Early spell variety

[TeshiAlair]

This proposal is going to be obnoxious from a balance perspective and a design perspective. It would take a lot of work. Just a warning.

So, in the race that removes school opposition penalties discussion, it was brought up that it is very easy to memorize low level spells of "enemy" schools. Additionally, many of the low level spells are utility based, and thus consistently useful for basically any spellcaster.

Proposal:
1. Spellcasters start out with their level 1 spell memorized and are guaranteed to find their starting spellbook between levels 2-3 (to discourage startscumming).
2. Their starting book is randomized with low level spells of their school, aka we need to make more low level spells.
3. Make training one element act as anti-wizardry for the other element based on the different in levels, but remove the leveling speed penalty.

[Igxfl]

The problem isn't that it's too easy to pick up low-level spells of enemy schools. It's too easy to pick up low-level spells of *any* school. Find a book of Spatial Transocations on Lair:5? It's not unlikely that you can already cast Blink at 10% fail. Pick up a book of Air? With a tiny bit of XP in Charms (which you're probably going to train anyway), you can spam Swiftness and Repel Missiles even with anti-wizardry going.

I don't think we should even have certain spell schools locking each other out, since it restricts characters in arbitrary ways. What we need, though, is to make the good low-level spells not no-brainers to learn. The game is designed around spending a limited supply of XP to expand a character's abilities, but a lot of these spells cost basically nothing to get online.

[Lasty]

The cure sounds worse than the disease.

First, I don't think anyone has yet committed to a no-opposition-penalty race, and so making this level of change to accommodate it seems like a bad idea. Second, it's already the case that most races can easily pick up low-level utility spells from opposing elements, particularly since most share a school you want to train anyway (Charms, Conjurations, etc.). Third, even with all of that aside, this seems like a fairly radical, involved proposal that doesn't actually make any positive difference. Anti-wizardry? Why is this better than the current situation?

[TeshiAlair]

@Igxfl

Are you suggesting less spell ranks in general perhaps? Or maybe just boosting the level of low level spells? And the enemy school suggestion was just to make a more noticeable system than the aptitude one.

@Lasty
This is actually to avoid the no-opposition race because I think that's a silly idea for a race (sorry )
Second, yes, I want to avoid most races picking up low-level utility spells.
Third, the positive difference is spell variety- making it so that you DONT have guaranteed blink, swiftness, etc in a game, or at least not in early game. There are too many no brainer spells, and its too easy to get a massive toolchest of utility very early and never have to adapt your play, making it so most mages have the same kit every game by the time they hit Lair, with the only difference being which blasty spell they use to killguys.

[rebthor]

Well, you could always get rid of the charms or conjurations aspect on several of these spells. Swiftness as air only will make it marginally harder to cast and make your EE at least slightly think about training air instead of just training charms (since you'll want that anyway).

[reaver]

This proposal is going to be obnoxious from a balance perspective and a design perspective. It would take a lot of work. Just a warning.

Well then why did you propose it?

2. Their starting book is randomized with low level spells of their school, aka we need to make more low level spells.

The best way to do this would be to give a random book at game start but lock the spells behind a "This text is beyond your current level of understanding." wall.

It's too easy to pick up low-level spells of *any* school. Find a book of Spatial Transocations on Lair:5? It's not unlikely that you can already cast Blink at 10% fail....What we need, though, is to make the good low-level spells not no-brainers to learn. The game is designed around spending a limited supply of XP to expand a character's abilities, but a lot of these spells cost basically nothing to get online.

+1 Basically whenever I get access to Blink on a light armor character I immediately memorize it.

Anti-wizardry? Why is this better than the current situation?

I think anti wizardry actively worse than the current situation. I also think anti-training should just be removed.

Third, the positive difference is spell variety- making it so that you DONT have guaranteed blink, swiftness, etc in a game, or at least not in early game. There are too many no brainer spells, and its too easy to get a massive tool chest of utility very early and never have to adapt your play, making it so most mages have the same kit every game by the time they hit Lair, with the only difference being which blasty spell they use to killguys.

What? Mages are still totally differentiated by the time they hit the Lair. It's extremely rare to get both, for example, Blink and Swiftness by this time. Spellcasters do diverge a bit from their class template due to drops, but that isn't a bad thing. The "everybody learns utility spells" thing is more a problem in late-game/extended because you have more XP/books. Not learning Haste in Extended is almost a challenge build.

[TeshiAlair]

Right, but feels very gameplay balance > design, and that's a little weird to me. What I'd really like is lower level spells be more situational. Swiftness is a no-brainer early game, but something like

Burst of Speed- Makes a loud clap, but lets you run blink one square and run fast for 25% the time of swiftness.

would still be useful, just more situational.

[TeshiAlair]

Also, I proposed it because I think it would improve the game :p

My issue is directly mages all being the same (which I agree is less of a problem pre-Lair and more noticeable post) but that IF you find an early blink or an early swiftness, you WILL learn it. Same for Meph cloud, conjure flame, stone arrow (as a fire or ice mage), repel missiles, etc

[crate]

i learn blink but basically never cast it because in a large majority of situations casting blink is worse than not casting blink, i'm not really sure that this is undesirable
i never learn meph, conjure flame, stone arrow outside of the backgrounds that start with them
charms are badly designed in crawl yes

anyway i'm pretty sure that my "mages" are no less diverse than my "melee characters" at lair

[khalil]

Personally, I think this is a bad idea. Here is why:
While randomness is the defining feature of roguelikes, the defining feature of crawl is that there are no cheap deaths. When you die, it is your fault.
The exception is the first few levels, where a jackal pack can kill you before you even leave the entrance vault.
Adding more randomness to the early game is a bad idea, as it adds more opportunities for characters to die for no reason other than the RNG deciding to screw them over.

[TeshiAlair]

I don't think tweaking some of the many very useful early spells and giving more variety and more tactical decision making will result in an increase of cheap deaths. In my example for instance, Burst of Speed is almost definitely worse than Swiftness, but more reliable than Blink, but isn't unreasonably different in terms of power.

The issue is, pre-lair, you'll be drawing on primarily spells in your default book, barring some early good Sif Muna gifts or Vehumet giving you something useful not in your starting book, and thus your spell library and strategy will be very same-y. Post-lair, you'll generally be able to pick up all the universally good spells. I find this remarkably stagnant, but I'm feeling like I'm wildly in the minority here, if not entirely alone.

I feel like melee is becoming more diverse than magic, with weapons getting differentiation, evocations being a more valid secondary means of attack, etc. At least it feels like there is some progress there.

[rosstin]

I feel like melee is becoming more diverse than magic, with weapons getting differentiation, evocations being a more valid secondary means of attack, etc. At least it feels like there is some progress there.

Despite the improvements to melee and some pretty essential initial spells, magic is pretty darn diverse. Just look at all the different mage classes you can start as.

I do think it would be interesting if we had more possible spell paths... the best thing to do would be to brainstorm as many cool new spells as possible.

[TeshiAlair]

@minmay

Same here, and I do really like playing hybrids. But even so- I want more magic diversity. I want to increase tactical use of spells by making them more situational instead of them being no brainers. I don't think those two goals are horrible.

[DracheReborn]

I feel like melee is becoming more diverse than magic, with weapons getting differentiation, evocations being a more valid secondary means of attack, etc. At least it feels like there is some progress there.

Despite the improvements to melee and some pretty essential initial spells, magic is pretty darn diverse. Just look at all the different mage classes you can start as.

I agree. Starting with a different spellbook leads to many different playstyles. Starting with a different weapon (despite the new effects) still plays mostly the same.

If anything, I think it's the melee backgrounds that need more diversity.

[Galefury]

I think crawl has more than enough diversity as is. Too much diversity. More stuff should not be added to crawl, unless it's really really awesome.