Help the Hex School


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

Snake Sneak

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 00:03

Help the Hex School

Hey,
I understand that the hex line of spell is underpowered. Well, I think the hex school would benefit from a high-level spell that could hit very high MR enemies, and would lessen their resistances to magical effects and damage and maybe physical damage as well, or some combination thereof.

Hexes makes a cool debuffing tree, but is a bit underwhelming IMO.
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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 04:15

Re: Help the Hex School

Honestly, I've wondered why Repel and Deflect Missiles are Charm+Air instead of Hex+Air. Thematically, hexes affect things other than the caster, and strategically, it'd remove the synergy of Haste + DMsl.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 04:52

Re: Help the Hex School

njvack wrote:Honestly, I've wondered why Repel and Deflect Missiles are Charm+Air instead of Hex+Air. Thematically, hexes affect things other than the caster, and strategically, it'd remove the synergy of Haste + DMsl.


The trouble with this is that if you take Repel Missiles, Deflect Missiles, and Haste, and then throw in Regeneration and Swiftness, you have basically the whole of the charms skill. Splitting off those two spells would just move the problem, even if we assume that it would make hexes viable beyond very low levels of skill.

Night2o1 wrote:Hey,
I understand that the hex line of spell is underpowered. Well, I think the hex school would benefit from a high-level spell that could hit very high MR enemies, and would lessen their resistances to magical effects and damage and maybe physical damage as well, or some combination thereof.

Hexes makes a cool debuffing tree, but is a bit underwhelming IMO.


That's desirable as a concept, but it's more difficult than it sounds. Making a super Hexnado spell that punches through monster magic resistance and works on everything would indeed cause players to reskill into hexes for the late game, but that wouldn't solve the problem with hexes. It would be an additional problem. There's an incredibly fine line between a useless useful spell and a total gamebreaker.

There is an idea being kicked around by the devs that hexes in general should sap magic resistance whenever they fail to take effect, so if you pile them on eventually you're going to punch through, but you need to hold back enough to take advantage of the monster's weakness. I don't think they've settled on a final implementation, but I don't think the proposal of adding an Assay Magic Resistance spell got a favorable response when it was discussed.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 07:52

Re: Help the Hex School

Speaking of debuffing, has anyone thought of giving hexes a spell that dispels buffs, ala quicksilver? I think that would be attractive to players without being overly powerful.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 10:37

Re: Help the Hex School

mikee wrote:Speaking of debuffing, has anyone thought of giving hexes a spell that dispels buffs, ala quicksilver? I think that would be attractive to players without being overly powerful.

This sounds at the very least super flavorful, and i'm guessing pretty useful.

Looking at the hexes tree you have-
1- Confusing touch/Corona
Confusing touch is amazing, but super conditional it seems due to the weaponless only requirement. Corona is also super conditional to ranged weapon users.
2.EH/Project Noise/Slow/Sureblade
EH is awesome and we know it.
Project Noise- Other than Zig abuse does this have any valid early or late game use? It doesn't even seem very hex like.
Slow is a good
Sure blade-Another conditional buff. So if you go weaponless you get confusing touch, ranged you get corona, and short blades get sure blade which is....I don't really know. Ok?
3.Confuse/Tukima's dance/Inner flame.
I think all 3 here are good, but tukima's might be a bit situational. Honestly haven't messed with ti.
4.Enslavement and Paralyze
Enslave is an ok spell from my own experiences. Seems overlooked, but i'll get to that.
Paralyze...isn't in anymore is it? Not sure why.
5.Cause fear and Control undead
Both seem decent.
6.Invis and Mass confusion
Invis is of course amazing, although i feel like it's only in hexes to keep charms from having every amazing buff, and to give hexes something that everyone knows is amazing.
Mass confusion is literally alistairs with some tweaks, which makes it kinda boring and usually sub par it seems.
7.Darkness and Metabolic Englac
I have no idea what to think about Darkness
And Metabolic Englac is just mass EH. It's kinda meh for a 7th level spell i feel.

The overall issue with hexes- Why hexes?
The only spell that doesn't have a better or equivalent version somewhere else and has a huge impact on some gameplay, is Invis. That said hexes doesn't feel like almost any other spell school in that some of it's spells are heavily geared toward certain playstyles. Those that are just good toolkit spells run into the problem that almost EVERYTHING in the dungeon has some MR, but not everything has Fire/ice/poison. It's usually easier to just figure out which and use the appropriate lvl 3 dmg spell rather than try to hit them with say confuse.

A lot of the spells are outclassed because of this. Confuse vs meph/evap. Mass confuse vs alistairs. etc. Others aren't so much as outclassed, as just taking the hard route for what feels like no reason.

Either way i'd like to see the spell mikee mentioned(with some number of turns where it prevents rebuff, and more stuff like inner flame. Perhaps a really powerful single target spell at higher levels as well, and better scaling to things like confuse so high MR doesn't just obsolete them.

Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 14:13

Re: Help the Hex School

It seems to be a large part of the problem that makes hexes weak/boring is down to:
a) A lot of hexes can be largely nullified by a single resistance (vs. other schools which have spells to combat a wide range of attributes)
b) Targetting and effects aren't very varied (single target or area, instant effect - usually applying [x] status)

By those criteria, the most interesting and/or useful Hexes are: Tukima's Dance, Projected Noise, Sure Blade, Invisibility, Darkness. These are spells that affect you (or your equipment) and therefore sidestep the MR issue; e.g. Tukima's Dance actually deals physical damage (it's my own favourite out of those, mainly because of its very different effect; I also think it's the thematically the most Hex-like).

So this got me to thinking about new and interesting spells that could still be considered "hexes" but without directly affecting enemies. Some of these might not be fully worked out, but they could be a good starting point for other ideas.

Szallimar's Animated Statue
Smite targetted; animates a granite statue for a certain number of turns, causing it to fire spells / arrows / melee on your behalf.
  • Optional: Could be hex/summoning, and make a statue appear if an empty square is targetted (lower power statue) - this would be a good escape spell in corridors, although monsters should be able to destroy the statue in a short number of turns
  • Optional: "Raise Statue" could be a separate Hex/Earth spell which would raise an inert statue up out of the ground. It would be useful for blocking off passages and using reaching weapons / smiting through. This could be used in combination with Animated Statue to then deal damage (but statues raised this way should be very weak, since they're made out of earth; or their toughness could very depending on the local dungeon floor material).
  • Optional: Can be used on Petrified monsters, causing similar effect; statue type would depend on the affected monster (expires if their petrifaction wears off); MR check for this though

Sticky Ooze
Area targetted; creates an airborne agent which causes floors and walls to start leaking a sticky ooze. Assuming Alchemy changes go ahead, this would be Alchemy/Hex. The ooze will cause non-flying monsters to stick for a turn or two, lowering their EV and preventing them moving. The same ooze could be used for snail trails (https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:monster:snails#slime_trails). Since walls and floors are leaking, stronger concentrations of ooze would occur on tiles adjacent to walls. Used as a monster spell this slightly encourages fighting in open spaces (although as a player spell it could lead to kiting).

Acidic Condensation
Similar to above; leaves acidic trails. This is a variation on slime walls proposed elsewhere (and I already mentioned this in the "Improving Poison" thread). This gets around the targeting problems of slime walls, by only affecting floor tiles. I thought laying the acid down in a straight line, rather than an area, would make this a bit different to existing area spells. That would make it preferable to use in corridors; but you have to weigh up whether you'll need to use that corridor yourself, since the acid should be either semi-permanent or burn itself up on the dungeon floor with a chance of burning right through and making a shaft... Anyway, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the way to reduce corridor fighting is simply to make corridors wider.

Acidic trails could also be laid down by some slime creatures.

Rain Dance
Causes rain clouds to build up, which will follow the targetted monster. Rain can have multiple effects:
  • Create water tiles (to prevent serious abuse, deep water should never be created; these would have to be a different cloud type to existing rain, perhaps "storm clouds"; they could vent off a lightning discharge if above shallow water when a deep water tile would otherwise be created; actually, strong concentration upgrading into "thunder clouds" might be a way to make this spell more appealing)
  • Wash away slime and acid trails
  • Douse fires
  • Smother fire attacks
  • Damage certain fire-based monsters (e.g. elementals, fire giants, hell hounds, vortices)
  • Optional: Cause monsters to fumble their weapons due to slipperiness

... I want to come up with a decent Hex/Tloc spell but can't quite form any ideas ...
Last edited by galehar on Monday, 19th September 2011, 16:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 16:17

Re: Help the Hex School

What about some spells that create vulnerabilities on targets?

For example, a spell makes a target more vulnerable for a time to fire/cold/poison/electricity, etc.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 16:48

Re: Help the Hex School

To be honest i'd kinda like a hex single target ultimate.
Cripple Hexes 9
Applies all(either all or nothing, or attempts to apply each one with a check at each point)-
RCold---
RFire---
Lifeprotect---
Resist Acid---
RP-
RE-
MR----
Slow
Confuse
and anything else that might be fun to throw in there.

Above is likely overpowered or too all or nothing as it stands, but the concept of just blasting someone into a blubbering mess seems fun.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 17:12

Re: Help the Hex School

Greediness: the priority on the targeted monster is to go for any money on the floor rather than slay you. The level on Hex school and the MR can determine the amount of money the monster would decide to go after.

I think it is a good spell to gain some distance from a monster if you are willing to spend some money by throwing it away.

Also the Gluttony version applied to food and vanity applied to wear.

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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 17:25

Re: Help the Hex School

I like the animated statue thing. Funny thing is I was already thinking of something like this for monsters in the proposed dwarf branch. Statues would have to be more common though, since creating statues wouldn't do.

Projected noise does have a couple small uses outside of zigs. It's good when you're hunting down a unique you previously skipped, and it can be used to break mesmerization.

As for new spells, I personally think disintegrate would make a good higher level hex, though I can't say the devs would go for it.
I'd also like to see a spell that makes a monster sick, or otherwise slows healing.
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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 18:58

Re: Help the Hex School

Here's something I have been cooking up. Probably crazy levels of broken which might still fail spectacularly to do anything at all sometimes since lol MR checks. I'm almost sure it would hilariously obliterate the orb chamber with some luck, but that's a L9 (or L8) spell for you. Also depends on how people see HD drain from non-necro sources. Will submit it elsewhere more relevant if there's reasonable feedback, and if I figure out how to format this thing into the brainstorming pages in the devwiki.


Olgreb's Plague Mist, L9 (L8?) poison/hexes; a terrible, unnatural disease, which causes its victims to wither and die.

1. LoS effect on casting: checks MR for living creatures (regardless of rPois) and poisons all non-rPois creatures (no check, regardless of holiness). Decent amount of poisoning. The caster is immune to the MR check (flavour-wise, knowledge of the spell means implicitly knowledge of the cure/antidote/whatever to the magical element of the plague) but not to the poisoning (needs rPois for that). Maybe make the caster exhausted (cooldown)?
2. Living creature in LoS passes MR check, nothing special happens; fails MR check: afflicted with the plague. Glyph changes colour, now it glows in various tones of Linda Blair-esque putrid greens.
3. Creatures afflicted with the plague do not regenerate at all, can't be healed by any means, and lose, say, 1d4-1 HD per turn until death (they might die earlier from poisoning or traps or axes or whatever, of course); and also radiate a large amount of plague mist which ideally follows a mix of fog generator rules and cloud filling (either way something that's not a hard fill but that also allows the mist to spread through rooms and gain volume while still being somewhat dynamic so things aren't constantly in a mist-filled square, probably more unfilled than filled squares in any situation not involving multiple infected creatures in the same room; not sure how doable that is). The mist doesn't block LoS in any way.
4. Creatures caught in the mist go through the checks in '1' every turn they spend in it; this has the potential to overwhelm large parts of a level through both repeated poisonings from getting caught in the mist, or HD drain delayed instadeaths from creatures failing MR checks (which also spread the mist further and/or make it more dense depending on where the infected creatures are).
5. When a plaguebearer dies, their mist clouds dissipate almost instantly (1-2 turns), but (maybe?) living creatures in their LoS have to make an extra MR check upon the plaguebearer's death.

Well, this looks like a coding nightmare, but feel free to lop off some parts and generally hack it into bits and put it together in whatever way it looks reasonable.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 20:18

Re: Help the Hex School

To toss out another idea:

Rather than adding spells to the school, the skill level in the hex school acts as a passive debuff to monster MR. It would introduce some strategic tradeoffs between where to invest points - spellcasting, to get better food economy/spell success, spell schools for specific spell success, and hexes to enhance spell penetration. Self buff types wouldn't invest much in hexes, while conjurers would want at least 10 levels or so, enchanters probably as much as they can afford.

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 21:19

Re: Help the Hex School

mumra wrote:These are spells that affect you (or your equipment) and therefore sidestep the MR issue; e.g. Tukima's Dance actually deals physical damage (it's my own favourite out of those, mainly because of its very different effect; I also think it's the thematically the most Hex-like).

So this got me to thinking about new and interesting spells that could still be considered "hexes" but without directly affecting enemies. Some of these might not be fully worked out, but they could be a good starting point for other ideas.


I definitely think this is the right kind of thing to help improve Hexes, alongside the failures-reduce-MR thing -- Hexes that affect the environment, and not enemies directly, or more Hexes that affect enemies' perceptions like Invisibility.

... I want to come up with a decent Hex/Tloc spell but can't quite form any ideas ...


1) Placing teleport traps.
2) Disrupting space in your vicinity, making ranged attacks more likely to fail with increased distance.
3) Removing the ability to blink or teleport into or out of your vicinity, taking damage in the attempt instead.

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 21:44

Re: Help the Hex School

ebarrett wrote:Olgreb's Plague Mist, L9 (L8?) poison/hexes; a terrible, unnatural disease, which causes its victims to wither and die.

Essentially what you've got here is Inner Flame crossed with rot, if I'm reading the post correctly (and it's been a long day on this end, so I may not be). Balance-wise, look at how few ways there are for the player to generate rot/miasma currently...
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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 22:16

Re: Help the Hex School

Stormfox wrote:
ebarrett wrote:Olgreb's Plague Mist, L9 (L8?) poison/hexes; a terrible, unnatural disease, which causes its victims to wither and die.

Essentially what you've got here is Inner Flame crossed with rot, if I'm reading the post correctly (and it's been a long day on this end, so I may not be). Balance-wise, look at how few ways there are for the player to generate rot/miasma currently...


It's two schools almost nobody pushes up too much right now, for throwing MR checks around and pretty much only targeting living creatures, while nuking your experience gain because everything that fails their check will probably have their HD reduced by a large amount before dying from poison. I imagine getting a bunch of offscreen delayed instakills out of the deal is reasonable, though of course it's up to debate.

Also, "Inner Flame crossed with rot" is quite underwhelming for calling something broken!
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Tuesday, 20th September 2011, 13:16

Re: Help the Hex School

That'll teach me to post when I've used up most of my day's quota of brain cells. Let's try something more clear.

I wasn't using the phrase "Inner Flame crossed with rot" in and of itself to imply that the idea is broken. Rather the reverse, if this were to be implemented, this would be a possible way to engineer it -- use the Inner Flame mechanics, and instead of a fiery blast, produce a miasma cloud. (Since the "plague" you're describing is pretty much covered by miasma effects, except for the HD drain.) Also borrow some code from rotting devils for the spreading of clouds in the afflicted creature's path. This deals with the "coding nightmare" you're seeing.

The last part of my statement was where I saw balance issues coming in. Miasma is a very powerful terrain effect -- look at how few ways there are for the player to generate it. (Corpse Rot and evaporated potions of decay (degeneration if you're lucky).) Also look at how few monsters use it against you and how few ways there are to deal with it. Even if we don't simply borrow the miasma code, you've got a powerful persistent terrain and status effect coming into play. It's not a statement of inherent brokenness, it's a statement that balance would need a close look because it's seen relatively rarely.
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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Tuesday, 20th September 2011, 15:08

Re: Help the Hex School

Rotting devil-style cloud trailing is the opposite of what I was suggesting. The clouds are supposed to spread fast - the creatures that fail their MR checks aren't going to last much longer, and you wouldn't want to spend 9MP in MR checks to only have the plague spread to stuff that was already next to the original targets - you'd be better off poisonclouding them. By "fog generator" think those orange statues in swamp, or a forest fire next to water - the fog/steam clouds are irregular and reach rather far. One of the themes behind the suggestion is the chance to have the effects spread far and wide.

Also, the mist has little to do with miasma except that both poison things - but while miasma is heavy poisoning + rot + slow, the plague would be pass a MR check or die slowly while spreading more clouds (the caster is immune to that effect, of course) + not-that-heavy poisoning (it's more of a consolation prize, and could even go away - I was checking the MR/HD levels for late-game creatures and the "save or die and put others in risk" effect would be strong enough already, with a good number of high-HD, lowish-MR things out there). And again regarding flavour/mechanics integration: miasma originates from dead/rotting things, the plague spreads between living things (maybe could just get rid of the "LoS MR checks upon death" thing; the clouds emanating from that creature just die off almost instantly and that's it, these have had their chance to land the plague on other creatures already).

Again, just brainstorming -just taking the concept and seeing if it goes somewhere.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Wednesday, 21st September 2011, 02:36

Re: Help the Hex School

minstrel wrote: Rather than adding spells to the school, the skill level in the hex school acts as a passive debuff to monster MR. It would introduce some strategic tradeoffs between where to invest points - spellcasting, to get better food economy/spell success, spell schools for specific spell success, and hexes to enhance spell penetration. Self buff types wouldn't invest much in hexes, while conjurers would want at least 10 levels or so, enchanters probably as much as they can afford.

I'm sorry if it seems like I am picking on you - it's not my intention - but do you realize that MR is resistance to hexes and not spell damage? All this would do is make hexes succeed more often if you train hexes.

The problem with hexes is that unless you are stabbing, there is no reason to ever train hexes. I do not see monster mr as the main obstacle. A quick suggestion is to improve/replace hexes that are not for stabbing. For example, tukima would be a great addition to the hexes school if it were not useless (not an exaggeration - I have tested it) at the moment.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Wednesday, 21st September 2011, 02:56

Re: Help the Hex School

mikee wrote:do you realize that MR is resistance to hexes and not spell damage?


I didn't realize that the only spells to which MR had any relation were hexes, though, yes, I realize most of them are save or die/suck types to which MR, rather than elemental resistance, primarily applies.

It was a quickly written down and partial suggestion, and the other part that I left unstated was that many of the hex school spells themselves would need to be moved out of the school or the passive debuff extended to also help elemental damage pierce resistance.

As for the picking on part, if I see someone picking on me on an internet message board, I just don't bother responding. There are more important things in life to get upset about than some anon compensating for a short...blade. So no need to worry yourself there. :)

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Wednesday, 21st September 2011, 03:06

Re: Help the Hex School

mikee wrote:The problem with hexes is that unless you are stabbing, there is no reason to ever train hexes. I do not see monster mr as the main obstacle. A quick suggestion is to improve/replace hexes that are not for stabbing.


Since Arcane Marksmen might be back with a Hexes book, it might be a good start to think of Hex ideas that benefit a ranged-combat playstyle.

It's hard thinking of a Hex that works to counteract ammo mulching and general ammo deficiency, though, which in my experience are the biggest pains in the ass for Arcane Marksmen that existing spells don't deal with.

I thought of one, called "Soft Flesh" or something similar, which would be a low-level Hex or Hex/Tmut that makes it less likely for ammunition to mulch when it hits the target but increases the target's AC slightly, which you would use on weaker foes to not waste ammo. But, honestly, at that point you'd probably just whack 'em with the first melee weapon you find, so.

Snake Sneak

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Post Thursday, 22nd September 2011, 00:17

Re: Help the Hex School

mumra wrote:... I want to come up with a decent Hex/Tloc spell but can't quite form any ideas ...


How about the rakshasa spell? It's sort of like a better summon butterflies, but w hex/tloc flavor.

Dungeon Master

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Post Thursday, 22nd September 2011, 02:04

Re: Help the Hex School

Guppyfry wrote:How about the rakshasa spell? It's sort of like a better summon butterflies, but w hex/tloc flavor.


Interesting ... reflavoured as a player spell, I came up with this:

Doppelganger
Creates an illusory version of yourself which acts as an ally and will attack monsters and cast spells. If a monster hits you, it turns out that the Doppelganger was the real version and you take its place. If a monster hits the Doppelganger, it simply disappears.

With increased power could create multiple Doppelgangers.

This could be quite powerful if it has access to your spellbook (although you could tone town the frequency of spellcasting and only select a limited range of spells).

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Post Thursday, 22nd September 2011, 13:09

Re: Help the Hex School

Here's a couple other twists on the rakshasa type spells:

Clone - Necromancy/Hexes
This spell uses a piece of the caster's own spirit to create an identical clone of the caster. The clone will follow him and assist in battle and has access to all the spells and powers of the caster. The clone will disappear and be reabsorbed into the caster's own essence after a period of time. If the bond is severed by death of the clone, the caster will lose 1/2 of his current HP total and become fatigued. Only one clone may exist at a time.
(could fiddle with the penalty to adjust the risk/reward)

Flickering Image - Hexes
Multiple images of the caster appear around him. They move chaotically about him, distracting foes. When one is attacked (no attack roll, auto-hit), it disappears. They can cause no damage and only serve to distract monsters.
(Yes, this is the D&D spell Mirror Image. I would remove summon butterflies, since it essentially duplicates the same functionality, and summoners already have a powerful arsenal, as well as summon small mammals to fill the screen with weak clutter pretty fast.)

Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 22nd September 2011, 16:18

Re: Help the Hex School

It might sound crazy but what if hexes were revamped to a different mechanic. I have an idea for voodoo dolls to be used to curse and affect enemy creatures made from corpses. Anyways here goes with some possible spell ideas.

Level 1:
Create doll. Cast over the corpse of an enemy, this puts a doll of that type in your inventory. These dolls are the basis of all your spells. If you wield these you can curse the doll, which affects enemies in LOS, but the power of the spell is divided by number of creatures in sight. Dolls eventually rot away, but at a slower rate than chunks.

Curse enemy: Cast while wielding a doll, all enemies in range have a penalty to attack and damage, and may be slightly easier to hit. This effect grows stronger with power levels.

Needle: When cast this also targets a needle in your inventory. This needle is pushed in to the doll and the closest creature type matching the doll you are using is forced to try and resist the spell type of the needle used. The needle is destroyed, but not the doll.

Level 2:

Knockback. You throw your doll, causing up to 3 creatures to be knocked back. One creature will be knocked back 3 squares, 2 two, and 3 one square. Has no affect on 4 or more. This destroys the doll.

Hobble. Breaks the legs of the doll, slowing all enemies in a certain radius for a few turns. This destroys the doll when used.

Level 3:

Disarm. You break the arm of the doll, causing the creature to drop its weapon and have severe penalties to attack for the length of the spell. This destroys the doll.

Ignite doll: This sets the doll on fire, causing all creatures of that doll type to run around feared, thinking they are on fire. This destroys the doll when used.




Anyways this is a crazy idea I had, lemme know what you guys think.

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Post Thursday, 22nd September 2011, 17:37

Re: Help the Hex School

For hex/tloc, what about a spell that makes you switch places with an enemy (though that might be too scummable) or a spell that knocks an enemy a few spaces backwards? The DS game Shiren the Wanderer (actually quite a good roguelike) has both of these in the form of staves, and it works well.

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Post Thursday, 22nd September 2011, 20:26

Re: Help the Hex School

Konebred wrote:It might sound crazy but what if hexes were revamped to a different mechanic.


What would happen with existing Hexes, then?

Anyways this is a crazy idea I had, lemme know what you guys think.


I like spells with reagents but the voodoo doll mechanic seems excessively complicated. You would need a separate doll for each type of creature you might want to face off against, and then have to bother switching between them, and the entire school (or at least the voodoo spells) would be useless on creatures that don't leave corpses.

Edit: I do like the idea of a voodoo-themed spell that uses a needle as a reagent somehow. But I feel like the essential idea could be carried out with a blowgun and/or Portal Projectile.

Edit 2: Foul Air - Level 3 Hex/Conj/Air. This spell reads a target's essential nature and converts that essence into clouds of gas which trail behind it.
The target of this hex will leave a trail of short-lived clouds behind it as it walks until the hex wears off, with the type of cloud thematically related to the type of monster it is. Poisonous monsters leave poison clouds, ice beasts leave freezing clouds, shapeshifters leave mutagenic clouds, and so on. Steam or mephitic cloud would be the default if there's no obvious cloud type. The victim would not be affected by their own cloud unless they backtrack through it later. I had originally considered that undead should leave miasma but after the comments on miasma availability earlier in the thread maybe that's not a good idea. In essence, it's basically Evaporate-lite for Hexers who don't want to branch out into Transmutations.

Havoc - Level 7-9 Hex. This spell curses the magical fields in your area, making magic cast in your vicinity extremely unpredictable -- including your own.
While active, spells cast in your LoS, either by you or by others, will have a chance to be directed at a random target instead of the one the caster intended (though the intended target might be one of the ones chosen at random.) Spells cast on a specific creature (boltwise or smitewise) will be targeted to another creature, spells cast on a wall are targeted on another wall in sight, spells cast into Wherever using 'Z' will be cast to a random position in LoS. Blinks and teleports can't be controlled during Havoc. Spells which aren't targeted -- such as Charms, Necromutation, Transmutations that change your form, Invisibility, Mass Confusion, anything which either targets just yourself or everything indiscriminately -- work as usual. Innate abilities like for demons aren't affected. Should probably also cause a lot of magical contamination.

In what ways does monster intelligence affect behavior? I was thinking about a Hex that would temporarily lower a creature's intelligence, but don't know enough about monster AI to know if the impact of that would be significant or just "now you can spend extra mana to drown high-intelligence monsters with confusion".
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Post Friday, 23rd September 2011, 11:39

Re: Help the Hex School

Clumsiness A degree of miss if throwing projectiles or casting and a degree of losing its weapon if yielded -then having to pick it up again
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Post Wednesday, 28th September 2011, 10:18

Re: Help the Hex School

A bunch of more proposals:

Purge: [Hex] Removes all charms/hexes on a selected target. This does not affect the effects granted by jewelery or armor, or the buffs given by gods, either. As a collateral effect it removes for a short turns the MR also.

Iskenderun's Transference: [Hex] Channels the MR of a selected target towards you. It last for some turns, depending on how much skilled you are in hexes.

Dispel magic: [charm/Hex] Aura effect. It reduces the time of permanence of summoned creatures around you. It is like an "abjuration+poison" effect

Alter item: [Hex/Trm] It temporary changes randomly the effect of some magic item (weapon,armor, wand, ring or amulet). Does not remove curses nor brand mundane items or recharge wands.

Transmogrify: [Hex/Trm] Perma-changes randomly the nature of some magic item (weapon, armor wand, ring, amulet) May remove curses, and in a lesser degree, may even curse. Applied to mundane objects, it can brand them but the curse is more probable to appear.
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Post Wednesday, 28th September 2011, 16:28

Re: Help the Hex School

Roderic wrote:Dispel magic: [charm/Hex] Aura effect. It reduces the time of permanence of summoned creatures around you. It is like an "abjuration+poison" effect


I like this idea. :) It could be another way to do the Abjuration split. Instead of just having single-target and crowd-effect Abjurations, you use an area-of-effect anti-summons spell like this to cut down on the number of summons you have to deal with at once, and then use single-target Abjuration* to pick off the reduced horde one by one.

(Edit: In another thread, somebody suggested a scroll that would do a mass abjuration. Maybe the mass effect could be left to being scroll-only, and then the spells are like this.)

* Or another spell, or a big axe, or whatever. Crawl is all about having options.
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Post Thursday, 29th September 2011, 14:52

Re: Help the Hex School

One other thought on Charms/Hexes: AFAIK, Haste is the only targetable Charm. You could argue that hasting an ally is 'self-enhancing', but, erm... just sayin'.
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Post Thursday, 29th September 2011, 16:43

Re: Help the Hex School

njvack wrote:One other thought on Charms/Hexes: AFAIK, Haste is the only targetable Charm. You could argue that hasting an ally is 'self-enhancing', but, erm... just sayin'.

I've been thinking about splitting haste between self and other versions. The latter would be nice as a L4 hex/charms spell (or pure hex).
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Post Thursday, 29th September 2011, 17:39

Re: Help the Hex School

A Haste Other spell doesn't make much sense as having an element of Hexes, in my opinion. It's purely a buff. In addition it's not entirely clear why it would be two spell levels easier to haste someone else than it would be to haste oneself.

I personally like the idea of many more Charms buffs being targetable on other creatures. It would be fun for summoners and Beogh followers.
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Post Thursday, 29th September 2011, 18:11

Re: Help the Hex School

Then fun would be granted if purge (see above, remove buffs/nerfs) is implemented and available to monsters as well
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Post Thursday, 29th September 2011, 18:40

Re: Help the Hex School

ElectricAlbatross wrote:A Haste Other spell doesn't make much sense as having an element of Hexes, in my opinion. It's purely a buff. In addition it's not entirely clear why it would be two spell levels easier to haste someone else than it would be to haste oneself.


1) Hexes, I think, isn't just debuffs. It's mostly supposed to be things that happen to monsters who aren't you. It's just mostly debuffs because why do you want to Haste somebody trying to kill you? The Charms/Hexes division has a lot of gray areas, most of which seem to be based on a distinction between Skald and Enchanter playstyles rather than any particular flavor division.

2) Hasting yourself is more beneficial to you since you have more say in what that Haste is used for, since you can't give your allies orders much more specific than "kill that guy/don't kill that guy".
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Post Thursday, 29th September 2011, 20:55

Re: Help the Hex School

nicolae wrote:2) Hasting yourself is more beneficial to you since you have more say in what that Haste is used for, since you can't give your allies orders much more specific than "kill that guy/don't kill that guy".


If you're relying on allies to do the killing, "kill that guy at 1.5x speed" is as "specific" an order as you'll ever need, and you can haste allies with abandon without side effects. Two or three permanently hasted TSO summons can clear the four hells by themselves, and hasted profane servitors/bone dragons can make a three rune game completely trivial (they're already extremely good). These are the extreme examples, of course; hasting allies is a good idea in any situation if you can afford to.
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Post Friday, 30th September 2011, 00:26

Re: Help the Hex School

nicolae wrote:
1) Hexes, I think, isn't just debuffs. It's mostly supposed to be things that happen to monsters who aren't you. It's just mostly debuffs because why do you want to Haste somebody trying to kill you? The Charms/Hexes division has a lot of gray areas, most of which seem to be based on a distinction between Skald and Enchanter playstyles rather than any particular flavor division.

"Spells you cast on other people/spells you cast on yourself" is a more arbitrary and less compelling flavor division than "spells that weaken their target/spells that help their target". As I said in the sentence right after the one you quoted, you might want to cast a helping spell on your allies. Would it make sense in that case for you to be casting a hex on your ally?

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2011, 14:46

Re: Help the Hex School

ElectricAlbatross wrote:"Spells you cast on other people/spells you cast on yourself" is a more arbitrary and less compelling flavor division than "spells that weaken their target/spells that help their target".


Maybe so, but "self" vs. "things and others" was the original distinction when the Charms/Hexes split was made. The debuff/buff split isn't totally distinct either, since Invisibility and Sure Blade are buffs that use Hexes skill, and Silence is a debuff that uses Charms.

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2011, 20:09

Re: Help the Hex School

Some more ideas for Hexes that don't necessarily cater to stabbers, because I can't stop thinking about them:

Bloat - Hexes. Doubles the target's max HP (although not its current HP) and increases its rate of healing. If the target's health reaches its new max HP, it explodes messily, sending blood and chunks everywhere. High-intelligence monsters may realize what's going on at around 125-150% normal max HP, and begin injuring themselves (as if confused) in order to stave off explosion. Has no effect on anything that doesn't heal naturally. Lasts enough turns that most monsters will end up exploding if they start at full HP and take no damage in the process. (5-7 turns, maybe?) Essentially a mostly-guaranteed kill on dumber monsters, but not if you attack them while it's working (and they'll definitely be attacking you).
Edit: It occurs to me that, as written, if you Bloat a target and then teleport them away with Teleport Other it's basically freebie instakills. So unfortunately it probably wouldn't work. Although... it would be a delightfully cruel spell for monsters to cast on the player. Potions and wands of healing won't get rid of it, they'd just make your condition worse. You'd have to drink poison, decay, or degeneration in order to cure it. Muhahaha.

Brittle - Hex/Tmut. Makes the target's armor brittle. Works kind of like a reverse Shroud of Golubria -- if the weakened armor takes a big enough hit from a weapon or a Conjuration spell, it breaks, doing extra damage to the creature wearing it, as if it were hit by shrapnel. For extra damage, when the armor shatters, it could hit everything adjacent to it with shrapnel also. Or: just things adjacent to it, in the three squares opposite the direction it was hit from, so that melee fighters can use it too.

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Post Saturday, 1st October 2011, 23:38

Re: Help the Hex School

The problem with a buff/debuff distinction is that it breaks down very frequently, due to the fact that it comes down entirely to relative points of view.

Example: What is Silence? Well, it's a debuff because you're preventing yourself or anyone else from spellcasting. On the other hand, if you didn't want to cast any spells anyway, then you are buffed relative to spellcasting monsters.

Example: Sure Blade. It's quite clearly buffing you; on the other hand, you could look at it as debuffing the monster you're hitting.

Basically anything that's a buff to you is, by definition, a debuff to monsters (relatively speaking).

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Post Sunday, 2nd October 2011, 00:05

Re: Help the Hex School

Well, that also makes it easier to put spells into either whichever school is more convenient for gameplay purposes.
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Post Monday, 3rd October 2011, 13:57

Re: Help the Hex School

Basically anything that's a buff to you is, by definition, a debuff to monsters (relatively speaking).


With the slight difference that a charm buffs you and debuffs whatever you want to engage in, meanwhile some Hexes can debuff a specific target unless you define an aura effect. Besides the other difference could be keeping the charm effect "on" at the continuous cost of your MP reservoir (has this feature finally implemented?), meanwhile the hex is a temporal effect at the cost of a spell
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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 03:20

Re: Help the Hex School

I keep forgetting to add this but what about a WC3 polymorph? I mean the spell is called hex, and the topic about poly abuse reminded me.

A level 4+ spell or something. Similar to cig's degen, but shorter duration. Perhaps have it strip MR when applied so you can debuff them in other ways before they turn back.

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 22:02

Re: Help the Hex School

Yeah, I like it. My purge proposal also came form WC3. At least it isn't from the unholy triad: Nethack, LOTR, D&D
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Post Wednesday, 5th October 2011, 14:22

Re: Help the Hex School

Eji1700 wrote:I keep forgetting to add this but what about a WC3 polymorph? I mean the spell is called hex, and the topic about poly abuse reminded me.


This is already proposed to replace the Wand of Polymorph effect, most recently in this thread (where I added some links to other discussions): https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2734
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Post Saturday, 8th October 2011, 11:18

Re: Help the Hex School

I like the idea of overcoming monster MR by casting debuffs repeatedly. Maybe that message you get "struggles to resist"/"easily resists" etc. could be modified to be an indicator of how close you are to "breaking through" the MR and applying your debuff.

There are a lot of different ways to do this, and I don't know what the best ones are. I think spell power and spell level should both be involved in how much MR each resisted cast breaks through, to keep people from spamming corona on a monster until they think they can get a cast of slow to stick (unless that's to be encouraged).

I also think once a spell does land, the monster's effective MR is "reset", so you can't just apply all debuffs at will once you get one of them on.

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Post Saturday, 8th October 2011, 19:52

Re: Help the Hex School

Danei wrote:I also think once a spell does land, the monster's effective MR is "reset", so you can't just apply all debuffs at will once you get one of them on.


Perhaps the degree of MR reset varies on the level of the Hex, so that successful low-level spells will only restore MR partially.

If you take a lot of time wearing a monster down with Corona, trying to get their MR low enough for some powerful Hex, and then one of the Coronas lands, well, you wouldn't want to have to start all over again completely. Otherwise, if you wanted to use a high-level Hex on a high-MR monster, you'd have to cast it over and over, burn through your MP, so that if one of them happened to connect it would be the effect you want, which would mean using high-level Hexes on high-MR monsters would still be unappealing.

Perhaps MR regenerates over time, and any active debuffs increase the rate of regen based on their number, level, duration, etc.
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Post Saturday, 8th October 2011, 19:57

Re: Help the Hex School

Otherwise, if you wanted to use a high-level Hex on a high-MR monster, you'd have to cast it over and over, burn through your MP, so that if one of them happened to connect it would be the effect you want.


Well, under my original suggestion, that would be what we want the player to do. Spamming corona to reduce MR for more powerful hexes would be discouraged. I'm not convinced that discouraging the behavior is better for gameplay than encouraging it, but keep in mind that even if we decide to discourage it, hexes would be more powerful than they currently are; at the current time, you have to spam the high-level hexes on the monster anyway.

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Post Saturday, 8th October 2011, 20:12

Re: Help the Hex School

Danei wrote:at the current time, you have to spam the high-level hexes on the monster anyway.


Yeah, but having to spam high-level Hexes is one of the reasons that the school isn't very appealing in the first place. Why would I burn through my MP trying to get some high-MR enemy to fall asleep, without even damaging it, when I could use Conjurations to blast it to pieces outright while using less MP and less turns?


And while I'm thinking about it, another Hex for Arcane Marksmen, to help the school work with multiple playstyles:

Trick Shot - Level 2 Hex. By enchanting their missiles, users of this spell can perform incredible feats of marksmanship by ricocheting their missiles into areas they could not otherwise hit. Fires the quivered ammunition at the selected target; the missile will bounce like a lightning bolt 2 or 3 times off of walls, stopping when it hits a monster. I figure it's okay to have more bounces than a lightning spell would, since the missile wouldn't do repeated damage by bouncing in hallways, though it would have a higher chance to hit. Useful for hitting monsters in the back of a pack, those damn early vaults with crystal walls everywhere, and hitting high-EV targets by trapping them in ricochets.

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Post Friday, 14th October 2011, 03:31

Re: Help the Hex School

Some hex/tloc ideas

Iskenderun's Prison - 8 Hex/Tloc Reality twists around the target, briefly removing them to a prison dimension. MR is only half effective; cannot be reapplied immediately.
Blink Other - 7 Hex/Tloc Target enemy is blinked to a position of your choosing, not over lava or deep water. MR is only half effective.
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