Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9


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Swamp Slogger

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 00:36

Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Hyperphase would be a L9 Translocations spell which would function as follows:

Description: "This spell, the last work of Golubria, either rends space around the caster or rends the caster around space - it is impossible to tell - causing them to appear present in multiple locations around their original location, phasing in and out rapidly. The effects of this multiple presence are great: each partial copy takes reduced damage and is less likely to be present when an enemy, projectile or trap interacts with them. The caster is also able to see further than normal, and most interestingly is able to be multipresent in any static surroundings - even walls and the spaces past them. Finally, they are able to instantly end the spell and phase into any location they are currently standing in, though they will receive a dose of magical contamination upon doing so."

The caster enters a multipresence around his or her own location, in a radius depending on power. This drains MP at a certain rate, and causes slow contam. This is not like a radius of silence, but more random - compare Ashenzari mapping tile distribution, but much more local. This spell would be useful for avoiding certain sources of unavoidable damage, but will make others that rely on large area of effect more poignant - for example, you would not want to cast this against Cerebov without being in a hallway, for fear of all of your phases partially tanking a full-area firestorm.

Your phases will not enter monster space, making this spell work well with Disjunction (so you can spread yourself out as best as possible).

This spell would allow you to pass through previously unpassable* (*ok, unpassable without high power EE) walls by letting you exist both on the current side and in the tempty space on the other side of that wall, then end the spell on that side of the wall.

This spell would allow you to potentially avoid damage from single-target sources, but would be a risk when multiple attackers or AoE attacks are part of the environment. Damage reduction from this spell is done after AC reduction.
Last edited by Hurricos on Thursday, 19th November 2015, 08:33, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 00:51

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

You forgot to make the spell actually useful for something. How is this an improvement over controlled blink?

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 01:45

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Phasing through Stone quietly could be really powerful, but...IDK what else you'd use this for (and passing through stone quietly really isn't worth a level 9 in a non-Earth school). If this did the Rakshaka-like ability to have the copies repeat your actions (3+ arrow shots/turn instead of one) that could be worth a level 9...hell it could be TOO POWERFUL for a level 9, but...
I'm beginning to feel like a Cat God! Felid streaks: {FeVM^Sif Muna, FeWn^Dithmenos, FeAr^Pakellas}, {FeEE^Ashenzari, FeEn^Gozag, FeNe^Sif Muna, FeAE^Vehumet...(ongoing)}

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 02:02

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

@Duvessa,

The utility would be situational defense.

Where n is the number of presences, there will be a ~2/n? chance of a projectile or attack or trap etc actually interacting with you. Damage of this interaction will also be reduced according to the number of phases you have at the specific point in time.

This strips away enemy advantage of having you in one place. Any attacks dependant on your location will be reduced in power. Hellfire is a big one, but n.b. there are many other interactions just as important. Sticking in a hallway means a large number of your presences will be in walls, significantly reducing the damage you can possibly take.

Since you're comparing it with cblink, the differences are:

* Shorter distance at reasonable spellpowers

* INSTANT effect - no time passes ending the spell.

* Translocation outside of your central presences LOS

Edit: The reason why I said the spell was thematic was that, knowing that purpose of Translocation is to manipulate your position and the effects your position has, I came up with an idea that did exactly that. It won't help you against Torment unless some of you is outside the radius of effect, but it WILL help GREATLY with things like Hellfire, smiting and other direct attacks that target limited areas.

Edit2: This spell would not multiply your offensive ability. For offensive intent, you would be where you normally are. This could be changed to "anything you could interact with if you were where one of your presences is", but that sounds very tricky to implement.

The flavor could be changed a bit.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 02:59

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

There's also the fact that increasing your sight range is a terrible nerf.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 03:11

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

So it's a level 9 spell that doesn't help you do damage, only helps your defenses in circumstances where you could controlled blink away anyway (I have a hard time believing you would take less damage in a ziggurat), and gives you access to an instant uncontrolled blink.
I think you need to reconsider your assessment of how good a level 9 spell needs to be in order to be worthwhile. Death's Door literally makes you invincible and is level 8. Controlled Blink lets you escape pretty much anything and is level 7. And yet very few characters learn these spells because of the expense! Fire Storm gives you all the offense you could possibly ever need, and it's still an absolutely terrible spell because of how costly it is to cast level 9 spells!

By the way, regardless of power, you still haven't provided a rationale for why this spell should be added to the game in the first place.
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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 03:24

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

duvessa wrote:Controlled Blink lets you escape pretty much anything and is level 7.

Level 8 in 0.17.

Personally, I figure that level 9 should just be offensive spells; the typical player who gets level 9 spells will usually train the spell school up to about the same range you'd train a melee weapon skill to get a top-tier weapon to mindelay.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 03:29

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

duvessa wrote:So it's a level 9 spell that doesn't help you do damage, only helps your defenses in circumstances where you could controlled blink away anyway (I have a hard time believing you would take less damage in a ziggurat), and gives you access to an instant uncontrolled blink.
I think you need to reconsider your assessment of how good a level 9 spell needs to be in order to be worthwhile. Death's Door literally makes you invincible and is level 8. Controlled Blink lets you escape pretty much anything and is level 7. And yet very few characters learn these spells because of the expense! Fire Storm gives you all the offense you could possibly ever need, and it's still an absolutely terrible spell because of how costly it is to cast level 9 spells!

By the way, regardless of power, you still haven't provided a rationale for why this spell should be added to the game in the first place.


Where did you get the idea it was uncontrolled? You can choose to phase into any location you are currently at. "... phase into any location they are currently [standing in]"

CBlink is L8.

Death's Door is extremely risky for anyone without Spirit, Kiku or Borg's. You cast the spell, do your thing, then escape or end the situation or face death.

Realize that the species with good Translocations aptitudes have defensive or health problems. 22 Translocations is absolutely trivial for a Spriggan Felid, DE or HE to get.

This spell gives you stochastic resistance to smiting, hellfire, hexes of all sorts - literally every sort of interaction - major immunity to many attacks, all while concurrently allowing you to attack as normal. CBlink gets you out of situations; this one defends you in a similar manner as to having blinked away and lets you stay in the situations you were in.

The reason for this to exist is to give Translocations a significant power spell. This is it. It lets you significantly reduce the fact that you're in one place for purposes of damage interaction. (That's what Translocations are for.) It is very significant in how it impacts many high-level sources of damage. A killhole will make you nigh-immune to damage, as most of your phases will be walled; I don't think you're seeing this.

Fire Storm is two-school and Translocations does not need "offensive" power as a L9 Spell. We already saw how broken Singularity was. It doesn't particularly make sense that Earth Elementalists get the only form of getting past walls when Translocations is the art of getting from place to place.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 03:50

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

milski wrote:There's also the fact that increasing your sight range is a terrible nerf.


Au contraire. It means your CBlinks can go much further, and you can target past walls (assuming your LOS is the union of all tiles seen by each phase position), while being protected to an extent from their attacks. (You do need to be partially past the wall in order to attack past it, but the fact that that's fewer than most of your presences means that you're pretty much safe.) Attackers will generally miss even if they do begin attacking, simply because of the mechanics of the spell in the first place.

No, it won't protect you very much in Megaziggs when monsters are surrounding you almost all the time, preventing you from accumulating much omnipresence (and, to an extent, exposing you to more melee attackers). But designing the spell around that particular situation would not be good practice in the first place.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 04:02

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

It is uncontrolled because you exist in random locations and can only choose to go to those locations. That is much weaker than CBlink.

Increasing your sight range is a terrible nerf. It allows far more enemies to see and attack you at once. There is a reason why one of the best Demonspawn mutations permanently decreases your sight range. A longer CBlink range is barely a buff considering that also means enemies have the same range increased on all their ranged attacks.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 04:07

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Hurricos wrote:Where did you get the idea it was uncontrolled? You can choose to phase into any location you are currently at. "... phase into any location they are currently [standing in]"
But you said these locations are random?
Hurricos wrote:Death's Door is extremely risky for anyone without Spirit, Kiku or Borg's.
No it isn't and this statement betrays a lack of understanding of how the spell works. There is a guaranteed minimum duration. Also, neither Kiku nor Spirit help in any significant way.
Hurricos wrote:This spell gives you stochastic resistance to smiting, hellfire, hexes of all sorts - literally every sort of interaction - major immunity to many attacks, all while concurrently allowing you to attack as normal. CBlink gets you out of situations; this one defends you in a similar manner as to having blinked away and lets you stay in the situations you were in.
If the player is taking so damage from smiting, hellfire, and hexes of all sorts that they need this spell, why would they not want to get out of that situation with cblink instead? If the chance of resistance is 2/n like you described rather than 1/n, then it even probably makes you take more damage in ziggurats (the only place where cblinking away wouldn't be better - other than abyss, which becomes trivial long before you would get this spell anyway).
Hurricos wrote:It is very significant in how it impacts many high-level sources of damage. A killhole will make you nigh-immune to damage, as most of your phases will be walled; I don't think you're seeing this.
A killhole already makes you nigh-immune to damage, because all the monsters are out of LOS and can't damage you. I don't think you're seeing this.
Hurricos wrote:Au contraire. It means your CBlinks can go much further, and you can target past walls (assuming your LOS is the union of all tiles seen by each phase position), while being protected to an extent from their attacks. (You do need to be partially past the wall in order to attack past it, but the fact that that's fewer than most of your presences means that you're pretty much safe.) Attackers will generally miss even if they do begin attacking, simply because of the mechanics of the spell in the first place.
Longer range for the player is not useful if you give the same longer range to monsters. It's actually detrimental, for the exact same reason that nightstalker is beneficial.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 04:15

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

milski wrote:It is uncontrolled because you exist in random locations and can only choose to go to those locations. That is much weaker than CBlink.

Increasing your sight range is a terrible nerf. It allows far more enemies to see and attack you at once. There is a reason why one of the best Demonspawn mutations permanently decreases your sight range. A longer CBlink range is barely a buff considering that also means enemies have the same range increased on all their ranged attacks.


I suppose I have not described with any accuracy what I want from this spell.

I would expect, on average, pow/10 extra presences to generate in something akin to a bivariate normal distribution around your current location. (Not sure what std. dev I'd want; it'd probably be ~sigma = pow/66 tiles.) This means that at maximum power, enemy ranged attacks (smiting, hellfire, torment) would get a 2 in 20 chance to actually affect you per member of the range of effect. Alternatively, we could just work with reduction of damage after AC reduction - thus you'd only take 10% of the damage that each presence took, which against many forms of attack is nothing. I'd prefer to work with both for flavor.

You claim that LOS increase is a debuff, but what you fail to realize is that for anyone with significant translocations training, it is a huge buff: you are effectively able to attack your enemy at a range from a position you're *not actually at*, and can continue to Blink or Passage to avoid said enemy's attack range.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 04:26

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

LOS is reciprocal. This is a fundamental part of its design. The player is in a monster's LOS if, and only if, that monster is in the player's LOS.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 04:41

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

duvessa wrote:But you said these locations are random?


I didn't exactly describe how I wanted them distributed, but they would be bivariate normal distribution. Edit: This would mean that you have a chance at every possible turn to decide whether or not to collapse your state into that position.


duvessa wrote:No it isn't and this statement betrays a lack of understanding of how the spell works. There is a guaranteed minimum duration. Also, neither Kiku nor Spirit help in any significant way.


Kiku gives you the spell, protects you from its miscast and lets you end the spell with significantly higher health, allowing many more races to cast it without concerns about miscasts. Spirit lets you end the spell with far more effective health than normal.

Mind you, I've played a few games using the spell. The use of Death's Door as a Vine Stalker is mindblowingly strong, nearly as strong as using Borgnjor's every time it is cast with none of the cost.

duvessa wrote:If the player is taking so damage from smiting, hellfire, and hexes of all sorts that they need this spell, why would they not want to get out of that situation with cblink instead? If the chance of resistance is 2/n like you described rather than 1/n, then it even probably makes you take more damage in ziggurats (the only place where cblinking away wouldn't be better - other than abyss, which becomes trivial long before you would get this spell anyway).


Hence the tilda in my original description. It can be fine-tuned. Blinking away prevents you from actually acting offensively.

As a side note, you'd actually take significantly less damage in a zig depending on where you were standing; if the Zig has any corners, you could reduce the number of presences you have out in the open to nearly 1/4.

The chance of resistance is not ?/n. The chance of NOT resisting is 2/n; the chance of actually taking damage. But your continuation on that makes it clear that you got the point. This value can be tweaked.

duvessa wrote:A killhole already makes you nigh-immune to damage, because all the monsters are out of LOS and can't damage you. I don't think you're seeing this.


This can be extended to any structure that involves lots of rock and very little space, independent of LoS.

duvessa wrote:It's actually detrimental, for the exact same reason that nightstalker is beneficial.


I don't think the situations are remotely similar enough for the comparison to be made, but I do admit that Robe of Night, Darknessed Nightstalker 3 is extremely impressive and allows for virtual non-detection with how far it limits your LoS. However, the purpose of this translocation is not to avoid detection, it's to avoid interaction. Comparable to Ashenzari / Darkness or Ashenzari / Firestorm. You use the fact that you are not present where your enemy is seeking to target in order to avoid damage. Yes, your enemy knows you're there, but they cannot for sure deal *damage* to you.
Last edited by Hurricos on Thursday, 19th November 2015, 04:50, edited 2 times in total.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 04:42

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

duvessa wrote:LOS is reciprocal. This is a fundamental part of its design. The player is in a monster's LOS if, and only if, that monster is in the player's LOS.


Yes. This is understood. However, there is no particular relationship between an enemy being in your LoS and an enemy being able to attack you.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 05:11

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Hurricos, walls are not single tiles wide. In almost all cases if there is a wall on the edge of the effective area of the map, that wall continues all the way to the hard coded edge. Unless your spell puts player clones inside of wall occupied tiles, hugging a corner will not provide any extra protection, and neither will most killholes.

Further, more than just LOS is reciprocal. Attack flavors are also reciprocal. If you can hit an enemy with a certain type of attack, they can hit you with a certain type of attack. Even if you take reduced damage, putting yourself in more locations that can be attacked and increasing the number of tiles you can see (thus increasing the potential to get hit) is worse than just Cblinking out of the range of monsters, and at no point, especially not after you get ninth level spells, is "kill X" more important than "don't take damage from X."

If nothing else, there is the obvious case that Torment is screenwide and by increasing your LoS, you increase the potential to be tormented multiple times per turn, which is a significant problem in every endgame location.
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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 05:41

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Against torment you can probably just make your clones torment immune to fix that problem.

I'm also struggling to see the power in being able to blink further. Since casting hyperphase takes a turn, you'd need to blink more than twice as far to gain an advantage, and the fact your clones are randomly placed means there's no guarantee they turn up in the right direction.

bivariate normal distribution
This just means normal distribution in two dimensions right? So most copies would end up right next to you but one or two would end up at the edge of your original LoS?

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 05:50

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

milski wrote:Hurricos, walls are not single tiles wide. In almost all cases if there is a wall on the edge of the effective area of the map, that wall continues all the way to the hard coded edge. Unless your spell puts player clones inside of wall occupied tiles, hugging a corner will not provide any extra protection, and neither will most killholes.


Dunno if I made this clear, but the spell is supposed to allow you to phase into any scenery - empty space, walls, trees, statues etc.

What you cannot do is enter enemies' space.

milski wrote:Further, more than just LOS is reciprocal. Attack flavors are also reciprocal. If you can hit an enemy with a certain type of attack, they can hit you with a certain type of attack. Even if you take reduced damage, putting yourself in more locations that can be attacked and increasing the number of tiles you can see (thus increasing the potential to get hit) is worse than just Cblinking out of the range of monsters, and at no point, especially not after you get ninth level spells, is "kill X" more important than "don't take damage from X."


Evasion and monster / PC differences makes attack flavors being reciprocal very untrue.

The purpose of the spell is to, for the most part, take less damage. If tuned correctly and used in the right situations, you will take less damage. If you take reduced damage, single-target attacks are much weaker. Most attacks are single-target. The purpose of this spell is to avoid taking damage by artificially doing something Translocations already does, but with more Flavor. Compare Blink / CBlink / Passage (gets you away from enemies), Disjunction / Dispersal / Force Lance (gets enemies away from you), Shroud (absorbs damage), Phase Shift (increases EV and thus potential to not be damaged), Summon Forest (controls the area in your LoS with a powerful ally that can summon constricting and pulling vines which reliably keep enemies at bay), Malign Gateway (produces a reliably fixed, tanky and most importantly elementally immune ally to protect you), Recall (surrounds you with allies to avoid damage). If the theme of the school isn't obvious, it's to aid you in avoiding damage, escaping and travelling. The purpose of this spell is to aid you in avoiding damage, escape and travel.

milski wrote:If nothing else, there is the obvious case that Torment is screenwide and by increasing your LoS, you increase the potential to be tormented multiple times per turn, which is a significant problem in every endgame location.


Worship Kiku, be Undead, enter Statue form, have lots of rN, Necromutate, go invisible (tormentors). Also, only the presences within sight of the enemy can be tormented, so this is slightly more moot. Again, the point of the spell is to be in more places that you are not already in, reaping the reward for being in those places while avoiding some of the penalties for being in those places; the exact mechanism of the spell still requires you to be responsible (by, e.g., avoiding Firestormers).
Last edited by Hurricos on Thursday, 19th November 2015, 05:58, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 05:56

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

chequers wrote:Against torment you can probably just make your clones torment immune to fix that problem.

I'm also struggling to see the power in being able to blink further. Since casting hyperphase takes a turn, you'd need to blink more than twice as far to gain an advantage, and the fact your clones are randomly placed means there's no guarantee they turn up in the right direction.

bivariate normal distribution
This just means normal distribution in two dimensions right? So most copies would end up right next to you but one or two would end up at the edge of your original LoS?


Your copies need not be torment immune; only those clones in normal LoS of the enemy can be tormented, so you will interact with the reduced or evaded damage they experience.

You can cast Hyperphase and then blink repeatedly. Hyperphase should last longer than Disjunction. When you're at the point you'd wish to escape through (usu. a wall), you wait a bit until you phase in on the other side of the wall, then collapse state and effectively blink to the other side of the wall. The PC's rules for moving through solid objects remain the same.

Blinking is not the only use; also attacking with ranged weapons (if you can fire a bow at an enemy, it's because at least one of your presences is in normal LoS of them, but more importantly not ALL of your presences are there, so not all of you is there).

Bivariate normal is as you describe. The range and number should increase with higher power, allowing for greatly increased LoS. For purposes of enemy AI and targeting, assume your clones are high-strength durable summons.
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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 06:02

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Your copies need not be torment immune; only those clones in normal LoS of the enemy can be tormented, so you will interact with the reduced or evaded damage they experience.

This isn't how torment / monster LoS works. If a monster is in your LoS and casts torment, every monster in your LoS is tormented.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 06:05

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

chequers wrote:
Your copies need not be torment immune; only those clones in normal LoS of the enemy can be tormented, so you will interact with the reduced or evaded damage they experience.

This isn't how torment / monster LoS works. If a monster is in your LoS and casts torment, every monster in your LoS is tormented.


This makes no sense. A natural monster can be at the north end of your LoS; if a Tormentor casts Symbol of Torment at the south end of your LoS, they should NOT be affected.

The truth of this is especially obvious in Elf, where monsters you cannot see still get tormented by Demonologists' fiends / Tormentors.

I quote: Torment: "Calls on the powers of darkness to cause agonising injury to any living thing in the caster's vicinity, cutting their resilience in half. This damage is never directly lethal."

Or am I grievously misinformed?

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 06:15

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Hurricos wrote:
duvessa wrote:LOS is reciprocal. This is a fundamental part of its design. The player is in a monster's LOS if, and only if, that monster is in the player's LOS.


Yes. This is understood. However, there is no particular relationship between an enemy being in your LoS and an enemy being able to attack you.
Um, yes. Yes there is.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 06:17

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

An L9 spell needs to enable you to do more damage to be worth it; that's probably just a fundamental truth of the spell system.

What if:

Hyperphase creates N spellpower-dependent "illusory images" of yourself within a close area, where N is between, say, 1 and 3. Illusory images are treated as you by monsters. You and your illusory images take reduced damage (whether this reduced damage should be more, less, or equal to damage/N is up for debate and a balancing mechanism; a Phase Shift effect could also be included as in the OP). Illusory images have their own HP pool (spellpower-dependent).

Boring alternative: each illusory image mimics your actions. (Hyperphase cannot be cast again with the +Hyper status effect.)
-OR-
Interesting and better for melee alternative: space bends to your will, and you inhabit each of your illusory images and your corporeal form in sequence. Each turn you act (including resting), your action is faster (whether this should be equal to time/N or slower is up for debate, a balancing mechanism, and possibly spellpower-dependent). After each turn you are transported to the next illusory image, continuing in sequence until the +Hyper status effect ends. The status effect may be cancelled ([a] menu); this is an instant(?) action and you are returned to your corporeal form.

Is it possible/desirable/design-breaking for line of sight to only emanate from your corporeal form - so a) your illusory images will have lopsided LOS, b) they cannot see, move, or attack out of your corporeal LOS, and as a result c) this isn't some sort of weird overpowered yet incredibly tedious form of Haste?

The design goal here is for Hyperphase to amplify your ordinary damage output in a tactically interesting way, converting melee/single-target ranged combat into AOE-lite. (Melee zigs!) It probably should not make you more vulnerable to damage. Essentially you're playing 2-5 copies of yourself at once.

Unresolved problems -

Status effects from items and spells - shared, I guess? Shared makes sense for positive effects; it makes less sense for negative and other effects, requires some (i.e. Flay) to be special-cased, and doesn't play nicely at all with others (i.e. Mesm, Tele). Illusory images could just resist the troublesome status effects, or even all status effects.

Monster behavior and targeting - it almost certainly assumes there is one single canonical player character, though I assume illusory images could be treated as allied monsters for those purposes.

Ring of Flames/Tornado/other such spells.

This is probably wildly overpowered with AOE spells.

Probably plenty of others.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 06:21

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

So it's completely unclear what you want from the spell, even to this point, since you haven't bothered to update the main post with an actual nuts and bolts description of what happens. It's also completely unclear if you know or care about how any mechanics in Crawl work.

With that said:

Again, LoS is reciprocal. Monster Torment works by tormenting everything in your Line of Sight. This means that if a monster casts torment, all your clones will always be hit by it, and since you increased the sight range, more tormentors can be present. You need to understand this.

Attack flavors are reciprocal. Players have higher defenses, yes, but that is completely irrelevant to the point that if you can make an attack on a monster, the monster can make that same flavor of attack on you. The success rate is different, but your argument is essentially "no, you can attack orcs in melee without orcs attacking back" because most of those attacks are zero damage. But that argument is A: wrong, and B: doesn't even matter for torment or hellfire.

It is unclear to this point if ending the spell is supposed to be "pick a current clone, you're at his position now," or what. It is also unclear if you always "move" from your current central location, or if you can choose to "move" from the location of any clone. You make it sound as if the latter is possible, since you say there are repeated Cblinks, but you make it sound as if the former is also the case, since that is the specific example you use for wall hopping. I am not sure which is supposed to be the case. If the latter is the case, there is also the issue of how the game decides which clone attacks, because it would require a massive and obnoxious interface to choose position even for ranged attacks, let alone for bolt spells or fireball.

It is unclear if you are meant to have a fractional chance to take full damage when a clone is hit, you always take fractional damage when a clone is hit, or you have a fractional chance to take fractional damage when a clone is hit. It is also unclear whether the net effect of an attack hitting all clones is supposed to be the same as getting hit without this spell, or worse than getting hit without this spell. You act as if Firestorm in a hallway would be worse than usual (despite many clones being inside the walls), which would indicate being hit in multiple places is significantly bad and each clone takes more than proportional damage. But you also act as if Torment would not be a particularly greater threat than normal, despite the fact it will mechanically always hit every single clone, which would indicate that each clone is taking proportional damage.

The reason people are critiquing the spell is because this is basically the worst case of "we need a 9th level spell" syndrome. It's super flashy, but it is incredibly unclear what the effects are meant to be, there is not an obvious design goal or unique decision aspect added by the spell, it is based on mistaken assumptions on how Crawl works, and it potentially nerfs the player (this is more often the issue with transmutation suggestions).

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 06:23

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Hurricos wrote:
chequers wrote:
Your copies need not be torment immune; only those clones in normal LoS of the enemy can be tormented, so you will interact with the reduced or evaded damage they experience.

This isn't how torment / monster LoS works. If a monster is in your LoS and casts torment, every monster in your LoS is tormented.


This makes no sense. A natural monster can be at the north end of your LoS; if a Tormentor casts Symbol of Torment at the south end of your LoS, they should NOT be affected.

The truth of this is especially obvious in Elf, where monsters you cannot see still get tormented by Demonologists' fiends / Tormentors.

I quote: Torment: "Calls on the powers of darkness to cause agonising injury to any living thing in the caster's vicinity, cutting their resilience in half. This damage is never directly lethal."

Or am I grievously misinformed?


Yes, you are, which is part of the problem with every aspect of this suggestion. You don't even seem to be informed of what your own goals are, as evidenced by suggesting Cerebov in a hallway is a bad situation while also saying that walls are your friend (hallways are second only to corners for wallyness).

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 06:40

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

milski wrote:Yes, you are, which is part of the problem with every aspect of this suggestion. You don't even seem to be informed of what your own goals are, as evidenced by suggesting Cerebov in a hallway is a bad situation while also saying that walls are your friend (hallways are second only to corners for wallyness).


"... for example, you would not want to cast this against Cerebov without being in a hallway, for fear of all of your phases partially tanking a full-area firestorm."

.... What are you talking about? As evidenced? Did you read it right? No.

WITHOUT. Being in a hallway.

Torment would need to be reworked; the functionality you described is something I've never heard of, but assuming you are correct is very bad functionality, as then (I'd assume) allies outside of your LoS cannot be tormented.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 06:58

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

milski wrote:So it's completely unclear what you want from the spell, even to this point, since you haven't bothered to update the main post with an actual nuts and bolts description of what happens. It's also completely unclear if you know or care about how any mechanics in Crawl work.


The mechanic I have failed to know is Torment. I am not going to work out the nuts and bolts until I work out what it needs in terms of conceptual tuning. LoS issues is a big one here.

With that said:

milski wrote:Again, LoS is reciprocal. Monster Torment works by tormenting everything in your Line of Sight. This means that if a monster casts torment, all your clones will always be hit by it, and since you increased the sight range, more tormentors can be present. You need to understand this.


This is strange, bad, spoilery functionality which should be changed.

milski wrote:Attack flavors are reciprocal. Players have higher defenses, yes, but that is completely irrelevant to the point that if you can make an attack on a monster, the monster can make that same flavor of attack on you. The success rate is different, but your argument is essentially "no, you can attack orcs in melee without orcs attacking back" because most of those attacks are zero damage. But that argument is A: wrong, and B: doesn't even matter for torment or hellfire.


Staff of Dispater, Hurl Hellfire Demonspawn Mutation and Hellfire arbalest in terms of PC hellfire. You can attack monsters out of sight with Fire Storm; !lm hurricos defe uniq=ereshkigal -tv; this is correct functionality. But yes, let's ignore those just for the point of argument. The purpose of this spell is to reduce either the chance of monsters hitting you or the damage that you take by doing something translocatey. The monsters can attack you back all they want - to attack them you need to have at least one of your presences in LoS of them - but they will only be effectively attacking a portion of you, which is what this spell is trying to emulate through self-copying / phasing / multipresence.

milski wrote:It is unclear to this point if ending the spell is supposed to be "pick a current clone, you're at his position now," or what. It is also unclear if you always "move" from your current central location, or if you can choose to "move" from the location of any clone. You make it sound as if the latter is possible, since you say there are repeated Cblinks, but you make it sound as if the former is also the case, since that is the specific example you use for wall hopping. I am not sure which is supposed to be the case. If the latter is the case, there is also the issue of how the game decides which clone attacks, because it would require a massive and obnoxious interface to choose position even for ranged attacks, let alone for bolt spells or fireball.


Ending the spell is to do exactly as you say. You always move from your central location for ease of implementation. Your line of sight is the union of the lines of sights of all of your clones, and the distance to each position is the minimum distance from each clone. Working out how to target beams will be a pain, indeed, and expecting the targeter to do a good job is a little bit far, which is why I am considering disabling the ability for ranged attacks involving beams to be disabled (smite or nothing).

milski wrote:It is unclear if you are meant to have a fractional chance to take full damage when a clone is hit, you always take fractional damage when a clone is hit, or you have a fractional chance to take fractional damage when a clone is hit. It is also unclear whether the net effect of an attack hitting all clones is supposed to be the same as getting hit without this spell, or worse than getting hit without this spell. You act as if Firestorm in a hallway would be worse than usual (despite many clones being inside the walls), which would indicate being hit in multiple places is significantly bad and each clone takes more than proportional damage. But you also act as if Torment would not be a particularly greater threat than normal, despite the fact it will mechanically always hit every single clone, which would indicate that each clone is taking proportional damage.


I mulled through all three. I'm not sure which would be more appropriate - probably the second of the three. I have not decided as each has its own effects - e.g. hellfire (fireball form) would be 'interacted with' and made to explode on the first target, which means that you could avoid its damage to an extreme extent, which may be unbalanced.

I do not act as if FS in a hallway would be worse than usual; you have misread my post. Torment should be changed to act responsibly if it is as you claim; again, the way you describe it is extremely spoilery and is not consistent with the spell description.

milski wrote:The reason people are critiquing the spell is because this is basically the worst case of "we need a 9th level spell" syndrome. It's super flashy, but it is incredibly unclear what the effects are meant to be, there is not an obvious design goal or unique decision aspect added by the spell, it is based on mistaken assumptions on how Crawl works, and it potentially nerfs the player (this is more often the issue with transmutation suggestions).


At best, the spell has a point that's very well flavored: Avoid damage that has to do with where you are by not being in any particular place at all. The implications of that are clear when you think about what forms of damage are generally influenced by where you are, except in spoilery cases like the Torment you described (which makes nothing in the way of sense).

The only people critiquing it are you and duvessa, and that doesn't say much at all.
Last edited by Hurricos on Thursday, 19th November 2015, 07:05, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 07:02

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

reciprocal LOS is pretty fundamental to DCSS

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 07:07

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

The Ferret wrote:reciprocal LOS is pretty fundamental to DCSS


Tell that to Ashenzari, Fire Storm, Tukima's Dance, Fulminant Prism. But seriously, this maintains reciprocal LOS. Anything you can see can see you, or a phase of you, which can be attacked, but not damaged as easily as you can be.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 07:16

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

duvessa wrote:
Hurricos wrote:
duvessa wrote:LOS is reciprocal. This is a fundamental part of its design. The player is in a monster's LOS if, and only if, that monster is in the player's LOS.


Yes. This is understood. However, there is no particular relationship between an enemy being in your LoS and an enemy being able to attack you.
Um, yes. Yes there is.


Tell that to stabs.

Tell that to any monster with LRD or Shatter. (You can be attacked without you seeing your non-invisible attacker.)

Tell that to Fire Storm, Fulminant Prism, Chain Lightning, all the cloud spells, allied spores and oklobs, allied undead, Summon Forest, Malign Gateway, Tukima's Dance, Fireball, Orb of Electrocution, Staff of Dispater, the list goes ON.

This spell barely dips into the giant pile of crappy LoS-less tactics that Singularity brought us.
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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 07:44

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

I get it.

Especially since Hurricos patiently wrote detailed explanations in reply. OP may not have detailed all the mechanics, what keystrokes you'd normally press after casting this spell, etc, but I assumed it was because he trusted everyone to fill it in with whatever makes sense.

I can write my own interpretation about how this spell is used. I think it is close to what OP had in mind, though less ambivalent.

It's all so simple, too. edit: but bizarre and surreal at the same time.

I put all money on milski being wrong about how torment works.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 08:19

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

but i understand that your copies taking damage wouldn't affect you by design?

isnt the spell flavored so that those copies are actually the caster which is simply manifesting in different positions? so, supposedly, they should all have a shared hp pool sort of like starcursed masses do.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 08:26

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

adozu wrote:but i understand that your copies taking damage wouldn't affect you by design?

isnt the spell flavored so that those copies are actually the caster which is simply manifesting in different positions? so, supposedly, they should all have a shared hp pool sort of like starcursed masses do.


Effectively.

Imagine that half of you is in some other place. If one half of you were to be struck by a fireball, only one half of you would get burned.

The idea of the spell is that it separates you and makes you in multiple places all at once; the damage taken when one of you is struck is divided by the number of you there are.

It would also be nice (compare phase shift) to have a power-dependent rate of each of your copies instantly phasing out to avoid being hit by a hex or attack, perhaps capping at ~33% at 200 power. Your copies can phase into walls and past them and thus grant you sight past walls (if your copies are in open air, they can see), and when you decide to collapse your state you can do so at any point you are currently phased in at.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 08:52

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

milski wrote:
Hurricos wrote:
chequers wrote:
This makes no sense. A natural monster can be at the north end of your LoS; if a Tormentor casts Symbol of Torment at the south end of your LoS, they should NOT be affected.

The truth of this is especially obvious in Elf, where monsters you cannot see still get tormented by Demonologists' fiends / Tormentors.

I quote: Torment: "Calls on the powers of darkness to cause agonising injury to any living thing in the caster's vicinity, cutting their resilience in half. This damage is never directly lethal."

Or am I grievously misinformed?


Yes, you are, which is part of the problem with every aspect of this suggestion. You don't even seem to be informed of what your own goals are, as evidenced by suggesting Cerebov in a hallway is a bad situation while also saying that walls are your friend (hallways are second only to corners for wallyness).



You are wrong. Plain and simply, SoT only affects what the caster can see. End of story nothing else to be said end of the line.

If you want to tell me I'm wrong, know your goddamn facts first. It pisses me off when people act all high and mighty and spit at me for being an uneducated fuckwad until I prove them wrong.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 08:56

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Its not just torment that is bad with regards to expanded LoS, although that is certainly one of the most acutely dangerous factors. Even if you are "not there" and can avoid subsequent attacks, you are reporting your presence to a wider swath of enemies, period. So if you are fighting a few paces down a corridor, one of your images will be out in the open space and things that might not have been aware of you now are. What do they do? They don't just "attack" you. They shout, and then part of their "attack you" strategy is to move in closer. That shout wakes up things that are even further away, and they come moving in too. And all these bad dudes are centering in on a location which is reasonably close to where you "are", and then what? Eventually the spell runs out, if you are still alive.

The phase aspect of this just makes it all that much worse. I do NOT want to have copies of me uncontrollably blinking in to separate areas like the corridor on the other side of the wall, or a vault full of sleeping big bad dudes. Great. Now you are just waking everything up, alert alert orb thief on level 7!

And all I have do to for this is pump translocations high enough to cast a lvl 9 reliably? LoL


A lvl 9 translocation I might actually consider would look more like this:

Spell: Scryendye
School: Translocations
Lvl: 9
Noise: None
Hunger: 1 family-sized pizza

Description: This powerful spell is the last known creation of Golubria before he mysteriously disappeared from the Dungeon forever. Upon successfully casting the spell, the caster becomes intimately aware of moderate area of the dungeon in a radius centered around him regardless of LoS, in the same manner as magic mapping but with the exception that all monsters, including those that are invisible, and traps are fully revealed. The spell's momentum then compels the caster to make a controlled blink to any open square within this radius, this jump cannot be resisted except by a stasis effect, but doing so causes an extremely high level (red) of magical contamination. A few turns (random) after making the jump, a second aftershock of momentum hits the caster, allowing for another controlled blink in the same manner as the first. The momentum is lower here, and this blink can be resisted as normally, albeit with a slightly greater risk of contamination than normal.
Last edited by daggaz on Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:25, edited 2 times in total.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:12

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

daggaz wrote:Its not just torment that is bad with regards to expanded LoS, although that is certainly one of the most acutely dangerous factors. Even if you are "not there" and can avoid subsequent attacks, you are reporting your presence to a wider swath of enemies, period. So if you are fighting a few paces down a corridor, one of your images will be out in the open space and things that might not have been aware of you now are. What do they do? They don't just "attack" you. They shout, and then part of their "attack you" strategy is to move in closer. That shout wakes up things that are even further away, and they come moving in too. And all these bad dudes are centering in on a location which is reasonably close to where you "are", and then what? Eventually the spell runs out, if you are still alive.

The phase aspect of this just makes it all that much worse. I do NOT want to have copies of me uncontrollably blinking in to separate areas like the corridor on the other side of the wall, or a vault full of sleeping big bad dudes. Great. Now you are just waking everything up, alert alert orb thief on level 7!

And all I have do to for this is pump translocations high enough to cast a lvl 9 reliably? LoL


Torment does not work as he stated; proof is above.

Think less of it as copies of yourself and more as extension of yourself. You as a PC cannot move through a wall, but your phases can occupy it; in the wall, they are perfectly safe, so effectively part of you being in the wall makes it so that you can, overall, take less damage.

If you move close to the wall, some of your phase will tunnel through it, but you are not on the other side of the wall in full until you choose to be on the other side of the wall.

Alerting other things is not at all concerning; things will shout just as much as seeing you as they will hearing other things shout. What is concerning is the possibility of being tracked and attacked because other things catch sight of you more quickly, but that is kind of moot if you can cast a translocations L9 (and can tank brutal damage by not being where the damage is being applied to).

Your spell kind of eats at Ashenzari's territory, which this spell tries not to do by not revealing anything until you would also be revealed to those things.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:15

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Hurricos wrote:Alerting other things is not at all concerning...

Might want to learn how the game actually works before designing level 9 spells
... things will shout just as much as seeing you as they will hearing other things shout.

What part of "increasing your LoS will increase the radius of monsters alerting each other" did you honestly not understand?
Torment does not work as he stated; proof is above.

Could care less about any misconceptions about torment. Bringing in more tormenters, period, because you have increased your LoS, is a trademarked "Very Bad Idea". Same thing goes with Hellfire.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:25

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

daggaz wrote:Might want to learn how the game actually works before designing level 9 spells

Well that's just mean.
daggaz wrote:What part of "increasing your LoS will increase the radius of monsters alerting each other" did you honestly not understand?

Again, the defensive measures brought on by this mitigate that significantly. I don't think you understand how strong this spell is when used properly: 99% of situations aren't actually dangerous, and those that are are quickly made less dangerous by suddenly being on the other side of a wall, something this spell lets you do that no other such spell can.
daggaz wrote:Could care less about any misconceptions about torment. Bringing in more tormenters, period, because you have increased your LoS, is a trademarked "Very Bad Idea". Same thing goes with Hellfire.

The difference in LoS is attributed to the addition of new presences; But you won't take much more damage from torment at all because those presences are all that will get tormented by things in the extra LoS. Few of them getting tormented -> reduced damage. If a tormenter comes into sight and you *really* don't like getting tormented, simply collapse phase somewhere away from the torment. It's instant and free, just costing light contam.
Hellfire is something this spell is actually really good at mitigating, actually, since most hellfire is going to only target a much smaller portion of you than normal, in the range of 20-30% at max power (20 extra presences, average of 4 get hellfired at a time).

Also, not the entire game is Pandemonium.
Last edited by Hurricos on Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:31, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:31

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Man you are missing the point entirely, and multiple people have been pointing out examples.

One of the basics of this game is noise/LoS management. Attracting a whole bunch of bad guys to your general location is BAD. It doesn't matter if the spell gives you some resistance, it doesn't matter if they hellfire or torment or not. Having an army of frost giants/liches/demons/shadow dragons/vault dudes/uniques/etc/etc closing in on you is a pretty bad idea, especially if the spell you cast is lvl 9 and doesn't even make the area a kill zone, like glaciate and firestorm do.

When the tavern tells you "increasing LoS is a huge nerf" and then gives you a concrete counterexample of "one of the best demonspawn mutations is nightstalker", then the smart thing to do is to reevaluate what you think you know about the game.

Well that's just mean

No, that is just honesty. Your statement was so resolutely wrong and at such a fundamental level, that there isn't much else to say.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:35

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

daggaz wrote:Man you are missing the point entirely, and multiple people have been pointing out examples.

One of the basics of this game is noise/LoS management. Attracting a whole bunch of bad guys to your general location is BAD. It doesn't matter if the spell gives you some resistance, it doesn't matter if they hellfire or torment or not. Having an army of frost giants/liches/demons/shadow dragons/vault dudes/uniques/etc/etc closing in on you is a pretty bad idea, especially if the spell you cast is lvl 9 and doesn't even make the area a kill zone, like glaciate and firestorm do.

When the tavern tells you "increasing LoS is a huge nerf" and then gives you a concrete counterexample of "one of the best demonspawn mutations is nightstalker", then the smart thing to do is to reevaluate what you think you know about the game.


I play a lot of Warpers. Translocations, everything. One thing I know better than anything is position management.

The solution to this is to remove the stealth malus and instead give it a stealth bonus depending upon how many / few of your presences a monsters could possibly see.

The problem is solved. You will not generate extra noise, you will not generate extra attraction, you will simply have extra defenses and generate extra LoS which can be revoked INSTANTLY at ANY POINT IN TIME and turned into a FREE Controlled Blink that GOES THROUGH WALLS.

If that's not thematic and useful enough for a Trloc L9, then nothing is and the matter is closed.

N.b. that there is a direct conflict between LoS limiting and Translocations. Yes, that's all there is to it - the more LoS you have, the better your Trlocs will be. Just because Nightstalker is a successful tool to survive, doesn't mean a spell that allows you to directly manipulate LoS and position can't also be.

And as someone who plays a lot of Wr, I can tell you right now:

Not one monster will know what's going on if you FUCKING SHATTER WHILE WEARING THE SHIELD OF THE GONG if you can escape from the location at which you made the noise.

Speaking of SotG, ... come to think, that item would definitely inform monsters on the floor better of your position than a +4 tile LoS would, but I'm sure it's less worth using than this spell ... huh. And yet people use it, and it's good, and it's a thing. You have to wonder why that is, maybe?
Last edited by Hurricos on Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:43, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:42

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Hurricos wrote:and generate extra LoS which can be revoked INSTANTLY at ANY POINT IN TIME

Can you revoke it retroactively? Nope? OH LOOK ITS STILL A PROBLEM. Also the tedium that this would introduce is staggering.
and turned into a FREE Controlled Blink that GOES THROUGH WALLS.

thats about the only part of the spell that looked interesting to me..
If that's not thematic and useful enough for a Trloc L9, then nothing is and the matter is closed.

if only claims of absolute authority actually worked in public debate...

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:49

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

daggaz wrote:
Hurricos wrote:and generate extra LoS which can be revoked INSTANTLY at ANY POINT IN TIME

Can you revoke it retroactively? Nope? OH LOOK ITS STILL A PROBLEM. Also the tedium that this would introduce is staggering.
and turned into a FREE Controlled Blink that GOES THROUGH WALLS.

thats about the only part of the spell that looked interesting to me..
If that's not thematic and useful enough for a Trloc L9, then nothing is and the matter is closed.

if only claims of absolute authority actually worked in public debate...


Where is the tedium in it? You see something you don't like, you hit ability h or however you have it set and select the position you want to end the phase at, then go on with your life with two ranks of contam.

Why exactly is it a problem that you can't revoke it retroactively? Why is it a problem in the first place? I mean what the hell. Just remove the LoS difference, who gives a damn? It was meant to be a debuff to make the spell interesting rather than just flat out powerful (because without the LoS issue it's basically just a huge buff to defenses for an MP cost).

... and to your last comment, ... look, you've got to be kidding me. Have you read what you've written yet? You mock me like I'm the dirt on the bottom of your heel, with the same sentiment as a rotten-soul schoolteacher has for a nosepicking dunce, like an Angel of Zin reciting at a boggart. Give me a break; you haven't exactly been fair or reasonable either.

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:51

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

A 9 level non-damage spell has to be so powerfull to justify the skill investment that it becomes a no-brainer for most casters. That's a good reason to restrict 9 level to damage-only spells.

If you can't live without 9 level translocations, worship Lugonu.
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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:54

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

kuniqs wrote:A 9 level non-damage spell has to be so powerfull to justify the skill investment that it becomes a no-brainer for most casters. That's a good reason to restrict 9 level to damage-only spells.

If you can't live without 9 level translocations, worship Lugonu.


Mind you, this is single school, and two species have +4 aptitudes for it; also, there are two L8 Trloc spells that are worth training for on any character with moderately high Intelligence. This just caps the school off the way it should have been done (Singularity Was Bad).

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 09:58

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

...Ok, so you really don't get why noise/LoS management is so important. You should also note that its not the same as position management.

When a monster sees you, it will usually shout if it can. That attracts monsters from outside of LoS towards the point of the shout. Note that the bigger your LoS, the bigger this out-of-LoS-attraction-zone is, and it scales by a power, not linearly, which is why LoS can really bone you. So anyhow, monster shouts, monster starts moving towards you. What happens if you move out of LoS? It will still walk to the last place it saw you, and it will try to track you down from there! So you can revoke your image, but its already too late if something saw you: its going to shout, and move towards you. Now multiply that by all your images and all the monsters that are now either actively moving towards your general location, or which have been alerted and coming in closer to investigate but don't know exactly whats going on. You are somewhere in the center of this shit-storm, and you are staying alive with your snazzy lvl-9 phase-resistances but that mana cost doesnt actually do squat to kill anything, which is not exactly optimal. Now if you are actually using those resistances, then you are fighting and making noise somehow. Now all those alert monsters who are wandering around investigating the shouts just outside of your LoS, have a good chance of detecting the noise, and they will come as well, and the whole thing just propagates and you end up with a mob of bad guys that can easily overwhelm a melee tank, let alone a build that has gone for lvl 9 translocations.

Fine you say, I just control blink thru the wall to safety. Okk..... did your phase images wake stuff up there? Hope not. And even if it is "safe", half the level is now wandering around making noise and waking up other monsters and for what?

... and to your last comment, ... look, you've got to be kidding me. Have you read what you've written yet? You mock me like I'm the dirt on the bottom of your heel, with the same sentiment as a rotten-soul schoolteacher has for a nosepicking dunce, like an Angel of Zin reciting at a boggart. Give me a break; you haven't exactly been fair or reasonable either.


I've been completely reasonable with you, but you want to ignore everybody's argument while brazenly defending a bad position and looks like you want to be overly dramatic about it too. I mean seriously, "mock you like the dirt on the bottom of my heel"? If you mean "point out that you have no idea how one of the most important mechanics of the game works and why it is so important, such that you might learn something and others new players reading this thread might do so as well" then ok..

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duvessa

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 10:11

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Hurricos wrote:
kuniqs wrote:A 9 level non-damage spell has to be so powerfull to justify the skill investment that it becomes a no-brainer for most casters. That's a good reason to restrict 9 level to damage-only spells.

If you can't live without 9 level translocations, worship Lugonu.


Mind you, this is single school, and two species have +4 aptitudes for it; also, there are two L8 Trloc spells that are worth training for on any character with moderately high Intelligence. This just caps the school off the way it should have been done (Singularity Was Bad).

+4 apt is a balancing factor because these species have horrible combat aptitudes and fragility problems, and because translocations is pretty much exclusively an utility school. Necromancy does not have lvl 9 spells and nobody complains. Nobody bothers about 7, 8 and 9 lvl poison magic (who uses poison magic anyway?).
Lvl 9 utility spells are either insanely powerful or wonky. Controlled blink is so good many players train translocations just for it.
I think the real problem is that translocations have little to offer aside from running away from things?
"Damned, damned be the legions of the damned..."

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Hurricos

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 10:23

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Things will not follow you indefinitely if you have any stealth at all.

This spell need not drain MP; it can just time out.

Stealth checks made against your phases can be scaled down, or they can be treated as summons for the purpose of those checks.

It would be good to describe as well the optimal use of this spell: clear an area, find a wall to a new area, phase through it and attack things on the other side, taking reduced damage all the while since most of you is actually on the original side of the wall; when it is clear, dephase through the wall in full and continue on your merry way.

This would be incredibly strong in Hell, where you could enter the safety of e.g. the Dis vault after avoiding everything outside of it by phase-dodging, then simply dephasing through.

This would be incredibly strong anywhere relatively wally, as most of your presences will be in the walls and this unattackable.

Things are going to be alerted of your presence if you cast Noise-15 Fireball; it's not exactly as risky as you're making it out to be, esp if you have enough trloc training to escape with ease.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 10:27

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Omg.

Great. Now you need high stealth to further mitigate the problems caused by a level 9 translocation spell that does nothing to kill monsters but gives you some defenses so that you can maybe survive all the problems caused by casting the spell in the first place.

Orrrr.... you could not even learn this spell in the first place, which is exactly is going to happen online. Now all those sleeping monsters are still asleep, and you didnt waste any MP, and importantly you didnt train translocations to some absurd level, instead putting the points into something useful like fighting, and its just a big net gain for the player, considering you dont kill anything with the spell in the first place.

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duvessa

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 10:30

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

Spoiler: show
Image

(courtesy of xkcd)




I get it, the spell isn't OMFGSUPERAMAZING but it is flavorful and has some cool things about it. it will likely never be in the game but it's a fun concept anyway, i don't think you need to pile on the guy so much for it.

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all before, archaeo

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Post Thursday, 19th November 2015, 10:31

Re: Proposal: Hyperphase, a flavorful Translocations L9

kuniqs wrote:
Hurricos wrote:
kuniqs wrote:A 9 level non-damage spell has to be so powerfull to justify the skill investment that it becomes a no-brainer for most casters. That's a good reason to restrict 9 level to damage-only spells.

If you can't live without 9 level translocations, worship Lugonu.


Mind you, this is single school, and two species have +4 aptitudes for it; also, there are two L8 Trloc spells that are worth training for on any character with moderately high Intelligence. This just caps the school off the way it should have been done (Singularity Was Bad).

+4 apt is a balancing factor because these species have horrible combat aptitudes and fragility problems, and because translocations is pretty much exclusively an utility school. Necromancy does not have lvl 9 spells and nobody complains. Nobody bothers about 7, 8 and 9 lvl poison magic (who uses poison magic anyway?).
Lvl 9 utility spells are either insanely powerful or wonky. Controlled blink is so good many players train translocations just for it.
I think the real problem is that translocations have little to offer aside from running away from things?


Fyi: Poison arrow is nearly as strong (and has much more range than) LCS on the things it can affect, and OTR + Ignite poison decimated everything. Poison is specific but stronnng. Max power ignite can kill a stone giant after two venom QBl strikes.

This spell provides defenses rather than strictly the ability to run away. Sp and Fe don't necessarily have their trloc apts just because they're frail; it's because they're little races imo.

Trloc has no particular reason to need a L9 other than being a very interesting school.
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