Slime Squisher
Posts: 406
Joined: Thursday, 16th June 2011, 18:36
Trunk: Dj caster of Ash OP?
It felt interesting and fun. I like the constraint of working with an innate, unfolding spell set.
My one concern from a game design perspective is that Ash adapts in a very friendly way when choosing equipment-cursing boosts to offer to an Innate Caster (spell schools unavailable, Spellpower determines all).
Not offered to Djinni:
Alchemy: Poison Magic, Transmutations
Beguiling: Conjurations, Hexes, Translocations
Companions: Summonings, Necromancy
Elements: Fire Magic, Ice Magic, Air Magic, Earth Magic
Ash thus only offers:
Cunning: Dodging, Stealth
Evocations: Evocations
Fortitude: Armour, Shields
Introspection (aka Self): Fighting, Spellcasting
Melee Combat: All melee weapon skills, including Unarmed Combat
Ranged Combat: Slings, Bows, Crossbows, Throwing
My clear priorities were Introspection and Cunning. Since for Djinni there are only 6 boosts to draw from and they're offered in pairs, it is more likely than not to get one of those two for each Curse-opportunity offered. I was able to stop skilling Spellcasting (-3 apt) at 18.6 because I had a boosted skill of 27 due to getting Introspection on 6 slots by passing up bad combos. As I started clearing Zot:5 on a 3-rune run I also had 27 Dodging and 27 Fighting. Shields and Amour both ended up around 25 because with a small pool it wasn't hard to get a bunch of Fortitude boosts too. It honestly felt more generous than I imagine Ash is meant to be.
My thought for how to improve this would be to have Ash continue to draw from all 10 boosts for a skill-restricted character, and represent deactivated skills in the boost in grey text. Only ensure that at least *one* of the pair of boosts offered is usable. eg: for the first boost pick from all 10, and if the first one chosen is all greytext, keep it but pick the second from the shorter list that character can use. Otherwise pick the second boost from all 10 as well.
For much of that game I would have taken a curse offer with Introspection + greytext without reservation. On a Djinni it's just so good. ("HP casting" so Fighting = both durability and sustained damage output, and Spellcasting is the entire killdudes kit.)
In Progress:
Long-term goal: complete the pantheon.