Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation


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Halls Hopper

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 02:06

Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

I've been thinking some about Marvin PA's interesting Vehumet proposal (here) since I first saw it a few days. I think that it pretty much hits the nail on the head as far as identifying the problem, that all elementalist games tend to end up as pretty similar. However, I think that the root of this isn't as much Vehumet's fault (although Vehumet certainly enables the problem, in the same vein as living next to a bar would enable one's drinking problem, and I thought Marvin's solution was a pretty interesting way to diffuse that) as it is that all elementalists are over-reliant on conjurations and thus end up playing pretty similar to each other anyways, Vehumet or no.

That is to say, all five types (if you include poison) are essentially just different-flavoured conjurers. And, especially due to the prominence of the bolt spells, the flavors we're talkin' about here are something like Coke, Pepsi, and RC Cola. So I think that while conjuration-centric play is cool if you're specifically a conjurer, and although it certainly makes a lot of sense for an elementalist to dabble with conjurations a bit, an elementalist's main focus should be defined as fighting monsters via controlling different aspects of their environment. (as well as changing the environment!)

I'm not talking about a total overhaul here. Crawl already has a lot of cool tactical spells like this, such as:: Delayed Fireball, Ring of Flames, Conjure Flame, Freezing Cloud, OCR, Ice Form, Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, Statue Form, Dig, Leda's Liquefaction, Petrify, Alistair's Intoxication, Olgreb's Toxic Radiance, Repel Missiles, Silence, and Flight, and of course all of Tornado/Shatter/Ice Storm/Fire Storm. I think "elemental style" play can be further enabled by just a few changes/additions to the current spell list, and an overhaul of Summon Elemental.

I'll talk about each elemental magic school in turn. Each seems to follow some sort of progression, roughly divided as Lvl 1 / Lvl 5 / Lvl 9, featuring a spell theme that scales up exponentially in effect. There's a handy table here of each spell by school. Note the congestion of the Conjurations school.

Earth Magic: A slow moving fury, should be about stalwart defenses and shockwaves, earthquakes, all that stuff. Its main progression is Sandblast -> LRD -> Shatter. Earth Magic is unique in that it partners with Transmutations more than any other school, although it also features 3 bland (but useful) single target conjurations. I think the former should be emphasized and the latter de-emphasized:
  • Remove Iron Shot. Right now, Iron Shot, thanks to its high irresistable damage, is one of Earth Magic's strongest assets. Conjurers of all kinds will use it as the general go-to spell for mid/late game threats that fall outside of their elemental sphere. Because it is so generic, it is kind of a no-brainer. Furthermore, it kind of overshadows its big cousin, LCS, being known as "almost as good, and chaper," especially since even a mid-level conjurer can usually cast iron shot simply using their int, spellcasting, and conjurations skill, while LCS is tough enough to case
  • New Lvl 6 Tmut/Earth Spell: Shockwave. The idea here is that we're sending the floor in front of us out to attack a monster. Nominally does about 75% of the damage as Iron Shot on its main target. Like Iron shot, is not a beam, but stops when it hits either a.) a wall or b.) a monster. Does 25% of its damage to each square on the left and right of its target. Furthermore, if both tiles adjacent to the target and both tiles adjacent to the square directly *before* the target are non-walls, then it places a single wall at the space directly before the target. The target would of course move around it, but he is now set up perfectly for LRD. If any of these squares are wall squares, then no wall is deposited, and instead the two squares adjacent to the square before the target explode, and the target (and the two squares next to him) each recieve this 25% damage, although AC applies seperately. So this spell could potentially do 125% the damage of Iron Shot in the right situation, or provide a setup for LRD. Damage from this spell should be amplified if one is under effect from Leda's Liquefaction.

Fire Magic is about being fast and furious and scorching everything in their wake. Main progression is Flame Tongue -> Fireball -> Fire Storm. Fire is known for lots of explosions and flames and so I propose two new spells to emphasize that:
  • Change Inner Fire to Lvl 5 Fire/Hex, and have it so each adjacent square in the explosion has a power/200 chance to end up as a flame cloud.
  • New spell Explosion, Lvl 7 Fire/Hex. Explosion explodes every flame cloud on screen as a fireball at the extra cost of 1 MP per cloud, removing the cloud afterwards. (i.e. using it as a reagent) Could potentially set the whole screen on fire, but also empty your mana pool as well. Would be Freaking Awesome if combined with Ring of Flames. (but note Charms/Hex polarity!)
Note that Fire Magic currently suffers because all mid-tier fire spells are concentrated in the Book of Flames, which is not gifted by Vehumet. FE are thus currently forced to worship Sif Muna despite Fire Magic's heavy overlap with Conjurations or else face the risk that they'll be stuck with Fireball until Fire Storm. However, maybe the new Vehumet proposal would correct for that.

Ice Magic is about a slow lockdown, about totally controlling the situation around you. Its main progression is Freeze -> Freezing Cloud -> Ice Storm, and its utility spells focus on defense. I think that other than Summon elemental, Ice Magic is pretty good and varied. Just one of the reasons that it seems to be the most popular elemental school! The one suggestion I have is that Condensation Shield currently Sucks Big Time, but there's already another thread out there on that.

Air magic seems to be about keeping enemies away and damage-over-time. Despite that, Air Magic's Main Progression is actually Shock -> Lightning Bolt -> Chain Lightning, which is very Conjurations-centric and fairly boring. Bolt-bouncing with Lvl 1 Shock is a generally loathed activity due to its low accuracy rate. Lightning Bolt isn't as bad, although its 3/4 bounce possibilties were eliminated recently. I suggest changing it to be Puff -> Gale -> Tornado, as follows:
  • Deflect Missiles should be removed. Repel Missiles seems to be enough, although perhaps that should be made Lvl 3.
  • New spell - Puff, Lvl 1 Air, replacement for Shock. Puff has a Range of 1-2 squares, has damage dependent on range, and does damage slightly less than that of Freeze. (say, 1d(13/Range) at max power). Has a 1.5*Power/(Weight*Range) chance of knocking-back a monster by min(1, Power/Weight/Range) squares.
  • New spell - Gale, Lvl 6 Air. Gale is like an uncapped, cone version of Puff. Has a range of 1 to 3 squares, and spreads out like a Cone. Does damage similar to Airstrike at close range, reduced by /Range. Has the same 1.5*Power/(Weight*Range) chance of knocking-back all monsters in its cone by min(1, Power/Weight/Range) squares. Knocks back clouds by 1 square for every 20 power, and has a power/200 chance of dispersing the cloud completely. Capped at 100 power.
  • These could potentially be made Air/Charms to further emphasize Air's partnership with Charms and add some additional polarity against Earth/Tmut. Gale should be lowered to Lvl 5 in that case, however.

Also, I have a big long treatise on Summon Elemental, which I think should actually be a really important spell to the elemental schools but currently isnt, but I figure I'd start with this since its already pretty wordy and post that if anyone seemed interested.

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 04:46

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

•New spell - Puff, Lvl 1 Air, replacement for Shock. Puff has a Range of 1-2 squares, has damage dependent on range, and does damage slightly less than that of Freeze. (say, 1d(13/Range) at max power). Has a 1.5*Power/(Weight*Range) chance of knocking-back a monster by min(1, Power/Weight/Range) squares.


Puff sounds really fun! On the other hand, I do kind of worry it might get pretty overpowered once people start drawing monsters near deep water & lava and push them into the liquids. Especially if it is lvl 1 spell, all characters capable of spellcasting, regardless of what school they mainly focus, might just learn it - Costs 1 memory, and reliable (as you will rarely fail a lvl 1 spell), for a single shot kill? I see a wizards-must-have here. I suggest it would be a level 5 or 6 spell, with higher distance (max 3 or 4) and some damage. Even so, with conjugation of spells such as slow, it may still prove overpowered though
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Halls Hopper

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 05:08

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

decasonic wrote:
•New spell - Puff, Lvl 1 Air, replacement for Shock. Puff has a Range of 1-2 squares, has damage dependent on range, and does damage slightly less than that of Freeze. (say, 1d(13/Range) at max power). Has a 1.5*Power/(Weight*Range) chance of knocking-back a monster by min(1, Power/Weight/Range) squares.


Puff sounds really fun! On the other hand, I do kind of worry it might get pretty overpowered once people start drawing monsters near deep water & lava and push them into the liquids. Especially if it is lvl 1 spell, all characters capable of spellcasting, regardless of what school they mainly focus, might just learn it - Costs 1 memory, and reliable (as you will rarely fail a lvl 1 spell), for a single shot kill? I see a wizards-must-have here. I suggest it would be a level 5 or 6 spell, with higher distance (max 3 or 4) and some damage. Even so, with conjugation of spells such as slow, it may still prove overpowered though


Well, the idea with Puff and Gale isn't to give Air Elementalists a pair of easy to cast insta-kill spells, but to give them a pair of spells similar to a scaled down version of Tornado. Think of the analogues I provide with the other schools; e.g. Earth has Sandblast/LRD/Shatter. In this case, Puff and Gale have a.) weak offensive power for their cost, even when the target is adjacent, b.) have power that decreases as the target(s) are further away, a unique effect, but c.) are a method of manipulating clouds, and d.) have a chance of pushing monsters away from you, dependent on their weight and the spell's power (another unique consideration), an effect that would cause any ranged fighter, including bowmen and throwers as well as other elementalists, to seriously consider branching into Air Magic.

Puff should not be able to push any enemy into neither Deep Water nor Lava (and shallow water should be difficult), as that, as you mention, would make it way too overpowered and a no-brainer for any magic wielding character that finds a book with it. Its just a little puff of air, after all. Gale might be OK to do this, if it hits at high power. (i.e. you have high Air skill and plus you're standing right next to the enemy - think of it kind of like a shotgun effect) Say, if Gale is capped at 100 spellpower, a casting that would otherwise push a monster standing before DeepWater/Lava must additionally meet a spellpower% chance.

I don't think this situation would end up being particularly common, at any rate.
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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 06:28

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Don't get rid of iron shot... it's my favorite spell. Anyone who's ever watched me play can back me up on that. :D

Look... it wakes up everything on the floor, only allows you to kill maybe one or two enemies before forcing you to rest, and has an incredibly short range. It requires a very specific play style to use efficiently just like any other spell. Specifically it has to do with stair dancing and a ton of resting to slowly clear out floors. Also it gives you a terrible score and most players don't even bother with it. So some players like it, some players don't, it has it's own special play style... what's wrong with that? Just because you don't find it fun doesn't mean others don't.

I've read through your other ideas too... they're all terrible. Air elementalists are all about bolt bouncing. You have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to Deflect Missiles. All your ideas are bad. :?

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 06:40

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

GermanJoey wrote:Puff should not be able to push any enemy into neither Deep Water nor Lava (and shallow water should be difficult), as that, as you mention, would make it way too overpowered and a no-brainer for any magic wielding character that finds a book with it.


If Puff can push an enemy into any other kind of terrain, it's completely arbitrary to say that it can't push enemies into deep water or lava. That's not good.

You can make it resistible by hit dice, however, so that pushing an ogre is much, much harder than pushing a rat.

Edit: Ah, I see that you do have the formula to resist by weight.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 07:12

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

snow wrote:Don't get rid of iron shot... it's my favorite spell. Anyone who's ever watched me play can back me up on that. :D

Look... it wakes up everything on the floor, only allows you to kill maybe one or two enemies before forcing you to rest, and has an incredibly short range. It requires a very specific play style to use efficiently just like any other spell. Specifically it has to do with stair dancing and a ton of resting to slowly clear out floors. Also it gives you a terrible score and most players don't even bother with it. So some players like it, some players don't, it has it's own special play style... what's wrong with that? Just because you don't find it fun doesn't mean others don't.

I've read through your other ideas too... they're all terrible. Air elementalists are all about bolt bouncing. You have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to Deflect Missiles. All your ideas are bad. :?


Hmm I don't know why you sound so hostile. I guess I'll answer these in turn:

1.) Iron Shot is literally a single-target spell that does unresistable damage. Other than damage and range, it is otherwise identical to magic dart, stone arrow, IMB, and LCS, and fairly similar to throw icicle and poison arrow. It does have a short range, but the point is that nearly every single *Vehumet* worshipper (who enjoy extended range) learns this spell specifically because of its unresistable damage (to cover themselves against enemies that are resistant against their main elemental school) and ease of access. (since you actually don't need any skill with earth magic to cast it). I really don't understand what you mean by "very specific playstyle" in that context, or anything about stair dancing and resting and terrible scores. I didn't say that I didn't find it fun, only that it could be revamped into a spell thats a.) not in conjurations, so as to not be so cheap/common, and b.) gives more synergy with other Earth Magic spells!

2.) Air Elementalists currently have 2 bolt bouncing spells: Shock and Lightning Bolt. They are "all about" bolt bouncing because traditionally these two were their primary offensive spells; it was possible to bounce them up to 4 times if you were good with reading geometry (since been nerfed to 2 bounces maximum for both spells) and their other mid-level offensive spells, Static Discharge and Airstrike, were too risky for the cost (since been improved, as Static Discharge is now Lvl 3) and too weak at low power, respectively. However, bolt bouncing, especially since the nerf, is actually not that popular. You have to lure enemies to a particular configuration to get your bounces, which often will be much closer range than you might originally have available, and it is *slow* to line up your shots, compared to every other conjurer that can spam their main attack spell quickly. However, Bolt bouncing spells are actually only 2 of the 20 spells in the Air School; the idea is that with some more variety, and especially with a spell that allows them to manipulate an enemy's position somewhat, they would be more tactically interesting to play.

3.) Deflect Missiles is both over-rated, for the people who get 10 levels of Air magic just for this spell, and over-powered, as both Repel Missiles and Deflect Missiles are. They help you completely negate a large range of attacks (as in literally, they protect you from almost all ranged attacks) and help make otherwise fragile blaster mages into actually pretty stalwart characters. They are pretty good by themselves, but I think they would be way too good if combined with a spell that pushes monsters away from you, forcing them to engage you with range attacks that you are nigh-invincible against. Hence, I suggest eliminating Deflect Missiles and nerfing Repel Missiles to Lvl 3 if these spells are added.
Last edited by GermanJoey on Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 07:19, edited 2 times in total.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 07:17

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

ElectricAlbatross wrote:
GermanJoey wrote:Puff should not be able to push any enemy into neither Deep Water nor Lava (and shallow water should be difficult), as that, as you mention, would make it way too overpowered and a no-brainer for any magic wielding character that finds a book with it.


If Puff can push an enemy into any other kind of terrain, it's completely arbitrary to say that it can't push enemies into deep water or lava. That's not good.

You can make it resistible by hit dice, however, so that pushing an ogre is much, much harder than pushing a rat.

Edit: Ah, I see that you do have the formula to resist by weight.


Yeah, it is a problem; knock-back is a really cool effect that I think would really make Air Elementalists a lot more interesting, as well as giving bowmen a serious reason to like Air Magic (which makes sense thematically, I think), but I can't really think of a way to bring it into crawl without arbitrarily disallowing one-hit KOs. (or at least making them difficult to achieve). Note that knock-back is already in crawl as Ice Draconian breath, but that only works on Flying creatures.
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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 07:40

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

GermanJoey... yes it does irresistible damage. It also has HORRIBLE HORRIBLE ACCURACY. You'd do much, MUCH more damage on average using almost anything else if you factor in the missed shots. That's the trade off for being able to hit on say fire resistant enemies. You know what's also irresistible? Physical attacks. Do you want to remove them too? They ALSO do more damage on average than iron shot. I don't see anyone Iron Shotting Cerebov but they sure can hold tab to beat his ass.

So yeah. Bolt of fire does way more damage on average than iron shot and builds towards fire storm while ALSO doing massive extra damage on a ton of enemies. The tradeoff? Some trivial enemies that you can just kill by picking up a random flail off the ground and holding tab partially resist it. Oh and animated weapons... when I won my fire elementalist those gave me a bit of trouble too but I STILL KILLED THEM WITH BOLTS OF FIRE ANYWAY. So that's it. Out of all the enemies in the ENTIRE GAME bolt of fire is better except for a few animated weapons and even then it gets the job done... and you think that small, almost insignifigate "oh hai it can't be resisted" clause matters? At all?

Win a fire elementalist and get back to me before suggesting this nonsense.

Also win an air elementalist and actually USE deflect missiles property. Or at least wizmode it and see what percentage it blocks off a yaktaur captain. Some players don't like to spend 20 hours on 1 game and are like level 23 when they do zot so yeah. That extra dodge DOES matter to them. God damn this is the worst thread ever and I thought I was a shitty player.
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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 08:53

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Hey calm down snow. Such aggressive tone is not welcome here.

If you have no earth skill, I believe IMB is much more efficient for dealing irresistible damage than iron shot. Iron shot with its short range and low accuracy is sufficiently differentiated from other single target nuke.
The spells you're proposing are way too complicated in my opinion.
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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 09:15

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

I do not think this thread is so horrible, and I do not really like snow's negative attitude. And I think snow's arguments are lame.

The main point was that elements (and particulary elementalists) are not different enough. They are different, but not as different as they should be - at least some players, like me, thends to think this as true. The main problem is that there are a lot of single target conjurations, and most elementalist end up spamming them. Range, accuracy and resistance differences are there, but I do not think they are enough to differentiate them - you basically play with all of them rather similar: spam them, and retreat when mana is low. Also, because of the conjuration skill, it's quite easy to pick up these spells from different elements. If you do not agree with these statement, try to convince us instead of saying that this tread is horrible.

There are some proposals also for spells in this thread. I do not say that they are very good ideas to differentiate the elements, but if somebody agrees that it worths to think in this direction, at least it's a starting point. Somebody may come up with better spell ideas.

I think that we should give a try to very simple and conservative approach - simply remove some simple conjuration spells. Crawl has a lot of spells already - I think that this will give room for other spells crawl already has.

Spells that I do not really like (I do not say that we should remove all of them - I think we should change some of them a little to differentiate them more from other spells):

IMB (conjuration only, and nothing specific like IOOD)
throw frost (copy of throw flame)
throw icicle
ice bolt (too similar to fire bolt)
stone arrow
iron bolt

I did not include fire spells, because fire's main theme is damage so this element can have some simple damaging spell. Also I do like shock and other air conjurations - they are different enough for my taste. So I do not support the air proposals.
I also did not include LCS - high level spells are not the main offenders here. It's so similar to Iron bolt, that if we remove the former one can still play similary (at higher levels), if she invests in earth magic.

My proposal is to remove or change these spells.
Remove: IMB, Throw icicle, Stone arrow, Iron bolt. (You do not really need them. I have played really succesful conjurers, ice elementalists and earth elementalist without them, and I think it's more fun to use the element specific spells.)
Change: throw frost, ice bolt. (Simple removing them would be a huge nerf to ice magic. My simple proposal is to reduce their damage somewhat and give them some interesting status effects. Altough slow seems natural to ice, it may not be a good idea - it would encourage kiting too much.)

Basically, I think that the less is more in this case. If you do not have acces to the simple spells in every element so easily, you are forced to use the more interesting ones, and variety increases.

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 09:54

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

I wouldn't mind removal of Iron Shot and DMsl. DMsl provides too much protection against ranged attacks: it makes ranged attacks irrelevant, and it provides more protection than is generally needed. Iron Shot is simply irrelevant in my experience. Unique enough, sure, but rarely useful. Some people enjoy it, so might as well leave it in.

About the new spells:
Puff: I think Knockback would simply be too good an effect on a level 1 spell. Free escape from melee threats for everyone? I don't think so.
Gale: a shotgun effect is proposed (by kilobyte) for Bolt of Magma. This has some overlap with Gale, at the same spell level. And I think it would fit Bolt of Magma better. I don't think it's too complicated, I actually proposed a similar idea for Ice Storm. I think it would feel quite intuitive when it is actually used.
Inner Flame: should stay low level IMO. It's already hard enough to utilize as is.
Explosion: it's hard to make large quantities of fire clouds early on (which is why you want to change inner flame). It has synergy with fire storm and ring of flames, which would be fun at high levels. Also it would enable a triple combo of poison cloud (available from a rod, too) + ignite poison + explosion for a lower level three turn massively multischool fully resistible version of fire storm (something in the middle of the cloud will be hit by 9 explosions and die). Use with conjure flame would be very limited, I would rather learn fireball in that case. In the end it would probably be quite fun, but extremely niche. Level 7 would be way too high for this despite the huge damage potential, it might be worth learning at level 4 or 5. Not worth adding IMO.
Shockwave: It sounds complicated in text, but I think it would feel intuitive in game (makes a pillar in the open, blows up corridors and pillars for extra damage). I like it. I don't like the synergy with LRD, however. LRD is already very strong, and is much more interesting if you cant make walls wherever you want. LRD is also more interesting than shockwave, so replacement is not an option.

I like your ideas, I just think they don't fit into crawl. Except for removing DMsl.
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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 11:38

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

I apologize for my aggressive tone.

Earth Elementalists are up there with my favorite backgrounds simply because of how straightforward they can be played. There are many much stronger backgrounds (like the Wizard or Berserker) but sometimes you just want to Iron Shot dudes. I feel strongly about this and wouldn't want the game to lose that. Iron Shot isn't even that good... but it's simple and there should be a variety of ways to play... both simple and complex.

Also I genuinely feel Deflect Missiles takes a large enough investment that it may or may not be worth it depending on what you're playing and how you're playing it. Isn't that basically the definition of a balanced spell?

Again I apologize for my tone before. I just really don't want the spells of this game to all turn into gimmicky tricks where you have all these spells that do silly things and none of them just kills stuff! We need at least a few that do that.

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 12:04

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Any change (especially nerf and removal) provokes hostile reactions, we see it all the time. I wouldn't worry so much about that: feature X will be most dear to some players who won't like changing/nerfing/removing it.

In my opinion, the original analysis is quite good (the Air progression misses Tornado).

galehar: The spells are not too complicated, in my opinion. (Not to say they're good in other regards, just talking about complexity.) Generally speaking, we want variants of a thing (item, spell, species etc.) to be different enough. There is a place for spells purely defined by range and damage and accuracy. But I agree with the OP that we have to much of those and should be looking for more interesting replacements. (For a comparison, look at species: there is a lot you can do with aptitudes alone, but DCSS 0.1 had too many species which seemingly, but not relevantly, different in aptitude numbers alone.)

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 12:16

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

As far as Air goes, I certainly wouldn't miss DMsl - it's boring and RMsl does the job fine anyway, as you say (bumping RMsl up a level and having it depend on power for effectiveness would probably be an improvement too). I actually think most of the other Air spells are quite nice - Chain Lightning is a lot of fun and very useful, and CBL is also pretty hilarious (and was buffed recently, although it might still need further improvement).

LCS does the same thing as Iron Shot except more interestingly design-wise in that it goes further to each extreme. Not sure whether that means Iron Shot should be removed, but I'd certainly rather the three Earth conjurations weren't near-identical in all but damage and level.
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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 12:45

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

yes, the earth conjurations are very vanilla. stone arrow is an early necessity and LCS requires a lot of investment, but iron shot just lies there in the middle. it would be interesting to find a replacement with different usage/downsides. but it doesn't have to be a new tmut/earth spell, there's already plenty of synergy.

on the rMil/dMil thing: i see that as a reason to remove rMil, if anything, since anyone can pick it up with high spellcasting alone. and if power has an effect and you need a lot of charms/air to make it useful, it'd make more sense at L4 or L5 anyway.

the idea of tying fire and hexes is interesting. there's already inner flame, and i don't think it'd take a lot of imagination to reflavour ignite poison and/or ring of flames. but i find the spell proposal gimmicky (there aren't many ways to generate flame clouds, and if there were you'd be using it so often you could just make a macro for it).

the idea of knocking back units with an air spell, depending on weight, is pretty good. i don't mind instant kills, confusion already does that. and it's great to have a low-level spell with tactical uses in the late game.
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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 13:45

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

The suggestions as made would probably take a while to implement but I like the idea of giving the elemental schools their own style and flavor.

Maybe instead of knocking back enemies as a Level 1 spell, Puff could knock weapons and items out of the target's hand, and send them flying a couple squares.

Also I'd like of like to see more spells that combine the elemental schools in new ways. There aren't any Air/Fire or Ice/Earth spells, or spells that are just Fire.

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 14:10

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

I think Earth magic is okay as is, certainly powerful, certainly different and a lot of fun. I do like/use Iron Shot, but from watching other games/chatting it seems to me that IMB (isomething mystic blast :oops:) and eventually the orb of destruction are the go-to spells to kill something that has resistances, not the shot. Also, like snow mentioned, it's inaccurate and short range. If anything I'd change Lehudib's Crystal Spear because I ended up using either iron shot, orb of destruction or shatter and avoiding the spell entirelly. Either the damage or the accuracy didn't impress me.
Shockwave sounds fun and something I'd use, even over iron shot if it was gone.
Fire magic - seems to me okay as is, too. Inner Fire is tricky and I couldn't make it work often (resists). The problem with your proposal is it makes the spells high level, hunger and mana cost. Rule of thumb, if casting inner fire+explosion takes 2 turns and more than 8 mana, I'll probably cast a few fire bolts, fireballs or sticky flames instead. Seems faster that way. One thing I never tried but read on forum is: inner fire + enslavement. If that works often enough on medium difficulty mobs, I have no other complaints. Main school theme is fiery destruction and there are enough and varied ways to deal it.
Air magic - yet to win the combo. The theme is bouncing (it just is) and multitarget/area damage, including damage to self. Ever saw Nikola suicide with a static discharge? I did - he killed Urug with the same cast, too. To me that kind of sums the Air magic up :) My only nitpick - it has the weakest starting damage spell out of all casters I played. Probably the only one that got me to starving in D2 once, just from trying to kill each mob, having to rest, then trying again. And that's with bounces :) Wouldn't mind to see a small accuracy bump.
The proposed Air spells don't really fit. They are an okay new theme, I just don't see much wrong with current one.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 17:11

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Wow, thanks for all the feedback, everyone! It would be tough to respond to everyone individually, but I'll respond in general. It seems that most people seem to agree that more elemental differentiation would be a good thing, but they don't particularly like my suggestions for new spells. People thought they were a combination of complex (maybe on the border between too complex/just right?) and poor balance. That's disappointing to hear, but my main point isn't "we need these spells!" but rather "Elemental Schools need more differentiation and should fit better to a theme." I'm quite thankful my main Idea had a good reception.

Also, if the objections are just on the matter of balance, these spells could be tuned or changed around completely!!! Here are some ideas on that:

  • First, Puff/Gale. I think nicolae's suggestion of Puff knocking out weapons is really good, and much more balanced than a Lvl 1 knockback spell! Perhaps with a power/weapon_weight chance, with Puff being capped at 25 power the way a lot of first lvl spells are. Next, if Puff is changed this way, Gale could be changed around a lot too. Gale could become a Lvl 6 Air/Charms spell. Instead of casting it as like a conjuration, you would "charge" it like an delayed fireball before battle. Think of it like taking a REALLLLLY deep breath and holding a massive quantity of air in your lungs. :shock: It could then be released in battle for an effect as in the original post similar to how delayed fireball works, but rather than being instant, it would still take a turn. So on one hand, it would be a 0 mp dmg/escape spell in the midst of battle, but it really wouldn't be possible to use it more than once in a fight as it would take 2 turns to use: one to charge and one to release. As far as balance is concerned, it should have a fairly good chance of pushing back an orc, but be nowhere near adequate to push back a heavier enemy like a giant or dragon. (which might be the ones you'd most want to use this against later!)
  • Inner Fire / Explosion Galefury raised the point that explosion is probably too expensive even for the potentially crazy firepower it has. I was thinking that too, thinking that it might be better as a Lvl 4 Fire/Hexes/Tmut Spell, but I was concerned about it seeming too overpowered! So I was a little too conservative and it backfired on me. :lol: However, your point about it being difficult to get flame clouds early is why I changed Inner Fire to drop flame clouds on the target's death. The idea was that you could chain several fire spells together: Cast Inner Fire on a weak target, release a delayed fireball to kill it (how I've mostly used it thus far), Explode the flame clouds that it dropped, pick off any strong enemies remaining with Bolt of Fire. (my Ideas for Summon Elemental would also fit nicely in the middle there).

Perhaps my suggestions for Summon Elemental would prove to be less radical? The essential idea is that summon elemental is in general not very good; the summons are weak and don't even fit in well with the elementalist/conjurer playstyle. (I have some detailed analysis on this). I propose that they be changed such that a "Summoned Elemental" is actually a powerful avatar of that element (based on current monsters, with some slight changes) rather than just a summoned vanilla monster with different stats. I'll post that when I come back from lunch!

p.s. Snow, as far as winning a FE and getting back to you is concerned, I actually had one of the top scores for FEs in the August tourny, lol. I don't think "winning" really means anything as far as designing game mechanics is concerned, however!
Last edited by GermanJoey on Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 17:16, edited 1 time in total.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 17:15

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

minmay wrote:
GermanJoey wrote:Air magic seems to be about keeping enemies away and damage-over-time. Despite that, Air Magic's Main Progression is actually Shock -> Lightning Bolt -> Chain Lightning, which is very Conjurations-centric and fairly boring.

My primary Air attack spell from when I find it to the end of the game is Airstrike, not Lightning Bolt. (I might learn Tornado too depending on whether or not it sucks at the moment, but it changes every few days...)


Well, Airstrike is very good and certainly essential, but at least personally I've never thought of it as my main attack. Lightning bolt is semi-AoE, can hit multiple times, costs 4 mana, and is gifted by Vehumet. By contrast, the Book of the Sky can be quite frustratingly rare. (Air, rare... hey, that rhymes!)
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Halls Hopper

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 18:34

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Ok, here's what I think about Summon Elemental.

Right now, Summon Elemental is kind of a minor perk for elemental Vehumet worshippers. As a Lvl 4 pure-summonings spell, it can usually be cast at "Great" just between your Int, your Spellcasting skill, and Vehumet's wizardy bonus. The spell isn't very highly utilized. Let me begin by an overview of what Summon Elemental currently gets you:

  • Ice elementalists actually get Water Elementals instead of Ice elementals. The can only summon from water, which is pretty hard to come up with and impossible to summon on demand, except expensively by Fedhas users. In addition, water tends to be in open areas, where single-summons like summon elemental tend to have lowest utility. There's not really any combos with their elemental and the rest of the school. Furthermore, Ice elementalists that want summons have Summon Ice Beast instead, which are at least immune to freezing clouds. (unlike water elementals, which have no ice resistance at all!) Rating: Near useless, invariably ignored
  • Fire Elementalists get Fire Elementals. Fire elementals can be summoned from lava (extremely rare) or flame clouds (much better, and can be created on demand). Fire elementals are pretty weak, and in general summons don't mesh well with the Fire Magic school. One useful thing about them is that they leave a trail of flame clouds, so Fire Elementalists that are so lucky as to find a book with Summon Elemental can make pretty good use of this spell to upgrade their Conjured Flames if they're in a hallway. This spell peters out quickly, however, and isn't as much use in open areas since the elemental is summoned adjacent to you. Fire Elementalists are themed around killing stuff quickly, and so this spell is typically forgotten by the time the mid-tier spells are learned. By the time Ring of Flames becomes available, with its near infinite supply of flame clouds, summon elemental is hardly worth it even for free from a lamp of fire. (assuming you have high evoc) Rating: Not great, but situational
  • Air Elementalists get Air Elementals, which are pretty good. They're both ridiculously fast (25 speed, tied with Harpys as the fastest monster in the game) and pretty strong EV tanks (18 EV). Since they can be summoned out of thin air, you can summon them pretty much anywhere except from within a Tomb of Doroklohe. They don't really mesh with any other Air Magic spells, but they're still worth getting. Rating: Pretty good, but no synergy
  • Earth Elementalists get the most use out of their summons. They're slow as hell, but have high HP, high AC/EV, do 40 dmg a hit, and can be targetted with LRD for a radius-2 explosion. Works sort of like creating a human time-bomb. Immensely helpful in open areas where one's only other option is the unreliable petrify, and c. Useful throughout the mid game. Rating: Good, and great synergy
I propose changing/upgrading Summon Elemental as to make it more of a centerpiece of an elementalist's toolkit. First of all, I split it into four separate spells (Summon Fire Elemental, Summon Earth Elemental, etc). Each of these will be dual-school between Summonings and their respective school. The reasoning here is that it is easier to balance them individually this way; for instance, if they were all Lvl 5, then their effect should all be appropriate for a LvL 5 Spell; however, the power of the resulting summon may not be worth it for, say, an Air Elementalist to bother with it.

Next, require that 10 levels of a school is required to create one. (Currently, one can create as many as they want, but only control Skill/5 Elementals at a time) So, a user with 27 levels in a School could have at most 2 of these powerful avatars. However, the intended balance is such that these spells will be very useful when the school first hits lvl 10, but fading from usefulness by the time the school hits lvl 20. Whether they actually *are* balanced this way is another question, lol.

There are some intended aspects: First, that these spells should be powerful, but should involve a tradeoff - the "elemental" should somehow "consume" its element as it is created, taking some kind of opportunity away from the user. Further, the user should have to take at least a few levels of summoning to get these spells ready at their point of maximum usefulness (and it should be worth it for them to do so), which takes away XP from Conjurations. Next, Earth and Ice both have a similar spell to what is proposed that is available at Lvl 4; this should not be taken away from them, but rather the spell should scale up. Last, pure Summoners should not get a lot of benefit out of these unless they take up an elemental school; this may tempt them to do so.

So, I propose the following:

  • Summon Elemental (Water) merges with Summon Ice Beast -> Summon Ice Beast, Lvl 4 Ice/Summonings. This spell has two different modes. The first is that, if there are no freezing clouds on screen, this spell is essentially the same as Summon Ice Beast is now, except only one can ever appear at a time. (so it is a slight downgrade, especially if Vehumet no longer supports the Summonings School) However, if there are freezing clouds around, you can a.) smite target them and b.) upgrade your ice beast: an ice beast summoned in this way "absorbs" adjacent freezing clouds (removing them from the field) depending on Power. (say, your first cloud is free, but for every 15 power or so the ice beast may absorb 1 more cloud. Remember that this spell is dual-school and so this requires quite a large power investment!). Every cloud absorbed in this way increases the Ice Beast's HP by 7, HD by 1, AC by 1, MR by 10, and ice-damage by 5. Every 2 clouds absorbed in this way consumes 1 extra mana. So, this spell is available early, but remains useful for quite a while since it scales as you gain power. The tradeoff/cost here is that the user loses the tactical advantage of the freezing clouds on the battlefield. The user must consider whether he wants the monsters to travel the full length of the freezing field, or whether the elemental should be summoned immediately. Note that it costs 14 mana for a full-powered Ice Beast to be created from scratch! Using this spell to its fullest needs some careful tactical planning.
  • Summon Elemental (Fire) -> Summon Efreet, Lvl 6 Fire/Summonings. Summon Efreet is smite targetted, but can only be targetted at flame clouds. As the efreet appears, a fireball is cast at the spell's spellpower - again, remember dual-school. The Efreet appears with its flame-branded scimitar, but it of course does not drop it upon deathy, just as shadow-creatured yaktaurs do not drop their crossbows. This spell presents a trade-off: do you cast it far-away to take advantage of the fireball, or do you cast it closer, to take advantage of the Efreet's own fireballs and flame clouds? Last, Efreets should be completely immune to fire such that hitting one collaterally with some kind of fireball should not anger them. The cost here is minor, that a flame cloud is consumed. It would cost 9 mana to summon an Efreet from scratch using Conjure Flame; some other way of creating flame clouds (see my proposal for changing Inner Fire) would thus be ideal.
  • Summon Elemental (Earth) -> Summon Golem, Lvl 4 Earth/Summonings. Summon Golem is directed the same way as Summon Elemental is now. However, it is now dependent on the material used. If one targets rock, then one gets a Rock Golem that's pretty similar to the way an Earth Elemental is now. If one targets Stone and has at least 70 spell-power, one can get a Stone Golem for 1 extra MP (remember, dual-school plus you can only have 1 or 2 of them); if one targets Metal and has at least 90 Spell power, then one can get a Metal Golem for 2 extra MP; if one targets Crystal and has at least 110 Spell Power, one can get a Crystal Golem for 3 extra MP. (If one targets oneself, you get a Toenail Golem but also Tormented at the same time... j/k, j/k, ;P) More powerful golems should have a shorter duration time, and all golems of course will become hostile once you LRD them once.
  • Summon Elemental (Air) merges with Conjure Ball Lightning -> Summon Ball Lighting Lvl 6 Air/Summonings. Lightning bolts that pass through Ball Lightnings cause it (the Ball Lightning) to move in the direction of the bolt during the next turn. (although they would still move randomly after that). You may choose the initial starting location as similar to how Summon Elemental is done now. The opportunity cost here is different from the others: if you want your Ball Lightning to explode away from you, you'll have to direct it with at least a couple lightning bolts that may not have an opportunity to bounce. However, the explosion should be worth it!
The fan/stone/lamp can probably be kept the way they are now and summon their traditional elemental summon. (and Ilsuiw can keep her dumb Water Elementals!)
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Halls Hopper

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 18:50

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

galehar wrote:If you have no earth skill, I believe IMB is much more efficient for dealing irresistible damage than iron shot.


Also, one note here. This comment surprised me, so I checked with the excellent DCSS Spell Lab.

With 18 Conj, 3 Earth, 14 SpellCasting, and 27 Int, (reasonable numbers for a mid-game conjurer, IMHO), the numbers against Orc/SkeletalWarrior are:

IMB: 83 Power: 2d24 dmg, 25.0 Avg against Orc, 17.2 Avg against Skeletal Warrior
Iron Shot: 64 Power: 9d7 dmg, 36.0 Avg against Orc, 28 Avg against Skeletal Warrior

With 21 Conj, 5 Earth, 18 Spellcasting, and 30 Int, and a staff of Conjuration (reasonable numbers for the Vaults), the numbers against Skeletal Warrior (which have 15 AC) are:

IMB: 100 (max) Power: 2d27 dmg, 20.2 Avg against Skeletal Warrior
Iron Shot: 101 Power: 9d10 dmg, 41.5 Avg against Skeletal Warrior

So, I think that Iron Shot is still far and away better for Conjurers than IMB once it becomes available!

Lair Larrikin

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 18:59

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Does this thing count the accuracy in? Also - costs 1.5x more mana.

Snake Sneak

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Post Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 19:43

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Another idea for a thematic earth spell:

Transmute Stones to rock: Level 2 transmutation/earth: Costs 5 wielded stones.
Throw a large rock that pierces target and leaves a large rock where it lands.

I've always thought that using up stones to cast spells is an interesting feature, this idea further develops that idea by giving the choice of how to use the stones.

Without throwing skill this spell would be fairly inaccurate but it would give earth a unique piercing attack spell.

It's also useful for multiple builds as it can be used effectively with throwing, small races builds, it's a decent long range attack spell for earth elementalists and it's a nice source of rocks for large throwing species and gives them piercing rock attacks. (not really overbalanced as rocks are plentiful and it uses a limited resource.)

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Post Wednesday, 5th October 2011, 00:34

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

In regards to the proposed changes to summon elemental: While I agree with the core idea of differentiating this spell for different schools, I don't think (someone correct me if I'm wrong) crawl has ever had a mechanism for choosing what power level you want to cast your spells at. Normally the level of the spell IS the mp cost, minus the boost from Vehumet if applicable. Would the spell level be marked with a range? While I agree in spirit with what you're proposing, I think you're going to have to come up with a way of making them more expensive without changing the MP cost (hunger cost maybe? though that doesn't go far enough and doesn't punish vampires or mummies). Variable MP cost for a spell dictated by environment conditions would be needlessly complicated though.
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Tomb Titivator

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Post Wednesday, 5th October 2011, 04:03

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

My mid game conjurers don't usually have conjurations that high. Most of my skills tend to rest around the 8-12 range since I pump shields, dodging, multiple magic schools, and so on. There isn't one single "typical" mid game caster. Which is better in regards to Mystic Blast and Iron Shot is mainly based on investment. Can you kill anything with Mystic Blast that you can kill with Iron Shot? Yes. Which takes less of an investment? Mystic Blast.

I think you can even Mystic Blast away Fire Orbs. Though really you can just run from them and there's no reason to fight them and get mutated to hell and back. Regardless of this I really like the Stone Arrow -> Iron Shot -> Crystal Spear progression. It's fun to search for the next spell, exciting when you find it, and pretty cool when you get Crystal Spear all set. Though to be fair in my last few games I didn't memorize Crystal Spear since, again, you can win with Mystic Blast and Crystal Spear is a huge investment. Still it can be a fun investment when you're dropping Fiends in two shots with it.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Thursday, 6th October 2011, 00:41

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

tripwire wrote:In regards to the proposed changes to summon elemental: While I agree with the core idea of differentiating this spell for different schools, I don't think (someone correct me if I'm wrong) crawl has ever had a mechanism for choosing what power level you want to cast your spells at. Normally the level of the spell IS the mp cost, minus the boost from Vehumet if applicable. Would the spell level be marked with a range? While I agree in spirit with what you're proposing, I think you're going to have to come up with a way of making them more expensive without changing the MP cost (hunger cost maybe? though that doesn't go far enough and doesn't punish vampires or mummies). Variable MP cost for a spell dictated by environment conditions would be needlessly complicated though.


Well, I can believe that. The other solution would be to try and "average" the MP costs by setting both Summon Ice Beast and Summon Golem as Lvl 5 spells and allow their special effects for no extra MP cost. Thus, they would be pretty weak when used in vanilla conditions (summoning an Ice Beast from no freezing clouds, and summoning a rock golem), but extremely strong in their most powerful condition (summoning an Ice Beast from 9 Freezing Clouds, and summoning a Crystal Golem). I think Duration Time should be coupled more strongly in that case, then: summoning a Rock Golem / plain Ice Beast give similar duration times as they do now, while a Crystal Golem / 9-Cloud-Beast would have a duration similar to Summon Hydra.

What does everyone else think about this?
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Post Thursday, 6th October 2011, 04:03

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

GermanJoey wrote:
Well, I can believe that. The other solution would be to try and "average" the MP costs by setting both Summon Ice Beast and Summon Golem as Lvl 5 spells and allow their special effects for no extra MP cost. Thus, they would be pretty weak when used in vanilla conditions (summoning an Ice Beast from no freezing clouds, and summoning a rock golem), but extremely strong in their most powerful condition (summoning an Ice Beast from 9 Freezing Clouds, and summoning a Crystal Golem). I think Duration Time should be coupled more strongly in that case, then: summoning a Rock Golem / plain Ice Beast give similar duration times as they do now, while a Crystal Golem / 9-Cloud-Beast would have a duration similar to Summon Hydra.

What does everyone else think about this?

Sounds fun.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Thursday, 6th October 2011, 23:19

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

I tried writing a response earlier, but it was devoured by a tear in reality. Argh!

Anyway: Some good ideas in here. I would tend to agree with dpeg that although there's room for spells to differ in accuracy, range, etc. that there could be more changes. I actually think part of the problem comes not from an issue with the elemental schools themselves, but because the Hexes school isn't beefy enough.

Think about it: Conjurations is the designated school for spells that do nasty things to monsters which reduce their HP. Hexes is the designated school for spells that do nasty things to monsters which don't reduce their HP. Currently, Hexes are underpowered and exist mainly as the result of the Enchantments split, so you want the spells that reduce HP. There's quite a few ways you can write an effect that takes a monster's HP from 20 to 10, but you tend to quickly run out of the really GOOD different ways to write that effect, and once you're done with the low-hanging fruit you get "Bolt of $FOO" in the leftovers. But there's plenty of headroom to design "spells that negatively affect monsters" if you say that the negative effect is not HP damage, i.e. the spell is a Hex. There's lots of monsters in the dungeon, and players need spells for eliminating their threat, so if the non-HP-damage spells are relatively bad then the HP-damage spells end up expanding to fill that space so spellcasters can be viable.

As an example, I'd note that you proposed an Earth spell that helps you set up a cast of LRD and impede enemies' movements. But there already is a spell which does that - Petrify! A petrified enemy can be targeted with Lee's Rapid Deconstruction as a spell combo. The critical flaw with this combo is that it requires you to memorize and cast Petrify. Of course, Petrify is currently Transmutation/Earth rather than Hexes/Earth, but arguably it could be the latter. Either way, it's an example of a spell that provides variety by inflicting a negative status rather than a chunk of HP damage.

Some more specific notes:

Iron Shot: I lack the experience with Earth Elementalists to say whether Iron Shot or Crystal Spear is better, but it certainly sounds right that they're two spells that are too close in cost and kind. Perhaps it would be useful to drop the cost of Crystal Spear by 1 and make the minimum damage for low spellpower lower so that it's easier to cast but only has the same power as before for characters with lots of skill/Int invested.
Shockwave: See above for the Petrify comment. Also, there's already a plan to make Bolt of Magma have a "shotgun" effect that can hit enemies to the side of your main target. There would probably be some AI issues with making walls, although that could probably be solved by making the wall temporary.

Inner Fire: I would actually prefer not to have more spells that create flame clouds, because that's currently one of the things that makes Ignite Poison special: It's the only way to get big fat stacks of flame clouds everywhere, and is the main reason to keep Ignite Poison even after you've cleared Hive/Snake. Admittedly, I have a soft spot for this use of Ignite Poison because my first winner used it extensively, so maybe I'm just being sentimental. Maybe more relevant is that Inner Fire is currently very well suited for use by ranged/magic hybrids, i.e. Arcane Marksmen; it's very hard to write spells that fit that niche, so I would prefer to keep it as a hybrid-friendly level 3 spell rather than a level 5 spell that only gets its full effect if you have high spellpower and cast another expensive spell to 'light up' the clouds.
Explosion: As other posters have written, it's awkward to have a spell with a variable MP cost. Also, it would actually introduce a similar problem to the Iron Shot/Crystal Spear issue - it's close enough in cost and purpose to Firestorm that players would be likely to pick one and skip the other. I can see that you want to help out Hexes by putting this spell in there, but spells that change terrain should thematically be Transmutation, or if we focus on the fact that you're turning fire into more fire, it should be a pure Fire spell.

Puff/Gale: I do like the idea of replacing Shock and Lightning Bolt with these abilities. Shock is not a very good spell for starting Air Elementalists because it has low accuracy and has a newbie-unfriendly wall-bouncing effect you need to learn. This would also ensure that the remaining lightning spells (Static Discharge, Chain Lighting, Conjure Ball Lightning) are ones that explicitly focus on the theme that lightning spells hit a bunch of stuff at random, possibly including you. Gale also fills in a thematic hole for Air magicians - it's obvious that creating clouds is Air magic, but why can't you get rid of them? Doesn't wind do that? Well yeah! Tactically, it also requires you to decide whether to keep clouds around for damaging monsters, or cast Gale to gain some space. Monsters don't actually have a weight (... I think?) but their size can be used as a stand-in.
Making them Air/Charms: I wouldn't recommend this, because the Charms/Hexes split already suffers from unclear thematic lines. If Charms can include both self-buffs and damaging distance attacks, then what exactly is a Charm?
Letting them hit equipment: I would repeat the "hexes" comment above, and in fact, if you poke your head into the "Help the Hex School" thread, there's at least 3 or 4 different proposals for a hex spell that negatively affects enemy equipment. Given all the cursed equipment in the dungeon, you would think that it would be possible to cast a curse on an orc's axe, but you actually can't! A Hexes/Air spell that knocks equipment out of an enemy's hands would fit in nicely, and it might be interesting to trade DMSL for this effect; you can cast RMSL for general but unreliable protection, and a Hex lets you whip the crossbow away from a specific dangerous monster.

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Post Thursday, 6th October 2011, 23:51

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

GermanJoey: Thanks again for the effort put into this. If you want to make sure that the ideas stay alive and will be used, please move content to the wiki (ideally once the thread goes stale, but you can also do it before that): add a page to https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... h&id=magic (if you don't know how, I'll help you).

My opinion on your ideas: Earth seems good to me.
Fire not. Inner Flame is a good new spell, I see now reason to change it.
I am fine with merging Repel and Deflect into one spell. No idea why people hate Shock, I love it (and the bouncing is in no way newbie-unfriendly since 0.9).
Of Puff and Gale I'd only use Puff. I don't like it as a Shock replacement and I think it is more interesting if it only attempts to push back. This only makes sense tactically if it can push a monster back more than one square. How far a monster goes back should depend on distance (more the closer it is) and power. I would suggest that pushing into water/lava only work when adjacent to the monster (otherwise "The monster shakes but manages to stand its ground.") An exception like this is not really revolutionary, think about not drowning in Shoals or not being trampled into lava by elephants. Also, pushing back is surely powerful enough to be of higher level (which means that there is a longer power curve to use against weight). I like pushing back better than disarming, because disarming is good for everyone (including, and especially the melee fighter) whereas pushing back is of use mostly for ranged attacks.

Summons: Restricting elementals by skill is reminiscent of the summon cap and can be used, if needed. And if really necessary, we can make four versions of Summon Elemental although without this it'd be much more elegant.
I like the idea of two step summons (where you first create the element and then the summon). Ice Beast -> Ice Elemental seems good to me. I love the idea of using Summon Elemental on petrified monsters to get golems.

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Post Friday, 7th October 2011, 03:12

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

paplaukes wrote:Does this thing [i.e., the Spell Lab] count the accuracy in? Also - costs 1.5x more mana.


No. It does count AC and spell resistance, though.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Friday, 7th October 2011, 22:23

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Thasero/dpeg, thanks for the feedback. And I'll be happy to turn this into a wiki page once this thread dies down a bit.

Thasero, I definitely agree about boosting Hexes a bit. Having powerful non-conjuration spells in general definitely helps the goal of decoupling the elemental schools from being flavoured conjurations. As Hexes is currently considered the weakest school, adding powerful Hexes/Elemental spells seems like a good idea.

I think being able to cast summon earth elemental on a petrified monster is a really great idea! This should greatly damage (although perhaps not insta-kill, except at high power) a petrified monster. It would further be interesting to make this dependent on the monster's weight . The spell would do unresistable damage roughly equal to spell's power, and create a golem with the same HP as damage dealt. Summon Golem should still work on ordinary rock; it should be adjacent-targeted on rock but perhaps smite targetted on petrified monsters. This combination would make petrify (which I agree makes more sense as an Earth/Hexes spell) much more useful than it is now.

As far as a single "Summon Elemental" spell goes, how about this: Summon Elemental is Lvl 5, dual-school with Summonings and whatever your current highest elemental school is. This would mean that you'd only ever be able to use one of the four different variations of summon elemental at a time. (Note that there is some precedent with having a variable-school spell with Dragon Form; it is naturally Lvl 8 Tmut/Fire, but is only Tmut for Draconians) The Fire and Air versions of this spell would need to be rebalanced in this case. Fire, for instance, might summon a fire elemental (as they are now, except with more dmg/hp) instead of an efreet. The actual fireball effect could remain as it is; it will be weaker than an ordinary fireball anyways since it is dual-school. The Ball Lightnings could probably just be changed to be dependent on spell power.

As far as Puff/Gale goes, I guess just one spell is enough. Now that I think about it some more, I agree with you, dpeg, about disarming; I was also picturing something more like Thasero suggested w.r.t. disarming ranged attacks, but this would be too good. (at least as a low level spell.) So it sounds like the form of this spell might end up as being similar to the initial proposal of Gale. I still do think the Charms version, which I described a few posts back, has some merit. In this form, it need not deal damage, but only have the knockback effect.
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Post Friday, 7th October 2011, 23:04

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

I just want to chime in -- I really like the idea of making summon elemental more interesting, and a better choice for fire/ice casters overall.

How about a smite-targeted "Summon Fire Elemental" spell: it summons a fire vortex on an empty tile, but summons a fire elemental from a flame cloud or lava tile. Perhaps the fire vortex could also disappear faster than Fire Storm's vortexes?

Puff/Gale and Shockwave also sound really great. Iron Shot is a great spell, but I'd gladly trade it for some diversity in spell effects.

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Post Saturday, 8th October 2011, 07:34

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Flames to Fire Elementals would be stronger than Sticks to Snakes!
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Post Saturday, 8th October 2011, 08:10

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

dpeg wrote:Of Puff and Gale I'd only use Puff. I don't like it as a Shock replacement and I think it is more interesting if it only attempts to push back. This only makes sense tactically if it can push a monster back more than one square.


i assumed the creature would lose a turn in the one-square version, because otherwise you cannot effectively push back anyone who just walks to you the next turn. this may be better, but it'd be strange to see the enemy pushed back two squares, then move one ahead, then pushed back again... for instance, if they stop at the edge of water/lava and can move forward the next turn you'll never be able to push them over. they could just lose their turn in this instance by "scrambling" to ground (there's an in-game term for it but it elludes me now).

alternatively, an affected enemy could be dazed for one turn.
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Post Saturday, 8th October 2011, 11:10

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

I like a lot of the ideas in this thread.

The comment above mine reminded me of something: There are some monster statuses, specifically 'dazed' and 'blinded' that come to mind. What if some spells could cause these effects on monsters, temporarily? Players don't have many ways of inflicting them right now (just Zin, I think).

They might be better suited to the hexes school, but they're still another option for differentiating spells, by giving certain spells a chance to inflict a status.
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Post Monday, 10th October 2011, 20:12

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Alright, should I put this on the wiki now?
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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 22:58

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Finally got the chance to put this on the wiki. You can check it out here if anyone is still interested:

https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... al_schools

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Post Thursday, 3rd November 2011, 23:15

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

GermanJoey: The earth elementals review paragraph has a sentence ending with "and c."

I still think that the analysis is very good. I'll mention the page in ##crawl-dev. Thanks!

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Post Friday, 4th November 2011, 03:46

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

dpeg wrote:GermanJoey: The earth elementals review paragraph has a sentence ending with "and c."

I still think that the analysis is very good. I'll mention the page in ##crawl-dev. Thanks!


Thanks for the catch. And I appreciate the support!

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Post Friday, 4th November 2011, 08:03

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

I read through the page once so far, it has a lot of good thought in it.

The few points I didn't like was nerfing Summon Ice Beast to one beast at the time, and (to lesser extent) changing Conjure Ball Lightning to Summoning. The former is an important spell for summoners that follow good gods (although good gods being good for summoners still needs a lot of work). I however do like the idea of ice beasts absorbing freezing clouds, I like it a lot. I think all the ice beasts could do that (including normally spawned ice beasts), and I don't think the spell needs to be capped at one (or two) beasts at a time.

As for CBL, I think it works well now - I recently played an OpAE up to Vaults:8, and the arsenal of Airstrike/Lightning Bolt/CBL/Chain Lightning/Tornado provided a nice variety. Based on that experience, I don't think there's incentive to pick up Summoning for AE, I think that change would simply drop the spell from the arsenal (I'd be happy to hear if I'm wrong, some diversification there wouldn't hurt). Maybe it'd be interesting for some Summoners (you'd have to watch out for friendly fire though, it doesn't synergize that well).

There's also a thematic concern: ball lightnings aren't monsters, but "projectiles", so it makes sense for them to be conjured (created) rather than summoned. Of course, that could be reflavoured. The "direct with Lightning Bolts" idea is nifty (and I can imagine it being quite useful), but maybe a bit obscure for players to pick up. I suppose being mentioned in CBL's description would help.

Later I'll try to come up with comments other than for the stuff that I felt most critical about too, heh.

--Eino
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Post Friday, 4th November 2011, 08:56

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

evktalo wrote:I read through the page once so far, it has a lot of good thought in it.

The few points I didn't like was nerfing Summon Ice Beast to one beast at the time, and (to lesser extent) changing Conjure Ball Lightning to Summoning. The former is an important spell for summoners that follow good gods (although good gods being good for summoners still needs a lot of work). I however do like the idea of ice beasts absorbing freezing clouds, I like it a lot. I think all the ice beasts could do that (including normally spawned ice beasts), and I don't think the spell needs to be capped at one (or two) beasts at a time.

As for CBL, I think it works well now - I recently played an OpAE up to Vaults:8, and the arsenal of Airstrike/Lightning Bolt/CBL/Chain Lightning/Tornado provided a nice variety. Based on that experience, I don't think there's incentive to pick up Summoning for AE, I think that change would simply drop the spell from the arsenal (I'd be happy to hear if I'm wrong, some diversification there wouldn't hurt). Maybe it'd be interesting for some Summoners (you'd have to watch out for friendly fire though, it doesn't synergize that well).

There's also a thematic concern: ball lightnings aren't monsters, but "projectiles", so it makes sense for them to be conjured (created) rather than summoned. Of course, that could be reflavoured. The "direct with Lightning Bolts" idea is nifty (and I can imagine it being quite useful), but maybe a bit obscure for players to pick up. I suppose being mentioned in CBL's description would help.

Later I'll try to come up with comments other than for the stuff that I felt most critical about too, heh.

--Eino


Thanks for the feedback. Ball Lightning as a summon spell is probably the suggestion of mine I'm the mostly iffy about too. On one hand, I think directing the balls with a lightning bolt is a pretty cool idea and fits in interestingly with the other 2-step summoning spells suggestions. (now say that ten times fast!) I also think it would be the type of summon that would most complement an AE's playstyle. On the other hand, like you said, it would be terrible in conjunction with any other summoning spell due to friendly fire. I'm not sure what else it could be replaced with... I mean, there's the idea that AEs could summon elementals from clouds with branded attacks and resistances, but that just seems too generic for me. I don't see how it would really complement an AE's playstyle nor be a vital part of their arsenal. Maybe instead an AE could summon an air elemental, identical to how it is now, but also able to be "charged" when a lightning bolt passes through its body? (or being hit by any other lightning attack stronger than shock?) Once Charged, the Air Elemental's attack would become lightning branded and would leave behind a lightning/rain clouds whenever it "phases out," having the bonus effect of creating puddles that might make its lightning attack AOE! Hmmm! I kinda like that, actually!

Your comment about Ice Beast being important to summoners that follow good gods was sort of strange to me, however. I can't really see where you're coming from there. I mean, I've been around the Crawl block a time or two and I've never heard of such a strategy... Ely would be right out because she hates when your pals die, Zin is still Zin, and I think currently fits in best with stealthy types anyways... TSO does extend the time your summons are alive when they kill things, I guess. But still, more than half of all summoning spells would be useless There are so many demonic summon spells, and Summon Scorpions is poisonous which is no good for TSO also. You'd have to rely on spammals, dogs, and ice beasts until you were so lucky as to find the rare Book of Beasts with Summon Hydra. And Summon Dragon wouldn't be available until the post-endgame...it seems very weak to me. Anyways, were summons to be come appropriate for TSO (and it does fit in thematically now that I think about it more, him being a crusader god and all), wouldn't it make sense to make more goodly themed summon spells? What the heck is an Ice Beast anyways? Are they supposed to be like abominable snowmen or like moving ice sculptures? I've always thought of them as the latter (especially since Ice Statues summon them en masse and show up in coctyus), but maybe they are actually animals?

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Post Sunday, 6th November 2011, 11:52

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Being able to fire through air elementals and them charging up sounds good, nice synergy!

Summons & good gods is a long-term plan that has been worked on bit by bit. For instance, Hydra and Dragon summons were added precisely as high-end spells that good gods could use. Ely only gives a piety hit rather than penance for allies dying now, and Zin doesn't mind mindless allies dying (and Recite could boost allies, if it doesn't already). So, Ice Beasts should be usable for Summoners, because the higher spells for are harder to find for good god worshipers, just like you say. :) I actually wrote a longer derail on the subject, but I think I'll save it for a blog post. Anyway, I'll stress it again - the thing still needs more work to be viable. Note that the only thing I don't like about the Ice Beast proposal is limiting it to so few summons - the boost from freezing clouds sounds good to me.

--Eino
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Post Monday, 7th November 2011, 02:51

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

evktalo wrote:Being able to fire through air elementals and them charging up sounds good, nice synergy!

Summons & good gods is a long-term plan that has been worked on bit by bit. For instance, Hydra and Dragon summons were added precisely as high-end spells that good gods could use. Ely only gives a piety hit rather than penance for allies dying now, and Zin doesn't mind mindless allies dying (and Recite could boost allies, if it doesn't already). So, Ice Beasts should be usable for Summoners, because the higher spells for are harder to find for good god worshipers, just like you say. :) I actually wrote a longer derail on the subject, but I think I'll save it for a blog post. Anyway, I'll stress it again - the thing still needs more work to be viable. Note that the only thing I don't like about the Ice Beast proposal is limiting it to so few summons - the boost from freezing clouds sounds good to me.

--Eino


I guess it wouldn't really make a difference if it wasn't limited by number... you wouldn't typically have enough mana to make very many buffed ice beasts anyway. Also, note that all 4 of these new summons would be useable by good gods, even though some elemental investment would be required - a much better situation than it is now!

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Post Monday, 7th November 2011, 07:35

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Efreets are actually demonic, but air elementals and golems would be a nice addition for them, that's true! I guess you could use Summon Elemental now too if you were an EE of TSO or something, heh. I've never cast it myself..

--Eino
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Post Monday, 7th November 2011, 12:53

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

About air magic, has been proposed some "repelling" aura which allows you to walk amidst any kind of clouds without being affected at all for a few turns ?
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Post Friday, 29th June 2012, 18:09

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

dpeg wrote:Any change (especially nerf and removal) provokes hostile reactions, we see it all the time. I wouldn't worry so much about that: feature X will be most dear to some players who won't like changing/nerfing/removing it.


This is so objectionable. I don't even have things I especially object to being removed, and I still object to the concept of people being unhappy about things being reduced in power or removed being either meaningless or intrinsically flawed with respect to their ideas. It should be assessed individually.
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Post Friday, 29th June 2012, 19:14

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

You call upon the dead to rise...
The dead are posting!
The best strategy most frequently overlooked by new players for surviving: not starting a fight to begin with.

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Post Sunday, 1st July 2012, 04:27

Re: Elemental Magic Schools Differentiation

Why not make it so Puff pushes the monster back, but also gives them Fly for a few turns (somewhat ala tornado)? That way it has the knock back effect, can't trivially instakill things but the potential is there if you're determined.
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