Casting Time!

[Maylith]

I have no tolerance for implying the death of a fellow forum member, even in fun. Remove the graphics.

That goes for you, too, Tabris.

And by the way, you can interrupt a monster's spellcasting, or at least keep it from casting at you, by stunning it. Pulverize is very handy that way, so long as you don't bring the ceiling down.

[Balrog in a Bucket]

But you would have to get the first attack in to stun it! How would that prevent a balrog from summoning annoying little demons to kick your arse?

All I'm really trying to do is reduce the need of unorthodox (No, I'm not Jewish, I just like that word) strategy, like anti-summoning corridors, collecting nothing but massive speed, etc. that kind of thing.

I think that ToME would be a much better game if there were more options, not just in race/class/skills/items, but it strategy/goals/uses for current skills/objects!

Balrog in a Bucket is amazed at himself being able to add a exclamation point after that "sentance" -more-

[Tabris]

That goes for you, too, Tabris.

Uh, okay... hm... LIVE LIVE LIVE! ... I guess that undoes it

I'm not complaining about the ideas tho, just seems like something tome already has. If you start giving mages the ability to easily stop monsters from casting spells that would end up making unbelievers worthless.

[Balrog in a Bucket]

I didn't say it should be EASY. A spell to stop a single monster from summoning for any decent amount of time would probably be level 40+, I'm thinking, but I don't know much about balancing.

I'm starting to think that no one likes my idea enough to try it out. But we can still comprimise, right? (If you call one dude vs. an army comprimise)

Perhaps there should be a school dedicated to anti-summoning, or even at least a few spells instead of... whatever we might already have. At low levels, it could give bonuses to combat/magic against summoned creatures (that might increase with spell level). Or maybe it should reduce the creatures effectiveness instead of giving you a bonus.

BTW, may your head ever rest upon your shoulders, and may balrogs never harm you again... Errr, I mean.... ....

{think, think}

It's the gesture that counts. Let's sing the Cumbya!

{think, think (if all the way on one side's bad) think, think}

Never mind, forget everything except the first three paragraphs

[Serin]

I have been silent on this subject until now. I love the way that the spell system works in ToME. I am a huge fan of D&D but one thing I never really liked was the optional initiative system, simple initiative was great for me, sort of reminded me of turn based RPG's.....

There are some really good ideas out there, and infact, I believe that this one has been discussed at length, use the powerful search spell located at the top to find them.

ToMEs spell system is great in that there is so much variety, play a sorcerer to find out what I mean (turn on unusual rooms and head to the sandpit lair...(I will refrain from being spoily.)); there is also the fact taht one doesn't have to choose spells they wish to memorize (if you have ever played any SSI games you will know why I loath that feature! )

Finally this is the ideas forum and one should not flat out criticize an idea with out telling why. "D&D sucks" for example probably should be followed with why, you probably won't be able to convince me or others of your position, but at least we will be able to understand (hopefully) where you are coming from.

Many people love many different games/types of games, the one thing we can really all agree on is that ToME rocks!

WOW that was long winded!

[Tabris]

"D&D sucks"

Yes, thank you. I don't feel like explaining myself on that opinion and I really don't want to convince anyone of that. But, I can give it a try. I've played D&D for over 10 years, from first to 3rd ed. I still do play sometimes and I still think it sucks. My reasons are inumerous but I will just point out a few:

* The use of d20 - Way too random and doesn't give a true average. I'm in favor or 3d6 from gurps or the d6 based skills from shadowrun. For an example, I have a friend who's unlucky, it doesn't matter who's rolling the die for him, it will always be a bad result. Whenever he gets a critical hit the universe is sarcastic enough to make all weapon rolls to be 1 which brings me to the next point
* Weapon damage - I absolutely hate to carry over 10 die to play D&D not to mention that it doesn't matter how good your hit was on the d20, you will still give the same random pathetic damage. I hope weapon damages will change eventualy on tome.
* HP - It's another stupid concept that's unfortunately used in tome. You go out, kill 10 orcs and suddenly you can be hit by 10 arrows and still survive while before, one or two were enough to kill you. On D&D 3rd there's an official wound system (available one of the expansion books) which is great, we (I) only play using it.
* Books - Damnit, I don't want to spend hundreds of dolars in a single game. I mean, okay, it's nice to have variety, but gesh, too pricey. The quality is good, yes, but we don't need that quality for rpgs, it's not a magical tome with gold trimming.
* Spellbooks/memorizing - So yeah, mister mage has to spend one hour a day to memorize a lot of spells... Somehow he can't do it twice a day... Somehow he just needs to utter a word or two with a few gestures to cast a spell that took him 10 minutes to memorize... Somehow, he knows the spell but yet, he needs a book with it to memorize it... I mean, if he can memorize it once, why the hell does he forget it every time he casts it? ... Stupidity reaches new boundaries... Alas, in the same book which you find wound rules, you find a magic points rule which is reasonably better.


And it goes on and on and on.

[Atarlost]

As to your point about magic, it's called a "hamfisted balance hack". HP is too, but it's a necessary one if you're going to be expected to go one on one with a fallen god like you are in ToME.

[Balrog in a Bucket]

I never really thought a whole lot about people being "lucky" or "unlucky", maybe some of that stuff about purging your dice and making sure unlucky people don't touch them isn't so crazy. If you think that a d20 is bad, though, then you should check out some of the stuff the RNG does to people . I've never really been lucky myself, but you would probably laugh about stuff like that (kinda like in ToME with the RNG) a while afterwards instead of curse the game for it. I never really played with anything but core rulebooks and a cheap cd-rom collection of 2nd ed books. Maybe it isn't a perfect game, and maybe ToME isn't either, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy both of them and not get bloodthirsty for making an ultimate character does whatever.

I'm a little curious about if you read extensively into the sections about hitponts. They say there that they are more of an ability to "turn a deadly blow into a minor one." I don't know what you got out of this, but I got the picture of how a tough soldier could withstand a few gunshots and still live while a skin-and-bones dude would probably be in serious trouble. Later in his life, though, the skinny one might realize some great potential and get to be stronger than that soldier (rather unlikely; an average guy would have more of a chance). The ex-skinny dude could then proceed to insult the soldier and perhaps get away with it. I think that this is an excellent example of hitpoint/level progression, and might also be seen in game with battle-scarred vetrans. ToME and other games might be a little unrealistic, but then again, orcs, magic, saving princesses, the One Ring, Sauron, and Middle Earth are all also urealistic similarly. If you could propose something better, though, then I'm sure that if it really was realistic, people would accept it. Maybe that one pope dude survived 8 bullet wounds, but I think of that as why it's a necessity to have a large range on weapon damage; sometimes, things happen a certain way and there's nothing you can do about it. Or maybe that pope was secretly a 50th level fighter. But then again, I never really knew that many people who are unlucky, and I'm kinda bent toward the idea of averages usually working out to a 1-5:3 basis. Maybe your friend does deserve something better... Does he (I was about to say he/she... hehe) like ToME much?

But I digress, again, for a much longer amount of time.

I'll be thinking about casting time/anti-summoning/whatever.

Atarlost: I have no clue what you are talking about. I guess that might just be the real reason why I posted something.

Edit: It's too bad that only nine people voted on that poll, but I think that I got the idea.

[Maylith]

Balrog in a Bucket: I suggest that if you don't know what Atarlost was talking about, you meditate on it for a while... as Atarlost had a good point.

[Balrog in a Bucket]

Lol! I just got it! I had a notion about what he meant, but "hamfisted" and "hack" threw me off. I guess I forgot that "hack" in angbandish programmer meant "change in code" and I also might have forgotten something about hamfists, by being weak from hunger, and daydreaming of ham. I guess my sanity (or whatever) is a little low, maybe I should go and eat a bunch of mushrooms! Too bad I'm not that hungry after dinner.

I think looking at these forums once in a while is throwing off my game, too.

Never think on an empty stomach!

[Tabris]

I never really thought a whole lot about people being "lucky" or "unlucky", maybe some of that stuff about purging your dice and making sure unlucky people don't touch them isn't so crazy.

Oh, his unluckyness is so mean that it only affects himself :p ... It's like when needs a fairly easy roll, like 8, to hit something, he misses. Then when he's fighting a kobold that takes no effort to kill, he throws criticals. That doesn't last long because as soon as an orc shows up, he's the one who misses all the time and receive all the criticals... He just can't play luck games... Oh btw, that doesn't only apply to rpg for him It's funny... I guess he's a yeek vampire

[Serin]

[quote=tabris]* Books - Damnit, I don't want to spend hundreds of dolars in a single game. I mean, okay, it's nice to have variety, but gesh, too pricey. The quality is good, yes, but we don't need that quality for rpgs, it's not a magical tome with gold trimming.
[/quote]

I wholeheartedly agree!!! (I have nearly every single revised 2ed book there is and have literally spent hundreds of dollars on it, and to top things off I only play it once in a blue moon )

one last reason that I voted to keep ToME's magic system the way it is was because magic-users in ToME are hard enough to play (and survive with) as it is, low hp's make it very difficult to work with.

finally, a thought on hp's. In the *real* world people can only take so much punishment (think of boxers/rugby player/etc. to see what I mean.) some can take more than others, they have trained to do this; but even a shot to a vital area will take them to -10 'hp'. In *every* fantasy world I have ever played in, this has been represented by hp's, but until the critical damage system introduced in D&D 2ed (combat and tactics) it had been relatively abstract. Perhaps ToME could introduce a variant where you actually can be damaged in specific areas? (It already alludes to it when your sanity has dropped )

[Darklaw]

I always liked the combat system in Rolemaster / Middle Earth Role Playing. Although it used a whole multitude of tables, which could kind of slow things down until you got used to it, it had an excellent critical hit system. The majority of damage in combat was still handled through hit points, but if your to-hit roll was exceptional, you had the opportunity to roll on whichever critical hit table was appropriate for the weapon you were using. Effects could range from doing extra HPs damage, to removing one of the target's limbs, to killing him outright. Some of my personal favourites are:

for brawling combat - "Your strike is frightening. Foe's head snaps to one side. Foe cannot breathe. He looks upon the world one last time and then dies. You are horrified at his doom."

for martial arts combat - "Throw foe with a running assault. You carry him a good 10 feet to land on his face. As he yells dirt shovels into his mouth. You try not to laugh."

The neat thing was that there were critical hit tables for offensive spells, too. E.G.

for electricity based spells: "Strike to foe's head. He is burned to a cinder. What is left blows away on the wind. All fear you.";

for heat based spells: "Your foe is devoured by a hellfire of which even you are frightened. All combustibles within 10ft ignite. Little will remain when the fire dies."

On the down side, it did make combat just a teensy bit deadlier. I've a feeling there'd be very little quite as frustrating as having your 50th lvl. Warrior going toe to toe with a small kobold, and seeing the following message appear:

"The small kobold hits you.
"Strike through brain makes life difficult for you.
"You die."

But I digress... (Hmm... That seems to happen a lot... )

I though David's initial idea about the modification to the spellcasting system was an interesting one, because it introduced another variable to think about when planning your strategies. Sure it makes things more difficult, but make it an option, or include it in a module, so that if people don't want to use it, they don't have to. I'd just be interested to see how it plays...