Banishment Reform

[Internet Kraken]

So I've been playing Crawl for a while now and I have never heard anyone speak fondly of banishment. I've heard people say the idea behind banishment is interesting, but the implementation is poor. For me banishment has always been either an annoyance or an exercise in frustration. Surviving it is trivial at high levels and incredibly difficult at low levels if the RNG is working against you. Which makes sense, given that you are being thrust in a late game branch with no real way to prepare. I know there are a lot of ways to avoid being banished and skill certainly comes into play when trying to survive in the abyss, but at the end of the day the way it works just doesn't feel fun.

I think banishment needs to be reworked both in the way it sends you there and how you survive in the abyss itself.

I don't like how it's just a simple MR check. It feels like skill doesn't factor in much there. Now there is skill involved in picking your fights well and attacking in a smart way to minimize the risk of banishment, but in the end it comes down to a dice roll that can completely ruin you if you get unlucky. Given how being banished completely changes your game, I don't think this is good. I'd prefer it if banishment worked in a way where you can do something about it aside from just stacking MR. My idea is to completely rework banishment to function as a modified version of malign gateway. When something casts banishment, a portal to the abyss opens up in a random space nearby. After a certain amount of time, a tentacle emerges from this portal. If the tentacle catches you, you get dragged into the abyss. To me this would be a big improvement since I would actually be able to do something about banishment, and it would make fights in which a caster is capable of casting banishment more interesting. You have to contend with a new hazard on the field and plan your moves very carefully to make sure you don't stumble into it. As a kicker, the portal could also spawn some abyss creatures until it closes, so even if you can avoid the tentacle you still have other threats to deal with.

Maybe that idea sounds terrible to you guys, but I'd prefer some kind of system that gives you a chance to resist.

Secondly, I feel that your fate is almost completely decided by luck in the abyss. When you're at a low level, there is tons of stuff you can't fight and trying to do so ends in death. So you run and use whatever tools you have to evade the really dangerous situations. But you can wander the abyss for ages and not find an escape. To a high level character this is an annoyance, but to a low level character this is a death sentence. If a portal doesn't appear in a reasonable amount of time, you will exhaust your supplies and die. There are a lot of things you can do to prolong your fate, but nothing to make the exit you so desperately need appear. I find it really frustrating when incredibly powerful monsters chase me down and kill me in the abyss, since I feel like there was very little I could do to avoid them after using up all my tools.

So I think there should be more ways to escape the abyss. Maybe banishment could have a timer that returns you to the dungeon after a set amount of time based on the spellpower of the caster. Then surviving a long time would actually matter since you get a guaranteed way out. Or you could make deals with Lugonu at shrines to escape at a high cost (I know you can follow her to escape at any time, but incurring god wrath by religion swapping is usually just as suicidal for a low level char).

I really like Crawl, but this is one part of the game that really bugs me. My ideas might not be that good, but I do think banishment needs to be changed in some way.

[Deimos]

The tentacle dragging you into the Abyss is actually a really damn good idea. Probably would need a lot of work, but it sounds fun.

I'm thinking the tentacle should be pretty damn fast until it constricts you, and then slowly pull you into the Abyss, at which point you either try to hack it up quick enough or try to get out of the constriction in time.

This might have some issues as far as how you'd actually treat them, though. In places like Elf this might just get ridiculous as 10-20 casts of Banishment occur and the level is flooded with tentacles and abyssal demons. Banishment as a spell would need a rework to make sure that enemy casters cant just plot tentacles all around you turn after turn. Some kind of timeout or limit on the amount of spawnable portals at once.

Still though, it is a neat idea. I really like this reform, banishment is frustrating to deal with in the current form.

[pubby]

Some kind of timeout or limit on the amount of spawnable portals at once.

Only one eldritch tentacle is allowed (and possible?) and so it seems only one abyss tentacle would be allowed too. Besides, what would happen if two tentacles were trying to pull you to the abyss at the same time?

Two ideas:

First idea is to just have banishment take 3 turns to execute. During those 3 turns if you can kill the banisher then you don't have to go to the abyss.

Second idea is to have banishment send you to special abyss vaults. You have to fight through several monsters appropriate for your XL and at the end there is a gateway out. If you don't want to fight then you can exit the vault and search elsewhere in the abyss.

[Deimos]

Some kind of timeout or limit on the amount of spawnable portals at once.

Besides, what would happen if two tentacles were trying to pull you to the abyss at the same time?

They'd pull you apart ^_^

[KoboldLord]

I was kind of wondering if this would wander into the Tavern off the Something Awful forums. Sorry guys, but no. If there's a problem with banishment, it's in the late game where you can simply slap down all the Abyss denizens and banishment is little more than a chore as you trudge around looking for the portal out. Early on, there's plenty you can do to avoid banishment and it's generally survivable even when you do get unlucky.

For instance, next time you see Erolcha or Louise, just walk away. Drop a travel exclusion on her so you don't autoexplore back into her. Even if you wake up Erolcha by accident, she's no faster than you so you can keep her at the edge of your line-of-sight, eventually finding a corner or stairwell where you can ditch her for good. You don't have to kill everything.

Banishment requires line of effect, so make sure there's some guys between her and you. They can either be your guys, or they can be her guys. It doesn't matter. You might have Brothers in Arms, an army of zombies, a pack of ice beasts, a couple dozen imps, or whatever, and if you do you can let them solve the problem. If they get Abyssed, whelp their timer was going to run down anyway. If you don't have any of these things, try leaving something beefy alive between you and her, and either run or shower her with smite-targeted attacks, or if not that then bolt-style effects. It's a good time to break out your power wands, fire, cold, draining, and lightning. That ogre hitting you with a giant club might be troublesome, but it's also keeping you safe from banishment.

Additionally, most sources of banishment are actually quite fragile. If you can frontload enough damage, they won't get a turn. Loading up the defenses for an attrition strategy really only works to a point, and banishment is somewhat past that point.

Once you're in the Abyss, run from everything. If you see something that you're 100% absolutely certain that you can kill with perfect safety and without spending any consumables, run from that thing too. Use those consumables. Odds are an exit will turn up, and for most characters conversion to Lugonu is totally possible too. Fun, in fact. The most fun I've had in my last dozen wins came from just such a situation, where an utterly avoidable distortion accident dumped my naga in the Abyss. That character would have died five or six times there had I hesitated to use her consumables even once, and when I managed to get her out of the Abyss and nurse her back to health through the divine retribution the sense of satisfaction lasted for days.

My idea is to completely rework banishment to function as a modified version of malign gateway. When something casts banishment, a portal to the abyss opens up in a random space nearby. After a certain amount of time, a tentacle emerges from this portal. If the tentacle catches you, you get dragged into the abyss. To me this would be a big improvement since I would actually be able to do something about banishment, and it would make fights in which a caster is capable of casting banishment more interesting. You have to contend with a new hazard on the field and plan your moves very carefully to make sure you don't stumble into it. As a kicker, the portal could also spawn some abyss creatures until it closes, so even if you can avoid the tentacle you still have other threats to deal with.

I'm afraid your idea would completely gut banishment as a realistic threat. Banishment is already pretty rare as a threat, so letting a player trivially trade an escape consumable for immunity would be a ridiculously easy choice. Given how many times banishment actually comes up in a normal game, it probably wouldn't even noticeably affect your consumable use. Maybe an extra 3-5% more escape items.

Secondly, I feel that your fate is almost completely decided by luck in the abyss.

It may feel that way, but I've found that I feel that way less and less as I become better at the game. XL10 banishment feels comparably easy and safe situation to rolling up a random character and trying to get to the Temple with it. So not actually all that safe, but much safer if you make good choices.

Maybe banishment could have a timer that returns you to the dungeon after a set amount of time based on the spellpower of the caster.

It would have to be an incredibly long timer, such that it wouldn't be much of an improvement over the status quo. If you can stick your head into a hole and cower you can avoid encountering pretty much anything. It wouldn't be much fun to beat the Abyss by sitting in a closet doing nothing, that's like being sent to Time-Out by your parents.

Or you could make deals with Lugonu at shrines to escape at a high cost (I know you can follow her to escape at any time, but incurring god wrath by religion swapping is usually just as suicidal for a low level char).

Switching deities for giggles is frowned upon, because it is often dangerous or hard to work around, but it is usually survivable. You probably shouldn't completely write off this option.

First idea is to just have banishment take 3 turns to execute. During those 3 turns if you can kill the banisher then you don't have to go to the abyss.

Louise is the only banisher in the whole entire game that has a reasonable chance to survive three whole turns against a well-armed character who is out to get her.

Second idea is to have banishment send you to special abyss vaults. You have to fight through several monsters appropriate for your XL and at the end there is a gateway out. If you don't want to fight then you can exit the vault and search elsewhere in the abyss.

If there was a guaranteed exit portal in a predictable location near the entry point, banishment would be farmable. That's not a good thing. It would be like getting an infinite supply of free ossuary-equivalents, except you get all the time in the world for them.

[Deimos]

If you're having issues with the Abyss, I also think KoboldLord's old tips he gave me might be useful to you.

Spoiler: show

There aren't that many monsters that can Banish you. If you're still looking for your first Rune, watch out for Erolcha, Louise, and any stray ogre-magi. Stay out of Elf until you can survive an Abyss jaunt. The first three are all vulnerable to status effects, so confuse them with Mephitic Cloud or a wand or whatever and finish them off before they shake it off. It isn't like you'll see more than one at a time. You can also screen yourself with regular ogres, since the enemy ogre-magi can't Banish you through them.

If you do find yourself in the Abyss, try running from everything, all the time. If you're 100% certain you can kill it run away anyway. Most things aren't any faster than you, so you'll get quite a crowd following you but they'll never catch up. Levitation helps you escape over water or lava that is impassable to most of your followers, Swiftness or potions of speed let you leave them in your dust, and while teleportation takes extra time to kick in it will also make then all go away at once and you can start over with some new followers. You are not in the Abyss to look for easy kills or loot, so don't get fooled into going for either.

The Abyss seems intimidating the first few times you go in, but after some practice you'll start to figure out how to work your way through it.

Anyway, moving on, the reason why I feel this is a good idea is not because I feel like you can't do anything to help prevent it, but rather because the Abyss and the means to getting to it is rather boring. A idea like this interests me less because it is fixing a broken system, but rather because it is swapping out a boring and chance-based system to one that is actually interesting.

[Scalding Steam]

Early banishment is fun! Please don't ruin it.

I agree that banishment becomes more of an annoyance in the endgame though. My suggestion: make Banishment checks MR twice for characters above XL18; you're only banished if you failed both checks.

[smock]

Adding a new "abyssal tentacle" spell for some uniques (or perhaps kobold demonologists or similar monsters) that banishes the player might be fun. Even if the spell just forces the use of a consumable, it'd still be a very cool effect. Spells that force the use of a consumable are better than most spells, which don't force anything.

I think banishment at very high levels has issues, but banishment at very low levels does as well. With the former there's a 99% change of surviving the abyss and with the latter a 1% chance. Banishment works very nicely for characters for which the probabilities are between, say, 15% and 90%.

[Internet Kraken]

-snip-

I knew someone would come in here and say something like this. I completely disagree. I already said there were ways to avoid being banished, but in the end you can't deny it just boils down to an MR check. An MR check that can completely screw you over even if you do everything else right. Given how big of a deal banishment is, that doesn't feel fair to me. Plus it isn't interesting at all, you either pass the check or you don't. The way banishment itself works doesn't add anything interesting to the game and a ton of frustration when you end up on the wrong side of the RNG.

And surviving the abyss is completely in the hands of the RNG, becuase realistically speaking you can't fight a lot of the monsters in the abyss. If you try to at a lower level, you'll get killed. You have to keep moving to survive and eventually you get worn down as supplies are exhausted. I've read how to survive the abyss, I've done it myself, even at low levels when I got lucky and exits appeared in a reasonable amount of time. But when that doesn't happen, what is a player supposed to do?

I'm not saying my idea is perfect but banishment in its current form has never been fun to me.

[Eji1700]

Odds are an exit will turn up, and for most characters conversion to Lugonu is totally possible too

This is my real problem with being banished. First off due to how god punishments currently work, abandoning certain gods is suicide. Trog feels like the most notable example, so zerkers going to abyss is death. Demigods are also screwed. If you remove lug as an option for escape, you really really really are stuck on the RNG game and it's neither fun nor exciting. I think the most interesting aspect of the abyss is it's ability to FORCE a god switch, but until various factors around that change I feel it's going to still be super annoying for various characters, and a virtual death sentence.

I will also say I think the MR check sucks. I've stocked up on MR on a troll zerker simply because I knew what a threat banishment was, and still got unlucky once(slowed and then banisher from offscreen...thats two MR fails...) and then pop. I'm abyssed where I run around for 15 minutes until a fast abomination chases me down.

I do understand banishments purpose, but it can be extremely frustrating in certain situations.

[crate]

You can abandon trog for lugonu and then escape abyss and then abandon lugonu and go back to trog. For low-level characters this is likely less dangerous than the abyss.

[Mankeli]

There are two different points made in here me thinks: 1) The frequency of banishment and 2) the way banishment happens. Concerning the first one, banishment is definately not over-the-top and I don't agree with that it should happen less frequently at least for early or mid game chars. As for the second point, well, banishment is NOT just a simple MR check even now because you can get banished by a zot trap or getting hit or unwielding a distortion weapon so there is already variety involved. Secondly, I think it is nice that magic res is useful for something else than paralyze prevention.

[Internet Kraken]

There are two different points made in here me thinks: 1) The frequency of banishment and 2) the way banishment happens. Concerning the first one, banishment is definately not over-the-top and I don't agree with that it should happen less frequently at least for early or mid game chars. As for the second point, well, banishment is NOT just a simple MR check even now check because you can get banished by a zot trap or getting hit or unwielding a distortion weapon so there is already variety involved. Secondly, I think it is nice that magic res is useful for something else than paralyze prevention.

I'm talking about the spell though, and I didn't bring up the frequency of banishment at all. I don't want the spell to become even more rare, I think it has the potential to be interesting, but in its current incarnation it's not. You either pass the check or you don't.

Another idea I had would be to make enemies in the abyss scale based on you level. It is a place that is constantly changing, do having different monsters appear for different characters would make sense. Then a lower level character actually has a reasonable chance to survive since they are less likely to run into incredibly strong enemies, and high level char is still threatened by the abyss now that popcorn enemies aren't spawning for them.

[Mankeli]

There are a lot of things you can do to prolong your fate, but nothing to make the exit you so desperately need appear. I find it really frustrating when incredibly powerful monsters chase me down and kill me in the abyss, since I feel like there was very little I could do to avoid them after using up all my tools.

But you are criticizing the survivability of banishment and claiming that surviving it with a character that is low level is almost purely up to luck (which is not true). So, I filled some blanks and came to the conclusion that you were criticizing the frequency it happens for low-level chars. I thought we were talking about the same thing. Having re-read your post it seems that on the other hand you are also criticizing Abyss in general so I don't know anymore.

If there are more interesting solutions to the banishment, I'm all ears. But you are complaining about the difficulty as well and in this matter I'm afraid I don't agree with you.

[Deimos]

Actually, surviving the abyss at a low level is very much up to luck. The most a low level char can do is try to use consumables at the right time, but in the end he is still at the RNG's mercy. For example, a low level naga is going to die almost always, unless he lucks out and gets a very quick portal. A low level Deep Elf is going to die if the first enemy he counters is faster then him and he has no spells that can deal with it yet. A low level Demigod probably has to survive much longer there since he cannot convert to Lugonu, thereby making it very likely he will die.

At mid-high levels, you can use a bit more skill when more spells and abilities come online, but at these fragile levels, I think you guys are overstating your "1337 skillz".

[galehar]

-snip-

That's funny. Reading your answer, it seems that's exactly what you did. You read KL's answer, and then snip it and completely ignored its content.

I already said there were ways to avoid being banished, but in the end you can't deny it just boils down to an MR check.

Denying it is just what KL did, and he's right. There are several ways to avoid banishment, the MR check is just the last defence. I won't repeat what KL said, just reread his post, it's quite detailed.

And surviving the abyss is completely in the hands of the RNG, becuase realistically speaking you can't fight a lot of the monsters in the abyss.

Again, that's just not true. Skilled players have a much better survival rate on low level characters, and it's not because they are lucky.

Another idea I had would be to make enemies in the abyss scale based on you level.

XL wouldn't be a good scale for that because of XP apt and draining, but it would be possible to scale the Abyss to the player's total XP gained. However, I don't like the idea much. First, how do you explain it? Why the Abyss would nicely scale to your level? Then, scaling difficulty leads to linear difficulty and boredom. Difficulty increasing with time spent in the abyss might work though.

[Tiber]

I already said there were ways to avoid being banished, but in the end you can't deny it just boils down to an MR check.

Denying it is just what KL did, and he's right. There are several ways to avoid banishment, the MR check is just the last defence. I won't repeat what KL said, just t reread his post, it's quite detailed.

*walk around a corner*
Erolcha comes into view
Erolcha casts a spell.
You are cast into the abyss!

I'd just like to make a point out there are times all the countermeasures KL mentioned are absolutely useless. I freely admit that these times are rare, but this is not a 100% skill-based game, and sometimes bad things happen for reasons other than player error.

I actually kind of enjoy the gameplay of the abyss in small doses. But I do think there should be some mercy feature for it, even something as simple as spawning more exits for low-level characters.

[Mankeli]

Actually, surviving the abyss at a low level is very much up to luck. The most a low level char can do is try to use consumables at the right time, but in the end he is still at the RNG's mercy. For example, a low level naga is going to die almost always, unless he lucks out and gets a very quick portal. A low level Deep Elf is going to die if the first enemy he counters is faster then him and he has no spells that can deal with it yet. A low level Demigod probably has to survive much longer there since he cannot convert to Lugonu, thereby making it very likely he will die.

At mid-high levels, you can use a bit more skill when more spells and abilities come online, but at these fragile levels, I think you guys are overstating your "1337 skillz".

A low level naga? C'mon, that's not "for example" stuff. Of course, the term "low level" can be debated, I was thinking about the char levels you start to encounter banishers (ogre mage) so xp level 10 is still probably "low level" in my books.

I think dealing with banishers on "low levels" of xp is fun, gives magic res more to show for and indeed is varied enough because of magic res is not the only thing keeping banishers from banishing (as KL explained).

[crate]

I already said there were ways to avoid being banished, but in the end you can't deny it just boils down to an MR check.

Denying it is just what KL did, and he's right. There are several ways to avoid banishment, the MR check is just the last defence. I won't repeat what KL said, just t reread his post, it's quite detailed.

*walk around a corner*
Erolcha comes into view
Erolcha casts a spell.
You are cast into the abyss!

I'd just like to make a point out there are times all the countermeasures KL mentioned are absolutely useless. I freely admit that these times are rare, but this is not a 100% skill-based game, and sometimes bad things happen for reasons other than player error.

I actually kind of enjoy the gameplay of the abyss in small doses. But I do think there should be some mercy feature for it, even something as simple as spawning more exits for low-level characters.

In that specific situation you could also walk into a more-than-your-maxhp-damage crystal spear or into a paralyse spell followed by giant spiked club melee.

Alternatively, if Erolcha actually banishes you, just pretend it was one of those other spells instead and ^qyes.

[Sar]

Level scaling is hardly an interesting mechanic.

[twelwe]

I'll say exactly what I said in the SA thread: the only somewhat fair proposal I've heard to change how the player becomes banished is to give the player three turns to kill the monster that cast banishment. If the monster dies, no banishment. If it lives, off to the abyss you go. However, this basically means no late game banishment. But is that really a bad thing? Late game banishment is an annoyance, not a challenge. I vote to leave it the way it is.

[sardonica]

just a little something to add

The first time I got banished, I laughed like crazy. It really made the game world seem much bigger - here I am in one world, and there's a WHOLE OTHER WORLD that I can get "banished" too. Its really a cool mechanic to encounter for the first time.

[Deimos]

I... guess? I don't know, it really didn't have that effect on me. It felt (and still feels) like a big room to me.

[Volteccer_Jack]

The problem isn't banishment. The problem is the Abyss, which is currently the single least interesting place in the game by a long shot (even Crypt has one cool floor). And this is why:

Once you're in the Abyss, run from everything. If you see something that you're 100% absolutely certain that you can kill with perfect safety and without spending any consumables, run from that thing too.

You're either strong enough to do whatever you feel like, in which case it's boring. Or you're not strong enough to do whatever you want, in which case you respond to every situation in the exact same way: run and use consumables. Which is even more boring, because you lose a ton of options.

Surviving the Abyss with a low-level character doesn't feel like you cheated death and escaped a horde of demons. It feels like you just finished writing, "I will not stand in an elf mage's line of fire" on the blackboard a million times. At best it's a waste of time where you cast swiftness over and over again, walking past everything you see, not daring to actually interact with anything. At worst it's pointless torture when you wander around for 20K turns with no altars or exits in sight.

[danr]

Is it possible to get banished to the Something Awful forums?

Why does anyone use that forum still?

[njvack]

Surviving the Abyss with a low-level character doesn't feel like you cheated death and escaped a horde of demons.

Huh. That's exactly how it's felt to me in the past. I guess whether this is fun is totally subjective.

[eeviac]

I used to think the Abyss and Pan were fun, then I started all-runing more consistently. After having gotten these 6 runes ~20 times (not that many compared to some but) I can safely say that they are the low points of crawl. Abyss being much more offensive than Pan. I understand that Abyss is cool from a development standpoint, but from a gameplay standpoint it's the worst thing.

Cut the liquids by 80%, slow down the morphing, remove the map resets entirely, and it might be tolerable.

(as an aside Pan is more or less OK but it has too many runes - fr move some to other late game branches, enchanted forest pls)

[danr]

Yeah, I don't mind the danger represented by Abyss, but all the liquid plus the map rot and map shifting make it a real pain in the arse and very tedious to find the exit.

[graffen69]

" I understand that Abyss is cool from a development standpoint, but from a gameplay standpoint it's the worst thing"


/Signed

[sanka]

I think that much much more vaults would help a lot. Vaults that contain the exit or altars, where different tactics may help you. A lot of strongly guarded vaults (easily recognisable for low level chars), to make the abyss much less tedious for high level characters. And maybe vaults aimed for lower level characters where spending some consumable can lead to an exit. (Like a vault guarded by stat-draining or rotting monsters or something - maybe stupid). Or vaults where the exit - like some treasure troves - ask for a good item currently in your inventory to enter. (Give your best weapon/armour, wand of healing, or speed potions etc. and you can exit quickly).

I'd like to repeat: MANY MANY vaults.

[Deimos]

More vault variety, or more vault spawns? Because I'm not sure what the point of the abyss is if its full of non-random player-created vaults. Kind of loses what little flavor it has if thats the case.

As far as your ideas, those sound pretty nice...

[TwilightPhoenix]

My issue with Banishment is how it functions is one of the least clear things monsters can throw at you. Once you understand how it works, it's easy to avoid, but it's hard to figure out how to do so without help or spoilers. It's a "projectile" but doesn't function like other projectiles by showing the shot on the screen when fired (no idea if console has that or not), it just happens which can lead to assumptions it is smite targeted. It's resisted by MR, but when you resist Banishment you have no idea you resisted Banishment. There's no "A tear in reality attempts to engulf you, but you escape!" message, but rather just "You resist". What did you resist? You don't know, could have been Slow or something. Sure, you can try doing an Abyssal Knight to play with it and see how it works, but monster/player asymmetry in most other skills can leave you wondering if that's how it actually works.

Basically, there's no warning to Banishment, no indication you can avoid it by ducking behind a rat, a fairly unclear indication as to who is banishing you, and no indication you resisted a banishment when you, well, resist a banishment. If those could be addressed, I'd have no issues with how it currently functions mechanically, although the tentacle dragging the player into the Abyss would be far, far cooler.

[njvack]

It's a "projectile" but doesn't function like other projectiles by showing the shot on the screen when fired (no idea if console has that or not), it just happens which can lead to assumptions it is smite targeted.

Having all beam-targeted spells display the beam (yup, this is an effect in console as well) would be a very good idea. You'd still need to know which beams pass through obstacles (your butterflies don't help against Bolt of Fire!), but it'd be a nice interface feature.

It's resisted by MR, but when you resist Banishment you have no idea you resisted Banishment. There's no "A tear in reality attempts to engulf you, but you escape!" message, but rather just "You resist". What did you resist? You don't know, could have been Slow or something. Sure, you can try doing an Abyssal Knight to play with it and see how it works, but monster/player asymmetry in most other skills can leave you wondering if that's how it actually works.

Having custom messages for every effect you resist would also be a very good thing. Knowing you just resisted banishment or paralysis warrants a rather different response than Slow of Confuse.

[Grimm]

Those are good ideas. I never knew Banishment wasn't smite-targetted until this thread.

[galehar]

My issue with Banishment is how it functions is one of the least clear things monsters can throw at you.

It works exactly like all the other hexes. Invisible beam, MR check and resisting it doesn't identify it.

[Deimos]

That's even worse.

[BlackSheep]

The list of smite targeted spells:
Abjuration
Airstrike
Conjure Flame
Firestorm
Freezing Cloud
Haunt
Lee's Rapid Deconstruction
Passage of Golubria
Poisonous Cloud
Portal Projectile (duh)

[njvack]

Invisible beam, MR check and resisting it doesn't identify it.

Are these intentional properties of hexes, or incidental ones?

[ebarrett]

Minding your resistances is part of the game. Going to the elven halls with low MR is writing a BANISH ME sign and sticking it into your butt. And another on your forehead. And yelling BANISH ME every time you enter a room. Elsewhere MR-resistable banishment is rare and, dare I say, flavorful. As already said by other people in this thread, the problem with banishment (if there is any) is the Abyss, though I think low-level Abyss trips where you are reduced to running from everything are fine.

For the record, long useless Abyss trips for powerful chars can be easily solved by the Abyss kicking you out/putting a portal next to you if 1. you already have the rune and 2. you're stomping its denizens like the windshield kills that they are by that point. I think that has been even proposed already elsewhere? I'm pretty sure I remember seeing something at least similar.

Having custom messages for every effect you resist would also be a very good thing. Knowing you just resisted banishment or paralysis warrants a rather different response than Slow of Confuse.

Picturing someone resisting slow from some random elf, thinking that he got lucky because he has low MR but it's no huge deal anyway because that was just slow so it wouldn't kill him/annoy the hell out of him, then getting banished the next turn when some other random elf tags him with banishment. Nothing against that, of course.

[TwilightPhoenix]

My issue with Banishment is how it functions is one of the least clear things monsters can throw at you.

It works exactly like all the other hexes. Invisible beam, MR check and resisting it doesn't identify it.

I'd argue that's problematic too.

[njvack]

I've split (most of) the custom resist message discussion into its own thread.