Tuesday, 21st June 2011, 14:03 by Galefury
About the slaying bonus spell: I don't think +5 slaying for one attack would be worth casting before every fight throughout the whole game, and if it is it could be toned down to a max of +3 for example. Even with +5 for major fights there are better things to do with your turns past the early game, like zapping a wand, attacking with a ranged weapon, conjurations, buff potions and other buff spells. And for minor fights it's just not needed.
While it would probably be optimal to cast it before every minor fight it is just too much hassle. Quite a few low level spells fall into this category, mostly low level conjurations. I think this should be balanced to do about as much extra damage as casting magic dart. That makes it no more of a no-brainer to cast than magic dart. I know adding damage to an existing attack gets affected by AC differently than casting magic dart (which is why I suggested +5 slaying = 1d5 damage at max power instead of 1d8 like magic dart), but I think the difference would be small enough to not really matter. And like I said, if it's too much it can be toned down.
I also like the phantom armour idea. Flavor issue: it's really a conjuration, not a charm, because it creates something from nothing. That aside, maybe scale number of created items with power (while also disallowing creating more than those from multiple castings)? Also I don't see why it would be restricted to slots you can wear something in. It would be good for gameplay, but makes no sense from the flavor. It's phantom armor that you create out of thin air for yourself to wear, already on your body. It can be made large or small to fit you, or have holes for horns or claws or be shaped to cover a beak. Dropping this restriction would extend its usefulness past the early game for some species, which might not be desired. It would be nice to pick up for Slime though, to cover slots which you otherwise cant. This would be pretty cool IMO.
Flavor aside a minor AC bonus would be very helpful, and restricting it to uncovered slots means it automatically stops being useful at some point (this is good, there are already too many low level charms that are useful even in extended endgame). Also unlike Ozo's it doesn't interfere with wearing armor, which fits the new book very well.