Proposed Acid Spell School

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

Proposed Acid Spell School

Spells of this school use the acid damage type and have a chance of damaging enemy monster's equipment. In addition, these spells could also damage the walls and floor of the dungeon and acidify water. An additional affect of acid could cause monsters to fumble their attack because of dyspepsia.

Pros:

This could be beneficial because the additional affect of corrosion can further weaken the monster.
Acid is irresistible by most monsters.
It could also be used to slowly burn through walls.
It could also be used to make shafts.
Turn water into acid.
It could cause some monsters to fumble their attack.

Cons:

It could be tedious to use because you might be afraid of damaging desirable armor and weapons that will become your after the battle.
You might not be able to eat corpses damaged by acid.
You might not want to alter the dungeon.
Acid spell miscasts could damage your equipment.

What makes it distinctive from other schools that do irresistible damage?

It can make shafts.
It damages equipment.
The dyspepsia affect would not checked by magic resistance.
It can hit monsters submerged in water.

How powerful should the spells be relative to the other schools?

Acid should do around 90% of unresisted fire damage. Remember that most monsters will have no resistance.


Responses to criticism:

1. Damaging monster equipment won't really have much of an impact on the game.

Response: You are still doing damage. The other effects could be fun flavor-wise and strategy wise.

2. It would be tedious to use.

Response: For some characters it would be. For others it wouldn't matter much. Also, some people like to micromanage.

3. Conjurations and Earth already have irresistible damage.

Response: I'm not sure if this is big obstacle as long as the flavor was distinctive enough.

4. If corpses are destroyed, what would I eat?

For many species an acid elementalist would not be a good idea. But, adding acid spells to your repertoire might enhance your gaming experience.

Xv





















Original Post

Acid

Level 2 (Acid)-Heartburn (target takes small amount of acid damage, chance to fumble attack)

Level 3 –(Acid) -Water to Acid (flood a puddle or pool of water to acid for a short duration of time)

Level 4 –(Acid/Air) Air to Acid (creates a cloud of acid that damages all within cloud and also damages equipment)

Level 5 –(Acid/Transmutation) Blood to Acid (resist acid attacks and chance to splash attacker with acid blood and if enough acid is spilled a chance to fall through the floor to the next level)

Level 6 –(Acid/Earth) Earth to Acid (causes walls to become acidic so any creatures close to walls will take damage)

Level 8–Acid/Fire/Air) Acid Fire Rain (causes a rain of flammable acid causing both fire and acid damage and leaves acid puddles)

Xv

[nicolae]

Lots of people have proposed acid spells in the past, usually either folding them into Poison or sometimes as an alchemy-flavored Transmutation. I don't think there's any particular devteam interest in adding acidic spells, though, and certainly not a whole school devoted to them.

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

Lots of people have proposed acid spells in the past, usually either folding them into Poison or sometimes as an alchemy-flavored Transmutation. I don't think there's any particular devteam interest in adding acidic spells, though, and certainly not a whole school devoted to them.

Thanks for the response.

I wonder if the reason is because the spells proposed were basically the same as spells in use substituting the word "fire" or "ice" for acid. I think acid could have its place if the spells had enough of a distinct flavor. It would be fun to melt the armor off an Orc Warrior.

Xv

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

No, the spells are a little more subtle than that if you had the patience to actually read! Fat chance of that I suppose.

The first one's main effect is to distract the enemy into fumbling an attack. Burping up acid is distracting.

The second one has limited applications and could add interesting strategy.

The third one also tries to melt down armor and weapons.

The fourth is inspired from the aliens in the movie Aliens. It splashes and COULD provide you with an escape hatch if your not already dead from losing your blood.


Finally, from reading over many of the threads, I should say that many of the regular posters on this forum are very unwelcoming to brainstorming ideas. I am sure that I am not the first to find this discouraging.

Xv

[nicolae]

Finally, from reading over many of the threads, I should say that many of the regular posters on this forum are very unwelcoming to brainstorming ideas. I am sure that I am not the first to find this discouraging.

Conversely, many of the brainstormers on this forum are very unwelcoming to criticism and commentary. If you have an idea that's unpopular, ask why it's unpopular, and keep that in mind for your next suggestion. Frankly, the suggestion threads here in GDD are mostly good only for learning what sorts of things to keep in mind when suggesting a game feature; it's extremely unlikely that even the good suggestions will get implemented any time soon. (Figuring out what that information is good for if good suggestions rarely get implemented anyway is left as an exercise to the reader.)

[byrel]

Suggestion: instead of berating someone who potentially misunderstood your OP, explaining it calmly might be less likely to discourage similar critiques.

Also, it isn't clear from your description how much a 'small amount' of damage is. Throw numbers in, and then it will become much more clear. Even simply max spellpower damage might help to convey your idea. Like:

Figures are rough, intending to give a feel for how much a given spell is utility, and how much damage. (It kind of makes sense that almost any spell using acid may cause a little damage, even if that's not the primary intent.)
Figures are at max spell power. Exactly how much power that is matters, but for the moment assume fairly average values for their levels: 50, 100, 100, 100, 200, 200 for levels 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 respectively.

  Code:

Level 2 (Acid): Heartburn: Target takes 1d12 damage (unresisted by AC, must be natural), and has a Freeze-like effect of making the monster 'skip' auts. Approximately the same power of slowing as freeze. Range of three.
Level 3 (Acid): Water to Acid: Acidifies up to a 3x3 square of an existing pool of water for 4+1d12 turns. (Mephitic-style fill) Monsters stepping into or submerged in the acidified water take 2+2d12 damage per turn. Same monster behavior as for cloud spells.
Level 4 (Acid/Air): Acid Cloud: Makes a 3x3 cloud of acid, Mephitic style fill. Similar to Freezing cloud in effect, but less damage (2+2d7), weaker fill, and a chance to corrode all equipment of monsters in it, equivalent to a jelly attack.
Level 5 (Acid/Transmutation): Blood to Acid: Causes the caster to resist acid for 20+1d100 (more) turns. While resisting acid, caster has a weak passive acid attack on monster, and has a chance to be involuntarily shafted, increasing as damage is dealt, up to 50% at ~200HP. The chance would, of course, be lower at lower spell power.
Level 6 (Acid/Fire/Air): Acid Fire Rain: Makes nine squares of "Acid Fire" clouds,  using freezing cloud fill, duration. Has a small chance per turn to leave acid puddles (equivalent to permanently acidified puddles from Water to Acid) and corrodes equipment like Acid Cloud. Damage is 6+3d12/3 Fire, with 40% irresistible except with Acid resist.


That gives people a starting point to understand that (for instance) heartburn is very like freeze, but level 2 so ranged; and ranged, so significantly less damage.

So, on to my complaints :
Heartburn is cool. Nothing I'd head for, and not unique, but I wouldn't mind using it.

Water to Acid would Rule in the swamp/shoals, and be handy against electric eels. It would only be particularly useful in the main dungeon for Fedhas worshippers, and would probably be OP there. It might render shoals/swamp trivial; that doesn't absolutely rule it out, but it does mean it needs to be about as hard to cast as ignite poison...

Acid Cloud is too powerful for level four. And if you weaken it, it will become useless. The problem is it's level is too low for an effective crowd control spell. (Also should probably have conjurations in there.) Bump it to 5, as a weaker version of freezing/ poisonous cloud.

Blood to Acid is, indeed, primarily a buff. It would be decent against popcorn, but won't touch main threats. I kind of like all of it but the shafting, which might serve as a decent disadvantage to using it. Though flight would obviate it.

Acid Fire Rain has weird flavor. I don't like the flavor. And Freezing cloud is already borderline OP, so this should probably be bumped to 7-8, and given back freezing cloud's damage.

[byrel]

The mephitic cloud style fill, and does 2+2d7 instead of 6+3d16/3 damage, for an average of 10 instead of 14.5 damage. Which are both my (somewhat blind) interpolations on the OP.

Edit: I should point out I was referring to my more detailed description, rather than to the OP; what exactly he wanted isn't clear, but I tried to realize into vaguely balanced, somewhat unique mechanics.

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

Finally, from reading over many of the threads, I should say that many of the regular posters on this forum are very unwelcoming to brainstorming ideas. I am sure that I am not the first to find this discouraging.

Conversely, many of the brainstormers on this forum are very unwelcoming to criticism and commentary.

Sure, but the people trying to come up with ideas is the one taking the risk. Nobody likes it when someone kills their "babies." It makes sense that they will try to defend their ideas. People ATTEMPTING to be creative should be encouraged. Obviously, in a game as developed as crawl 95% of new ideas are probably bad. Therefore, the more ideas presented the better.

Xv

[KoboldLord]

Acid spells are appealing to the player because nearly nothing in the game resists them. The acid elementalist build could just spam the same spells over and over again, and be reasonably confident that they would work to full effect against every significant enemy threat. The tiny handful of jellies that spawn in the main parts of the game could be brought down with wands or whatever else came to mind, but other than that, just pump acid magic for all the raw power you need.

However, the reason nearly nothing in the game resists acid is precisely because it is nearly impossible for the player to get acid damage. Probably many monsters deserve acid resistance, but why give a monster acid resistance if it can't come up? Adding in a line of acid spells would involve combing through every monster in the game and deciding if it should get rCorr, and if so, how much. That would be a total pain in the butt for the developer who got stuck with the task, and it wouldn't be creatively satisfying or intellectually stimulating for them either. And in the end, the acid elementalist the game would end up with would have the same trouble with resistant enemies that every other elementalist has. The players who didn't want to have to worry about monster resistances would end up with just another line of spells that don't do what they really want.

[byrel]

Sure, but the people trying to come up with ideas is the one taking the risk. Nobody likes it when someone kills their "babies." It makes sense that they will try to defend their ideas. People ATTEMPTING to be creative should be encouraged. Obviously, in a game as developed as crawl 95% of new ideas are probably bad. Therefore, the more ideas presented the better.

Well, there is the point that those same 'babies' getting killed is what makes you and I better at understanding what makes a good idea. While it is good to get more ideas, it's also good to get better at making ideas. There's a balance that must be struck (for optimal idea generation) between coddling bad ideas, and harshly criticizing fresh creative effort.

And really, some people take things much more personally than others. For instance, look at the recent threads started by bountyhunterSAX in this forum. He isn't mild, but he doesn't promptly defend his ideas against criticism. He answers the criticism and learns from it. That's a healthy approach, particularly for the non-coder creative folks out there.

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

[b]Suggestion: instead of berating someone who potentially misunderstood your OP, explaining it calmly might be less likely to discourage similar critiques.

So, on to my complaints :
Heartburn is cool. Nothing I'd head for, and not unique, but I wouldn't mind using it.

Water to Acid would Rule in the swamp/shoals, and be handy against electric eels. It would only be particularly useful in the main dungeon for Fedhas worshippers, and would probably be OP there. It might render shoals/swamp trivial; that doesn't absolutely rule it out, but it does mean it needs to be about as hard to cast as ignite poison...

[b]Acid Cloud is too powerful for level four. And if you weaken it, it will become useless. The problem is it's level is too low for an effective crowd control spell. (Also should probably have conjurations in there.) Bump it to 5, as a weaker version of freezing/ poisonous cloud.

Blood to Acid is, indeed, primarily a buff. It would be decent against popcorn, but won't touch main threats. I kind of like all of it but the shafting, which might serve as a decent disadvantage to using it. Though flight would obviate it.

Acid Fire Rain has weird flavor. I don't like the flavor. And Freezing cloud is already borderline OP, so this should probably be bumped to 7-8, and given back freezing cloud's damage.

Thank you for spending the time to respectfully criticize my ideas. I will try next time to be more patient with the responses from other posters. But, I'm not taking any poop either.

I agree that acid cloud is too powerful for level 4. I was thinking that could be used as a spell to cause some damage, and corrode armor and weapons. It will greatly weapons enemies that depend on their equipment. Could be fun.

For Blood to Acid, the shafting could be avoided by moving to another tile. I was thinking that it could be used as a somewhat reliable way to escape a tough enemy. If you get wacked hard enough and your still alive you could possibly escape the encounter as your acid like blood eats through the floor and dumps you the next level.

Acid Fire Rain is probably not a good idea. It might be better as a massive napalm spell that splashes a large area and covers everything with a sticky corrosive acid. It could be like an exploding sticky flame over a large area.

Xv

[nicolae]

I was thinking that could be used as a spell to cause some damage, and corrode armor and weapons. It will greatly weapons enemies that depend on their equipment.

How many times will this come up, though? It'd help clear out orc packs, I suppose, but a lot of the major threats in the course of a game are spells, not equipment.

If you get wacked hard enough and your still alive you could possibly escape the encounter as your acid like blood eats through the floor and dumps you the next level.

Getting dumped to the next level is risky, though. Why would I use a spell that would dump me into what is likely unknown territory with more difficult monsters after taking damage?

Acid Fire Rain is probably not a good idea. It might be better as a massive napalm spell that splashes a large area and covers everything with a sticky corrosive acid. It could be like an exploding sticky flame over a large area.

There's a reason sticky flame got nerfed down to a range of 1 several versions ago -- making an area of effect sticky flame would go in the complete opposite direction.

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

Acid spells are appealing to the player because nearly nothing in the game resists them. The acid elementalist build could just spam the same spells over and over again, and be reasonably confident that they would work to full effect against every significant enemy threat.

However, the reason nearly nothing in the game resists acid is precisely because it is nearly impossible for the player to get acid damage. Probably many monsters deserve acid resistance, but why give a monster acid resistance if it can't come up? Adding in a line of acid spells would involve combing through every monster in the game and deciding if it should get rCorr, and if so, how much. That would be a total pain in the butt for the developer who got stuck with the task, and it wouldn't be creatively satisfying or intellectually stimulating for them either. And in the end, the acid elementalist the game would end up with would have the same trouble with resistant enemies that every other elementalist has. The players who didn't want to have to worry about monster resistances would end up with just another line of spells that don't do what they really want.

Great points.

However, It might not be necessary to go to all of this effort if the effect of acid was balanced properly. I am not looking at the acid school being played like a fire or ice elementalist, I am hoping for more subtle effects. Instead of a blaster, it could target the weapons and armor of the opponent and do less damage than fire and ice in terms of hit points. An acid elementalist creating a pool of acid to block a corridor that could be avoided by flying monsters. An acid arrow would be unresistable by most enemies, but could do less damage.

Just trying to brainstorm ideas. Thanks for the input.

Xv

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

I was thinking that could be used as a spell to cause some damage, and corrode armor and weapons. It will greatly weapons enemies that depend on their equipment.

How many times will this come up, though? It'd help clear out orc packs, I suppose, but a lot of the major threats in the course of a game are spells, not equipment.

If you get wacked hard enough and your still alive you could possibly escape the encounter as your acid like blood eats through the floor and dumps you the next level.

Getting dumped to the next level is risky, though. Why would I use a spell that would dump me into what is likely unknown territory with more difficult monsters after taking damage?

Acid Fire Rain is probably not a good idea. It might be better as a massive napalm spell that splashes a large area and covers everything with a sticky corrosive acid. It could be like an exploding sticky flame over a large area.

There's a reason sticky flame got nerfed down to a range of 1 several versions ago -- making an area of effect sticky flame would go in the complete opposite direction.

Regarding the acid cloud, a lot of enemies use equipment. If it was high powered enough it could also affect magical equipment that are usually unaffected by acid. Maybe it could eat enemy wands too. It would have to be balanced carefully.

If you don't want to get dumped you could move to the next tile so the acid doesn't build up too much.

I was trying to come up with an 8th or 9th level spell-the acid version of firestorm. It should be weaker than icestorm and firestorm, but it should still kick ass.

Xv

[nicolae]

Regarding the acid cloud, a lot of enemies use equipment. If it was high powered enough it could also affect magical equipment that are usually unaffected by acid. Maybe it could eat enemy wands too. It would have to be balanced carefully.

I've thought about spells and effects that affect enemy equipment before too, but in the end it doesn't really seem that useful. If you come across a monster wielding a sword and casting iron shot or hellfire, which are you going to worry about? Corrosion doesn't affect brands, you'd still have to deal with harmful effects like distortion or curare needles. It seems silly to make a set of spells whose gimmick is destroying enemy equipment, when there are a great deal of threats that aren't equipment based.

(Also, adding "it will have to be balanced just right" to the end of a proposal is usually interpreted as "I have ideas but want someone else to do the hard work of actually implementing them".)

[byrel]

Perhaps a suppression field effect could be used in some spell to somewhat accomplish this 'item nerfification' idea.

I'm thinking some sort of Conjuration/Hexes, single-target spell (maybe lvl4-5) that would put a suppression field on the critter you hit. Resisted with MR probably. It could be used to drastically nerf some uniques, which might be a bad idea. Or maybe not; I mean, confuse would nerf them even more I suspect.

[nicolae]

Perhaps a suppression field effect could be used in some spell to somewhat accomplish this 'item nerfification' idea.

I'm thinking some sort of Conjuration/Hexes, single-target spell (maybe lvl4-5) that would put a suppression field on the critter you hit. Resisted with MR probably. It could be used to drastically nerf some uniques, which might be a bad idea. Or maybe not; I mean, confuse would nerf them even more I suspect.

I feel like item negation, if it's used at all, would see most use in the early game, when you really have to worry about Ijyb blasting your face off with a wand or what kind of polearm that gnoll is poking at you. The effect might be more interesting if the weapon was destroyed, since the early game is also when you're most likely to want the wand or the armour or the weapon you're thinking of vaporizing, so you'd have a choice between the kobold not poking you with a short blade of venom and getting that short blade of venom for yourself. Tloc/Hex, "Banish Item" or something. Again, though, is that kind of effect worth the effort?

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

Regarding the acid cloud, a lot of enemies use equipment. If it was high powered enough it could also affect magical equipment that are usually unaffected by acid. Maybe it could eat enemy wands too. It would have to be balanced carefully.

I've thought about spells and effects that affect enemy equipment before too, but in the end it doesn't really seem that useful. If you come across a monster wielding a sword and casting iron shot or hellfire, which are you going to worry about? Corrosion doesn't affect brands, you'd still have to deal with harmful effects like distortion or curare needles. It seems silly to make a set of spells whose gimmick is destroying enemy equipment, when there are a great deal of threats that aren't equipment based.

(Also, adding "it will have to be balanced just right" to the end of a proposal is usually interpreted as "I have ideas but want someone else to do the hard work of actually implementing them".)

Thanks for the interest in the topic and the constructive criticism.

Acid spells will also do unresistable damage to almost all creatures. If acid spells were made to be 66% as powerful as fire magic in addition to the corroding affect now we might be on to something. Some of these spells could also have a chance of corroding walls and the dungeon floor for some other interesting randomness.

Your second comment is premature. If people like the idea of an acid school, I would be more than happy to write a comprehensive proposal. I was just throwing out the idea to get people's input. Asking for input shouldn't be discouraged. I have no idea why you think it's a sign of lazy thinking.

Xv

[XuaXua]

One perk with a counter penalty with acid spells would be to cause more damage that is less resistable, but leave little chance of anything behind, drop wise (equipment, or even a corpse; and forget even thinking about a hide).

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

One perk with a counter penalty with acid spells would be to cause more damage that is less resistable, but leave little chance of anything behind, drop wise (equipment, or even a corpse; and forget even thinking about a hide).

Fantastic idea. Acid spells could have more irresistible damage than conjurations or earth, but leave no corpse and a bunch of damaged equipment (unless the equipment was artifact).

Xv

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

Even for enemies that do use equipment, corroding it wouldn't help unless you corroded it a lot. Reducing an opponent's AC by 1 or their average damage by 0.5 does not make an appreciable difference, and it's plain impossible to corrode something to below -5 (and very difficult to corrode something to below -4).
Have you ever played a yellow draconian? Their breath corrodes enemy equipment, and if I recall correctly doesn't have a cooldown like other breath weapons. It is also worthless and sucks. Corrosion spells wouldn't be any different...unless you completely change the entire corrosion mechanic, which is an awfully big change in the game just to justify adding one spell effect.
It also leads to a very tedious and undesirable practice: if you're using acid to kill things, you have to examine every single trivial orc to make sure it isn't wearing something you want, since you don't want to corrode your own equipment.

Now, destroying or de-equipping enemy equipment would be useful very often, but that's not associated with corrosion, and already exists with polymorph.

Acid spells will also do unresistable damage to almost all creatures.

Unresistible (this is actually the correct spelling) damage is already earth magic's thing, as well as pure conjurations.

If acid spells did enough damage, the corrosion gimmick might make it a useful alternative. Also, branded and artifacts won't be affected by the acid. So, it will only be tedious to use in the early-mid game.

In addition, I'm glad I can count on you for spelling and grammar.

Xv

[jejorda2]

Brand has no effect whatsoever on corrosion.

A (0,-5) corroded whip of electrocution or distortion is nearly as dangerous as a (0,5) enchanted whip of electrocution or distortion.
A (0,-5) corroded whip of flame is much less dangerous than a (0,5) enchanted whip of flame.

Whips of flame, electrocution, and distortion all have the same per-hit chance of being corroded, but the stronger brands will kill the corroder in fewer hits and therefore have fewer chances to get corroded.

[crate]

For monsters it's actually not really true that a -5 whip of flame is noticeably less dangerous than a +5 one because of the way monster damage works (except on like d:2).

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

Please check OP.

Xv

[mumra]

I find some of these ideas really interesting; here are my thoughts:

Firstly, I don't think know if there can be enough mileage in a single effect to justify an entire spell school - even if all your ideas were implemented. Poison already suffers from this problem. This is why I favour the idea of broadening Poison by adding some acid spells. Obligatory wiki link to previous discussion on this matter: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:magic:schools:alchemy (somewhere on there I'm sure there were some more acid spell proposals but I'll be damned if I can find them right now ... maybe they got lost in wiki reshuffling?)

Since you mentioned Alien it reminding me of this race proposal: https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5739 (but it wasn't all that interesting)

What I think could be an interesting drawback of acid spells is danger of self-damage and corrosion. Of course you will be doing more damage to others than yourself, but this would mean you don't want to use these spells in all situations, at least not until later in the game when you have a lot of artifact gear, rCorr, etc. This would make it particularly powerful for Jiyva worshippers and yellow dracs, which would be thematic but possibly overpowered. It'd give Ashenzarites a particularly hard time. I'm not suggesting that your stuff should be constantly getting destroyed, but it's an occasional risk.

Corroding enemy gear might not have much effect most of the time (although could be useful earlier on) but it has flavour, and if you're needing to swap gear more regularly due to self-corrosion then it's definitely relevant.

Regarding specific spells:

Blood to Acid is a nice idea. I think it could cause slow self-damage whilst in effect (a few HP per turn) or maybe some damage when first cast. Blood splatters generated while it's active could be acidic so it makes the terrain around you more hazardous. Creating shafts sounds fun but I think this would be highly abusable e.g. in Hells but in general for branch diving.

Acid walls and acid water are actually quite similar. Water is probably too niche a terrain anyway for this spell to really be worth learning.

Air to acid is of course "yet another cloud spell" so I would drop this. Acid Fire Rain should probably just be Acid Rain which is a nice environmental reference. I like the idea of it as an area spell that would work like this: each turn a small number of tiles are picked at random in the targetted and the rain hits there, causing damage. So over a few turns a lot of the squares will gt hit but probably not all. This is a slightly different firing pattern to other area spells. I'm not sure about it leaving puddles, maybe just a small number (e.g. if a particular square gets hit > 3 times by the rain).

[byrel]

The problem with these, really, is that crawl already has too homogenous a spell experience. (Yeah, it's better than any other game I've played. But 4 practically identical bolts?) Any new spells should be quite distinct from a purely mechanical perspective. All the corrosion really does (for most of these spells) is add flavor. Flavor differentiation isn't really enough. (And really, unique mechanics are much harder to invent than unique flavor. I know this is asking a lot.)

Here's one distinct idea. I think it's not very good, but it's got the sort of uniqueness I'd like to see new spells have.

Level 3 (Poison/Summoning) Summon Acid Gel

  Code:

Creates a slow moving (speed 5), fairly tough "Gel": a monster with no active attack, duration level 2. It always moves towards the nearest pool of water (downhill, so to speak). When it reaches water it moves randomly (confusedly) on the surface. Can flow through any monster, including the player. Time spent on the same square as a Gel would do significant (Conjure Flame level) acid damage (with associated corrosion). Weak monsters may flee before it, but strong ones will simply press forward.

Some uses for this are fine: it would tend to keep monsters submerged for instance. But the real problem is it would incentivize maneuvering monsters to be 'downhill' from you, which is a non-obvious metric, and tedious. It might be easier if it was always placed in on the most downhill square next to the caster, and showed that on the targetting screen. But it still isn't very good; it would take a lot of work to make it a decent spell.

But hopefully it illustrates what I mean by unique mechanics.

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

I find some of these ideas really interesting; here are my thoughts:

Firstly, I don't think know if there can be enough mileage in a single effect to justify an entire spell school - even if all your ideas were implemented. Poison already suffers from this problem. This is why I favour the idea of broadening Poison by adding some acid spells. Obligatory wiki link to previous discussion on this matter: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:magic:schools:alchemy (somewhere on there I'm sure there were some more acid spell proposals but I'll be damned if I can find them right now ... maybe they got lost in wiki reshuffling?)

I read over the link and like the idea of an Alchemy school. Some of the better acid spell ideas could be added to the poison spells.

Since you mentioned Alien it reminding me of this race proposal: https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5739 (but it wasn't all that interesting)

True, there doesn't seem to be enough design space to make this concept interesting.

What I think could be an interesting drawback of acid spells is danger of self-damage and corrosion. Of course you will be doing more damage to others than yourself, but this would mean you don't want to use these spells in all situations, at least not until later in the game when you have a lot of artifact gear, rCorr, etc. This would make it particularly powerful for Jiyva worshippers and yellow dracs, which would be thematic but possibly overpowered. It'd give Ashenzarites a particularly hard time. I'm not suggesting that your stuff should be constantly getting destroyed, but it's an occasional risk.

Corroding enemy gear might not have much effect most of the time (although could be useful earlier on) but it has flavour, and if you're needing to swap gear more regularly due to self-corrosion then it's definitely relevant.

These are some good drawbacks. You could also unintentionally splash your allies.

Regarding specific spells:

Blood to Acid is a nice idea. I think it could cause slow self-damage whilst in effect (a few HP per turn) or maybe some damage when first cast. Blood splatters generated while it's active could be acidic so it makes the terrain around you more hazardous. Creating shafts sounds fun but I think this would be highly abusable e.g. in Hells but in general for branch diving.

Acid walls and acid water are actually quite similar. Water is probably too niche a terrain anyway for this spell to really be worth learning.

Air to acid is of course "yet another cloud spell" so I would drop this. Acid Fire Rain should probably just be Acid Rain which is a nice environmental reference. I like the idea of it as an area spell that would work like this: each turn a small number of tiles are picked at random in the targetted and the rain hits there, causing damage. So over a few turns a lot of the squares will gt hit but probably not all. This is a slightly different firing pattern to other area spells. I'm not sure about it leaving puddles, maybe just a small number (e.g. if a particular square gets hit > 3 times by the rain).

Great points. Creating shafts through blood to acid should be very unreliable. Perhaps it only happens when hit points are below 10% and only 50% of the time. If people like the idea of making shafts this could be disabled on certain branches.

Acid walls and water could be amalgamated into one spell. It could be called Acidify Terrain.

Air to Acid might still be feasible if it's unique enough. Corrosion, fumbling because of dyspepsia, chance of creating shafts, chance of temporary blindness because of burning eyes etc. might make it useful.

I agree with the Acid Rain ideas. It could be upgraded to acid storm at high levels.

Xv

[Xzylth_Eviscerator_of_the_Void]

The problem with these, really, is that crawl already has too homogenous a spell experience. (Yeah, it's better than any other game I've played. But 4 practically identical bolts?) Any new spells should be quite distinct from a purely mechanical perspective. All the corrosion really does (for most of these spells) is add flavor. Flavor differentiation isn't really enough. (And really, unique mechanics are much harder to invent than unique flavor. I know this is asking a lot.)

Here's one distinct idea. I think it's not very good, but it's got the sort of uniqueness I'd like to see new spells have.

Level 3 (Poison/Summoning) Summon Acid Gel

  Code:

Creates a slow moving (speed 5), fairly tough "Gel": a monster with no active attack, duration level 2. It always moves towards the nearest pool of water (downhill, so to speak). When it reaches water it moves randomly (confusedly) on the surface. Can flow through any monster, including the player. Time spent on the same square as a Gel would do significant (Conjure Flame level) acid damage (with associated corrosion). Weak monsters may flee before it, but strong ones will simply press forward.

Some uses for this are fine: it would tend to keep monsters submerged for instance. But the real problem is it would incentivize maneuvering monsters to be 'downhill' from you, which is a non-obvious metric, and tedious. It might be easier if it was always placed in on the most downhill square next to the caster, and showed that on the targetting screen. But it still isn't very good; it would take a lot of work to make it a decent spell.

But hopefully it illustrates what I mean by unique mechanics.

Spells that are "seeking" certain targets or terrain could have interesting applications.

The Acid Gel spell might seek metal. It might be attracted to creatures that are wielding or wearing metal. While it's eating the metal it's also digesting the creature.
The Acid Gel might seek water and in the absence of water go for blood. Undead creatures would be immune.

Other seeking ideas not necessarily to be used with Acid Gel:

seek poison
seek acid
seek flesh
seek rotten flesh
seek rock and stone
seek stairs

Other unique mechanics:

Seeking spells -As mentioned above. Spells that are attracted to certain objects. Think of them as "heat seeking missles".
Gravity spells -Spells that cause monsters to be "sucked" together toward a certain tile, lose flying, submerged in water. A dragon loses flying and is smashed hard against the ground.
Counter spells -Spells that counter or reflect targeted spells.
Disarming spells -Spells that knock weapons or wands out of monster's hands.
Randart spells -Unique spells not found in any spellbook
Statue spells -Turn monsters into statues. Turns a monster into an ice statue for a few turns.

Xv

[XuaXua]

Your proposed spells are: do damage, do damage, do damage, do damage and get an escape hatch, do damage. I'd be fine with acid spells, but these acid spells wouldn't add anything.

Sounds to me like someone doesn't like the new Book of Conjurations.

[byrel]

Well, to be fair, I have a hard time seeing someone use force lance for damage. I almost died to a ghost with it the other day, and couldn't stop thinking how embarrassing it would be...

In the end though, that's what a conjuration book is bound to be. Conjurations are all at least 40% offensive. Acid is an open question, since it doesn't exist yet.

[nicolae]

In the end though, that's what a conjuration book is bound to be. Conjurations are all at least 40% offensive. Acid is an open question, since it doesn't exist yet.

Plus, I think part of the reason the new spells exist is to have more nonelemental Conjurations, which was an underused niche.

[Roderic]

Is there some kind of spell classification in terms of type of the effect, damage (if any), range, area, and so on ? If so, some underused niches could be filled with acid/alchemy-like spells instead of making them single-dimensional.

[XuaXua]

Level 5 - Hallucinate (Hexes/Acid) - causes monsters in sight to detect random players in range, may see friendlies and enemies or neutrals, and to generally act as though under the Mara's Misled spell. Does not hinder their ability to act.

[Stormfox]

Level 5 - Hallucinate (Hexes/Acid)

I think you've got the wrong kind of Acid in mind... (I know, don't explain the joke...)

[mumra]

Level 5 - Hallucinate (Hexes/Acid)

I think you've got the wrong kind of Acid in mind... (I know, don't explain the joke...)

Also causes player to see illusory bats everywhere.

[XuaXua]

Level 5 - Hallucinate (Hexes/Acid)

I think you've got the wrong kind of Acid in mind... (I know, don't explain the joke...)

Also causes player to see illusory bats everywhere.

Player automatically gets haste and must move.