The trouble with Staff of Channeling

[XuaXua]

The recent staff of Enchantment thread brings to mind the various complaints about Channeling.

You have divine channeling (Sif), channeling via Crystal Balls, passive via mutations and I figure a couple other ways.

While I understand eVoking a Staff of Channeling is how you go about using it, I think it's counter to the concept of the Enhancer staves, which are, primarily, passive and use Evocations skill in that fashion.

I would suggest changing the Staff of Channeling to be similar to its brethren as follows:

Replace the eVokation for more mana with a passive % reduction in spell cost (based on Evocations Skill) for any spell cast while wielding the Staff.
Casting a spell while wielding the Staff would cost additional hunger (reduced in some fashion, but not completely, by eVocations).
Additionally, add the missing attacking vector, where a % (based on Evocations) of damage done on a successful hit adds to the MP to the player (at standard attacking food cost).

Note: Rather than the myriad of immediate responses on how mummies would abuse this, help rework / rethink the concept around such characters. Maybe it requires the ability to GET HUNGRY in order to use it.

[Moose]

I think it would be simpler to have it just passively return your mana, with a rate tied to the player's evocation skill.

I agree that the active invocation is not ideal.

[One-Eyed Jack]

fr make it a rod that transfers its rod charges to the wielder as mp when evoked

[jejorda2]

When an enemy is killed with a staff of channeling and leaves a corpse, it explodes into fuzzy chunks. Eating fuzzy chunks restores MP and half of standard nutrition. Each melee hit does 1dCurrent MP extra damage, limited by Evocations skill.

[nago]

Please note that staff of channeling is the only renovable, reliable and somewhat cheap source, outside Sif Muna, to channel mp. Actually, all other methods require gods' power and killing dudes and aren't obviously enough to keep mp bar filled.
Sure, there's powered by pain, but it's only for demonspawns, and it's highly situational, and there are potions of magic, but they're so rare (as much as cure mut, from my experience) they should use only in the worst situation possible.

Sure, there's crystal ball which is similar, but it's also totally unreliable with less than 15 evo and even with more it requires a staff of channelling as backup - unless a mage likes the idea to be fully drained of his mp.

My point is therefore that changing staff of channeling in another mp-recharge like Vehumet would seriously cripple a pure mage build, or at least add a lot of tedium - in form of kiting while waiting of mp to recharge.

[galehar]

I have the feeling this thread is about to explode in every directions and nothing is going to come out of it. So I second minmay's comment. What is wrong with the staff of channeling? We are not doing changes for the sake of it. A new design needs a goal, what is it trying to improve or fix? The grounds of the OP (consistency with other enhancer staves, except it's not one) are extremely dubious.

[XuaXua]

The problem that I know I have with the staff is that it makes casting spells super easy. What if it enhanced MP recovery speed for increased hunger like a ring of regeneration does for HP?

I guess I find spamming ice clouds too abusive?

[BlackSheep]

So you think the cost is too low for the effect?

[njvack]

Enhancing MP recovery in exchange for increased hunger is exactly what the Staff of Channeling does. It's just an active ability instead of a passive one. And it's not even particularly great without some investment in evocations -- at 9 evo, it's a 50% chance of 1d3 MP if Henzell and my math are correct.

Maybe it should give the hunger cost even on failure, but wasting turns is already a pretty substantial cost.

[danr]

I've never used a staff of channeling for the reason nvjack identifies. I'm not interested in putting a ton of XP into one skill just for this ability, so at a lower skill level I'm not too excited about something that gives me an average of 2 MP. If I'm in a situation where I desperately need some MP NOW! to finish off a real nasty monster or to escape, swapping my staff and taking an action to generate 2MP is a low-margin move and really I should have not let things get to that point anyway. In those cases a scroll of blinking, fog or silence etc. are much safer bets.

But maybe it kicks ass if you have 20 Evocations, but is it worth all those skill points that could otherwise go into spellcasting, dodging, fighting etc?

[njvack]

It's nice if you're boosting Evo for Nemelex or crystal balls, and for places where there aren't a bunch of sublimable corpses laying around. A blaster with a Staff of Channeling and good evo will get to spend less time recovering MP in Hell in particular. And in the post-game, you have the experience to spend anyhow.

At 0 skill, you get an 11/40 chance of 1d3 MP -- so about 0.55MP/turn.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I think making it not so similar to Sif's ability would be a good idea (chance of failure and raising Evo instead of Invo is not enough in my opinion). That or make Sif's ability more different from the staff.

[galehar]

I've never used a staff of channeling for the reason nvjack identifies. I'm not interested in putting a ton of XP into one skill just for this ability, so at a lower skill level I'm not too excited about something that gives me an average of 2 MP. If I'm in a situation where I desperately need some MP NOW! to finish off a real nasty monster or to escape, swapping my staff and taking an action to generate 2MP is a low-margin move and really I should have not let things get to that point anyway. In those cases a scroll of blinking, fog or silence etc. are much safer bets.

But maybe it kicks ass if you have 20 Evocations, but is it worth all those skill points that could otherwise go into spellcasting, dodging, fighting etc?

You don't use it while standing in front of the monster. You summon stuff, or blink away or duck behind a corner.
Also, it's not an emergency item. You don't start channelling when at 0 MP. Using it efficiently requires tactics, that's why I don't like the idea of giving it a passive MP regen effect. It would become very boring.
Really it's fine. Don't try to fix what isn't broken.

[XuaXua]

that's why I don't like the idea of giving it a passive MP regen effect. It would become very boring.

That is why lt was the third suggestion. The staff is only used out of combat and is counter to other enhancer staves; you don't wield the staff when casting spells.

My intent is to give a reason for wielding it when casting. Giving it a chance to reduce MP cost of spells cast at the cost of increased hunger makes it the spiritual opposite of the Staff of Energy.

A X in 54 chance of reducing a spell mp cost by 1d(X/4) at a cost of ? hunger where X is Evocations could work, but may be too easy.

[onton]

that's why I don't like the idea of giving it a passive MP regen effect. It would become very boring.

That is why lt was the third suggestion. The staff is only used out of combat and is counter to other enhancer staves; you don't wield the staff when casting spells.

My intent is to give a reason for wielding it when casting. Giving it a chance to reduce MP cost of spells cast at the cost of increased hunger makes it the spiritual opposite of the Staff of Energy.

A X in 54 chance of reducing a spell mp cost by 1d(X/4) at a cost of ? hunger where X is Evocations could work, but may be too easy.

I'd rather take the guaranteed power increase with an enhancer staff rather than a chance to reduce mana cost. Before it's too late, it's a matter of convenience (oh, my firestorm took only 8 mp to cast? neat? but i don't really care). After it's too late, it's too late to rely on it (if I have 10 mp left I want to be sure I have mana for a FS AND a semicontrolled blink, and taking chances might easily kill me). And with this formula any char with some realistic evocations value (0 to 12 I guess?) cannot rely on this staff in any circumstances. A 1 in 9 chance is not even funny. I understand this is not a problem, you could just tweak the formula, but the whole concept seems wrong to me

[Tiber]

I pretty much think of the staff as a safer crystal ball. It's much better for DD, since the stat loss the ball can inflict is worse for them. A lich form DD can really rock the staff. As for increased MP regeneration, I'd personally rather see that on the staff of power, because it fits and that staff needs a buff as well. And I agree with Onton about the chance of lower costing spells not really influencing my decision to keep the staff wielded.

Oh, and using the staff in emergency situations isn't always bad either. If you have several enemies nearby and you are just a few mp shy of a storm spell, sometimes it's just less work to simply channel than it is to kill them off one by one. This is admittedly rare, but it's worked for me.

[XuaXua]

I understand this is not a problem, you could just tweak the formula, but the whole concept seems wrong to me

That's the whole thing, I was beign conservative (in your view) and I'm sure radical in the view of others.
With 10 Evocations, it brings the chance down to 1/5. Changing that 54 number to 40, for example, changes that to 1/4 chance of not losing 1-3 MP at 10 Evo. The formula definitely could be tweaked to channel a guaranteed 1+ MP on cast after a certain amount of Evo.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Personally, my biggest issue with the Staff of Channeling (and also Sif since she functions similarly) is that it can be tedious and annoying to use at times. Tactics aside, it can often be something such as Cast spell > cast spell > cast spell > wield staff > v > v > v > v > v > v > v > v > v > v > v > v > v > v > v

Anything to fix that would be lovely.

[njvack]

If there were an option for resting to auto-channel (with Sif or the Staff), that might be neat.