DDs Rot MP instead of Permanently Losing It

[MainiacJoe]

When a DD uses their self-heal ability, they have a chance to permanently lose MP. I propose instead that the chance of a negative effect increases, but they rot MP instead of losing it permanently. Using a !Magic or !Brilliance when at full (reduced) MP parallels how !HW and !Curing remove HP rot. These are the advantages I see to this over the current trunk-DD:

1. DD mages would gain interesting choices between retaining tactical buffs and strategic investment in their magical prowess. This is better than the current knowing that you'll eventually be permanently gimped, with the only control over it being how successful you are at delaying it.

2. MP rot would be an interesting effect that could be added to monsters to affect other species as well. We already have ghost moths and draining eyes that disproportionally threaten mages, so that isn't a problem. A monster with MP rot would not be more of the same since it is a strategic threat instead of a tactical one, similar to Malmutate in this way.

A problem would be that this would be a buff to DD melee characters, when they don't need one at all.

[Autofire]

As to your last statement, maybe MP recovery for each !Magic would be determined by Int. A character with low or average Int might only recover one or two points of MP per potion, while higher levels of Int would regain more. I doubt warriors would want to invest points in Int, but it might become a viable option, leading to more choices.

That being said, it might be desirable to have DDs get gimped with casting later on. I don't know if the intention is to have them becoming strong casters; they feel a more like warriors to me. However, I lack the experience to make such a call.

[Floodkiller]

Using a !Magic or !Brilliance when at full (reduced) MP parallels how !HW and !Curing remove HP rot. These are the advantages I see to this over the current trunk-DD:

!Curing and !HW cure rot first, regardless of current HP, so this proposal if implemented should cure rotted MP first regardless of current MP.

[tasonir]

If you want to play a DD<mage> without losing all of your mana just start a DDNe and use vamp draining to do all of your healing. It's totally viable, overpowered even, just very tedious.

Doing this will even enable you to pick a non-healing god; here's a run I did with cheibriados where I ended up with 45 max mana at the end: http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/tasonir/mor ... 080634.txt

Again: Very boring.

As for the change itself, it might help mages, but it will also even further help melee DD's, who really don't need the help. I'm not sure this would really work well.

[Rast]

Maybe there shouldn't be a race that has at-will HW