simple caster nerf ideas

[KoboldLord]

It's long been my opinion that casters of all kinds are totally awesome and could stand to be less so. Somehow they always seem to benefit more or suffer less from any given change than non-casters, even sometimes when the intent of the change was exactly the opposite. This list of relatively unrelated caster nerf ideas aren't really meant to be implemented all at once; I've just been having some ideas floating around for a bit and they weren't doing any good in my head. I didn't see any other threads that looked good to add them to, so I suppose there's nothing to do but start this one. Feel free to add your own ideas, or quibble with mine.

Cap the hunger reduction from spellcasting + int at a lower level than 100% of the hunger cost of the spell. Even races with dreadfully poor casting stats can easily get 6th-level spells hungerless over the course of a normal 3-Rune game, and staple 4th-level conjurations are easy to get hungerless by Lair. Spell hunger is mostly an early-game speedbump that completely goes away fairly early on, so part of the intended balance mechanism simply stops working regardless of the status of a given character's permafood supply. Invocations- and evocations-oriented characters don't get this kind of reduction, and even melee combat eventually costs a small but irreducible amount of food. On account of their other benefits spellcasting and intelligence would still be worth getting if spell hunger capped at, say, 50% of the original hunger cost.

Staff of energy nerf. It gives a 50% reduction to hunger, rather than eliminating it completely. If this is implemented with the previous idea, they stack multiplicatively for a 75% maximum reduction. Probably hit Necromutation, too.

Shields should retain a trade-off regardless of shield skill. Reducing the casting penalty is fine, but currently you can get SH of 18 or 35 for the early and late game with basically no cost and with no penalty to casting. Cutting the casting penalty in half would keep normal shields completely usable for a 3-Rune game, but would force interesting choices between dragon armour, a shield, and level-9 superspells beyond that point.

Elemental staves are currently spared the shield penalty applied to quarterstaves and latajangs. Elemental staves are really good, and probably worth giving up a shield for, but casters don't have to.

Haste is still the best spell in the game, appropriate for almost all characters. A potential nerf that would hit casters harder than non-casters would be to change it to a combination of (better) Swiftness and (worse) Finesse, which is to say that it applies to movement delay and attack delay, but not other actions. If casting still takes the full normal time due to the precise and unhurried gestures and incantations required, Haste could be reduced to being merely highly desirable for casters, rather than the best possible action for every case. As an additional bonus, it would stop stacking with Swiftness.

[Pteriforever]

No.

I disagree wholeheartedly with every suggestion you've made here.

[Blade]

I think 50% minimum hunger is maybe a bit too high; but 25% would be a good way to keep it present in people's minds. Staff of energy trivialized the early/mid-game for my most recent character who found it, so a nerf would definitely be good there also. Necromutation having hunger, still, would make no sense, given that you're effectively turning into an undead.

Shields retaining a trade-off is a wonderful idea. They should not be slapped onto every caster by default at no penalty. A shield penalty for elemental staves seems like a good nerf also, although they've already been hit pretty hard.

I would shed no tears if Haste was cut further; I don't think the swift+haste stacking should be removed, though; wasn't swiftfly removed for .10? Seems like two speed cuts in a row would be a bit much.

The suggestions seem very good in general; putting them in all at once might be a bit overwhelming, but some of them (or other caster nerfs) would be very reasonable.

[greepish]

No.

I disagree wholeheartedly with every suggestion you've made here.

Not rule breaking so I shouldn't report it. but please read #6 here pteri: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1410

Edit: Personally, I think the probablem with casters is the same problem in most caster vs melee games. Melee should be the tanks but casters always tank better in the long run.

I.e. Necromancy needs a nerf. Deaths door? invincibility. Lich form? A million buffs, all very important.

And Controlled blink? Avoid any situation a melee player would suffer from.

Additionally, I think the best armors should have lower EV penalty (Plate -6 to -5, StormD -5 to -3, GoldD -9 to -6, crystal -8 to -5). Admittedly, a melee player should never be able to cast 5+ level spells with any reliability, but I think any player with 27 armor and decent spell levels should be able to cast low level spells while wearing end-game armor.

Edit: Scratch that, just make max armorer reduce EV penalty to 25%, not 40%

[Kate]

I'd definitely like to make the shield penalty for casting work more like the heavy armour penalty, such that you can keep training shields and keep reducing the penalties, but never to zero.

Since the elemental staff damage was reduced it's probably worth trying them as-is for a bit. Making the staff of energy not completely eliminate spell hunger is another idea I've seen mentioned before and might be a good one, though.

[greepish]

As for capping spell hunger reduction... why not just directly nerf it instead (int*spellcasting*75%)? Thus, only deep elves and other fragile, high int casters will get hungerless spells.

[Tiber]

As for the staff of energy, I think the real thing is you can just switch to it, cast your biggest spells, and switch back. What if it had a gourmand-type deal, where you had to leave it equipped to get the full effect?

And if haste needs a nerf for casters, I'd say a simple drop of spell success would do. Overclocking your body and casting delicate spells seems like a volatile combination to me.

[dassem]

Many of the suggestions here seem very well thought out and balanced.
Much as I enjoy an easy spellcaster win, I would like to see melee characters relatively boosted a little. (Although I do think Crawl already does a lot better than most other roguelikes in this regard.)

However, Devs, please do not implement any of those ideas until my current game has finished.

[jejorda2]

What if spells always took multiple turns to cast? Maybe use the spell level/2 turns?

[Blade]

Haste is still the best spell in the game, appropriate for almost all characters.

Controlled Blink is probably better, but yeah.

Haste works completely reliably in every situation in the game, while CBlink...doesn't. In situations where cTele is allowed, Controlled Blink certainly has the edge, but overall I think I prefer Haste.

[o_O]

Shield use and low spell hunger are very minor considerations. Conjurations, haste, controlled blink, deflect missiles and Vehemut are why spellcasters are better then melee. A small conjurations nerf might be something to think about alongside permabuffs (because it will encourage casters to make more use of buffing/charms spells, which are tedious to recast before every battle)

Consider this: The best escape item is killing all enemies, the best damage prevention is all enemies being dead, the best status effect to inflict is death, your stealth is 100% effective against things that are dead and eating chunks is the best cure for hunger. Spellcasters inflict death faster, more reliably, more splashily and at greater range, while also possessing better escape options if something goes wrong.

[KoboldLord]

I think 50% minimum hunger is maybe a bit too high; but 25% would be a good way to keep it present in people's minds. Staff of energy trivialized the early/mid-game for my most recent character who found it, so a nerf would definitely be good there also. Necromutation having hunger, still, would make no sense, given that you're effectively turning into an undead.

I wouldn't want Necromutation to be functionally the only way to throw Fire Storms willy-nilly, because that makes it too desirable. I suppose it could instead get some additional drawbacks, but I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to reduce its impact on the hunger clock. Ghouls and vampires, after all, do still have hunger clocks in spite of their undead nature, and there's no reason to insist that the mummy's comprehensive level of preservedness should be the default for all undead. Perhaps the Necromutation process leaves you near starving after your metabolism returns to life, regardless of where your satiation level was before. Perhaps you need to tap an implicit phylactery for energy while Necromutated, and you restore that phylactery from your own body afterward.

The suggestions seem very good in general; putting them in all at once might be a bit overwhelming, but some of them (or other caster nerfs) would be very reasonable.

Oh, of course not all at once. I just wanted to commit the ideas to electronic memory before my human memory forgot one.

As for capping spell hunger reduction... why not just directly nerf it instead (int*spellcasting*75%)? Thus, only deep elves and other fragile, high int casters will get hungerless spells.

Unfortunately, that just delays the problem, rather than stopping it entirely. 4th-level spells like Throw Icicle and Sticky Flame are good enough for spamming through most of the game, and nothing even in the post-endgame can tank Iron Shot, Bolt of Fire, or Bolt of Cold for long unless it has the appropriate resistance, and those few things that are immune to that are easy to avoid.

Controlled Blink is probably better, but yeah.

Oh, Controlled Blink is definitely better at what Controlled Blink does, but for overall power I'd have to give the nod to Haste. An unambiguous +50% to ALL forms of offense is huge. You don't even get the stepdown function that you get from boosting spell power.

Shield use and low spell hunger are very minor considerations. Conjurations, haste, controlled blink, deflect missiles and Vehemut are why spellcasters are better then melee. A small conjurations nerf might be something to think about alongside permabuffs (because it will encourage casters to make more use of buffing/charms spells, which are tedious to recast before every battle)

Consider this: The best escape item is killing all enemies, the best damage prevention is all enemies being dead, the best status effect to inflict is death, your stealth is 100% effective against things that are dead and eating chunks is the best cure for hunger. Spellcasters inflict death faster, more reliably, more splashily and at greater range, while also possessing better escape options if something goes wrong.

If conjurations ends up not being invariably better than bows/crossbows/slings in nearly every case, I'd say that's good enough. At the moment, it's easy to avoid the drawbacks of spamming conjurations. Spell hunger can be trained away, and the mp bar is nearly always adequate to eliminate a couple targets and still retreat to a safe recovery zone. Ammo, meanwhile, is a limited quantity that you can only replenish by killing your target and all of its friends. Conjurations probably shouldn't get both a burst damage advantage and an attrition advantage.

[sanka]

I would like to see magic staves as twohanded - that would give you a choice on defense or attack power.

Nerfing haste to just affect movement and attack speed would be very good, but I think reducing every action except spellcasting is enough. Spellcasting should have a fix duration, and some spells could cost more than one turn.

One other idea to nerf spellcasters is to make picking up spells from different schools much harder. It always bugged me how easy is to generalize as a spellcaster. I think spell succes rate should only be affected by the spell schools, and not spellcasting or IQ. This would nerf Ogres, my favorite species, but I could live with that, and we could change spell school aptitudes to -2 or something if needed. Picking up a few levels in a lot of school is very cheap.

About the food cost - I feel that for most species a small food cost is irrelevant in the late game. I was happy to spam spells with Choko hunger, and I usually simply left almost all permafood on the floor. If the minimal food cost for a level 9 spell is Ration, that would change the late game for casters, but I feel that it would be hard to find a food cost that is relevant but not too harsh. I think that having a minimal food cost would nerf spriggan conjurers a lot and would not affect others too much. And if it does, then amulet of gourmand will be az extremly good item for casters again (and Kiku as god). The idea to have a permanent cost for spells is not bad, but the food game is so compliacted its not easy to fix it this way.

[greepish]

As for capping spell hunger reduction... why not just directly nerf it instead (int*spellcasting*75%)? Thus, only deep elves and other fragile, high int casters will get hungerless spells.

Unfortunately, that just delays the problem, rather than stopping it entirely. 4th-level spells like Throw Icicle and Sticky Flame are good enough for spamming through most of the game, and nothing even in the post-endgame can tank Iron Shot, Bolt of Fire, or Bolt of Cold for long unless it has the appropriate resistance, and those few things that are immune to that are easy to avoid.

In that case, perhaps it is just not extreme enough. Int*spellcasting*50% would make hunger a trial all throughout the game for non-deep elves, and would make high level escape/power spells not spammable.

[sanka]

In that case, perhaps it is just not extreme enough. Int*spellcasting*50% would make hunger a trial all throughout the game for non-deep elves, and would make high level escape/power spells not spammable.

Hunger cost for escape spells are irrelevant. Even if they have Ration hunger cost, you usualy don't use them often enough to notice. There are a lot of food in the late game for most species. (Some species would be hit harder by this change, but I think that this is not an intended side effect.)

In my experience there's only two kind of spells for which the hunger cost is really relevant: conjuration and summoning (maybe hexes, but thats an other story anyway). If you want the keep "pure" conjurer or "pure" summoner playstyes playable, then the hunger cost cannot be that high. Either you have the food to kill your enemies with the spells, and then this nerf does not really affect you, or you don't, and then you need to learn some other method (like fighting, etc.). I don't say this is a bad idea, and I definitly support nerfing casters, but this would rather remove some playstyle options or would not have big effect, only inconvenince (like you would run back for the stashed foods more often with a low strength wizard - not fun).

About the staff of energy - this item is very strong in the early game, but I have never even picked it up late game, not even with spriggans. Of course this is partially because food cost is completly eliminable, but mostly because there are lot of food in the late game.

Instead of changing hunger cost I would rather try to modify the playstyles that really relies on spamming spells. I do not have too much experience with summoners, but we can balance them more with summon caps. For conjurers, I suggest removing easy access to irresistible damage: IMB, Throw Icicle, Stone arrow, Iron shot, and make learning spells from different elemental schools much harder than now. Like change the conjuration skill so that it does not affect the power of the spells, or something like that (so you will need high elemental skill to have good damage), remove Spellcasting's and IQ's effect on success rate, etc. Conjurers would be harder to play, because elemental resistances will be a problem they need to overcome.

[greepish]

In that case, perhaps it is just not extreme enough. Int*spellcasting*50% would make hunger a trial all throughout the game for non-deep elves, and would make high level escape/power spells not spammable.

Hunger cost for escape spells are irrelevant. Even if they have Ration hunger cost, you usualy don't use them often enough to notice. There are a lot of food in the late game for most species. (Some species would be hit harder by this change, but I think that this is not an intended side effect.)

In my experience there's only two kind of spells for which the hunger cost is really relevant: conjuration and summoning (maybe hexes, but thats an other story anyway). If you want the keep "pure" conjurer or "pure" summoner playstyes playable, then the hunger cost cannot be that high. Either you have the food to kill your enemies with the spells, and then this nerf does not really affect you, or you don't, and then you need to learn some other method (like fighting, etc.). I don't say this is a bad idea, and I definitly support nerfing casters, but this would rather remove some playstyle options or would not have big effect, only inconvenince (like you would run back for the stashed foods more often with a low strength wizard - not fun).

Instead of changing hunger cost I would rather try to modify the playstyles that really relies on spamming spells. I do not have too much experience with summoners, but we can balance them more with summon caps. For conjurers, I suggest removing easy access to irresistible damage: IMB, Throw Icicle, Stone arrow, Iron shot, and make learning spells from different elemental schools much harder than now. Like change the conjuration skill so that it does not affect the power of the spells, or something like that (so you will need high elemental skill to have good damage), remove Spellcasting's and IQ's effect on success rate, etc. Conjurers would be harder to play, because elemental resistances will be a problem they need to overcome.

Well, prohibitively high hunger costs don't really destroy non-deep elf conjurers, you just have to mostly rely on lower level spells. Pretty much anyone could spam bolts even with hunger nerfs, it's just you no longer can spam OOD, fire storm, crystal spear etc. Yeah Int*Spellcast*50 is a bit much, but somewhere in between that and 75% could work.

As for removing Spellcasting's effect, I agree, and people would STILL raise spellcasting a lot midgame for decent spells. The current bonus is not even a whole lot, it's just an added bonus as is. Removing IQs effect would just hurt caster races too much.

[Galefury]

I think a minimum of 25% of original hunger cost for spells would work quite well. This would keep it at least somewhat relevant for most of the game. Also: more fun with nausea!

I don't know about nerfing the staff of energy. It is certainly very strong, but spamming powerful spells is quite fun, and finding it early is not something that happens often. Later in the game I no longer find it overpowered. Staff acquirement was recently overhauled and I'm not sure what the current status is, but staff of energy should probably be hard to acquire. Changing the staff of energy if spell hunger can no longer be reduced to 0 by training would probably be a good idea, though. Necromuatation removing hunger is fine IMO. It is a rather big investment, and many other awesome necro/tmut spells don't work in lich form, so it being powerful is okay.

Shields: yes, a thousand times yes! The shield penalty fully going away is stupid. I have suggested a different penalty in the past: while wearing a buckler/shield/large shield casting a spell takes 11/12/13 aut instead of 10 (10/11/12 or 11/11/12 could be used if 11/12/13 is deemed too harsh). This penalty cannot be reduced. It is not all that relevant for offensive spell use and does hardly affect buffs, but screws with emergency spells and melee spells (such as ensorcelled hibernation and sticky flame). Simply changing shield casting penalty to a armor-like formula might be better.

Related to casting penalties (but not really to caster nerfs) I think casting in armor is too hard. In a different thread someone suggested changing the minimum casting penalty of armor from 40% to 20% (27 skill), but that would mean heavy armor casting would still be a high level only affair. I think simply reducing (for example by 1/3) the casting penalty for heavy armor instead would be better. This would open up the armor pool for casters, creating choices (robe of resistance and archmagi would still be highly relevant). One somewhat bad side effect is brought on by training spell skills very strongly affecting spell success: it might be optimal for casters to frequently change armors. Learn a new spell, wear light armor, train up your spell skills until you can cast it in heavy armor, wear heavy armor. Repeat every time you learn an important new spell.

Haste: I think this spell is complicated enough as is. If it needs to be nerfed further it could be raised to level 7? This would exacerbate the lack of mid-level charms, though. Level 5 and 6 are pretty barren already. It's similarly bad for translocations.

[argonaut]

It's bothered me a bit as well that it's so easy to get other spell schools power up just using spellcasting. Having it improve the casting success but basing the power of the spell only on the spell schools could work.

[njvack]

Perhaps the Necromutation process leaves you near starving after your metabolism returns to life, regardless of where your satiation level was before.

I like this -- or maybe that necromut has a large unavoidable satiation hit and you can't cast at hungry or below. Vamp weapons are precedent for this kind of trick...

[jejorda2]

What if casting spells as a Lich cost HP instead of hunger? That energy has to come from somewhere. But nerfing Necromutation is a different topic from nerfing spellcasting in general.

[sanka]

I think a minimum of 25% of original hunger cost for spells would work quite well. This would keep it at least somewhat relevant for most of the game. Also: more fun with nausea!

I do not really think that such a simple change will have the intended effect. If all spells retain 25% of the original hunger cost, then you cannot spam lower level spells either. Firestorm costs 4 times as much hunger as Throw icicle, and I think in many situations it deals much more damage than 4 throw icicle, so even if nothing else matters just food cost, you still should use Firestorm. This will lead to the situation I described - either you have the food, and than this is not a nerf, just inconvenience to run back for food constantly, or you don't have, and then pure conjurer style is a no-choice.

Making reaching hungerless harder could push conjurers in the direction where higher level spells are not so spammable. But for a large part of the game the status quo is balanced in my opinion, and such a change will radically affect balance between species, and not so much between playstyles (because some species will be able to spam high level spells).

If you want to go in the direction where higher level spells are not spammable, but lower level ones are, I propose to cut the effect of IQ in the hunger formula. For example use some "stepdown" function like other places in crawl for IQ's effect - halve the portion above 17, then halve the portion above 23, then halve the portion above 27 for example. Reaching level 6 spells as hungerless would not be very hard, but casting level 9 spells hungerless would be impossible even for a deep elf.

I personally do not support this idea tough - I would rather see conjurers (and summoners) nerfed in some other way if necessary.

[greepish]

Perhaps the Necromutation process leaves you near starving after your metabolism returns to life, regardless of where your satiation level was before.

I like this -- or maybe that necromut has a large unavoidable satiation hit and you can't cast at hungry or below. Vamp weapons are precedent for this kind of trick...

Only problem is I usually stay in lich form permanently

And I think necromutation is relevent to caster nerfs. Two massive things, hungerless casting and torment immunity, are part of what makes casters gods of the post-game.

[dpeg]

I read the "magic is always better than melee" quite often. This is false. There is continuity in numbers: if MP were capped earlier than now (at 30, say) and the very heavy armours gave considerably more AC (say 10 more), the tables would be reversed. I am not advocating such a change, I am just saying that is trivial to nerf casters into nothingness and make pure melee the only feasible way.

Of course, there won't be drastic measures like this. What is the advantage of killing without magic?
1. You have lots of experience to spend elsewhere (weapon, Armour, Dodging, Stealth, Evocations etc). This suggests that one way of nerfing casters would be making their skills a bit more expensive.
2. You don't die because MP run out. So another nerf would be to reduce the maximal MP available (as a function of level and Spellcasting.)
3. You can wear heavy armours. I believe that going Armour is feasible in 0.9 but nerfing Shields for casters and buffing Armour would obviously help the melee style some more.

The main drawback of melee fighters over casters is their lack of versatility. Having access to dozens of spells is worth a lot. Making generalisation more costly has been discussing a lot on this forum, two ideas among many were: (a) additional schools cost more spell slots; (b) one of success or power is determined by the schools alone (i.e. neither Int nor Spellcasting have effect). These lines could also be pursued.

[ebarrett]

When I just want to win, I pick some random melee dude and go worship some overpowered god. The game doesn't get any easier than that. Pure casters require you to be sort of awake, and while hybrids are stronger than both you need to actually play well to get one going!

(Necromutation's) hungerless casting and torment immunity, are part of what makes casters gods of the post-game.

Arguable; almost nothing that can stop an experienced player under TSO in extended, and by that point TSO has zero drawbacks.

[Hushed]

The main drawback of melee fighters over casters is their lack of versatility.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. The lack of versatility is certainly a drawback, but I would argue that the main drawback of melee fighters is their lack of range. Keeping engagements at the edge of LOS where escape options are wide open to you I think is the biggest advantage casters have. Melee fighters have to devote alot of effort and valuable items and inventory space to overcome that obstacle. A melee fighter could ostensibly achieve some measure of versatility with evocations or gods, but it won't change the fact that disengaging from a battle may likely kill you where for a caster it's relatively simple.

[Hushed]

That gives me an idea for another possible caster nerf. Make all spells stepdown in power opposite to how the OoD currently operates (OoD can stay as is). The further away the spell hits the enemy, the less powerful it is. I think this would also open interesting balancing options for tornado (which has been problematic to balance at best).

[cerebovssquire]

The main drawback of melee fighters over casters is their lack of versatility.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. The lack of versatility is certainly a drawback, but I would argue that the main drawback of melee fighters is their lack of range. Keeping engagements at the edge of LOS where escape options are wide open to you I think is the biggest advantage casters have. Melee fighters have to devote alot of effort and valuable items and inventory space to overcome that obstacle. A melee fighter could ostensibly achieve some measure of versatility with evocations or gods, but it won't change the fact that disengaging from a battle may likely kill you where for a caster it's relatively simple.

Valuable items like plate mail, effort like using corners (they are there for a reason), oh no.
Also, ranged attackers exist and are everything but uncommon.

[sanka]

I think the coversation was about noncasters versus casters, not ranged vs. melee. Most non-casters use ranged attacks: crossbows, slings, throwing javelins or large rocks, or they use rods.

Pure melee style altough possible is not something the devs want to be balanced - at least I think.

I agree with dpeg. I think that (almost) nobody plays with casters/hybrids who learn (almost) all their spells from one (or two) school(s). Casting effecively requires a lot of xp, but once you have spent it, a little more is required to generalize.

[dolphin]

The main drawback of melee fighters over casters is their lack of versatility.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. The lack of versatility is certainly a drawback, but I would argue that the main drawback of melee fighters is their lack of range. Keeping engagements at the edge of LOS where escape options are wide open to you I think is the biggest advantage casters have. [...] A melee fighter could ostensibly achieve some measure of versatility with evocations or gods, but it won't change the fact that disengaging from a battle may likely kill you where for a caster [or ranged fighter] it's relatively simple.

Word.

[greepish]

Well when you comine it with controlled blink, disengaging is a single turn event. Really controlled blink should be downgraded to semi-controlled (miscast in -cTele) and cTele should only work on teleport.

[Grimm]

Just had an idea for helping melee characters: combine Hunter and Fighter into one build so that a pure melee character always starts with a ranged option.

[daetrin]

Going from the perspective that it's probably better to make melee characters more interesting than nerf mages, I was thinking that since heavy armor prevents casting, maybe some love there would se appropriate. Since you just gave an inherent brand to polearms, maybe heavy armor (plate, cpm, gold dragon armor) could get its own. Like, evoke to trample (against enemies that themselves don't have the trample tag), or some other similar flavor. Allowing a heavy armor user to switch places with an enemy by trampling over them, for example. That would help somewhat with mobility, and while it's not CBlink, it has tactical uses. And, of course, competes directly with spellcasting.