.

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 01:29

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

So: I thought yara's gave contamination like irridate. It mutates you. That seems excessive. Retooled proposal: Make monster yara's give contamination according to number of buffs it dispels. OP has been updated.

It appears I have been talking out of my ass. I stand by my assessment of charms reform, and the thought process behind it.

duvessa wrote:What?

Design for players who want to use their spells and abilities to fight the enemy mobs in glorious combat. Design for this player. When talking about things, talk about this player. More. We talk about the tedious player who resets and controls the fights a lot. Lethe is talking about that kind of a player now. That is a fine player to talk about in design too.

"How does tedious player react?" is an important question. It doesn't answer everything though.

Lethe:
Yeah, a simple non-mass or mass-dispel is a good mechanic.
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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 01:36

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Your proposal does not make the game any better for either player.

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 01:39

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

I respectfully disagree.
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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 01:48

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

goodcoolguy wrote:I believe it would be better... to remove Yara's altogether...


Yara's is one of the only two dispells in the game, and the other requires you to get lucky with a race AND play without body armour. Yara stays, it's a good spell that's made a meaningful decision because you require a decent investment in two schools so it isn't a no brainer and helps solidify X/Transmutation spells as the game's alchemy tree (Irradiate, Ignite Poison and Alistair's Intoxication all also do this with varying amounts of effectiveness).

It's unique, isn't a no-brainer, has its usages, and it's also decent for flavor.
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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 01:53

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

The game is, overall, designed for players who want to have glorious moments in the face of risks. If all charms were instead turned into consumables and equipment, more players get to take advantage of the benefits that charms spells bring to the game -- not just those with the system knowledge to know they should be using charm spells.

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 02:17

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

roctavian wrote:If all charms were instead turned into consumables and equipment, more players get to take advantage of the benefits that charms spells bring to the game -- not just those with the system knowledge to know they should be using charm spells.

i'm very confused. possibly i'm misunderstanding, but this seems like an argument against the existence of spells. consider: "if all conjurations were turned into consumables and equipment, more players get to take advantage of the benefits that conjuration spells bring to the game -- not just those with the system knowledge to know they should be using conjuration spells..."

Your argument is, if I'm reading it correctly:
A) Charms has fun effects.
B) Right now, only characters that memorize charms and train Charms skill have access to those effects.
C) The game would be better if anyone could use the effects that are currently in Charms skills, regardless of their memorized spells or skills ("system knowledge").

What's the missing bit here?

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 02:50

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

I'm guessing by "system knowledge" he means "my heavy armor wearing melee brute really ought to learn some charms" which I imagine many players find highly nonobvious.
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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 03:14

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

D) Charms are passive. They don't have to be, not all charms spells seem to be passive bonuses, but on the other hand that's the thematic conceit of the school. Charms has fun effects based around some abstract idea of "adding more bonuses to the player."

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 15:53

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

I'm sorry, I still don't understand. Why does it matter whether charms (once cast) are passive effects?
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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 18:54

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Well, I suppose that's a flaw in my reasoning. I don't think most passive effects in the game would work out better as spells you have to cast -- e.g. I prefer that plate armour is something you put on, rather than cast. Why was stone skin removed?

It seems like I'm criticizing spells in general because I'm not clear on the rubric for ability costs. When should a beneficial effect for the player cost spell slots, MP, and experience, and why should that be the cost, versus piety or hunger or draining or whatever else?

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 19:21

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Stone Skin was removed because it was tedious to use, not because it was a passive effect.

Generally, I think the decision about which effects should be spells vs other effects is more of a general question: "is this fun to use as a spell", "is this an effect that we want to be available as a spell" (most escape effects, like teleport/healing/tomb, don't fall in this category!), etc. Spells like Portal Projectile and Song of Slaying are pretty "passive", but that's not a problem, IMO/IME.

Do you think the game is worse off because Song of Slaying is a spell?
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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2016, 20:10

Re: Make Yara's a Monster Spell; End Charms Reform

Definitely not! I also think battlesphere, spectral weapon, death's door all make good spells. If these spells collectively justify charms as a school, then great. For the most part these spells seem like they could be rolled into other schools -- thematically, I'm not sure how that could happen with song of slaying, but that's a bikeshedding issue.

I also think song of slaying would make a good amulet ego (lot of noise when you put it on/take it off, works passively, maybe has a refactory period) but I also don't think there's any problem with berserk amulets.

I don't think charms spells are like, a crime against crawl -- but I do believe that most of the cool fun charms effects would be cool fun consumables/equipment, and I think it's easier to communicate how players are supposed to use most of these benefits if they aren't spells.
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