New Book of Conjurations

[scorpionwarrior]

I just got to Lair with a DECj, this is the most fun I've ever had with a mage type in the early game! You get all the flexibility of a wizard, but instead of the most boring spells in the game, you have all these cool new ones.

Force Lance can keep your fragile elf hide safe on the first few levels, Dazzling Spray debilitates and can kill an ogre in 2 hits, and Arcane Familiar pretty much doubles your damage. I've killed poor Dowan with one Fulminant Prism, and one more finished off Duvessa, although it barely scratched an orc warrior wearing splint mail. What's y'alls experience with it?

[ebarrett]

SOUNDS OP NERF EVERYTHING

[byrel]

I'm trying it for the first time, and it is a lot of fun. I particularly enjoy the arcane familiar, and having IMB in the book. Makes you feel both weak and strong. I haven't tried the Prism yet.

[byrel]

Does anyone know if the arcane familiar has an Exp penalty like traditional summons? I thought it might not, as it's useless as a meat shield, but I'm not sure.

Edit: Scratch that; they can serve as meat shields for melee attacks reasonably well.

[moocowmoocow]

What is happening, why is the game changing so much? Are these all new spells?

[byrel]

There's a handful of new spells (Four, I think) in the Conjurers starting book in trunk. The old Conjurer was kind of pushed into Ice/Air by the starting book; these new ones are all non-elemental. And cool, and different too.

There's:

  Code:

Force Lance                    (Conjuration lvl 2)        Can knockback the enemy, as well as dealing some damage. Tends to miss.

Dazzling Spray                 (Conjuration/Hexes lvl 3)  Attacks three adjacent squares. Has a chance to 'dazzle' the enemy. Whatever that does exactly. Kind of like confuse, but not quite as good?

Iskenderun's Arcane Familiar   (Conjuration/Charms lvl 4) Creates an arcane familiar. which kind of buzzes around you. It fires at whatever you fire a spell at, in sync with you. (It feels like it always fires a souped-up Magic Dart; Guaranteed to hit!) Very nice and mana efficient. You can shoot through it harmlessly. Fires something like six times before running out of energy.

Fulminant Prism                (Conjuration/Hexes lvl 5)  Allows you to place a prism. The prism will explode (5x5) two turns after you place it, if it still remains. If it's destroyed in the last turn before it's explosion, it will explode (3x3). Monsters try to destroy it.


Edit: My take is that the Familiar is your early mid-game key, and then Iskenderun's Mystic Blast to finish the Lair. The Prism is excellent, and interesting to use. Force Lance can save your bacon if you end up (through lack of skill/bad luck) next to an ogre on D:2. I haven't really used Dazzle much.

[Steel Neuron]

What version of Trunk is this? I downloaded trunk a couple of days ago and this change wasn't in. Thanks!

[Psieye]

What version of Trunk is this? I downloaded trunk a couple of days ago and this change wasn't in. Thanks!

It's more recent than that. I wasn't sure when they had actually made a trunk build which included these newest commits.

[MIC132]

Dazzle is a quite nice alternative to meph, though only for up to three targets.

[Jeremiah]

I've only seen Arcane Familiar so far, but think it's quite interesting that at one point people were saying Throw Icicle shouldn't be in the Book of Frost because characters shouldn't get unresistable damage in their starting book (maybe with the exception of low damage Magic Dart..) - and now Cj get a book where everything is unresistable.

Personally I don't think it's a problem - EEs have always had unresistable damage (and so do hunters, arcane marksmen, berserkers, etc.)

[jejorda2]

I assume dazzle is the same effect that Zin's recite sometimes gives? Or is that daze?

It says the enemy is blinded, but centaurs don't seem to aim for anything but exactly where I am when blinded.

[Galefury]

It causes blindness.

this means they can't see you (or other monsters) and act as though you are invisible.

[Psieye]

Also note: blindness shuts down "See Invis" but not "Sense Invis". If I'm understanding that correctly, it means invis-stabs on See Invis mobs... without even having Invis online.

[njvack]

... assuming said sInv mobs are blindable and you can land a hex on 'em. I'm betting this doesn't let your little SpEn get invistabs on X's.

[eeviac]

New Cj is tons of fun. Props to the dev(s) responsible.

[galehar]

New Cj is tons of fun. Props to the dev(s) responsible.

DracoOmega coded it. He's not a dev (yet?), just a contributer. Elliptic committed it and did a few tweaks. Others have probably contributed to the design, I haven't followed that closely.

[ebarrett]

at one point people were saying Throw Icicle shouldn't be in the Book of Frost because characters shouldn't get unresistable damage in their starting book (maybe with the exception of low damage Magic Dart..) - and now Cj get a book where everything is unresistable

Most likely because "people" were probably referring to fire/ice elementalists, which should theoretically sort of mirror each other (and I'm pretty sure the fire elementalist book is currently 100% resistable).

[o_O]

Earth damage is more or less unresistable.

I'd say its a good change, it was odd for pure conjurers to have a grab bag of ice/air spells but very little in the way of pure magic damage. Also, freezing cloud is way OP in a starting book.

[nordetsa]

Two questions for now:

1) Does blinded enemy attack themselves like confusion? Or is a different status effect? Can I stab enemies who's been blinded?
2) Is 'Force Lance' spell has a high miss rate? Maybe it's just me, but it does seem to get missed a lot...also what's the probability of it knocking back enemies, and how far can it make enemy move? Can I drown enemies with this spell?

[crate]

Blinding an enemy is exactly like being invisible to that enemy (except you can blind enemies who have see/sense invis).

Force lance is really bad at low power (low accuracy, low damage, low knockback because of low damage). The knockback depends on the damage it deals and how heavy the enemy you hit is. It's a pretty good spell for DECj or something, but personally I think it's not that good for most conjurers, at least early on (maybe it's better later for knockback instead of damage, I didn't try).

[BlackSheep]

You can blind monsters with Dazzling Spray (temporary), or as a Zin Recite effect (permanent); this means they can't see you (or other monsters) and act as though you are invisible.

They can't see you, or anyone else I guess; they don't become confused.

[nordetsa]

By the way, Arcane Familiar fades away really quickly if the character don't have much charm skill. Should have thought all summonings work like that. Anyway, is it worth investing charm skill for that? I figure I would have to decided between prism and arcane familiar for my second high-level spells (IMB would be the first one).

Also, I think this opens conjurer to choose any field he likes. When would be best to move to other elemental branches?

[byrel]

Anyway, is it worth investing charm skill for that? I figure I would have to decided between prism and arcane familiar for my second high-level spells (IMB would be the first one).

IMF feels a lot like Sticky flame. Amazingly MP-efficient, good at killing most enemies through Lair+Orc, and slowly dropping off after that. Prism feels a bit like Fireball; useful on hordes, when you don't mind waking everyone up. As that is partly covered by IMB, I would definitely take IMF. In fact, I'd probably take it before IMB, but that's pure preference. IMF will let you usually two-shot Ogres with Magic dart, and one-shot Orc priests and wizards. IMB will also let you do that, but for a higher mana output, and lower time investment.

Anyway, you'll eventually be wanting Charms on any caster. Hexes are optional, though nice.

When would be best to move to other elemental branches?

When you get good higher level nukes. If you're worshiping Veh, consider grabbing a low-level one of the two skills you're interested in, and training them to 3-4 to encourage useful gifting. If worshiping someone else, when you find a good book. Maybe the bottom of Lair or Orc; your starting book is plenty fine for that.

[nordetsa]

IMF feels a lot like Sticky flame. Amazingly MP-efficient, good at killing most enemies through Lair+Orc, and slowly dropping off after that.

At how much charm & conjuration can I use it most effectively? It still uses 4mp like IMB, and if it's gonna disappear soon then it would obviously going to be a waste of mp.

[byrel]

I would probably raise charms about like I would for repel missiles (4-8, depending on aptitude). I'm bound to find that and want it anyhow, so the payback should come soon. For conjurations, I'd be training it fairly consistently for IMB anyhow. I wouldn't generally stop training Conj till I was wrecking everything (~12-15) or found some elemental spell I wanted to focus on. (Maybe a cloud or bolt). Or Haste of course; a fifty percent buff to everything is a fifty percent buff to everything.

You can treat it like a buff, and it isn't long after it's castable that it will last longer than the time for 4 mana to regen if you're not shooting at stuff. On the other hand, it only lasts ~10 shots in any case. But that's enough to take down 4-5 ogres with 10 more mana (in darts). 4-5 ogres for 14 mana, using a max lvl 4 spell is a good deal no matter how you look at it. And actually comes out about neutral if you have Veh mana return.

It makes Magic dart roughly 2-5 times more effective, and IMB about 50% more effective against most targets. Against dodgy things like bees, It's more than 50% because the IMF never misses.

[galehar]

By the way, Arcane Familiar fades away really quickly if the character don't have much charm skill.

It has a limited number of charges
charges: min(20, 4 + random2(pow + 10) / 10)
duration: min(50, 7 + 2d(pow)) (same as most brand spells)

[Baldu]

I have to agree with everyone that this new book is pretty fun but woaaahh IMB in a starting book is really strong.

[nordetsa]

Trained charms up to 8 and I have to say IMF is good when you have to nuke someone really fast (like orc warriors or uniques).

Though sometimes i have to waste a turn so that the familiar don't stay right in front of me or behind me.

Anyway, can someone tell me if I can push enemies to water and drown them with force lance?

[BlackSheep]

You can fire through your familiar, but it can't fire through you. You can't knock back enemies into deep water nor lava.

[Bim]

Love playing through with a cj, it feels great to have a purely non-elemental caster. Furthermore, it feels great to be able to able to blast things in an 'intelligent way' with dazzle and lance I feel as though I've got some 'utility' spells as well as just pure damage. Also, I wouldn't say it's overpowered either - It's a possibly more straight forward play style than others (with greater flexibility in the starting book), but I think it's great to have a class like that.

[jejorda2]

I still don't quite understand the targetting of dazzling spray. Is it a beam like bolt of fire that can only hit three? Does it hit enemies beside the primary target like fireball or mephitic cloud?

The targetting beam display doesn't put a pattern like fireball or mystic blast does to show the possibly area of effect. I don't think I've succeeded in blinding more than one target in a single cast, but the description makes me think I should be able to.

[crate]

Spray will not target an enemy that is standing behind another enemy. It is kind of like a shotgun, you get a wide spray in front (targets up to three enemies) but the projectiles stop when they hit something.

[nicolae]

You pick a main target, and then if there are enemies within a small arc of the original beam, it'll throw one or two more beams at them too.

[byrel]

I just noticed that Tonado massacres arcane familiars. I'm assuming this is because they're intended to be destroyable by monster to prevent them from being an effective tank (Not that it's likely to come up; if you're using tornado, IMF is decidedly outclassed.)

Is this intentional? I had assumed, prior to testing, that they would be similar to IOOD and CBL and be largely unscathed. But perhaps arcane familiars aren't made of the same conjured 'stuff' as orbs of destruction or something.

[njvack]

Unless something has changed, Tornado an IOOD aren't exactly friends either.

Anyhow, orbs just have like a thousand HP, I think. They don't get special immunity to attacks.

[Jeremiah]

A slightly different issue to the new book itself: has the change to this book made the spells that were previously in it harder to find for everyone else, now they are no longer in a common starting book? (Most notably Freezing Cloud and Bolt of Cold.) I'm pretty sure it got a lot harder to find Bolt of Fire when the fire/earth conjuration book was removed, so I'm guessing something similar will happen here.

[jejorda2]

If the Book of Wizardry drops Lightning Bolt and adds Bolt of Cold, then Bolt of Cold, Freezing Cloud, Lightning Bolt, Bolt of Fire, and Venom Bolt will be in two books each, right? Bolt of Draining is still rare, since it is only in the Book of Death. The Book of Wizardry is probably already one of the best books, though, so this might make it a little too good.

[Psieye]

With the new Veh, anyone (except Demigods I guess) who really needs those spells won't have to care how many different books they're in.

[BlackSheep]

It is a good point. I don't have the time right this moment, but some attention should be paid to the number of books containing the old Cj spells.

[Kate]

Most of them were already in lots of books, and it's not a problem for Bolt of Cold to be rare (I certainly wouldn't add it to a book as common as Wizardry).

[roctavian]

Force Lance's limitations don't seem to work well for what I think its intended purposes are -- by the point I can reliably knock melee threats away, I generally want to spend the MP casting IMB or something else. Even if I end up in an unlucky D:2 or D:3 ogre-around-the-corner situation, dazzling spray seems like a more reliable get out of trouble button. I'm not sure what to suggest, because everything sounds reasonable about the spell, but other spells are more attractive in most given situations.

Dazzling Spray, Arcane Familar, and Fulminant Prism are all loads of fun. Should Dazzling Spray have a blinding effect on Js, though?

[Psieye]

Force Lance on its own can feel a little obsolete for a Cj start, but I could see it put to good use with e.g. Inner Flame. It's something for other classes to make use of, especially with new Veh letting you have it without anything else from the Conj book.

[Bim]

Agreed, after a few plays through I would personally like to see force lance have a slightly improved chance of knocking things back earlier on, as (just like roctavian said) by the time I can reliably knock stuff back I would prefer to use the MP on something else and I probably wouldn't risk it when I'd no doubt have better ways to hinder enemies (even a F.prism can more reliably work to get that one space for leaping up the stairs)

Perhaps it could have damage nerfed a bit more? I'm not sure what the answer is, because (as roctavian said) it's a great spell and I'd hate to see it removed, I just think it could do with becoming slightly more useful.

Edit: maybe to make it more useful later on it could throw enemies back even further than it does now? or possibly push a group back?

[ebarrett]

Does force lance knockback consider monster size/weight and spellpower?

[Kate]

Does force lance knockback consider monster size/weight and spellpower?

It has to deal damage in order to cause knockback, and larger monsters are harder to affect, yeah.

[galehar]

I could see it put to good use with e.g. Inner Flame.

Good idea. Although, the damage occurs before the knockback, so you can't push a monster away from and explode it with a single force lance.

[mumra]

I guess the problem is that larger monsters are the ones you really want to knock back and get out of melee range. Certainly in my games, the times when I actually needed it it didn't work; this led to me thinking it was somewhat unreliable and generally using other options any time I was in real danger.

Maybe it should be more reliable at knockback against larger monsters, even with little or no damage, the justification being "large monsters are a bigger target therefore easier to strike with a lance".

[Galefury]

It already works that way. Larger monsters generally are much easier to hit, and force lance has low enough accuracy for this to be relevant. But they're also heavy, so when you hit they are hard to push back.

[Psieye]

I could see it put to good use with e.g. Inner Flame.

Good idea. Although, the damage occurs before the knockback, so you can't push a monster away from and explode it with a single force lance.

Aye, but the intention wasn't to kill the Inner Flame'd monster, it was to push them into a better position to catch more mobs in the blast afterwards (which you'd "trigger" with a bigger spell). The other use case would be putting space between you so you can put up conjure flame or a meph cloud. Ok sure, this isn't reliable on big sized things, but there are plenty of medium sized threats you don't want near you in the earlygame - e.g. Orc Warrior in Plate Armour.

[ebarrett]

If you really want to use inner flame just play SpFE instead of coming up with yet another wacky Rube Goldberg plan that will never work.