ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

As the title say, I think hexes (and specially pacification) are completely OP.

A couple of weeks ago, I lost a level 27 char in an adventurer ambush. Instakilled on entrance. I entered the ambush, was ported to fearscape and just slaughtered. Looking at the log, I discoverd that I had been pacification hexed, dazed, transported to fearscape and just killed without any possible action.

Also, I recently finished the game with an archmage. With hexes, the final combat really was a piece of cake. I entered, pac hexed the wizards, closed the portals without any problem, then rehexed them and roasted them a la inferno without difficulty. I had maxed aegis to be able to raise insane shields, but I even did not have to do that... No reaction. I had 230+ spellpower and the daze probaility was around 75% with pac hex at lvl 5.

I think there are several problems. One is that daze is the last effect that let you unable to act now. The second is that the duration of hexes is tooooooo long. 20 turns is a very very long time. More it is equivalent to the cooldown (but with quicken spells the CD drops to 13...). The third is that hexes have a radius 2 effect and may affect up to 25 foes simultanously. Last, maybe the hexes tree should not be so easy to get.

IMO, hexes should be seriously nerfed. Reduce duration to 8 (instead of 20) with a CD of 15. Reduce radius to one (so that you cannot hex the 2 wizards simultanously for the final fight). And maybe rethink the daze effect.

Maybe have pac hex deal damage if it doesn't successfully daze that round? Should break daze but still be useful.

The same happened to me... the problem with pacification hex is that you're not getting a save each turn, so if you get hit the first time you're probably going to get hit every turn as well.

The problem with daze is multiple. Not only you have no way to act, but it is the only effect without any save or resistance. There are conf resist, stun resist, blind resist, but no daze resist. This is compensated by the fact that any damage breaks the daze, and in general, it is fine. But this is no longer true for the pacification hex. Even if you take damage, you cannot act for one turn and you can be redazed immediatly after. Hence the possibility of long periods without any way to act.

Maybe a solution would be to take into account spellsave (or mindsave) for the daze action of the hex. This is considered when applying the hex, but once hexed only the daze probability applies. Testing spellsave vs spellpower at each potential application of the daze would give a larger save probability. Or maybe one could introduce a daze resistance (or use stun/freeze resistance).

Anyway, I really think that a spell that can instakill a character or transform the final battle into a 5 minutes walkover should absolutely be modified.

There should definitely be repeated saving throws against the dazes. I'd maybe also suggest tacking daze resistance on to confuse resistance (in the same way stun and freeze are united).

Coupling daze resistance to conf resistance is a good idea. But, 100% conf resistance is something rather common (most non living creatures and giants have it, i think, and many bosses) and one must take care not to break the many spells that rely on daze.
What could be done is that x% confusion resistance gives:

- x/2% chance each turn not to be dazed when pac hexed. This would probably nerf sufficiently pac hex to avoid the OP. To prevent instakills, this requires a sufficiently high confusion resistance, but it is very likely to be true in the mid-game, when one meets corruptors.
- x/2% chance to break the daze at every turn when already dazed (whatever the spell that did the dazing). Or even x/3 to avoid to nerf too much the daze effect, while giving some sense to the daze/conf resistance.

Pacification hex will now check for saving throw each time it applies the daze (it wont prevent applying the daze this time but if it fails it will remove the remaining hex)