Class/magic feature branch

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Nick

Potentially, although it would only be useful between starting to need HL and finding a permanent source of it.

The Restoration prayer would also render it largely obsolete.

[Voovus]

Originally Posted by Nick

That looks sensible. I do need to have a proper look at LoS.

Only please don't fully eliminate asymmetric LoS. Currently, asymmetric LoS is only seriously abusive in conjuction with Stone-to-Mud (which is also responsible for pillar-dancing and antisummoning corridors).

It's fun to occasionally play a character who relies on intelligent positioning and use of terrain, rather than on a large supply of HP. Could shooting-from-behind-a-corner be turned into an intended tactic for some characters, e.g. rogues/rangers?

[kaypy]

Originally Posted by Nick

OK, a look at balance might be in order. Should mages keep their dmagae boost with attack wands?

Wands arent so competitive for mages now that they are competing with double-speed casting...

Even boosted annihilation is less than two mana storms

High level wands are nice mana sources though...

[PowerWyrm]

For Single Combat, I have an alternative that I use for Summoners in PWMAngband which is the ability to... prevent summons. To avoid being a "win" button, the antisummoning field that is generated caps at 90%. In TomeNET, there's roughly the same feature, but it caps at 75%.

[wobbly]

Originally Posted by Nick

Should mages keep their dmagae boost with attack wands?

I don't think the damage is the issue. Wands never seem to blow. You can fit more charges in a pack full of wands then you have mana, so it's like fighting with unlimited mana. Your going to recharge it at the end why not casually use annihilition on the grey mushroom patch?

I guess there's a choice here. CPB has devices that recharge but just about everything else does more damage. Anything powerful enough for the serpent is rare & will be around 50% fail on something with a low device skill. It also takes actual mana to fast recharge rather then 4 sps. The old V the top wands blew if you used them on fluff. High damage, limited resource.

So what do we have currently? Spell competive damage for 0 sps, unlimited resource, cheap to recharge. Why bother being a swordsman or mage in a world of guns and heavy artillery?

[PowerWyrm]

Originally Posted by wobbly

I don't think the damage is the issue. Wands never seem to blow. You can fit more charges in a pack full of wands then you have mana, so it's like fighting with unlimited mana. Your going to recharge it at the end why not casually use annihilition on the grey mushroom patch?

I guess there's a choice here. CPB has devices that recharge but just about everything else does more damage. Anything powerful enough for the serpent is rare & will be around 50% fail on something with a low device skill. It also takes actual mana to fast recharge rather then 4 sps. The old V the top wands blew if you used them on fluff. High damage, limited resource.

So what do we have currently? Spell competive damage for 0 sps, unlimited resource, cheap to recharge. Why bother being a swordsman or mage in a world of guns and heavy artillery?

This is a good point. TomeNET uses a "Magic Device" skill which you have to put points into if you want to use devices properly. If the skill is too low, you'll have really low chances (we talk about 1-2% here) to trigger the effect. So you have the device skill split into damage and accuracy. Unfortunately we don't have this point system in V, so I dont see how we could determine the accuracy rate of devices which wouldn't be based on stats or race/class.

[Huqhox]

Maybe it's as simple as each use of recharge (and maybe also tap charges) reduces the maximum charges a device can have by one, so eventually they run out. Then they become predictable finite resources, and would add some strategic play around them

[Voovus]

I quite like the new recharge that doesn't blow up wands, though I agree it's probably overpowered. As a alternative suggestion for a fix, how about making recharge give only 1 charge to a wand per cast, up to a maximum of (number of wands in stack)*(some function of magic device and wand level)? Then if you go into a fight with 3 wands of annihilation with, say, a total of 6 charges, you can freely use it 6 times, but after that have to recharge after every use, so that it loses 50% efficiency until the fight is over.

With the current setup, staves of Banishment, Speed and Magi should probably be removed, as they seem too powerful with access to the recharge spell. Perhaps replace them with stacks of corresponding scrolls/potions instead. (I've only tried it with rogue, and not with a mage.) Alternatively, increase the blow-up-when-recharged probability for staves. This would be a bit annoying for Magic Mapping, Teleportation and the like, though.

[kaypy]

Small bug with necromancers:

The read minds spell is defined in terms of dice, wheras the read_minds effect in effects.c is set up for effect-yx.

Also, it doesnt seem that effect-yx can be defined in terms of expressions.

[Nick]

OK, new builds for Windows and macOS up on the build page, source is here. Changes are:

• Update to include all changes to 4.1 master
• Fix by fizzix to stop occasional level generation crashes
• Allow high level spellcasters a saving throw against single combat
• Randomise the landing a bit for dimension door into vaults
• Make monsters more likely to notice item theft the heavier the item is

I still intend to remove sharp weapon and glove penalties; I'll probably keep blessing of weapons, and give priests and paladins some sort of slight advantage for using a blessed weapon. I also want to nerf shield bashes a bit, and make them available to classes other than blackguards.

Please remind me about other bugs that are unfixed (I haven't checked kaypy's read minds bug yet) and balance issues that remain outstanding. I'm aiming to get this to an OK state so that it can be pulled into master once 4.1.3 is released, and I can get on with player races, artifacts and monsters. How hard can it be?