Twisted Resurection and stairs

[khalil]

I love twisted resurrection. Swear by it. It gives an undead army that follows down stairs! If only it wasn't stupidly hard to make them do that.
It generally takes me two to three times of going up and down stairs to get all my undead on the same level, and even more if there's not that many empty spaces around the stairs.
Yredelemnul's undead servitors follow down stairs, so it shouldn't be that hard to make the large abominations do the same.
Alternatively, if the stair thing is to provide a limit to the amount of abominations you can keep without undue hassle, wouldn't it be better to just give a hard limit of how many abominations you get? Plus,if that's the case, the limit could be modified via skills and items and so on.

[wizzzargh]

I believe Recall works across levels in trunk now. That may be a solution to your problem. Also, I believe abominations have variable move rates, so simply making them all follow you won't necessarily solve your issue of having to waste time managing them when going through stairs. You might end up with stragglers.

[battaile]

I believe Recall works across levels in trunk now.

Just for the god ability (ie Yred/Beough) afaik.

[khalil]

I believe Recall works across levels in trunk now.

Just for the god ability (ie Yred/Beough) afaik.

I'm not even going to pretend that I understand the logic behind that.

[crate]

twisted res is the worst spell in the entire game so imo it should be removed

(i'm not saying it's not powerful since it is, but making permanent allies that can travel across floors via a spell has ... problems ... and most likely any fixes would make it overlap too much with simulacrum or animate dead to be worth keeping)

[khalil]

twisted res is the worst spell in the entire game so imo it should be removed

(i'm not saying it's not powerful since it is, but making permanent allies that can travel across floors via a spell has ... problems ... and most likely any fixes would make it overlap too much with simulacrum or animate dead to be worth keeping)

May I ask what the problems are?
The only one I can think of is balance, and that's solved by the fact that it requires around ten corpses to make one small abomination.

[dpeg]

I believe Recall works across levels in trunk now.

Just for the god ability (ie Yred/Beough) afaik.

I'm not even going to pretend that I understand the logic behind that.

Maybe you won't but I'll try anyway: allies are strong, permanent allies are extremely strong. Recall is a very powerful tactical option.

That does not mean that having to cumbersomely shuffle your allies from level to level is a good balancing measure. Rather, that permanent allies should not belong to spells. With god powers, we are in a much better position to balance them.

[mumra]

There are various proposals about what to do about allies, particularly permanent ones:

Wiki page -
https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:interface:ally_management

There was even an implementable but it's over a year old so probably worth reviewing before anyone implements anything -
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=5475

I think it'd be nice to do something about what is basically a UI issue and then make Yred and Beogh's abilities better than the normal version. For instance, followers will normally trickle slowly up the stairs but Yred/Beogh land you a decent group much quicker (plus e.g. get a larger maximum number of allies with Yred/Beogh).

[khalil]

Maybe you won't but I'll try anyway: allies are strong, permanent allies are extremely strong. Recall is a very powerful tactical option.

That does not mean that having to cumbersomely shuffle your allies from level to level is a good balancing measure. Rather, that permanent allies should not belong to spells. With god powers, we are in a much better position to balance them.

Oh. That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.
An idea for balancing twisted resurection while keeping the permanent ally thing: some kind of cap on how many HD of abominations you can have at any one time, based off the necromancy skill. Try to create more and they just mill around as macabe masses or whatever.
EDIT, BETTER IDEA:
Instead of abominations above the HD cap not forming, they could form as unfriendly monsters and try to kill you. It would fit with the whole 'double edged sword' feel necromancy seems to have.

[crate]

twisted res is the worst spell in the entire game so imo it should be removed

(i'm not saying it's not powerful since it is, but making permanent allies that can travel across floors via a spell has ... problems ... and most likely any fixes would make it overlap too much with simulacrum or animate dead to be worth keeping)

May I ask what the problems are?
The only one I can think of is balance, and that's solved by the fact that it requires around ten corpses to make one small abomination.

Well you have effectively infinity corpses at your disposal if you worship kiku, and even if you don't you will have enough corpses to make an enormous army of aboms if you tediously herd them around and protect them. And then you have the worst ally in the game for herding around, since they have random speed and only follow you down steps if they're adjacent.

[khalil]

twisted res is the worst spell in the entire game so imo it should be removed

(i'm not saying it's not powerful since it is, but making permanent allies that can travel across floors via a spell has ... problems ... and most likely any fixes would make it overlap too much with simulacrum or animate dead to be worth keeping)

May I ask what the problems are?
The only one I can think of is balance, and that's solved by the fact that it requires around ten corpses to make one small abomination.

Well you have effectively infinity corpses at your disposal if you worship kiku, and even if you don't you will have enough corpses to make an enormous army of aboms if you tediously herd them around and protect them. And then you have the worst ally in the game for herding around, since they have random speed and only follow you down steps if they're adjacent.

Couldn't the infinite corpses problem be solved via the solution I outlined in my last post?

[njvack]

I think it would actually be an improvement if they were mindless and stayed behind. Player-generated aboms could also just generate at speed 10; I don't know that the random speed is a vital aspect of abomination-ness.

I'd hate to see TR go because it's powerful and subjectively "neat." I especially like it as a monster spell, if it can't be made non-tedious for players.

[khalil]

I think it would actually be an improvement if they were mindless and stayed behind. Player-generated aboms could also just generate at speed 10; I don't know that the random speed is a vital aspect of abomination-ness.

I'd hate to see TR go because it's powerful and subjectively "neat." I especially like it as a monster spell, if it can't be made non-tedious for players.

I think having them stay behind defeats the point. The entire reason you need several corpses to create one abomination is because you can carry them between floors. I still advocate my idea to just cap the amount of undead you get.

Entirely agree with you on the speed thing though.

[crate]

I think it would actually be an improvement if they were mindless and stayed behind.

Yeah this would be an improvement ... but then the spell is basically just animate dead except it gives you slightly different things.

Capping them by total HD or something would solve the problem of infinite allies yes, I'm not sure this is really a great idea though (for one thing it promotes learning the spell, making a ton of aboms, and then amnesiaing it).

[TwilightPhoenix]

Capping them by total HD or something would solve the problem of infinite allies yes, I'm not sure this is really a great idea though (for one thing it promotes learning the spell, making a ton of aboms, and then amnesiaing it).

All player controlled abominations summoned by Twisted Ressurection immediately collapse and die if you forget the spell?

[pratamawirya]

Capping them by total HD or something would solve the problem of infinite allies yes, I'm not sure this is really a great idea though (for one thing it promotes learning the spell, making a ton of aboms, and then amnesiaing it).

All player controlled abominations summoned by Twisted Ressurection immediately collapse and die if you forget the spell?

Just thanked this post for being really weird.

[mumra]

I would also hate to see Twisted Resurrection go, it's one of the more visually unique spells in the game. It could always be kept as a god ability, however. I'd also like to see Homunculus (https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:magic:spells:propose:homunculus) in the game at some point (but perhaps that could be an ability of some alchemy god).

The way I would see summoning in general being improved is introducing two caps - a per-spell summons limit, and a total summons limit. If you cast a spell that would take you over either limit then older/weaker summons will disappear to be replaced by the freshly summoned creatures. The per-spell limit can be quite low, which forces the player to diversify and use a few different summoning spells instead of just spamming the strongest thing they've got. Per-spell limits go up slightly with spell power, the total cap goes up with your Summoning skill - up to something like 16 at 27 Summoning. (Whatever the maximum limit, Yred/Beogh followers should allow you to surpass it)

Additionally, summons of all types should trickle down the stairs instead of arrive nine at a time. This will be a nerf since you can't have an instant 9-monster meat shield (maybe 2 or 3 max should arrive at the same time as you, and the number should also depend on terrain so you can't even guarantee surrounding yourself when you arrive in a corridor). However it will be a massive interface improvement whatever types of summons you're using.

Some ideas for Twisted Resurrection to make it less broken, even with a cap of say 3 abominations:
- Permanent allies could work something like perma-buffs - you have less MP the whole time you're keeping them alive
- Abominations slowly deteriorate. They are far more durable than most summons (e.g. you can expect them to last a whole level or two) but they don't last forever
- Abominations don't heal over time (and are easily damaged) - you have to keep supplying more parts from corpses to patch them up.

[khalil]

Capping them by total HD or something would solve the problem of infinite allies yes, I'm not sure this is really a great idea though (for one thing it promotes learning the spell, making a ton of aboms, and then amnesiaing it).

All player controlled abominations summoned by Twisted Ressurection immediately collapse and die if you forget the spell?

I'd go for them turning hostile myself. But no xp for killing them to prevent grinding.

[galehar]

I think it would actually be an improvement if they were mindless and stayed behind.

I agree. That would be a simple fix to the problem. Allies following you through stairs would be exclusively god gifted, and then you have inter-level recall. Any other ally stays on the floor so no herding. Fixed speed for player-created abomination would also make exploring with them less of a pain.

The way I would see summoning in general being improved is introducing two caps - a per-spell summons limit, and a total summons limit.

Sounds great. Are you volunteering to code it? Because this idea has been floating around for some time and nobody has stepped up to implement it yet. But we're derailing the thread, summons deserve their own topic.

Additionally, summons of all types should trickle down the stairs instead of arrive nine at a time.

Or just not follow you. Consistent with what I said above (only god gifted allies can take stairs), and no spamming summons before taking any stairs which is boring.

[mumra]

The way I would see summoning in general being improved is introducing two caps - a per-spell summons limit, and a total summons limit.

Sounds great. Are you volunteering to code it? Because this idea has been floating around for some time and nobody has stepped up to implement it yet. But we're derailing the thread, summons deserve their own topic.

Well, obviously not for .12, but after that we'll see ...

Additionally, summons of all types should trickle down the stairs instead of arrive nine at a time.

Or just not follow you. Consistent with what I said above (only god gifted allies can take stairs), and no spamming summons before taking any stairs which is boring.

What about mercenaries?

[galehar]

What about mercenaries?

Every rule needs an exception right?
Since they are alone, I guess it's not too tedious to travel with one (can't tell, never had one).

[Jeremiah]

What if Twisted Ressurection could only create 1 abomination at a time. Repeated castings with more corpses would continue to make it stronger with the cap being dependent on necromancy skill and significantly higher than the current power of a large abomination.

Once it reached the cap, it would no longer gain in power (unless you increased your necromancy skill) but casting the spell again with more corpses would cause it to regenerate HP rapidly as the corpses merged in with it.

That way you would still get a permanent ally that could scale up in strength and follow you down stairs, but without the interface difficulty of trying to get many allies to follow you.

[galehar]

Doesn't fix the inherent problem of a spell with a strategic effect. It has a tactical cost (MP) but a permanent ally is a strategic benefit.

[adozu]

considering it's almost always used by kiku followers it could just become a god ability and be given a piety cost

[njvack]

- Abominations don't heal over time (and are easily damaged) - you have to keep supplying more parts from corpses to patch them up.

I like this idea -- it'd keep you from tediously generating a big OP herd of aboms, and is an interesting mechanic itself. For bonus points, have aboms automatically take corpses when injured, so if you're letting your abominations fight for you, it'll eat into your food/chunk supply.

This could be combined with the degeneration idea, too: as long as you're killing dudes, you can keep your abom army up. But if you stop and head to your stash or something, you'll lose 'em. And "corpses generated per AUT" ultimately limits the size of your army.

[Lasty]

The way I would see summoning in general being improved is introducing two caps - a per-spell summons limit, and a total summons limit. If you cast a spell that would take you over either limit then older/weaker summons will disappear to be replaced by the freshly summoned creatures. The per-spell limit can be quite low, which forces the player to diversify and use a few different summoning spells instead of just spamming the strongest thing they've got. Per-spell limits go up slightly with spell power, the total cap goes up with your Summoning skill - up to something like 16 at 27 Summoning. (Whatever the maximum limit, Yred/Beogh followers should allow you to surpass it).

The summon limit has some problems, and I'll bring them up again here:

* If there is a hard cap on summons, spells which summon multiple weak monsters will get significantly weaker (Summon Butterflies, Summon Small Mammals, Summon Scorpions, Summon Ugly Things, Summon Demonic Horde).
* Also, spells that can generate hostile monsters get worse, assuming the hostiles count toward your summon limit. I suppose making them not count towards the summon limit would probably resolve this issue, but then you run the risk that you summon enough hostile summons that you cannot summon enough friendly summons to hold them off, particularly at lower skill levels.

[galehar]

The summon limit has some problems

Nerfing summon spells is kinda of the point of introducing limits.

* If there is a hard cap on summons, spells which summon multiple weak monsters will get significantly weaker

Maybe the global cap could be HD based. Or maybe spells which summon weak monsters should be weak spells.

* Also, spells that can generate hostile monsters get worse, assuming the hostiles count toward your summon limit.

Since old summons get replaced when you cast at the limit, hostiles obviously don't count.

[Lasty]

Nerfing summon spells is kinda of the point of introducing limits.

I'm fine w/ nerfing summons overall; that's not the issue I'm trying to raise.

Maybe the global cap could be HD based. Or maybe spells which summon weak monsters should be weak spells.

I'm fine w/ summons that summon multiple weak monsters being weak, but they shouldn't be useless or radically over-leveled. For example, Demonic Horde should absolutely not be a Level 6 spell if you're only likely be able to have (say) 7 summons at a time at the time you're casting it. Summon Butterflies will be a weird level 1 spell given that if you cast it with a Summoning skill lower than the amount needed to have at least 6 summons, it basically won't do anything.

Since old summons get replaced when you cast at the limit, hostiles obviously don't count.

That's reasonable on the face of it, but I think that still leaves problems. With summoned monsters that can turn hostile, do they stop counting once they turn hostile? Or with Summon Scorpions, at low skill level you run a risk of summoning enough hostile scorpions that even summoning friendly scorpions up to your summon limit won't hold them off. It will make Summon Scorpions very dangerous to cast until you're likely to get almost all friendly scorpions.

[galehar]

The various limits and chance for hostiles can be adjusted. No need to worry about individual spell balance for now, they will have to be adapted to the new system once it's in place. Let's stop spamming this thread with off-topic.

[Tenaya]

Recently, I played a big batch of VpEn of Kiku and had great fun with Twisted Res and gained a lot of experience (if not a lot of runes). The interface issue was cumbersome so I'm glad this is coming up. But, it sounds like my days of carting a couple dozen large abominations to Elf:3 are coming to an end. Oh well.

I think it would actually be an improvement if they were mindless and stayed behind.
I'd hate to see TR go because it's powerful and subjectively "neat." I especially like it as a monster spell, if it can't be made non-tedious for players.

I think having them stay behind defeats the point. The entire reason you need several corpses to create one abomination is because you can carry them between floors.

For any given dungeon floor, without contribution from Kiku, Twisted Resurrection is weaker than Animate Dead. TR really gets hopping when you keep piling up the natural corpses and throw the whole lot plus several stars of piety at a single target (e.g. Elf:3). So, if TR becomes single level, then animate dead will be the better tactical option for any given level while the branch end use of TR will take a whole lot of piety to tackle. Also, if TR becomes single level then it really doesn't do any good for anyone other than a Kiku worshipper, which sounds pretty awful.

What if Twisted Ressurection could only create 1 abomination at a time. Repeated castings with more corpses would continue to make it stronger with the cap being dependent on necromancy skill and significantly higher than the current power of a large abomination.

Once it reached the cap, it would no longer gain in power (unless you increased your necromancy skill) but casting the spell again with more corpses would cause it to regenerate HP rapidly as the corpses merged in with it.

That way you would still get a permanent ally that could scale up in strength and follow you down stairs, but without the interface difficulty of trying to get many allies to follow you.

This would be cool! Off the top of my head, some good adjectives could be 'very large', 'enormous', or 'titanic abomination.'

- Abominations don't heal over time (and are easily damaged) - you have to keep supplying more parts from corpses to patch them up.

This could be combined with the degeneration idea, too: as long as you're killing dudes, you can keep your abom army up. But if you stop and head to your stash or something, you'll lose 'em. And "corpses generated per AUT" ultimately limits the size of your army.

This would make it only a durable ally and prevent folks (like me) from creating huge abomination farms. This is a good idea, IMO.

[khalil]

- Abominations don't heal over time (and are easily damaged) - you have to keep supplying more parts from corpses to patch them up.

I like this idea -- it'd keep you from tediously generating a big OP herd of aboms, and is an interesting mechanic itself. For bonus points, have aboms automatically take corpses when injured, so if you're letting your abominations fight for you, it'll eat into your food/chunk supply.

This could be combined with the degeneration idea, too: as long as you're killing dudes, you can keep your abom army up. But if you stop and head to your stash or something, you'll lose 'em. And "corpses generated per AUT" ultimately limits the size of your army.

Assuming we'd get the better recall to go with, I would love this. It provides a limit other than how much up and down stairs an abomination herder is willing to go through, and it's much less arbitrary than my HD cap idea.

[Tiber]

- Abominations don't heal over time (and are easily damaged) - you have to keep supplying more parts from corpses to patch them up.

I like this idea -- it'd keep you from tediously generating a big OP herd of aboms, and is an interesting mechanic itself. For bonus points, have aboms automatically take corpses when injured, so if you're letting your abominations fight for you, it'll eat into your food/chunk supply.

This could be combined with the degeneration idea, too: as long as you're killing dudes, you can keep your abom army up. But if you stop and head to your stash or something, you'll lose 'em. And "corpses generated per AUT" ultimately limits the size of your army.

I like the needing corpses to heal, but I'm leaning against the automatic eating. It seems cool in theory, but there are several problems:
1: It turns into the inverse of the trying to equip allies problem, where you have to try and avoid having them eat something when you're hungry. Jiyva at least solves the hunger problem.
2: Say eating a corpse restores 30 HP. Do they eat an entire corpse automatically when they take 1 HP damage?
3: Do they also upgrade to large abominations when eating? If no, then it's worse then casting Twisted Resurrection. If yes, then it's a buff to the spell in that you have to cast it less.

Overall, the hunger mechanic is annoying enough that if they auto-ate corpses, it could turn Twisted Res back into an annoyance spell, and most would just stick to Animate Dead or something. Especially the first time it ate a dragon corpse when you're looking for a hide.

[khalil]

I like the needing corpses to heal, but I'm leaning against the automatic eating. It seems cool in theory, but there are several problems:
1: It turns into the inverse of the trying to equip allies problem, where you have to try and avoid having them eat something when you're hungry. Jiyva at least solves the hunger problem.
2: Say eating a corpse restores 30 HP. Do they eat an entire corpse automatically when they take 1 HP damage?
3: Do they also upgrade to large abominations when eating? If no, then it's worse then casting Twisted Resurrection. If yes, then it's a buff to the spell in that you have to cast it less.

Overall, the hunger mechanic is annoying enough that if they auto-ate corpses, it could turn Twisted Res back into an annoyance spell, and most would just stick to Animate Dead or something. Especially the first time it ate a dragon corpse when you're looking for a hide.

You make a good point.

[galehar]

There was even an implementable but it's over a year old so probably worth reviewing before anyone implements anything -
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=5475

I thought about this some more and discussed it with DracoOmega. I still think it would be better to have allies which follow you more reliably and take stairs even if not adjacent. Recall is sort of an ugly workaround.
Instead of having explore/travel wait for allies if they fall behind (which is quite complicated to implement reliably), I think it would be simpler to have a toggle (ctrl+w for example) to set your travel speed to the one of your slowest ally. If there are still issues which make them fall behind, address them individually (DracoOmega removed cantrips and I removed energy randomization for allies following the player).
The other part of the proposal (allies taking stairs if they can see someone taking it), shouldn't be too hard to code.

[khalil]

I think I might be able to code in the degenerating thing if someone points me to where the code for the abominations merging is. I checked in the spell files, but they just seem to be the initial casting of Twisted Resurrection, and not what happens after.

[mumra]

I think I might be able to code in the degenerating thing if someone points me to where the code for the abominations merging is. I checked in the spell files, but they just seem to be the initial casting of Twisted Resurrection, and not what happens after.

Look for _crawling_corpse_merge in mon-abil.cc and work from there.

[khalil]

I think I might be able to code in the degenerating thing if someone points me to where the code for the abominations merging is. I checked in the spell files, but they just seem to be the initial casting of Twisted Resurrection, and not what happens after.

Look for _crawling_corpse_merge in mon-abil.cc and work from there.

Thanks. That should do it.

  Code:

Permitted requests on the fourm for help
1:[x]

See you when it's done!

[Davion Fuxa]

Seems this topic concluded before I posted but I figured I would add a few notes:

Twisted Resurrection overall is fairly weak currently since the Abominations you make now may move at different speeds that will likely include going slower then you, have a glass cannony-esqe durability, and take a while to build up, and typically don't outperform just using Animate Dead on the enemies of the level you are playing on. It's a cool spell in the Necromancy tree that let's you cart stuff down a stairway but they aren't necessarily strong as player minions go.

Personally from what I read I liked that idea about their being a cap of 1 Abomination that you constantly feed corpses into until you get a Large Abomination - carting around 1 ally (ignoring Mercenaries) makes it much easier to bring across levels since you only have to wait for it to get into position to follow you. Having 1 Abomination that won't necessarily get stronger past a certain point as well also encourages continued use of other Necromancy spells with corpses too.

I wouldn't necessarily care about Mumra's idea of them degenerating over time/patching up with additional corpses, but I like the other idea of it taking a permanent amount of your MP to keep them up. With the interface such as it is, its hard to keep track of allies and it would be difficult to note when to feed it corpses or to use said corpses for feeding your character making zombies - it also makes it simpler for playing since there is less Abomination maintenance and more 'just playing the game' with a solid reduced total mana cap.

I'll refrain from commenting about Summons and Mercenaries but someone should probably open a topic up for discussion on that.

[crate]

Twisted Resurrection overall is fairly weak currently

um no, it's like the most overpowered spell in the game that no one uses

[mumra]

Abominations you make now may move at different speeds that will likely include going slower then you

You'll be glad to know that this specifically has just been addressed in trunk (for all types of followers).

I wouldn't necessarily care about Mumra's idea of them degenerating over time/patching up with additional corpses, but I like the other idea of it taking a permanent amount of your MP to keep them up. With the interface such as it is, its hard to keep track of allies and it would be difficult to note when to feed it corpses or to use said corpses for feeding your character making zombies - it also makes it simpler for playing since there is less Abomination maintenance and more 'just playing the game' with a solid reduced total mana cap.

I was thinking you could just see its health going down, with occasional visual clues like "Your abomination's arm falls off and disintegrates!" I think this would be more interesting theme-wise than the MP cost (which would also raise questions about why that didn't work for other summons and so forth; we'd need the permabuffs implementation first anyway).

[galehar]

Abominations you make now may move at different speeds that will likely include going slower then you

You'll be glad to know that this specifically has just been addressed in trunk (for all types of followers).

Not really. I just removed speed randomization when friendly monsters follow you (the random turn they gain or or lose sometimes to make pillar dancing less effective). I didn't change randomization of abomination base speed. And I don't think it would do much good, I'd rather have a more generic fix for travelling with slower allies like the toggle to set your speed to your slowest ally I mentioned earlier.

[mumra]

Ah sorry, my misunderstanding, I knew that change was made but for some reason I thought you'd also made the player go slower.

[Davion Fuxa]

I wouldn't necessarily care about Mumra's idea of them degenerating over time/patching up with additional corpses, but I like the other idea of it taking a permanent amount of your MP to keep them up. With the interface such as it is, its hard to keep track of allies and it would be difficult to note when to feed it corpses or to use said corpses for feeding your character making zombies - it also makes it simpler for playing since there is less Abomination maintenance and more 'just playing the game' with a solid reduced total mana cap.

I was thinking you could just see its health going down, with occasional visual clues like "Your abomination's arm falls off and disintegrates!" I think this would be more interesting theme-wise than the MP cost (which would also raise questions about why that didn't work for other summons and so forth; we'd need the permabuffs implementation first anyway).

Having it so that they lose health instead of Rot would certainly help, but that doesn't account for the repetitive nature of the spell. Your still going to be casting Twisted Resurrection quite a bit to keep its health topped off - losing a permanent amount of your MP just completely skips that.

As for the idea that theme wise it isn't interesting, it hasn't been used before and could be incorporated for other undead. On the issue of other summons - your Abomination isn't really a summon. This could also be an interesting way of managing Skeletons and Zombies too - if they all decreased your Total Mp to have them up, it would certainly cut down on the Undead Spam.

[prozacelf]

I wouldn't necessarily care about Mumra's idea of them degenerating over time/patching up with additional corpses, but I like the other idea of it taking a permanent amount of your MP to keep them up. With the interface such as it is, its hard to keep track of allies and it would be difficult to note when to feed it corpses or to use said corpses for feeding your character making zombies - it also makes it simpler for playing since there is less Abomination maintenance and more 'just playing the game' with a solid reduced total mana cap.

I was thinking you could just see its health going down, with occasional visual clues like "Your abomination's arm falls off and disintegrates!" I think this would be more interesting theme-wise than the MP cost (which would also raise questions about why that didn't work for other summons and so forth; we'd need the permabuffs implementation first anyway).

Having it so that they lose health instead of Rot would certainly help, but that doesn't account for the repetitive nature of the spell. Your still going to be casting Twisted Resurrection quite a bit to keep its health topped off - losing a permanent amount of your MP just completely skips that.

As for the idea that theme wise it isn't interesting, it hasn't been used before and could be incorporated for other undead. On the issue of other summons - your Abomination isn't really a summon. This could also be an interesting way of managing Skeletons and Zombies too - if they all decreased your Total Mp to have them up, it would certainly cut down on the Undead Spam.

I think the semi-permanent MP cost would be an interesting mechanic that does differentiate undead more from summons, but how would it affect things like skeletons and zombies if it were done? Would your old skeletons and zombies just languish on a floor eating into your MP pool or would they now follow you from floor to floor, or would a different mechanic be used? I am by no means a gifted programmer but I'd think it would be a much bigger pain to manage the effect on the player's MP pool by floor (tell me if I'm wrong here). Auto-destruction of undead that can't follow between floors could be a solution, but it would penalize players who go down stairs just to see what's around down there before returning to clear a floor. On the other hand, auto-destruction could make runs to stashes potentially more dangerous, so I can see arguments for any of the above in terms of balance.

[Davion Fuxa]

If the mechanics for stuff following you from floor to floor was improved (like they funnel in instead of just appear) then that would be a good solution - since you no longer benefit from leaving them behind (they eat your Total MP). If they work as they do now then they could auto-destruct after a sizable time (so you could descend a staircase, wander around a little bit, and come back up) or they could remain but your max MP is based on the total amount of Skeletons running around on the current floor.

Another idea though might simply make an action that can revert Skeletons and Zombies back into Corpses (or just destroy them) as a way of managing the problem that they may pose to total MP. If they turn back into corpses you can shift them between levels so you no longer have to stairdance enemies to kill stuff with your past entourage, and if just destroyed you can leave your guys on the last floor eating your total MP and destroy them when you feel they aren't serving you no more.

[Sandman25]

What about undead having different EXP penalty? Currently summoned creatures bring 50% experience for a kill, undead could bring less - 25% or even 0%. So they still could be used as meat shield but would not be overpowered at all.

[galehar]

- Permanent allies could work something like perma-buffs - you have less MP the whole time you're keeping them alive

I don't really like this idea. This would make more sense for summons, but I still prefer simple caps for them. For permanent allies, I don't think it would work at all.

This could also be an interesting way of managing Skeletons and Zombies too - if they all decreased your Total Mp to have them up, it would certainly cut down on the Undead Spam.

This is even worse. And what's wrong with undead spam to begin with? Undead are really cool when you have an army of them. In what world do Nercomancers struggle to keep a handful of them?

[Davion Fuxa]

This could also be an interesting way of managing Skeletons and Zombies too - if they all decreased your Total Mp to have them up, it would certainly cut down on the Undead Spam.

This is even worse. And what's wrong with undead spam to begin with? Undead are really cool when you have an army of them. In what world do Nercomancers struggle to keep a handful of them?

Armies of minions should be isolated to playstyles under the worship if Beogh and Yredelemnul. Outside of God Worship, there should be a glass ceiling which keeps the player from simply raising minions left and right for Necromancy - much like their should be one for Summoning to keep players (and Monsters) from flooding the screen with minions.

As for what worlds do Necromancer struggle to keep a handful of them - you might consider Diablo II as an example. You could only raise the amount of Skeletons related to the amount of skill level you put in to them. Yes you could eventually raise a huge army after putting in enough skill points but then here in DCSS that wouldn't be all that dissimilar from the raising MP allowing you to hold huge armies.

[galehar]

Outside of God Worship, there should be a glass ceiling which keeps the player from simply raising minions left and right for Necromancy - much like their should be one for Summoning to keep players (and Monsters) from flooding the screen with minions.

There certainly need to be a limit for summoning, but it's the first time I hear someone saying that there should be one for zombies. And there's already a limit with the availability of corpses anyway. I seriously don't think there's a balance problem with zombies and skeletons.

[mumra]

- Permanent allies could work something like perma-buffs - you have less MP the whole time you're keeping them alive

I don't really like this idea. This would make more sense for summons, but I still prefer simple caps for them. For permanent allies, I don't think it would work at all.

No, I don't like it at all either, I was just going through options.

I like the necromancy flavour of having to keep recasting to use more corpses to patch up your monster(s) though. I don't see how this is annoying or hard to manage as Davion Fuxa is saying.