What's the penalty for trying to cast spells without mana?

[Nemesis]

I've read that mages used to have spell called Globe of Invulnerability, which got removed from the game because it made mages invincible. As I though it sounded like a nice spell I came up with an idea on how to balance it.

How about making it cost more mana than a Mage can have? I don't know the exact penalties for casting spells without mana, but I've heard that doing so can cause permanent damage on your stats and make your @ pass out.

If players would risk fainting from casting the spell, they wouldn't do it during a battle. But players who like to gamble could still do it before. In other words, the Mage would cast Globe of Invulnerability on dlvl 99, and if everything goes well he or she would be invincible during the first part of the battle. But the mage passes out from casting, there would be a small risk of a wandering monster sneaking up on him/her while (s)he's unconcious. Getting stats ruined forever wouldn't be fun either and like all those self-buff spells in Angband the duration of GoI would be random.

Another spell idea I came up with was the ability to cast Aquirement or *Aquirement* at the cost of more mana than a player can have. Wouldn't it be possible to balance that too so that some gambling-minded players would use it for extra excitement while those who like to play it safe never would use it?

I understand that the developers have much more important things to balance/code/etc than to listen to ideas from the forum, but to me it doesn't matter that much. I think it's fun to just discuss! So what do you say, would it be possible to balance Globe of Invulnerability or Aquirement/*Aquirement* by giving them unaffordable mana costs?

[Derakon]

When you try to cast a spell but lack the mana, the failure rate of the spell is increased by 5% for each missing mana point (up to the standard max 50% failure rate before taking into account stunning and amnesia). Also, if you fail, the following happens:

* You are paralyzed, ignoring free action, for 1 game turn plus 5 for each missing mana point.
* At 50% odds, your CON is reduced (at a further 25% odds, permanently -- so, 1/8th chance of a permanent CON reduction)

That's it. This is all taken from cmd5.c, by the way.

If you want to introduce a spell that intentionally costs more mana than you can have, then you should also tweak the rules for mana overexertion. They currently assume that you're desperate anyway and thus don't overly penalize you (beyond paralyzing you in a situation where you badly needed to cast a spell, anyway). Making GoI work this way makes some sense, since you have to cast it shortly before going into combat, so if you fail, there's a good chance you'll get ambushed. But I don't see this remotely working for Acquirement et al. In general, spells that give the player items are broken or useless, depending on the items in question. We already see this with branding spells.

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by Derakon

When you try to cast a spell but lack the mana, the failure rate of the spell is increased by 5% for each missing mana point (up to the standard max 50% failure rate before taking into account stunning and amnesia). Also, if you fail, the following happens:

* You are paralyzed, ignoring free action, for 1 game turn plus 5 for each missing mana point.
* At 50% odds, your CON is reduced (at a further 25% odds, permanently -- so, 1/8th chance of a permanent CON reduction)

That's it. This is all taken from cmd5.c, by the way.

If you want to introduce a spell that intentionally costs more mana than you can have, then you should also tweak the rules for mana overexertion. They currently assume that you're desperate anyway and thus don't overly penalize you (beyond paralyzing you in a situation where you badly needed to cast a spell, anyway). Making GoI work this way makes some sense, since you have to cast it shortly before going into combat, so if you fail, there's a good chance you'll get ambushed. But I don't see this remotely working for Acquirement et al. In general, spells that give the player items are broken or useless, depending on the items in question. We already see this with branding spells.

Thanks for the information!

It wouldn't make that much sense to put an aquirement spell in the game, I was just toying with the idea to challenge myself by trying to come up with a way to balance it.

But do you think it would be possible to re-introduce Globe of Invulnerability this way? Or do you think it's an hopeless task to find the right balance between everyone thinking it's not worth the risk and it being a no-brainer choice to activate GoI before the last battles in the game?

[fyonn]

Originally Posted by Nemesis

Thanks for the information!

It wouldn't make that much sense to put an aquirement spell in the game, I was just toying with the idea to challenge myself by trying to come up with a way to balance it.

But do you think it would be possible to re-introduce Globe of Invulnerability this way? Or do you think it's an hopeless task to find the right balance between everyone thinking it's not worth the risk and it being a no-brainer choice to activate GoI before the last battles in the game?

as someone used GoI against Morgoth, it was a great spell, but IIRC, it only lasted 6+d8 turns or something similar, so I had to cast it several times during the fight. I pretty much had to be able to see Morgoth to cast it, otherwise I was wasting much of the value of an expensive spell to cast (70-ish mana?)

thus casting it with a serious risk of paralysis would be an invitation to death.

Also, a spell that you only cast for one baddie seems a bit odd.

dave

PS. GoI was seriously unbalancing.. that's what made it cool!

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by fyonn

as someone used GoI against Morgoth, it was a great spell, but IIRC, it only lasted 6+d8 turns or something similar, so I had to cast it several times during the fight. I pretty much had to be able to see Morgoth to cast it, otherwise I was wasting much of the value of an expensive spell to cast (70-ish mana?)

thus casting it with a serious risk of paralysis would be an invitation to death.

Also, a spell that you only cast for one baddie seems a bit odd.

dave

PS. GoI was seriously unbalancing.. that's what made it cool!

If GoI was to be reintroduced, I imagine that players would cast it dlvl 99, and that it would last a bit longer. I guess it wouldn't be impossible to use it in other important battles as well. For example, you could detect the Tarrasque, dig a tunnel so that you are right next to him, with only one grid of wall between you. If you succeed in casting the spell, you only need to cast Stone to Mud one time before you can engage the Tarrasqe. And since you've dug a complex tunnel, it's not that likely that someone will kill you while you're paralyzed, unless that someone kan walk through or tear down walls. You could also use Glyph of Warding to protect yourself. The real the risk with using the spell would be that you could permanently lose one of those invaluable CON points, while the risk of getting paralyzed would mostly work to hinder players from re-casting the spell while in combat.

[miyazaki]

Originally Posted by Derakon

When you try to cast a spell but lack the mana, the failure rate of the spell is increased by 5% for each missing mana point (up to the standard max 50% failure rate before taking into account stunning and amnesia). Also, if you fail, the following happens:

* You are paralyzed, ignoring free action, for 1 game turn plus 5 for each missing mana point.
* At 50% odds, your CON is reduced (at a further 25% odds, permanently -- so, 1/8th chance of a permanent CON reduction)

That's it. This is all taken from cmd5.c, by the way.

The paralysis and CON drain happen if you are successful at casting the spell as well. You have to be really desperate to try. Under the system proposed, even if successfully cast, the GoI would probably wear off before your character is able to move again.