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KhymChanur: I'm wondering how Runecrafters, as a class, are supposed to be different from Mages and Sorcerors. From the class description, I can guess the following:
- Memorized spells can be cast while blind or while in the dark. At higher levels, it seems like this wouldn't be much of a difference, since by then you'll have blindness resistance and a permanent light source.
- A greater varierty of spells than a Mage, but less than a Sorceror. I guess there can't be too many "type" runes, or a Runecrafter would be able to cast as many kinds of spells as a Sorceror, without the HP penalty. For instance, a Time rune would allow for runespells like Essence of Speed and Slow Monster. We also have to limit the ways that the runes can be combined. For instance, if you could combine Self, Protection and Element, that would be like Elemental Shield. (Or maybe we do want to allow for that combination?) Or Self, Protection and Undeath for temporary protection from Nether.
The ability to control how much mana you put into a spell. At one end of things, this lets you have less powerful attack spells. A Mage with the Mana and Spell Power skills maxed can cast very powerful Manathrusts, but they always have to be powerful, and you can't cast too many in a row before you run out of mana; a Runecrafter can have attack spells at different intensities, and use ones costing less mana on the weaker monsters. At the other end of things, a Runecrafter can pour all of his or her mana into a single spell, thus making it incredibly powerful
- The ability to select any kind of area-of-effect for a particular kind of damage type. A Sorceror can cast Manathrust for irresistable damage on a single monster, Geyser for water damage in a ray, or Fireflash for fire damage to a large area of monsters. However, a Runecrafts can cast a Fire Arrow for a single monster that's susceptible to fire (for more damage and less random-havoc than Fireflash), cast a beam of element for irrestable damage in a ray, or use cold and sphere to do a Fireflash type spell on monster susceptible to cold.
I'm not sure how important the ability to have less powerful spells is, and the ability to pour all your mana into a single spell seems rather abusable, even if you give it a high rate of failure: get a big stack of Potions of Restore Mana, cast a huge spell, quaff a potion, cast another huge spell, repeat until the spell finally succeeds and you wipe out Morgoth in a single blast (someone on the forums reported actually killing Morgoth in 2.x using a technique similar to this). So to me it seems that the distinguishing characteristics of the Runecrafter class are:
- A greater variety of spells than Mages, but less so than Sorcerors
- Can combine any area-of-attack with any damage type for attack spells.
I see that there's a proposed Ability that combines runecrafting with alchemy to bind a runespell into a rod-tip, but I don't see how useful this would be to Runecrafters who could cast the same spells directly, and with a lower fail rate.
Of course, this analysis is ignoring the use of runecrafting by classes other than Runecrafters. Maybe no one will play Runecrafters, but lots of people will use the runecrafting skill in combination with other clasess.
So, what do you all think?
NeilStevens: Wasn't runecraft already rewritten for ToME 3? Not that I'm opposed to a re-design, but if it was already rewritten and you like the results, why waste effort?
PeterWiersig: There is a CVS log message requesting feedback on changed runecrafting implementation.
KhymChanur: I've looked through the ToME3 code and can't find any code that actually implements runecrafting. There's a few references to runes and runecrafting here and there, but nothing for building and casting a spell.
On a completely different topic: I believe that, in 2.x, the Spell Power skill doesn't help runecrafting, but a Mage Staff of Power does; this seems a bit inconsistant. How should this be done in ToME3?
DarkGod: Get the cvs module tome_module_old, the code is there, it hasnt been moved to the new ToME module yet.
FearofFours: The code works and works well from what I remember. I hadn't playtested it fully as that has never really been possible with ToME3, but what I was able to try was good and the basic idea was good. I don't think it needs tampering with until it can be properly play-tested.
Stormcrow: I'm new, so sorry to chime in here if I'm not wanted... I've never liked the implementation of Runecrafting, and have an idea to run by you all. Combine runecrafting and "floor inscriptions", which to me have more of the feel of a "rune". In other words, let Runecrafters (I sort of prefer Runesmiths, dunno why) have their main tools be runes, formerly known as floor inscriptions. Add new runes, and allow the Runecrafters mana pool to be used to help power the runes, which still draw on the latent random mana contained in any particular room. Maybe have the mana reduced in a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio, or something. By this I mean say a rune requires 100 mana, and the room contains only 50. The remaining 50 mana required could be paid from the Runecrafters mana, costing him 100 mana for a 2:1 ratio. Anyway just ideas.
'KhymChanur: DarkGod already imported data/magic/runecraf.lua into 3.0.0 CVS, so I moved some of the item description code from there to data/items/descs.lua, added rune objects for the basic damages, rune objects for the currently available rune spell "shapes", and a runestone object. The damage types seem to work fine, and the arrow and ray shapes work fine, but sphere shape seems to be no different from arrow, and "view" seems to have no effect. Memorizing spells, casting from memory, and forgetting spells work, but there's no way to name your runecraft spells. Inscribing runestones and casting from them works.
Oops, not quite right, still no runes for SELF or WAVE shapes. I'll add those later.
The RUNE_HARDNESS and RUNE_WEIGHT flags for the various rune objects probably aren't correct, nor are the item costs and allocations, but I figure that we'll take care of that later.
LordFoul: I'm new here, but I'd just like to throw in my 2 cents.. I've always preferred the idea of something more along the lines of rune magic in the Death Gate Cycle series of books, instead of having stones, why not have tattoos located on the body? Or Inscribed onto objects/weapons? or just learned/memorized after you find them? Even if this was limited in number and could perhaps be changed/replaced with a different rune later, it seems better to me than carrying around a ton of stones just to have a range of spells.
Now that I think about it, why not allow runecrafters to make rune items, even if temporary and limited in uses? At least some of these things would put the Runecrafting skill to use.
ShadUs: The "inscribe runes on body"/tattoos might be good abilities for "purchase" once your runecraft reaches a certain level... be nice to free up a few spaces for things you "never want to leave home without" and it gives a place to use up some points that may diversify characters a bit. The other stuff is really falling under item creation stuff rather than runecraft. See the alchemy discussion.