Re-re-rehashing spellcaster balance, or the thread formerly known as the cone debate

[Jeffrey Hantin <jhantin@derringer.net>]

> > Admittedly, without the damage tripling, the cones are a good deal

> Remember that I set the spellpoint cost of the cone spells with
> the strange tripling accounted for.  You weaken the damage/sp of
> cone spells without weaking the bolt or the ball spells' damage/sp.
> This throws things out of whack.

> If you cut the damage, you should also cut the sp cost.

Agreed.  My issue is more with the damage*area/time of the cones 
relative to balls/bolts.  Their sp costs should be reduced if the 
tripling is removed.  With my current character, a firebolt hits about 
10 times for 

> Also, many people have said that mages are too weak, few
> have said that they are too strong:  I am therefore unsure that
> we need to "fix" this, though I'm not against a #ifdef weakening
> cones so long as it's not default.

In my opinion, there is sort of a dual problem with mages.  What they 
are strong against, they dominate completely; what they are weak 
against, they are virtually helpless to deal with.  The problem seems to 
lie both in spells of mass destruction, and the proliferation of magic 
immunity among tough (exp > 50000) monsters.

Any reasonably competent mage can put a dragon, behemoth or such big, 
ornery spellable monster out of his, her or its misery with great 
dispatch if able to avoid said creature's initial attack.  The tactic 
goes something like:

while monster is alive
	cast paralyze at monster
	if monster casts a spell
		dodge the monster's spell
	else
		for i := 1 to 3
			cast damage spell at monster
		next
	end if
end while

If the monster is immune to paralyze but is otherwise tractable, some 
intelligently placed earth walls, counterwalls, directors, clever use 
of walls and terrain, or in a pinch (such as when you discover that 
those walls aren't walls but gates that come down and leave you 
surrounded on all sides by 25 dragons) immunity potions can provide a 
defense.  (I have learned by getting vaporized too many times to 
hotkey immunity potions.)

Throw a mage up against something immune to AT_MAGIC that has ranged 
attacks (say, a big_wiz), though, and he's reduced to spraying 
counterspells while trying to get in close enough for wall-and-bomb, 
tossing meteor swarm and running (comet won't cut it vs much bigger 
than a skull, and run carefully, so as not to get caught in its launch 
pattern), or abandoning wizardry methods altogether.  The problem 
becomes downright ridiculous when facing something immune to 
AT_PHYSICAL|AT_MAGIC, and if it's immune to AT_WEAPONMAGIC as well, 
you may as well just throw in the talisman.

> I think holy word should be enhanced anyway, with or without your
> damage tripling, and the Wis bonus reduced, so that a higher baseline
> allows "weaker" clerics to advance.

Holy word needs more power at low level, and cause light needs its 
cost reduced, in order to make bootstrapping a cleric character in any 
religion more viable.  At this point, it's easiest to start with 
Lythander, pull yourself up to level 4-5 or so by flattening kobolds, 
orcs and goblins with holy word, then switch.  Valriel used to be nigh 
impossible to start a cleric on (ever tried to pound a demon to death 
with holy word at wisdom level 1?  how often do you find a lone 
demon?), until undead became a general target of holy power, at which 
time zombies became the sitting ducks of choice for aspiring clerics 
of "good" (Denied: Wounding) religions.

> > As for modifying the cone patch to exhibit that intensity variation:
> > okay, I guess I could manage that, but I might have to tear apart
> > ok_to_put_more() and use an extra variable in the cone objects.

> If it requires too much hoop jumping, it's not worth bothering with.
> Your code is enough of an improvement as it is.  If you can do this
> without too much trouble, though, I encourage you to do it.

I'll look into it. ;-)