Hexes School - Status Targeting Spells

[Davion Fuxa]

Looking at stuff in game, and reading about the Armour Discussion page; it got me thinking about perhaps some new spells that might help to round out the Hexes School. Simply put, how about some Status Targeting Spells for the Hexes tree which target Status effects on enemies. This seems like a minor touched on concept in game that could be expanded to help out Hexes so that there is more variety in what you could do:

Right now in game there is currently the Purple Draconians and Quicksilver Dragons which do just that - have irritating breath attacks that target your Buffs. That is sort of where this idea is going - maybe incorporate a Bolt of Dispelling or Dispelling Shot into the Hexes tree which Dispels or Shortens the times on Status effects on enemies as the first example. This would be a Bolt that ignores MR, and potentially does damage (add in Conjurations).

It doesn't have to be limited to that though, there could be a spell that effects status ailments on yourself that you want removed - such as perhaps removing Rot, Slow, Sticky Flame, Poison (though that may overlap with Cure Poison), Paralysis & Berserk (maybe have it so you can pre-emptively hit yourself with the spell, and it protects you for a few turns while you dispatch the paralyzing enemy/Moth of Wrath), Confusion, etc.... As a counter to this (if needed) it may dispel your own buffs as well.

Another idea, and a counter to Haste - Make a spell that reverses buffs on enemies. IE, imagine a spell that turns that Orc Mage's Haste Buff into a Slow Debuff/Paralysis, a Deep Dwarf Death Knight's Mirror Damage into Vulnerability, or Wiglaf's Might into Weakness. This might be something that is countered by an enemies MR or HD; but as another idea, maybe make it counter-able by the Spell Level of the Buff your attempting to change.

Much like above, the Reverse Buff spell could be applied to yourself - so you could turn Slow into Haste, a Mummy's Death Stat Reduction into Stat Gain, Rot into Regeneration, etc.

[Tiber]

I like the idea of hexes getting a dispelling ability.

Removing bad status effects is what consumables are for, so I don't see the devs going for it.

Similarly, there was talks about curses reversing the effect of magic items, specifically jewellery, and I believe the response was that it would be complicated and possibly counter-intuitive. I think this would be kind of the same deal. I do wish there were some sort of anti-might hex though.

[Davion Fuxa]

That's why I made the suggestion fairly broad - even if we just get a Dispelling Bolt that we can fire at that things that Haste or use Might or what not, that still is just a little bit extra of something to make Hexes a little bit more diverse. If what I'm suggesting is a bit counter-intuitive but can be re-worked to make it feasible then I'm fine with that too - I'm just broaching the concept pretty much on this one.

[crate]

The main reason I don't really like this proposal is that not many enemies--for good reasons!--have buffs you could dispel.

Casting a spell to cure bad statuses doesn't sound like a great idea to me, you're stepping on the toes of Ely and Zin and curing potions when you do that.

[nicolae]

That's why I made the suggestion fairly broad - even if we just get a Dispelling Bolt that we can fire at that things that Haste or use Might or what not

You can, provided you're a Draconian who the RNG feels like turning purple.

Spells that just cure a single status ailment are kind of boring (Cure Poison is okay, but it's pretty dull). What might be more interesting would be a spell that works around a given status ailment in some oblique way, though I'm having trouble thinking of any.

(That said, I do wish there were some way to deal with being covered in Sticky Flame besides water...)

[Davion Fuxa]

The main reason I don't really like this proposal is that not many enemies--for good reasons!--have buffs you could dispel.

More then a few enemies in game currently have Invisibility and Haste. Then a few enemies like Fannar and Wigluf have specific abilities it could be used on. On specific monster abilities like Mirror Damage on the Deep Dwarf Death Knight/Unborns it might be worthwhile to make it kill that, and you could also add on negating Tele status from monsters casting Teleport Self (or you). Maybe make it so that the spell does extra damage certain creatures (Destroying Dancing Weapons or other Magicially Powered Enemies). I'm sure the spell can affect a broad enough range of enemies that it shouldn't be something players would have problems finding something to use it on.

Casting a spell to cure bad statuses doesn't sound like a great idea to me, you're stepping on the toes of Ely and Zin and curing potions when you do that.

Zin, Ely, Cure Potions, Cure Poison Spell, Heal Wounds, and whatever else: all work without having to make a check to succeed, and they tend to cure all ailments they cover in one go. One way of making this spell work differently would be to make it so that it has to pass a check, and by making it so that it may not cure all your bad ailments.

One downside could be to include a 'fail chance' on the spell. Maybe couple the idea of 'spell level effect' from the offensive idea to the defense one - you need to beat the spell level 3 of Slow to remove it, you need to be the spell level of 4 for Sticky Flame. Cure Poison could be kept viable by having this spell at level 4 or higher, and making it so you can only remove a random amount of the poison.

Another downside could be making it so that the spell can't pick and choose what it removes - you have Rot, Poison, Contamination and Slow? Only one effect may potentially go (or diminished) while the others stay. Alternatively you could have it that you can possibly remove all effects, but you have to make a check on how many total of the effects you might remove (1dEffects/Effects) and then have a 'fail chance' on each effect as above with the different spell levels. It could of course just be left at 'Fail Check on Each and Every Effect'.

[yogaFLAME]

Dispersing contamination onto dudes sounds pretty fun. Or just the general idea of offloading negative buffs.

[nicolae]

Dispersing contamination onto dudes sounds pretty fun. Or just the general idea of offloading negative buffs.

From what I've read from devs and goodplayers when similar ideas have come up, giving players beneficial reasons to load up with negative buffs and status ailments (such as being able to inflict them on others) just encourages self-destructive behavior and finding ways to stock up on negative conditions (carrying around lousy potions, leaving mostly-harmless creatures around that can inflict debuffs, etc.)

[KoboldLord]

Very few enemies in the existing game have buffs that are worth dispelling. Yes, an executioner can Haste itself and is more dangerous if it does so, but if you have a dispel ability you still end up needing to choose between using an action to dispel its extra speed and using an action to kill it, because seriously nearly every monster in the game dies within about three solid hits if you have any business being near it at all. So for the most part, this ability would sit on your spell list and barely ever get used.

A few enemies in the existing game do have buffs that are worth dispelling, but unfortunately letting the player dispel them ruins the point of the monster. Deep dwarf death knights have a troublesome buff that makes the player have to play carefully around them. If the player can dispel this ability whenever it comes up, then the whole point of the monster is rendered irrelevant because it never gets to use its interesting ability. You just hammer the dispel whenever it tries to cast, and the dwarf is transformed into a slightly more tedious than normal melee brute with no interesting features.

Similarly, a Potion of Curing Self spell makes all status effects that it works on uninteresting, because you just hit your fix everything button every time the problem comes up and you never have to worry about playing defensively around those status effects again. Unlike Elyvilon or a stack of potions, the POCS spell doesn't use up your god slot or depend on a limited consumable. The only thing a spell blocks off is Trog worship, and that's really not that terrible a sacrifice.

[yogaFLAME]

Dispersing contamination onto dudes sounds pretty fun. Or just the general idea of offloading negative buffs.

From what I've read from devs and goodplayers when similar ideas have come up, giving players beneficial reasons to load up with negative buffs and status ailments (such as being able to inflict them on others) just encourages self-destructive behavior and finding ways to stock up on negative conditions (carrying around lousy potions, leaving mostly-harmless creatures around that can inflict debuffs, etc.)

I don't disagree; incentivizing degenerate behavior is bad. I think it could still be interesting with contam. Touch range, highish level, negligible debuff on the mob, etc. It's perhaps an effect that doesn't belong in the game, but whatevs.

[crate]

Dispelling invis is kind of pointless ... if you hit the monster with the spell (assuming it's targeted) then you already knew where the monster was!! (So you don't need it to be visible). Haste is what KL says. There's already a dispel-ancient-lich spell (it's in Necromancy) and I can't think of anything else that has haste that I'd bother dispelling other than Cerebov (and ?vuln works fine there, if you must) or maybe Wiglaf (but you can curare him to dispel his haste). Deep dwarves both don't exist and can't kill you even when they do.

I mean when I got purple drac breath I only used it to deal damage, not to dispel anything. It's not a very good breath. Adding a hex that copies it.....

[nicolae]

It might be interesting to have a spell that does more damage to monsters that have buffed themselves, like how Slouch would do more damage to a Hasted monster. But there aren't many buffs, and most of the time you can just use another way of doing damage anyway.

I do think Hexes could stand to have a little more diversity, but it's not a major problem with the school.

[rebthor]

What about something that either reduces their resistances, armour, evasion or any combination thereof? That seems like it thematically fits into the hexes school and isn't covered by any existing spells or effects to the best of my knowledge.

[nicolae]

A spell along those lines could potentially make Hexes more appealing to non-Stabbers: a fire elementalist would probably get decent mileage out of a spell that made enemies fire vulnerable. The trick is that the reduction in AC or EV or resistances should be significant enough that it's more cost efficient time and MP-wise to kill their defenses and then blast them, rather than just blasting them twice.

[njvack]

A debuff to make monsters easier to hit or vulnerability to elements or such might be interesting -- but Crawl has kinda already covered those situations fairly well (eg, "just blast them twice").

In general, the idea of dispelling buffs would make more sense in a game where monster buffs were an important part of the difficulty progression; if most monsters in the late-game were dangerous largely because of speed/AC/EV/SH/+damage buffs. Then, you'd get to decide whether you wanted to deal with monsters by outclassing their buffed states, or debuffing them. But Crawl is exactly the opposite, as other people have pointed out.

For something like this to be useful but not required, I think it'd need a fairly major redesign to Crawl's monster set.

[cerebovssquire]

I don't like the idea of a "remove resistances" spell. It does add a decision ("do I spend exp on a school that doesn't do much except removing resistances?"). But the four elementalists are already very similar (blast everyone you see), and if you remove their trademark easy and hard monsters by adding this spell, you make the "blast everyone you see" approach feel even more monotonous than it already does.

[rebthor]

I don't like the idea of a "remove resistances" spell. It does add a decision ("do I spend exp on a school that doesn't do much except removing resistances?"). But the four elementalists are already very similar (blast everyone you see), and if you remove their trademark easy and hard monsters by adding this spell, you make the "blast everyone you see" approach feel even more monotonous than it already does.

I'm not sure about that only because it's not like anyone goes into hexes right now unless they're going for a stabber playstyle. A level 6ish spell that actually debuffed guys might be interesting. And I'm not talking about making Cerebov go from fire immune to rF-, I'm talking about going from fire immune to taking say 20% damage from fire.

Anyhow, I was although thinking that a spell that reduced armour or evade in general would be a reason for players to branch into hexes, especially if they were level 3-5 and had some sort of noticeable drawback, like possibly affecting the player's armour or EV too.

[crate]

The reason that stabbing and hexes go together is because if you have hexes there's not really any reason to not get stabbing. The arcane marksman book, for instance, has several spells which are quite good for non-stabbers as well as stabbers (at the very least both enslavement and mass confusion). But then, if you can cast mass confusion you can cast invisibility, and if you can cast invisibility you might as well go ahead and get your free instakill on 90% of the enemies in the game by training stabbing....

[Davion Fuxa]

I do think Hexes could stand to have a little more diversity, but it's not a major problem with the school.

The Chief Problem with the Hexes spell school is that it is too constricted in terms of mixing it with other skills and spells; plus your Hexes spells get stopped heavily by enemies with high Hit Dice or Magic Resistance totals, constricting your use of the Hexes spell school even further. By it's nature, Hexes is about Distracting, Disabling, and Hindering enemies - and there is a heavy leaning towards spells that Distract the enemy. That leaning is so heavy that you get a situation that crate pretty well correctly identifies regarding having Hexes = having Stabbing; which by itself leads to the situation where it limits its usefulness for a lot of character setups.

If a few spells were added to balance out Hexes so you might be able to Disable or Hinder your enemies more (via disabling them specifically or what they can do to your character) then people might branch into Hexes on their Hunter or their Axe-Wielder, simply because there is enough viable spells that have useful non-distracting effects that you can justifiably do so. Add too it spells that can penetrate an enemies defenses without having to target their Hit Dice or Magic Resistance and you begin to address the problem with the Hexes school being constricted.

****

On the topic of resistances, AC, EV, and what not - what about a Hexes spell that targeted equipment? Ie, you hit Fannar's equipment and bring his boosted rC++(+) to zero or hit Cerebov's prized sword and make it a +0/+0 Great Sword and nothing more - or maybe not since that's an Artefact. In any case, the spell would target the Equipment and not the monster - perhaps with higher valued equipment being more prone to resisting the spells effect.

[nicolae]

The Chief Problem with the Hexes spell school is that it is too constricted in terms of mixing it with other skills and spells; plus your Hexes spells get stopped heavily by enemies with high Hit Dice or Magic Resistance totals, constricting your use of the Hexes spell school even further.

Why is it a problem if not every spell school is applicable to every play style?

On the topic of resistances, AC, EV, and what not - what about a Hexes spell that targeted equipment? Ie, you hit Fannar's equipment and bring his boosted rC++(+) to zero or hit Cerebov's prized sword and make it a +0/+0 Great Sword and nothing more - or maybe not since that's an Artefact. In any case, the spell would target the Equipment and not the monster - perhaps with higher valued equipment being more prone to resisting the spells effect.

It's my understanding that the main problem when facing Cerebov is not his sword but his spells.

[Davion Fuxa]

Why is it a problem if not every spell school is applicable to every play style?

It's not, but it becomes a problem when it effectively is only suiting a sparse few and limited play styles.

[crate]

Well for one thing changing Cerebov's sword to a plain greatsword actually doesn't really decrease his damage very much.

Anyway hexes aren't limited to one play style (have you actually tried them without stabbing???? several of them are really good!!), it's just that stabbing is so ridiculously good that if you have hexes you might as well get stabbing. Adding more hexes won't change this--it will just make more characters get hexes + stabbing.

[kuniqs]

Disrupt Magic, 6th level hexes school, produces a ray that has not very good accuracy proportional to hexes level and (maybe) ignores MR:
if enemy is not buffed (or both positively and negatively), deals 1d6 damage and has low chance of producing one of those contamination effects, like glowing (duplicate corona effect), magic explosions etc.
if enemy is negatively buffed in any way, heal some damage and remove the buff.
if enemy is positively buffed, produce a seriously damaging magical explosion with nice range, the more stronger the more buffs enemy has + remove those buffs.

This way spell could be used with enchantments, like first hasting the enemy then blowing him up. Explosion range means it would be a bit risky every time and add some tactic when using other hexes.
I don't like the idea, but could be also used on player, without ignoring MR.

[Lasty]

Seems like it would be more fun / have more synergy if any buff/debuff triggered the explosion. If it's just buffs that trigger it, it pretty much only works for characters who cast Haste and against a small number of high-level uniques.