Fire and Ice Brands

[snow]

So here's what I'm thinking:

1. I'd like to see fire weapons be interesting and viable throughout the game.
2. I'd also like to see some tabbers choose lighter armour instead of heavier armour.

Why not hit two birds with one stone?

1. Fire weapons have a passive chance to cast a fire spell when they attack. This works like any other spell (it can miscast, use MP, and so on).
2. Because it can miscast your armour choice is important.
3. The MP cost can be based on your spellcasting so basically more spellcasting means more fire attacks per fight.

I'm also thinking that it's sort of terrible that a hand axe is complete trash as soon as you find a war axe. I'd like some characters to prefer hand axes while others prefer war axes.

1. Since hand axes are faster after a certain threshold the fire damage should outweigh the loss of base damage in some fights.
2. This adds interesting choices to both weapon choice and what skills to train.

At the end of the day I just feel grabbing the heaviest whatever and holding tab is getting old. I'd like the weaker gears to be sometimes better and I think making brands more interesting than +25% more damage is the way to do this.

[dck]

But lighter armours like mda and tla already are superior to a lot of the heavier options in many situations since they give you very good AC without screwing with your EV, stealth or spellcasting.
Also the brands are not the most interesting ones in the world but they do offer some variety, fire is just a lot of damage not often resisted, freezing is a bit more commonly resisted damage with then some wierd slow effect on very few monsters that basically only matters in the lair and against the weaker monsters of zot. They could probably be made more interesting but this sounds like a hassle, what with having to aim spells while you're hitting dudes and all that.

I agree hand axes could be better but I also think axes were way overnerfed when cleaving became a thing. Not following the hand axe being worse than war one though, maces are just flails with 2 less base damage and it's alright.

[Mankeli]

So here's what I'm thinking: 1. I'd like to see fire weapons be interesting and viable throughout the game.

They aren't viable throughout the game?

2. I'd also like to see some tabbers choose lighter armour instead of heavier armour.

Try Gargoyle or Kobold in MDA. Sounds pretty tabbatelic to me.

Why not hit two birds with one stone?

Because stoning birds is illegal you sicko!

1. Fire weapons have a passive chance to cast a fire spell when they attack. This works like any other spell (it can miscast, use MP, and so on).
2. Because it can miscast your armour choice is important.
3. The MP cost can be based on your spellcasting so basically more spellcasting means more fire attacks per fight.

I'm also thinking that it's sort of terrible that a hand axe is complete trash as soon as you find a war axe. I'd like some characters to prefer hand axes while others prefer war axes.

1. Since hand axes are faster after a certain threshold the fire damage should outweigh the loss of base damage in some fights.
2. This adds interesting choices to both weapon choice and what skills to train.

This seems way too complicated and unnecessary to me. Armour choice is already extremely important and you can tab with other armors besides PA/CPA/PDA/GDA.

Hand axes are horrible but axes are bad in general in normal games anyways (compared to other weapon types, that is). While I do think that hand axes could be better, I don't understand why they should be viable throughout the game. I don't want clubs to be viable against draconians neither.

If you are looking for worse heavy armour, there is always 0.6.0. Also more tabbing doesn't necessary mean easier game, I think you are underestimating the armour choices crawl provides.

[MDvedh]

So it basically restricts fire brand for anyone who uses heavy armour and have sticky flame memorized for some reason.
Or it basically restricts fire brand for anyone who can firestorm because passive firestorm isn't what I want usually.

[Volteccer_Jack]

my tabbers often wear robes fyi

[pubby]

I would be happy if ring of fire boosted fire weapons. Likewise with ring of ice.

[forest]

I would be happy if ring of fire boosted fire weapons. Likewise with ring of ice.

Wow, thats really good idea!. I would even go one step further and give a small boost to fire items (e.g wands/rods). This would fix the no brainer, that unless you are fire mage, ring of fire resistance is always better than ring of fire as you don't need to compensate the -C resistance hit.

[DracheReborn]

I think an unrand weapon with passive sticky flame would be interesting. The chance of miscast would make it (somewhat) double-edged. I don't think any other fire spell would work well as a passive effect though.

[rebthor]

my tabbers often wear robes fyi

Well, mine wear steam dragon armor so there

But seriously, I would say that most of my tabbing oriented characters have either been ranged or dodging heavy and thus in lighter armours. I don't understand snow's problem that's leading to his proposal. In fact, looking at my wins, I only see one who wore anything heavier than FDA which is pretty mid-range in the weight department and most of them wore MDA/SteamDA/Robes and most of them did a lot of melee.

[Lasty]

To be fair, fire weapons already are "interesting and viable throughout the game" to approximately the same degree as other damage brands. There's already the distinction of "some brands are better on fast weapons, others on high base damage weapons", and I can't think of any reason why fire should be moved from one of these groups into the other group, particularly since the high damage group already only has four members (flaming, freezing, vorpal, holy), while the fast hitting group has 5 (venom, elec, drain, pain, distortion). Within each group, some are obviously better than others in a majority of cases due to either the amount of damage dealt, or the specific targets which do not resist the damage type dealt.

It seems to me that snow's suggestion is actually based on two unstated premises:
1) Damage brands are boring and should instead have gimmicks. [or possibly damage multiplier brands only?]
2) A hand axe of flaming should be an end-game capable weapon. [or possibly, all branded weapons should be end-game capable weapons?]

I disagree with these premises.

[Hurkyl]

while the fast hitting group has 5 (venom, elec, drain, pain, distortion).

Draining actually has both a percentage component and a flat component.