ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So, I'm running an arcane blade, and I am completely flummoxed by spellpower. Specifically, I simply don't understand how it is calculated.

When I am adding stats in the level-up screen, it says that if I add a point of magic, it will give me a point of spellpower. Additionally, I'm supposed to get 21% of my cunning (which is currently quite low, but still should be a couple of points) as spellpower from the talent Arcane Cunning, which I have at level 1. I don't know if anything aside from the magic stat and my cunning add to spellpower, or, more to the point, subtract from spellpower. But I have a magic attribute of 45 (which should net me 45 spellpower, or at the very least 35 if it is counting from the base (10) instead of from 0) and a cunning of 25 (which should add 5 points), I am having a lot of trouble understanding why my spellpower should be 35.

Things like spellpower are designed to give diminishing returns. I can't remember the exact thresholds, but, say, your first 5 points give you one point each, while your second 5 points only give you a half point each-- in that case, 9 spellpower gets translated to 7 spellpower.

I looked on the wiki for an explanation, didn't find one, but the best explanation is in the in-game tutorial anyways.

Every 20 points, it takes an additional +1 raw spellpower to get +1 effective spellpower.

So, for example, you have +45 Spellpower from Magic, and +5 Spellpower from Cunning. This get to 20 Spellpower with another +30 raw which becomes 15 effective - 35 in all. If you get another 30 raw spellpower, for a total of 80 raw spellpower, you will be at 20+(40/2)+(20/3)=46 or 47 spellpower.

Okay, now you lost me. From what you said, I reckoned it would be:

20 + (20/2) + (20/3) + (20/4)

And so forth? But I seem to miss something, with the second factor to be 40 in stead of 20. Where am I going wrong?

Or is it for every 20 effective it takes 20 extra raw.

The Character sheet page of the wiki gives an explanation. ToME's diminishing returns are probably great for balance, but they can make scaling really hard to figure out. 1.3 has a small usability boost in that equipment will tell you both the raw boost value, and the effective boost from equipment.

Here's the relevant text:

It costs more to increase scores that are in higher tiers. For each tier, here's the cost of increasing your score by one:

• Tier 1: 1 point, from 0 to 20
• Tier 2: 2 points, from 20 to 40
• Tier 3: 3 points, from 40 to 60
• Tier 4: 4 points, from 60 to 80
• Tier 5: 5 points, from 80 to 100

So, assuming you don't have any equipment that boosts spellpower, 45 spellpower + (0.21)*25 cunning = ~50 base.
0-20 points -> 20
20-40 points -> 20+10 = 30
40-50 points -> 30 + 10/3 = ...33, apparently.

Roghain wrote:Or is it for every 20 effective it takes 20 extra raw.

This.

So say you have 100 base points:
You get 20 at full rate: 80 base, 20 effective
You get the next 40 at half rate: 40 base, 40 effective
The next 60 at 1/3 rate, but we run out: 53 effective

So the breakpoints are:
20 -> 20
60 -> 40
120 -> 60
200 -> 80
300 -> 100

Cheers. That helps.