High level Poison or Poison/Hexes suggestion: Pox

[naughty]

There's been several mentions recently that poison could do with a high level spell to make it worth training beyond what's needed for Poison Arrow.

Here's a suggestion that I think could work as a either a high level Poison Magic spell or maybe both Poison Magic and Hexes.

Pox

This spell induces vile and unstable boils upon its victim's skin. Infecting them with a contagious and explosive plague.

Even those immune to its effects may become carriers.

• Cast on a single enemy in line of sight, this enemy then becomes 'infected'.
• Infection causes strong poison effects to poison susecptable monsters.
• Monsters immune to poison can be 'carriers' for a short while, say 3-5 turns or depending on spell power.
• Monsters and players adjacent to infected monsters have a chance to also become infected. This could lead to it being very OP but the effect could be made to diminish in virulence very rapidly.
• An infected and poison suseptable monster causes a small explosion if attacked (what the 'unstable boils' in the description refers to).
• The explosion power is quite low and dependent on spell power and also AC. Damage could also be proportional to infection time so you have to hold off before attacking.
• The explodee is still poisoned but no longer infected. So you can't repeatedly cause explosions from the same monster.
• The explosion can also infect.

There's obviously balance issues, you don't want one cast to be able to clear the Elf:5 end vault for example.

There's a nice synergy with using your own summons as vectors of infection.

It seems to fit with the damage over time aspect of Poison quite well.

Also other level 9 spells seem to be area of effect spells, this would be similar.

[Blade]

The problem is that, by the time one would usually train poison high enough to get a spell like this, most monsters will be poison-resistant. I think that any high-level poison spell would have to be largely unresistable, in the vein of parrow/ice storm/etc.

[naughty]

You could make infection count toward being Ignite Poison vulnerable but that's a bit of a stretch just to try and fix the idea.

I suppose the explosion effect but apply to even totally poison immune creatures but it wouldn't make too much sense.

For post-endgame it would be weak but a lot of Zot monsters can be poisoned by poison arrow.

[njvack]

Problem is, training a dual-school L9 spell that'll stop working after Zot is probably not a really great use of XP, unless your aptitudes are really, really good, or it's really, really godlike on living things.

[naughty]

True, this needs rethinking.

But are the mechanics of a spreading infection type spell worth carrying forward? It's seems to a different take on area of effect than any of the storms, tornado or shatter.

[jejorda2]

What if the infected also get the frenzy status, so they can't use ranged attacks and will start to attack others nearby? Maybe infection is also spread by melee hits from infected monsters?

Maybe use this as a way to bring back the Berserk spell? It infects the caster first? That's probably a bad idea to use by the time you have the skills to cast it. Unless like Confusing Touch, the status ignores otherwise relevant resistances.

[rebthor]

What about making it kill living things really fast but demons much more slowly? If it's cast at a high enough spell power, the number of turns you can infect demons with is actually pretty high and high enough to not only kill them by spells end, but also infect many other demons, whereas on a living creature, it kills really quickly so you get rid of the immediate threat but because it kills so fast, you're unlikely to spread much beyond what is directly near it.

[njvack]

I'm not sure an infection-like spell would be a lot of fun in a roguelike, actually. Optimal play would be "cast this on dudes and get out of sight," and stuff happening out of LOS is, well, not that fun.

[XuaXua]

Optimal play would be "cast this on dudes and get out of sight," and stuff happening out of LOS is, well, not that fun.

You've obviously not done the Inner Flame, Charm, t-a/t-w maneuver.

[naughty]

I'm not sure an infection-like spell would be a lot of fun in a roguelike, actually. Optimal play would be "cast this on dudes and get out of sight," and stuff happening out of LOS is, well, not that fun.

I feared this so that's why I mentioned 'explosive boils'. The optimal play there would be to let the infection spread a little then trigger a cascade of explosions with a ranged attack, or if the enemies are slightly further spread out trigger the explosion early to spread the infection.

[Eji1700]

I'm not sure an infection-like spell would be a lot of fun in a roguelike, actually. Optimal play would be "cast this on dudes and get out of sight," and stuff happening out of LOS is, well, not that fun.

I feared this so that's why I mentioned 'explosive boils'. The optimal play there would be to let the infection spread a little then trigger a cascade of explosions with a ranged attack, or if the enemies are slightly further spread out trigger the explosion early to spread the infection.

So long as theres some reason to actually stay nearish the infected targets i'd say it's all good. As for resistance, i'm pretty sure they've talked about reworking rpoison anyways, and in the meantime any double lvl 9 spell should probably just not be resistable.