Rod of Striking

[Lasty]

So, it seems like the consensus is that rods of striking are terrible. They're relatively rare, but most people consider them to be worse than a non-magical staff (as I understand it). No characters start with them, and it sounds like no characters should ever pick up one to use them. It seems that both their accuracy and damage are remarkably low.

Given that, let's improve or remove them. For improvements, here are a few suggestions, each meant to be a solution alone (e.g. not meant to be implemented together).
* Improve accuracy slightly, leave damage as-is, but make them ignore AC.
* Make damage and accuracy scale with enchantment level.
* Make them always hit.
* Improve the damage from 1-8 (learndb) to something like (Ceiling(Evo / 8)) d (Ceiling(Evo / 2))
* Give them knockback or some other useful effect beyond pure damage.

[jejorda2]

What if the strike takes no time, so you can use all the power that the rod holds on as many enemies as you like in no time? It's still a limited amount of damage because the rod empties after a bit and takes time to refill. And it takes time to switch to the rod.

Would 14 attacks from a rod of striking be as powerful as one fireball from delayed fireball? (Isn't 14 the most charges a rod can hold?) Granted, you have to invest skills in delayed fireball.

[Galefury]

Wow, a non-terrible rod of striking suggestion! With instant casting the mana cost and possibly damage of striking should also be a bit higher (mostly to reduce keypresses).The learndb entry is outdated though, striking was buffed at some point. It scales with evo now and does up to 1d18 damage.

Making it level 2 and giving it knockback was also suggested on IRC at some point.

[Lasty]

If the "instant" option is chosen, I'd love to see the interface ask how many charges to fire and fire all of them without asking for extra input. Dropping 14+ attacks via v + target wouldn't necessarily be the worst interface ever, but it does seem somewhat bad.

[Sporkman]

This actually sounds like a genuinely good idea, and as a bonus makes the Rod of Striking genuinely unique in effect. Admittedly, it'd probably need some balancing, but it certainly has potential.

I like!

[njvack]

Wow, a non-terrible rod of striking suggestion! With instant casting the mana cost and possibly damage of striking should also be a bit higher (mostly to reduce keypresses).

Alternately, the rod could carry on instantly striking its target until either the target dies or the rod runs out of charges.

And while I know Crawl's not about the funny, I'd love to see:

  Code:

The rod of striking hits the centaur! Smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack! The centaur is killed!


... with one "Smack" per spent charge.

I like this proposal!

[galehar]

Making it instantaneous is a terrible idea. You wouldn't have any reason not to start every tough fight by emptying it. That would be extremely boring.

[Galefury]

Like delayed fireball?

[galehar]

I was expecting that. Committing 6 spell slots is not the same thing as 1 inventory slot. Everyone can carry and use a rod, not everyone can cast 6th level conj/fire spells. Fireball makes a bunch of noise. You can memorise only one.
It's not the same thing at all.

[Galefury]

Freezing cloud and DMsl are level 6 rod spells (neither should probably be on a rod, but not just because they are level 6). Also striking could be noisy, or some other disadvantage could be added. For example the rod's number of charges and/or enchantment could have a chance to degrade on use (could start out very high and be reduced with high evo). You would still want to use it in challenging fights, but you couldn't keep doing it forever.

I also like njvack's idea, it would simplify the interface a lot.

[galehar]

Turns are the most critical tactical resource. Being able to do things without taking any time is something that is vary rare and it should stay that way. Having it on an item that anybody can use seems like it would be very hard to balance.

[jejorda2]

What if the time taken were a function of evocations skill, so that it takes half a turn to strike with no skill, and no time with 16 skill? If the skill had to be 27, then either noone would ever use it or it would be too powerful.

Or make the minimum delay 1 aut instead of 0 aut, and it would still be a fun trick to have around.

[Jeremiah]

There would still be a time cost to switch to the rod then back to your normal weapon.

[njvack]

Turns are the most critical tactical resource. Being able to do things without taking any time is something that is vary rare and it should stay that way. Having it on an item that anybody can use seems like it would be very hard to balance.

It could be very loud.

It could be even slightly loud, but extremely weak at low evo.

It could have a dangerous side effect (conj or tloc miscast chance?) that decreases with evo.

It could have an exhaustion-like effect that prevents any non-movement, non-striking actions for some number of AUT (maybe decreasing with evo).

It could drain your MP and/or HP as well as its own MP.

The biggest reason you won't start every fight by emptying one is that you usually won't have one. Rods aren't particularly common.

Basically, the niche I'd imagine for it is extremely rapid attacks on low-HP, dangerous creatures -- particularly summoners.

[twelwe]

If you scale the amount of attack speed increase based on evocations, you'd have a rod that functions very similar to a melee/ranged weapon. Could be the artificer starting weapon again if the damage scaled appropriately as well.

[palin]

The rapid discharge of a Rod of Striking as described above could be limited if it still take a single action to discharge and if it causes a mild amount of glowing, maybe so much as a controlled blink...

[galehar]

The rod of striking is disliked by many, and the fact that it hasn't been removed yet is only because of some technicalities (it's easier to replace a rod than to remove it). It might be salvaged by giving it some unique and interesting effects. Personally, I don't see reduced casting time as being interesting. However, I think a chance for knockback does sound cool.

Also, even if improved, it's unlikely to come back as the artificer's weapon. Starting with a few wands is more interesting than starting with a rod. It makes them similar to hunters (find ammo or diversify). Using the same main attack all the way to Lair isn't very interesting.

[pratamawirya]

Instead of making the full shot instantaneous, why not make it SINGLE SHOT? So, one use will drain all the charges. (The more charges the rod has, the more damaging it will be, obviously.)

[jejorda2]

If it all comes out in one shot every time, then you can't do things like weaken a group of different enemies so that the same fireball kills them all.

[pratamawirya]

The shot could be shotgun-like or something at high power (and/or with more charges).

[Lasty]

Shotgun-like effects are much desired, but difficult to implement. How about a burst instead -- sort of like Mystic Blast can be a single target or burst spell, depending on range, this could toggle between the two based on number of charges.

[XuaXua]

Combine the ideas.

Treat as a Single shot, 0/1-range mystic blast area effect with damage based on charges remaining.

Preferably since it is "Striking", IMHO the area of effect should be a cone that reaches outward 4 squares, covering up to 10 spaces (less if fewer than 10 charges).

[Bloax]

Or have the amount of instant hits depend on your evocations skill. Like 1 for every 4 levels or so. With a chance to do one more depending on how close you are to the next mod4 value.

Because seriously, rod of smacking. Hehe.