Arcane Blade ideas

[Planetus]

The one problem I see with this is that a bump-heavy game-play may miss the turn for spells.

[SageAcrin]

That is essentially what I meant by making it a higher skill ability, yes.

You have to mash less.

[malboro_urchin]

The one problem I see with this is that a bump-heavy game-play may miss the turn for spells.

I agree. I enjoy the playstyle currently offered by the Arcane Blade. I just want some variety outside of Stone. I'm considering my idea for Arcane Blade earlier in the thread as an excuse to make my first foray into modding ToME!

[Doctornull]

At this point, I'm seriously thinking of writing an add-on that revamps Arcane Combat as follows: you do not get a chance to proc a random spell from a predefined list, but a chance to get a one-turn buff that allows you to cast a single spell without using a turn, also reducing its cooldown by three.

This would greatly increase the flexibility of the class and make it play very differently from the "dual-wielding glass cannon"/"bulwark who hits like a truck" archetypes the current design rewards/requires. You could follow up a melee attack (though not always when you'd want to!) with Inferno or Phase Door just as readily as Lightning (though only the latter would not incur a cooldown), and you'd have a strong incentive to actually cast the diverse body of spells available. However, the days of firing off four volleys of Earthen Missiles in a single Flurry would be over.

As a bonus, the change would fix a number of other issues with the class:

--) Though they would remain an interesting and viable option for the class, staves would no longer generate out-of-control Arcane Combat damage in virtue of their huge proc damage bonus.
--) While arcane blades would continue to benefit from the multi-hitting capabilities of shields and dual weapons, the effective cap on one free spell per action would keep two-handers competitive.
--) Similarly, though Crystalline Focus alone would keep Stone appealing, the class's limited cooldown reduction would preclude insta-casting Earthen Missiles every turn without the aid of Body of Stone.
--) Finally, all sorts of nifty Adventurer combos would open up.

Very cool idea. It's perfect for a turn-based table-top RPG where you have 5 other people to remind you to use your spell, but the one-turn use-it-or-lose-it is not a great fit for a game where someone might mash the arrow keys a couple of times during combat.

To adapt this excellent idea to ToME, make the buff work like Combo Points: you can build up to a small number, they last for a few turns (~6 or so), and using one uses all of them.

Maybe each Magic Combat point after the first takes off an additional turn of CD, so if you build up 3 of them you can get -5 CD from the next spell you cast within 6 turns.

Attentiveness would still be rewarded, but misclicks and bump-mashing won't be quite as depressingly punitive.

[SageAcrin]

Edit: Actually I misunderstood this rather badly.

The idea here isn't bad, but the idea I got from misunderstanding it is actually pretty good too, humorously: Allow the charge to be maintained for an amount of turns based on the Arcane Combat level.

That way, you can mash and take an instant spell whenever you want, or use it optimally-both have some different upsides, though mashing overall is worse.

[Planetus]

I like the idea of 'combo' points, but I think more points should increase the damage of the spell. Maybe by 20-50% each point. That'd give a tactical aspect to saving points (spike damage and less mana cost, but less damage overall compared to taking each point individually), while also encouraging more diversification in spells (the spell you cast may well have a cooldown).

[Doctornull]

I like the idea of 'combo' points, but I think more points should increase the damage of the spell. Maybe by 20-50% each point. That'd give a tactical aspect to saving points (spike damage and less mana cost, but less damage overall compared to taking each point individually), while also encouraging more diversification in spells (the spell you cast may well have a cooldown).

I think 20-50% damage boost on top of something like Earthen Missiles might be a bit too strong, especially since it's in addition to Crystalline Focus rather than in place of it.

[Planetus]

It is pretty strong, but realize it's in trade for an extra casting of Earth Missiles (though actually with the cooldown of Earth Missiles, it's only sort-of an extra casting). Maybe the damage increase could be inversely proportional to the cooldown of the spell? So Earth Missiles would receive little bonus, but Flame would receive more. Eh, I don't know, that may not be a worthwhile idea.