Darkness Hexes/Earth and maybe the new (new) Stalker

[jwb]

Hello all crawlies!

The other day, my HOEE came across a book with Darkness. That made me think about how it would be pretty nice for EEs to change the playing field in favour of their low ranged conjurations. Plus I'd like more elemental tie-ins for Hexes, and more schools usable with Earth apart from Transmutations and Conjurations.

Thinking about that led to other ideas, and so I have three related ones:
1. Darkness: Hexes/Earth level 6 or 5
2. Slow: Hexes/Earth (same level)
3. yet another Stalker variant with Hexes, Transmutations, Earth

On reflection, I've thought it best to start discussion with all of them together, we can always split off another thread if it seems indicated.

Anyway, proposal the first:

1) Make Darkness a Hexes/Earth spell at level 6 (or even 5)

Why?

• lower level to offset increased difficulty due to dual instead of single school
• Provides an interesting option for EEs, offsetting the low range of their conjurations
• Hexes-using stabbers focusing on Darkness can also pick up Passwall
• possibly could provide a capstone spell for a new new Stalker background focusing on earth, with Hexes and Transmutation support
• Flavour: Where Transmutations and Conjurations tend to work with the physical aspects of the element, Hexes make use of the metaphysical. Earth is matter in its truest form, elementally opposed to movement and light. Earth is the midwife of darkness.

Why not (arguments from IRC, slightly paraphrased for teh lulz)?

failure rate bad for hex using stabbers, invis plus failed darkness BAD BAD BAD
The lowered spell level should help a little, plus picking up some earth would be good for stabbers anyway (passwall! maybe pretrify)

EE don't need the help
Well no, but this wouldn't make 'em OP either, would it?

EE need their XP for bashing things with earth staves
Depending on race, I think it'd be possible to do both

earth is totally not about darkness, if anything it'd be cold or necro
Ok maybe a point there, (I'd say flavour wise they're about equal), but I think gameplay wise the more interesting synergy is with Earth magic. For necro, low sight range has anti-synergy with your pets. For ice, you'll want to hibernate stuff from real close anyway, or use reasonably ranged conjurations, and if you're refrigerating you want as much sight range as possible

2) Make Slow a Hexes/Earth spell, too

I think it would be cool flavour wise, and help make Hexes more interesting/varied.

Bad for Arcane Marksmen. I guess they could use Earth for Leda's Liquefaction later, but they'd need Transmutations for that as well, and that'd probably spread their XP too much. Maybe they could get a pure Hexes spell instead that just prevents movement, but does not impede attacks (or Hexes/Translocations? AMs should like Translocations).

Wizards would get and require another spell school. A plus, I think, since flexibility is their watchword. They'd be even more wizardy.

Possibly replacing stone skin in the EE spellbook, if one wanted to make 'em less about bashing things with staves and more about battlefield control. Dunno about this one.

Could go into a revived hexes/transmut/earth stalker spellbook

3. YASV: Yet Another Stalker Variant

This one would focus on Hexes, Transmutations and Earth to support stabbing and/or melee.

Spellbook:
1: confusing touch? \
2: stone skin? S2S? >--> some help for enabling stabs or mitigating a failed stab needed here. AC bypass spell maybe?
2: slow? /
3: PASSWALL
4: PETRIFY
5 or 6: DARKNESS

Playstyle should be fairly obvious. Sneak 'n stab, with magic. Be slightly more resilient but less stabby than an enchanter.

[ebarrett]

where do you people come from anyway

[jwb]

where do you people come from anyway

Ok, I take it you don't like it. From what I've gathered lurking, that's pretty much a given. Care to go into specifics, or have you been struck speechless by disgust?

[Galefury]

1) Why do you want to make casting Darkness easier for those conjurers who already have a good reason to use it? "This would be quite useful to users of earth/conjuration spells, so they shouldn't have to invest exp to use it" doesn't sound very convincing to me.

Also the flavor you suggest doesn't work particularly well for me, but darkness is a hex, so that is to be expected.

2) Petrify exists.

3) Seems like a terribly unfocused starting book. First it wants you to fight unarmed and use a hex. Then a buff, debuff and/or summon for normal fighting, from various schools that at most slightly overlap with the first spell. And finally some higher level stuff that helps with stabbing (which works badly unarmed) and escape.

These are all support spells, so you would also have to train some skill for actually killing stuff, like stabbing+stealth or a weapon. There is simply not enough exp to also train three spell schools on top of that. Skalds suffer from the same issue, and their spells at least all share a common school.

[Bloax]

That made me think about how it would be pretty nice for EEs to change the playing field in favour of their low ranged conjurations.

Could it be, could it be - that the sheer power (and irresistability!) of earth spells might mean that their short range actually serves to attempt to balance them? (Surely a LOS-range LCS wouldn't be stupidly powerful.)

My, that sounds absurd! Why would you do such a thing to a school as weak as Earth! (I mean look at air, that stuff rocks hard and nothing resists it.)

Yes, Darkness I can imagine would be quite devastating on a good EE. But there's the catch, if you want nice stuff, you have to work towards it.
It'd be handy if say, Phase Shift was a Translocations/Transmutations spell - if I'm playing a high EV transmuter. Because then I wouldn't have to invest as much in translocations.

But that's not how things work.

[jwb]

Thanks for the feedback!

1) Why do you want to make casting Darkness easier for those conjurers who already have a good reason to use it? "This would be quite useful to users of earth/conjuration spells, so they shouldn't have to invest exp to use it" doesn't sound very convincing to me.

Because right now it isn't easy enough for them to use it. A level 6 or 5 dual spell when you're going to have one of the schools anyway seems doable for me. Learning an entirely new school for a level 7 spell less so. I'm not under the impression that Darkness is a commonly memorized spell for EEs.

2) Petrify exists.

... with a different complementary school. But this one, I was just throwing out there.

3) Seems like a terribly unfocused starting book. First it wants you to fight unarmed and use a hex. Then a buff, debuff and/or summon for normal fighting, from various schools that at most slightly overlap with the first spell. And finally some higher level stuff that helps with stabbing (which works badly unarmed) and escape.

These are all support spells, so you would also have to train some skill for actually killing stuff, like stabbing+stealth or a weapon. There is simply not enough exp to also train three spell schools on top of that. Skalds suffer from the same issue, and their spells at least all share a common school.

It's mostly intended as a brainstorm/start for discussion for people so interested, especially the low-level stuff. There'd be three magic schools, looking at the higher level spells (passwall, petrify and darkness). The lower-level spells are what came to mind from those schools that might support an early stabbing playstyle. Despite listing Confusing Touch there, I don't mean for it to be an unarmed background. I was thinking one might land a hit easily enough in the early game, then proceed to stab away, since where you'd most need it would be awake low-EV high AC opponents. Sticks to snakes would ideally distract stuff while you stab it, or serve as a meatshield if you have to make an escape before passwall comes online. Slow would give a general edge or again be an escape enabler. Though likely to fail when you need it most.

A sensible starting strat would be to pick either transmutations or hexes as an early focus, and later focus on earth.

Yes, Darkness I can imagine would be quite devastating on a good EE. But there's the catch, if you want nice stuff, you have to work towards it.

I am not entirely unaware of that. I happen to suspect that currently it's not really a viable strategy though, unless for DE, but then you've sacrificed other stuff for those super aptitudes. All the other races have either average aptitudes in Hexes AND Conjurations or bad aptitudes in one of them. The aim is not to make this a no-brainer, but to make it an interesting alternative to regular EE strat. If someone has used this with the current darkness, I'd be interested to hear how it worked out.

[dpeg]

To be fair, I recall someone (probably elliptic) mentioning on ##crawl-dev that "no-one uses Darkness anyway". That might indicate that level reduction is in order. I am a bit iffy on the Earth component, like alefury.

[BlackSheep]

Nobody commonly memorizes Darkness because it's an uncommon spell. Giving it an elemental school makes it easier for those elementalists to use it, but then makes it harder for non-elementalists to use it, which makes the spell much more of a niche application.

If you want to increase the usage of the spell, I'd recommend making it appear in more books first, then consider lowering the level.

[jwb]

Come to think of it, it's easy enough to just wield a lantern of shadows for the same effect. That plus darkness (or vehumet) puts everything in sight in stone arrow range. Just to put this in perspective.

[onton]

Come to think of it, it's easy enough to just wield a lantern of shadows for the same effect. That plus darkness (or vehumet) puts everything in sight in stone arrow range. Just to put this in perspective.

It also eliminates stealth, so the lantern is little to no use for the stabbing folks.

[evilmike]

Nobody commonly memorizes Darkness because it's an uncommon spell. Giving it an elemental school makes it easier for those elementalists to use it, but then makes it harder for non-elementalists to use it, which makes the spell much more of a niche application.

If you want to increase the usage of the spell, I'd recommend making it appear in more books first, then consider lowering the level.

I would say no one uses it because it's a level 7 hex, and hexes are an incredibly specialized school of magic (therefore, most people do not train it). I do not think adding an elemental school makes sense, and making the spell more common won't help either. A level reduction would be be better, I think.

Come to think of it, it's easy enough to just wield a lantern of shadows for the same effect. That plus darkness (or vehumet) puts everything in sight in stone arrow range. Just to put this in perspective.

It's not the same effect. A lantern of shadows wrecks your spellpower, makes you unable to use a weapon, and makes you unstealthy (plus it summons shadows). These are very significant drawbacks that do not apply to the spell. (also note that summoning shadows is actually an advantage to a lot of characters)

[evilmike]

Come to think of it, it's easy enough to just wield a lantern of shadows for the same effect. That plus darkness (or vehumet) puts everything in sight in stone arrow range. Just to put this in perspective.

It also eliminates stealth, so the lantern is little to no use for the stabbing folks.

While it eliminates stealth, I think a bigger obstacle for stabbers is that you can't really stab things with a lantern.

[nicolae]

Come to think of it, it's easy enough to just wield a lantern of shadows for the same effect. That plus darkness (or vehumet) puts everything in sight in stone arrow range. Just to put this in perspective.

It also eliminates stealth, so the lantern is little to no use for the stabbing folks.

While it eliminates stealth, I think a bigger obstacle for stabbers is that you can't really stab things with a lantern.

tweak lantern of shadows to count as a dagger for stabbing purposes

[cerebovssquire]

tweak lantern of shadows to count as a dagger for stabbing purposes

you bash the orc over the head with a lantern, the glass breaks, the orc's throat is cut by splitters, the lantern magically repairs itself

Darkness isn't used much, then again, how much are Leda's Liquefaction, Twisted Resurrection, Cause Fear and Enslavement used despite being very useful for select or even many characters (even most En I see don't use Enslavement)? A level reduction for Darkness sounds fine but it really shouldn't go below level 6 IMO (sorry if you weren't intending this in the first place).
Something that might be nice is a LoS-increasing spell, as that would make training Hexes to a decent level a reasonable option for AM (right now, the only high-level hex that isn't for stabbers is useless to them).

[JeffQyzt]

Something that might be nice is a LoS-increasing spell, as that would make training Hexes to a decent level a reasonable option for AM (right now, the only high-level hex that isn't for stabbers is useless to them).

Having a hard time justifying this as a hex...maybe you make everything perfectly visible, like being *too* honest...

Crystal Clarity - increases LOS, drastically reduces stealth for all parties, counts as a hostile effect for neutrals/friendlies.

BTW, we're pretty far OT here...

[njvack]

AFAIK, there is no need to justify putting anything in the Hexes school, except that "It'd make Charms even more OP."

[jwb]

Come to think of it, it's easy enough to just wield a lantern of shadows for the same effect. That plus darkness (or vehumet) puts everything in sight in stone arrow range. Just to put this in perspective.

It's not the same effect. A lantern of shadows wrecks your spellpower, makes you unable to use a weapon, and makes you unstealthy (plus it summons shadows). These are very significant drawbacks that do not apply to the spell. (also note that summoning shadows is actually an advantage to a lot of characters)

Right, forgot about the spellpower reduction. Still,

1. see enemy at the edge of LOS
2. wield lantern of shadows
3. enemy moves closer
4. wield enhancer staff, or whatever
5. ...
6. PROFIT

works sort of like a poor man's darkness. Makes shadows a non-issue, too. For the purpose of stabbing, of course, the lantern is out.

A level reduction for Darkness sounds fine but it really shouldn't go below level 6 IMO (sorry if you weren't intending this in the first place).

For my Hexes/Earth dual school proposal I was saying 5 or 6. If darkness stays single school, I'd agree that level 6 and making it a bit more common might be best. The Book of Dreams could use it, for one.

[schmoe]

where do you people come from anyway

Do you find that being a douchebag enhances or detracts from your ability to provide feedback?


@OP, I'm having a hard time understanding what problem you're trying to solve. It sounds like you just thought "hey, these couple of spells would be really handy to have as an EE", and set about trying to justify it without really thinking about the larger design of the spell schools. Just as a suggestion, ask yourself this: Is there a gap in the game that this change would fill? If so, why is filling that gap a good thing?

[ebarrett]

where do you people come from anyway

Do you find that being a douchebag enhances or detracts from your ability to provide feedback?

Enhances, of course. I could go on detail about, for example, why darkness as hexes/earth is ridiculous, but is it needed? Snark beats constructive criticism here any day, and some people will eventually go on detail anyway.

What I think is, some people put "give constructive criticism" up as a barricade to launch the most stupid ideas from behind it (even though the OP has a point in this one, of course: a bunch of hexes are underused, it's just that his proposed solutions are amusingly strange) - sometimes it feels like the Game Design Discussion subforum is nothing more than a dumb exercise in explaining to people why their bad ideas are bad. That's where I come in: this subforum has an actual need for a resident jerk.


EDIT: OH SHIT HE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A POINT, HE WANTS TO BUFF EE OR SOMETHING THAT'S HARD TO REALLY UNDERSTAND AND I CONFUSED IT WITH SOMEONE ELSE'S POST.

I rest my case.

[njvack]

My take (which may well not be shared by the other mods nor the devs) is: ideas that are bad can be called bad, even it it's not entirely constructive. Where I work, we're very "nice and respectful" which means that the response to some terrible presentations are met with polite applause and deafening silence -- no one can think of a nice, constructive thing to say to improve stuff. This isn't helpful to anyone. Really, what people need to hear sometimes is "this is terrible; you need to do way more work before I can even evaluate it."

As long as the snark doesn't get out of hand and things don't turn into flame wars, I'm OK with it. If things devolve into name-calling, I'll lock threads.

[bricks]

It seems like it's already out of hand, that it has devolved into name-calling, and the only reason it hasn't turned into a flame war is because it's mostly one-sided.

[schmoe]

My take (which may well not be shared by the other mods nor the devs) is: ideas that are bad can be called bad, even it it's not entirely constructive. Where I work, we're very "nice and respectful" which means that the response to some terrible presentations are met with polite applause and deafening silence -- no one can think of a nice, constructive thing to say to improve stuff. This isn't helpful to anyone. Really, what people need to hear sometimes is "this is terrible; you need to do way more work before I can even evaluate it."

As long as the snark doesn't get out of hand and things don't turn into flame wars, I'm OK with it. If things devolve into name-calling, I'll lock threads.

I'm not against calling a bad idea a bad idea. But even then, there's a difference between criticizing an idea and criticizing the person behind the idea. And just for the sake of discussion, if you are going to say an idea is terrible, doesn't it help to also explain why the idea is terrible, so that the person who came up with the terrible idea can also learn from the experience?

[njvack]

And just for the sake of discussion, if you are going to say an idea is terrible, doesn't it help to also explain why the idea is terrible, so that the person who came up with the terrible idea can also learn from the experience?

Absolutely.

At the same time: explaining "why" takes a bunch of time, and bad ideas here are a dime a dozen -- I've suggested more than a few myself. And in a lot of cases, it doesn't help; people often continue to aggressively defend really terrible ideas, which I rather imagine is frustrating to people who have taken the time to explain why.

[BlackSheep]

There's also something to be said for expecting that people will 'learn the ropes' before creating an account and posting the first thing that pops into their head. Reading through prior suggestion threads will reveal that the same advice is given over and over again. I would say that it would be better to just leave threads like this one without comments, a la njvack's workplace, but there are enough people here who will comment on anything that even bad ideas are going to garner attention.

[Galefury]

I try to explain why I like or don't like an idea, at least to new posters, if nobody else has done so before. People should be treated with respect, unless they have shown they don't deserve any.

[jwb]

Ok, I seem to be the only one to whom making darkness have something to do with earth is fitting thematically. That's a bit of a surprise, but alright, I seem to be the weird one there. So, moving on to balance:

I think Earth is the elemental school that currently would profit most from having access to darkness. I don't think it would profit enough that it would be worth it to go Hexes just for Darkness. This is excerbated by the fact that thanks to needing to overcome MR with almost all other Hexes, you can't just dabble in them, you need to go all out (or go on to do something else).

This is less of a problem for other schools, where it's ok to just have enough charms to cast repel missiles, for example.

So even with a slightly reduced level, as long as it's single school Hexes Darkness will only ever be interesting to builds that are going to put a lot of XP into Hexes anyway. Which means Enchanters and AMs, and obviously AMs would rather pay good money to make sure there won't be any darkness-causing monsters out there. Unless of course the reduction would be massive enough to access it through mostly spellcasting and maybe a level or two in Hexes, but that'd be a lot more of a change than what I am proposing. Might be interesting to try it out on trunk for a while, though. It's not as if it would be difficult to implement.

For Hex users, there'd be less of a problem with a dual-school Darkness than with an offensive spell, and if they decided to put points into earth, it would also give them some other spells that would go well with a stabbing playstyle.

As for the Internet etiquette discussion: there is a dedicated thread for this kind of thing, maybe take it there? I am grateful for the moral support, but I would like this to stay moderately OT. Only one thing: whoever is puppeteering the sock on BAD_POST_THANKER, cut it out, that is just creepy. Get in line and insult me to my face like everybody else

Sorry if I give the impression of hiding behind a "constructive criticism" requirement, but I have yet to hear why exactly this would be so bad an idea. People don't much like the earth angle, fair enough, über Geschmack kann man nicht streiten.

Would having better access to Darkness make EE overpowered? I doubt it, although Darkness level 5 might be too cheap. What I'm hoping for would be to make it interesting to choose between getting some Hexes for Darkness or opting for straight-out having better main skills. I want it to be attractive, but not a no-brainer.

Would making Earth to cast Darkness be a major problem for Hex users? I don't think so, if it was a level 5 spell, although level 6 might too high in that case.

I would hope for a discussion on that basis. As OP, I'll add a personal request for everyone posting here to leave out the sarcasm for their next two posts in this thread, like some internet lent. After that we can all go back to normal, I like to indulge in it myself.

[njvack]

I have yet to hear why exactly this would be so bad an idea.

Could it be, could it be - that the sheer power (and irresistability!) of earth spells might mean that their short range actually serves to attempt to balance them?

[jwb]

I have yet to hear why exactly this would be so bad an idea.

Could it be, could it be - that the sheer power (and irresistability!) of earth spells might mean that their short range actually serves to attempt to balance them?

Yes, and to reiterate I am aware of that. And of course there are currently ways to mitigate this - go Vehumet for range, wield and unwield a LoS. Just as you can go Fedhas or TSO to help with the low accuracy. And it's a fair point, I wouldn't want this to overpower earth magic. But nobody has come out and stated this fair and square, all I've got have been implications and intimations. At best. Not to mention that this is something that can be really really easily tried out in practice and changed back if it doesn't work out.

[palin]

Not to mention that this is something that can be really really easily tried out in practice and changed back if it doesn't work out.

And you're assuming nobody tried it out, right?

[cerebovssquire]

Not everyone who comes up with a bad idea is entitled to several hours' work from devs. That would quickly amass to quite a bit more than "several hours". If you can't convince us why the idea should stay in permanently, why bother to even put it in temporarily? Most of us are smart enough to deal with hypothetical situations, so we're fine discussing these with you.

[BlackSheep]

Yes, and to reiterate I am aware of that. And of course there are currently ways to mitigate this - go Vehumet for range, wield and unwield a LoS. Just as you can go Fedhas or TSO to help with the low accuracy. And it's a fair point, I wouldn't want this to overpower earth magic. But nobody has come out and stated this fair and square, all I've got have been implications and intimations. At best. Not to mention that this is something that can be really really easily tried out in practice and changed back if it doesn't work out.

No, you're wrong. Bloax came out and said it straight out. Just because he phrased it as a question doesn't mean he wasn't being clear. And comparing a spell to a god choice is hardly a fair comparison. There are significant tradeoffs involved when you choose a god.

I also stand by my statement that making the spell Hexes/Earth will make it less useful overall by forcing people who want to use it to train Earth magic. So far the only argument in favor of adding Earth to it has been that Earth magic users will benefit from it. Changing the spell in any way should only be done if it makes the game better, not because it might not make Earth Elementalists overpowered.

[ebarrett]

it doesn't help; people often continue to aggressively defend really terrible ideas

[Hannoskaj]

No, you're wrong. Bloax came out and said it straight out. Just because he phrased it as a question doesn't mean he wasn't being clear. And comparing a spell to a god choice is hardly a fair comparison. There are significant tradeoffs involved when you choose a god.

Well, as a matter of fact, I think that the OP is far from being absurd.
Comparing a level 7 spell to a God in a branch orthogonal to anything you would normally train makes sense: it is a huge trade-off to get it, too, before the extended game.

Probably making it Hexes/Earth would be bad: like you say, it would make it even less used. But reducing the level to 6 would probably allow interesting builds that are very seldom played to this day.

Alternatively, imagining an intermediate-level Hex that could be of use to more builds could also do the trick. And yes I know that enslavement and such are useful in themselves, but they do not really synergize with many other traits.

[BlackSheep]

Well, as a matter of fact, I think that the OP is far from being absurd.
Comparing a level 7 spell to a God in a branch orthogonal to anything you would normally train makes sense: it is a huge trade-off to get it, too, before the extended game.

He wasn't proposing a spell orthogonal to anything normally trained. He was proposing making Darkness an Earth spell, and lowering its level, and suggesting that the 5 or 6 levels of Hexes one would need to cast it was comparable to choosing a god that mitigates the limited range of Earth conjurations.

Probably making it Hexes/Earth would be bad: like you say, it would make it even less used. But reducing the level to 6 would probably allow interesting builds that are very seldom played to this day.

I still maintain that the spell would be used more if it appeared in more than a single book which is neither a starting book nor gifted.

[palin]

I still maintain that the spell would be used more if it appeared in more than a single book which is neither a starting book nor gifted.

I do not want to derail the thread, but wouldn't it be possible that certain spells are available to some races when they reach the right spellcasting skill or character level regardless of books? I'm using Darkness as an example, what about it being available for memorization, say, at xp level 4 for Deep Elves, xp level 8 to Deep Dwarves, Mummies and Demonspawn and to xp level 12 to Vampires? I picked these for flavour only. Of course the availability of the spell would be useless to nonspellcasting characters, but so do many racial abilities.

[jwb]

So far the only argument in favor of adding Earth to it has been that Earth magic users will benefit from it.

And as another point jwb ignored, this is an argument against it.

And you're assuming nobody tried it out, right?

Yes.

He wasn't proposing a spell orthogonal to anything normally trained. He was proposing making Darkness an Earth spell, and lowering its level, and suggesting that the 5 or 6 levels of Hexes one would need to cast it was comparable to choosing a god that mitigates the limited range of Earth conjurations.

I said it was comparable to one aspect worship of a god provides, and a minor one at that.

So far the only argument in favor of adding Earth to it has been that Earth magic users will benefit from it.

And as another point jwb ignored, this is an argument against it.

I did not ignore this, I acknowledged this several times, one of them in the OP. I just didn't think it would be a that big a thing.

But whatever, I'm half-convinced by now. I still think it should be reasonably accessible, and level 7 is just overpriced.

[Bloax]

We're not against making it more accessible, we're against making it Hexes/Earth just to buff the already quite strong Earth school. (AFAIK it's the single best school for 1v1 smashing. LCS/Iron shot do some nice damage.)

[BlackSheep]

Thank you, MarvinPA.