Using next few comps to play with variant magic systems (feedback requested)

[debo]

I'm starting to doubt the wisdom of our suggestion committee. NPP druid was pretty terrible, if you want another terrible character I guess I can oblige.

[MattB]

Soften the blow - assassin?

[Nick]

All right then, High-Elf Necromancer, thrall mode, regular wilderness. Quick game's a good game.

[debo]

Now we're talking.

[Nick]

And either pre-pick Unlight or strongly recommend it, because anything else is just death.

[debo]

So, I played through a couple of Bushwhackers in this comp, and then I watched another make it pretty far. (I played them pre-comp launch when messing with the savefile, so I didn't post them.) To clarify on my previous comment about NPP Druid, I wonder if the SP mechanic in Angband could use some work.

I don't really care what spells a mage class gets, but if it's a pure caster, the mechanic of "the only renewable way to regain SP is to rest" is pretty bad.

Poschengband does a reasonable job here imo -- many casters have different mechanisms of regaining MP that don't involve using hard-to-find consumables. They are still burst-damage classes -- you can't use these MP-restoring abilities in LOS of the 20000HP unique you're chipping away at -- but they work fast enough that you don't have to worry as much about your target regenerating 50% of its HP before you can re-engage it. (A lot of these abilities are also tedious to use without macros etc, but at least they exist.) There are also safe, cheap ways to recharge all your wands etc. in the towns.

I'd love to see some thought around how SP works in Angband -- either by getting rid of it entirely and replacing it with something else, or by offering different methods for recharging it, or perhaps simply by rethinking what the max SP + SP regen caps are and what spell costs should be.

The NPP Druid specifically seemed to have a really atrocious SP cap for reasons I don't really understand. Is CL50 390SP "normal" with maxint and maxwis? Or are there other "casting races" that would have fared better here?

[ranger jeff]

I'd say NPP likely has some balance issues to be worked out... Yes, much higher SP cap for druid is one of them I'd say.

I also found almost no ?Teleport the whole game, and just one stack in the Black Market. Why not have them readily available?? And almost no ?Teleport Level. And without a good spellbook escape I had to bail early on tough fights because I couldn't take the chance of the Staff not working. And the staffs always got destroyed anyway.

And for SP regeneration, there was a variant I played which had mana potions like healing potions (light/serious/critical/heal/*heal* levels of restore mana potions.) I like that, and make them plentiful like healing potions, and available in stores up to the critical level. So rather than relying on scarce Restore Mana potions alone which must be conserved for endgame and having to teleport and rest for most major fights, you can instead duck around a corner or blink away and quaff of few Critical level Restore Mana potions and then rejoin the fight.

[wobbly]

One thing I'll say about npp druids & teleports is if you have a spell like natural escape that requires natural terrain then you probably need more natural terrain appearing earlier.

[Malak Darkhunter]

How about a spell that allows you to give up some HP for SP? I think Sang had something similar to this but I don't rightly remember.

[ranger jeff]

Nah, that leads to a troublesome loop for any caster than can heal...