Thursday, 10th March 2011, 19:35 by danr
If something is a problem, or "not an improvement", please explain why, that would help me see your argument (you may well be right, just please tell me why). Why is it a problem to start with both schools? Most magic backgrounds have a number of schools they start with.
The two branding spells that Cr have are currently shared by the AM spellbook, the "Book of Brands", so replacing them with anything else can't really increase overlap, it would just move it in another direction. AE and AM both get swiftness right now, so it is not too "awesome" for a starting character (though three backgrounds with the same spell would be too much.)
minmay, did you have a solution in mind (are you favouring recombining hexes and charms?)
Dolphin, good points about the sure blade and ozocubu spells.
I guess this is all on-topic because if the Cr background needs changing, then the name has to take into account the changes.
I think actually some bigger-picture work needs to be done. Between AM, AE, Cr, and En, someone needs to sit down and make sure these are all sufficiently differentiated. There may well be room for two hex-based backgrounds, and two charms-based backgrounds (AE is very charms-oriented), but it may also be possible to combine some of these. And then of course it sounds like the whole Hex / Charms split is under debate.
Lots to think about.
Re: the hexes/charms split, here's the fundamental issue I see - charms buff the player, and hexes affect things outside the character. There's an inherent imbalance in that: any buff of the character helps them with everything they do, while hexes just affect one particular monster or thing. If you are swift, you are swift in relation to all the monsters. If you cast slow on a monster, only one monster is slowed (and it has a chance to resist, while the player won't "resist" swiftness). Even with hexes that affect your weapon, you lose the effect as soon as you switch weapons.
I think that mostly, hexes just need a good buff. I'm trying to use some in a current game but I find they fail too often to be safely relied on. This means I'm not training them much, and their effectiveness will only continue to drop as the HD / MR of monsters increases. If my flame brand would last more than 6 turns, or if slow / confuse had a better than 33% success rate on typical monsters, they would be more useful and thus I would use them more.
The other trouble is that other spells that accomplish similar things to hexes are much more effective at the same thing. Conjure Flame and Mephitic Cloud will stump and stymy all kinds of things and will even kill a lot of stuff. If those are L3 spells, slow and confuse should be L1 and L2 by comparison.