Some thoughts about spells

[smileyy]

I'm assuming no one thinks that a caster is juggling 9 spell books and picking one out, opening it to a page and casting a spell from it.

Given that assumption, is the dependence on spell books for casting presuming something like reading them while resting, or other implicit activity? Or is it simply a means of picking the spell to cast?

I know Angband and realism (2H sword, shield, torch all at once) don't always see eye-to-eye, but I'd like to hear others thoughts about this.

[Derakon]

Kaypy: do you have a larger-resolution version of that image? I can't read the spells.

Smileyy: casters already have an easier time of inventory management than non-casters; removing the books entirely would make it too easy. I have always assumed that the casters are flipping to the appropriate page as needed, not that I've gone out of my way to justify that belief.

[kaypy]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Kaypy: do you have a larger-resolution version of that image? I can't read the spells.

I'm sure it was bigger before I uploaded it...

OK, heres a version where I've zoomed in to the spreadsheet a bit more before screendumping it.

...

AHA! It *does* shrink the attachment! Right- Here's a zip of the image. Shrink *that*, forum software!

spellgraph.zip

[Derakon]

Awesome, thanks.

You didn't take into account your device skill for the wands. I don't remember the exact math but a wand of annihilation should beat manastorm for average damage over time in the end.

It's interesting how many of the spells are clustered into this ball of "not really useful past the midgame". Also interesting that fire/ice and lightning/acid have the same efficiencies.

[kaypy]

Originally Posted by Derakon

You didn't take into account your device skill for the wands.

Hmm. I thought I had done that at some stage. Must of been one of the variants' spreadsheets...

It's interesting how many of the spells are clustered into this ball of "not really useful past the midgame".

Earlier, it tends to wind up with 'use whats on the perimeter'- trading off dps against manacost as appropriate, but by the end, the mana efficiency of MS isn't really that much worse than the element bolts...

Also interesting that fire/ice and lightning/acid have the same efficiencies.

That angle basically comes down to mana cost and failrate. Since this is endgame, the failrate is mostly 0 and its just a matter of those spells having the same cost.

As a comparison, here is l45 iq 18/150. Here you see the usecase for rend soul if you've still got any pesky non-evils to deal with. (Assuming Keleks has turned up)
spellgraph.zip

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by fizzix

Working on it. I have a branch on github where this works. However, it took considerable work to rewrite this, and I'm paranoid that I might have broken something in the process. The problem lay in that it was impossible to query the device damage without making the effect. The damage was hardcoded into the effects. I got around this by extracting the damage to list-effects.h with the eventual goal of making function pointers and removing the giant switch statement in effects.c altogether.

I actually need some dev guidance on whether my approach was a good one or not. But most everyone is busy with real life right now, so it'll have to wait.

Sorry, been on holiday ;-)

I had a long discussion with takkaria about effects.c, some of which is captured in http://trac.rephial.org/ticket/1427 and http://trac.rephial.org/ticket/1041. Re-reading it now, it looks remarkably like what I've just done with item affixes: it suggests a low-level set of single effects (cure some hp, set/clear a timed status, etc.) and then a higher-level grouping of compound effects (e.g. CCW cures hp, poison, confusion etc. etc.).

This means that each single effect would take one variable parameter, which would be the damage after adjustment for device skill. If we do this, you only have to calculate the damage to display it, you don't actually have to call the effect.

I haven't had a chance to look at your branch yet, but if it's consistent with that direction of travel, I'll happily merge it so that people can see adjusted device damage (or the multiplier).

[GeoffHill]

Re the elemental bolts.

I've always liked the progression feel as one builds levels in a mage, so I'd like to see them stay (maybe with damage tweaks if needed).

A wide ranging detection would be good for mages.

I think I like the fact the books contain spells that are less than optimised, but might have niche applications. Isnt that part of the appeal of a spell/prayer user? That moment when you are bleeding and have 5hp without potins and you look at every book you have and go... err... alter reality maybe?