New evokables: sigils

[Lasty]

Also on the topic of new evokables, I'd like to propose a series of "sigils", evokables that grant unconventional and potentially powerful status effects. I like to have them recharge similarly to the new elemental evokables, though the chance to evoke might be based on Evo skill; alternately, the duration should be based on Evo skill.

Sigil of Force: When activated, adds a status effect which, when you make a melee attack, causes your attack to hit each creature in a straight line in LOS. Tweakable variables: maximum range of this effect, damage done by extra attacks, duration of effect.

Sigil of Expansion: When casting a spell that affects a radius (Fireball, Mystic Blast, Fulminating Prism, Cloud spells, and anything else I've forgotten), the radius is expanded by one tile in each direction. Tweakable variables: chance of causing expansion, duration of effect.

Sigil of Reach: Your spells have one additional tile of range, up to LOS max. Tweakable variables: duration of effect.

Sigil of Acrobatics: When you dodge an attack, you move one tile away from the source, if possible. Tweakable variables: chance of activating, duration of effect.

As in the other proposal, I'm trying to come up with some unique effects that expand the sorts of things Evocations can achieve.

[reaver]

Problems:

Sigil of Force: define a "straight line." If you mean in a cardinal direction, it is unlike any other aim in Crawl and leads to oddities like Nethack unicorns. If you aim it, it would be incredibly annoying.

Sigil of Expansion: How does this work with Methatic Cloud, which doesn't always get placed on each of the 3x3 squares? Or Clouds which fill as much space as possible in corridors?

Sigil of Reach: So you're stealing from Vehement? Also, spells and evokables overlap a lot so it would probably be underused.

Sigil of Acrobatics: Why would somebody want this effect? The monster tramples me for free if I dodge their attack? It might be a mild buff for ranged characters who've been snuck up on by melee monsters, but with needing to anticipate it and only moving 1 square why not just pop a scroll of blinking?

[crate]

Personally I don't feel like crawl needs more items. Tome of destruction is the current evocable that could most benefit from some changes, but I feel like it's a potentially interesting item that mainly needs a few tweaks to become a good item (and I'm kind of partial to it since I use it a lot in zigsprint) so I feel like it shouldn't be completely scrapped. The elemental evokers are good in the sense that they actually aren't entirely new items but are instead a rework of old items that no one used.

I guess I feel less strongly that crawl should not add more items than I do about adding other things (particularly monsters) to crawl without in exchange removing things though.

[Lasty]

Sigil of Force: define a "straight line." If you mean in a cardinal direction, it is unlike any other aim in Crawl and leads to oddities like Nethack unicorns. If you aim it, it would be incredibly annoying.

I was thinking it would extend straight in diagonal and orthogonal directions. I definitely agree that aiming it would be awful. I don't see anything problematic about having to do some maneuvering to make use of it, but if it proved problematic, it could affect a different area instead.

Sigil of Expansion: How does this work with Methatic Cloud, which doesn't always get placed on each of the 3x3 squares? Or Clouds which fill as much space as possible in corridors?

For Mephitic Cloud, it would have a chance to place clouds on the the 16 tiles surrounding the normal 3x3 distribution. For clouds that spread in corridors, it could spread further or not, depending on which seems like the better implementation.

Sigil of Reach: So you're stealing from Vehement? Also, spells and evokables overlap a lot so it would probably be underused.

You're right that this uses a mechanic from Veh, and so maybe isn't a good choice.

Sigil of Acrobatics: Why would somebody want this effect? The monster tramples me for free if I dodge their attack? It might be a mild buff for ranged characters who've been snuck up on by melee monsters, but with needing to anticipate it and only moving 1 square why not just pop a scroll of blinking?

Trample displaces you and moves the monster next to you; this gives you a tile of breathing room. You would activate this if you find yourself near something that you wish not to stand next to for whatever reason (you want to run away, you want to be throwing fireballs at it, you're fighting a group of something and want to avoid being surrounded . . .). As for why not pop a scroll of blinking, wouldn't you prefer to use a renewable resource to achieve an effect than a precious and scarce resource?

My goal with these sigils, whether I've achieved it or not, is to add an evokable that creates a unique tactical effect that can be useful, but isn't always useful.