ToME WikiLordEstraven: It seems kind of strange to me that Mindcrafters must worship someone... And I have to say, they don't really seem suited to the role as priests. When I think "Mindcrafter", my thoughts tend towards someone a bit like The Shadow - lurking in the darkness, twisting mens' minds, and, when necessary, kicking the living daylights out of whatever gets in their way. In other words, these guys should be warriors. They do, after all, use combat a lot, especially at high levels, and rely rather heavily on shielding and enhancing spells.
Also, FWIW, I think that Marangio's sanity-based mindcraft system should become the default at some point, if we're going to keep mindcrafters as a class.
CosmicGerbil I don't think mindcrafters should be warriors. They should use just the power of their mind, not strength and combat skill. A warrior mindcrafter just seems all wrong. But I do agree, having them as priests doesn't seem right either. Maybe mindcrafters should have their own unique class. Maybe their powers should be altered to make them really powerful when they reach higher levels.
NeilStevens: My plan for mindcraft is to alter it radically. As it exists now, being a self-contained full spectrum of magic, it is unacceptable.
CosmicGerbil What's wrong with it? I mean what don't you think is acceptable about the current mindcraft.
NeilStevens: It's a self-contained full spectrum of spells, duplicating and separate from the regular magic system. In ToME 3, Mindcraft will be more like Prayer and Sorcery, in that it will be a means of accessing school spells, instead of being a separate kind of magic spell. Also, some of the mind attack spells will be moved into the Mind school (Sorcerors with Mindwave, heh).
LordEstraven: Cool... IMHO, there should be some things added to that idea - spells cast using Mindcraft should cost sanity, but not require you to cart books around. Mindcraft should also give access to a spell that restores santiy.
Orvin: How about allowing mindcrafters to use sanity to increase spell-power (either on a per-spell basis or for a prescribed duration)?
NeilStevens: My plans have nothing to do with sanity.
RavenRed: A module/addon duplicating the Sanity-based system would be fairly feasible though. FWIW, I think Mindcraft should be something distinct from the standard spell system, but not in a way which is warrior-based. Psionics is not particularly a part of Tolkien, although I'd argue that Saruman was definitely that way inclined...
CosmicGerbil I agree with RavenRed. Mincrafters should be distinct. They don't use or need magic or prayer; their powers come directly from their own minds. A high-level mindcrafter should be devastating, a terror to all intelligent races, but with one weakness...his powers have no effect on undead or non-living creatures. A mindcrafter could maybe have powers to allow himself to defend against undead creatures., but I think they would be his major weakness. So like LordEstraven said, a mindcrafter needs to be able to fight. Maybe he could have a special (not magic) kind of weapon, a type of staff maybe, or perhaps have some skill at barehand combat. However a mindcrafter would not be anywhere near as skilled at fighting as a warrior, his combat skills should be just enough to allow him to survive.
NeilStevens: Why does a different thematic explanation for their powers preclude them from using the same spells as everyone else?
CosmicGerbil I don't understand :? I thought that mindcrafters just naturally had seperate spells. When I looked at the spell files, the mindcrafters' powers were seperate from the magic spells anyway.
Did you mean sharing spells? For example a sorcerer would cast a fireball using magic, while a mindcrafter would cast a fireball (the same spell in the lua code) using the powers of his mind.
RavenRed: Personally, I'd say 1 source = 1 spell, which is not to say that GENERAL effects (attack spell, healing spell, teleport spell) needs to be markedly different. That, of course, runs into one of Neil's primary objections to Mindcraft, which is the duplication. I sort of agree with Neil's POV in any case. I wouldn't have the prayer-type access to mindcraft, but bring it ENTIRELY within the mage-class and have them as mental specialists on a par with warpers.
CosmicGerbil: Does that mean mindcrafters will be classed as mages then?
RavenRed: Well that would be my best guess. And I think it's probably the most appropriate place for them, unless you want to stick them into the grab bag which are "Loremasters".
NeilStevens: I'd keep it under Spirituality, and Mindcrafters under Priests.
RavenRed: Any particular reason, apart from continuity?
NeilStevens: One of my goals is to make Priests better with magic, and Mindcraft seems to be a good way to accomplish that.
RavenRed: If you plan to make Mindcraft a skill-adjunct to priests, rather than a class / magic system of it's own, then this entire discussion is moot. I'd rename it in that case, to sever it from the previous associations with the Zang legacy.
CosmicGerbil I like mindcrafters. They are the ideal class for certain tentacled creatures in FuryMod 
CosmicGerbil Hmmm...I don't really think mindcrafters should go in with mages, because they don't use magic. Loremasters seems all wrong, I can't imagine someone who can fry your brain being classed as a Loremaster 
Couldn't they just have a seperate class of their own.
LordEstraven: Mindcrafter would probably get cheap access to Mind realm, etc, and some Mindcraft powers would get transferred to that. Personally I'm not massively keen on this, I like the sanity-based system better, but that's moot thanks to modules.
NeilStevens: What on earth is the sense of making Mindcraft based on a non-regenerating stat?
RavenRed: In the module, it is player-regenerated by the Meditation skill. This skill is available only to priests and Mindcrafters making other classes' use of the skill problematic at best.
CosmicGerbil What is going to happen with mindcraft then? Or is it a surprise? Or hasn't it been decided yet?
NeilStevens: My plan is to make it work like Sorcery or Prayer, in that it gives access to specific schools at at specific rate (perhaps Mind, Divination, Temporal, Nature, Water), but with some twists: One one hand, it'd be bookless, in that when you gain levels you gain spells which you can cast at any time, even blind. On the other hand, you woulnd't be allowed to choose which spells you learn (much like prayers in Angband).
On second thought, perhaps replace Water with Fire. That would make it an even better utility skill for Priests since it'd give them Globe of Light. In that light, I'd keep Mindcraft under Prayer, not under Magic.
CosmicGerbil Are those schools the best choices? I'm sorry, I'm not whinging, and I do agree with mind and divination, but most of those schools wouldn't give many offensive powers to learn, except for the fire school and even then, not until level 3. Wouldn't it make mindcrafters really difficult to win with, especially later on in the game, as so many monsters have resist fire :O
RavenRed: Well that's always been one of the big arguments about Mindcraft, is it a skill/profession/class in and of itself or an ancillary power which is used to plug balance gaps (Priests being a fairly good example). Personally, I'd be moving towards the former rather than refining it as the latter. Bookless, cast-when-blind spells are very handy in the mid-game, but whether the raw power is there in the end game is another matter altogether.
CosmicGerbil I agree. Mindcrafters would need to have offensive powers from lots of different schools to have a chance of defeating dudes like Sauron and Morgoth. They need specific mind powers, like mind blast as well as other attack powers.
RavenRed: Heh. Back to the future in some ways. Perhaps not totally random, however. Mind and Divination should be heavily biased in terms of gaining the spells. How would you manage the booklessness... a psuedo "book"?
Orvin: Instead of pre-defining the schools, how about giving Mindcrafters a fixed number of quests (which can be attempted at any level), the "prize" for each being the ability to choose a school to be added to the list from which spells are randomly gained. Mind school would be the only member of this list at level 1.
NeilStevens: Hey, that might be a fun idea.
LordEstraven: Nature and Fire? Fire especially doesn't sound right... We'll see how that works, but something tells me that it isn't the right way to go about changing Mindcraft.
BTW, Ravenred, don't you think that in the sanity-restoration power should be available through Mindcraft itself, not some separate skill? Even if it is a separate skill, Loremasters should definitely have access to it, monks and meditation do kind of go together after all.
RavenRed: No, I don't. As noted, Meditation has utility outside Sanity regeneration, and therefore would be useful to other classes, especially those for whom it thematically fits. Meditation is a somewhat hacky way of getting it to work without making Sanity Regen "natural", which I think it undesirable.
(And FWIW, Medition is far, far too powerful in Marangio's modules, it should definitely not be able to effectively nullify the damage inflicted by arbitrarily powerful monsters. Really ought to be usable, not permanent, even at maximum level.)
RavenRed: Yeah, it is. Don't forget it was pretty much a one draft module. I've made a few minor adjustments to it myself, but I think it needs to be SOMEWHAT bunnied down. However, the (low-to-mid) restrictions on it (startup time, uninterrupted contemplation) are barriers to it being a game-long panacaea.
NeilStevens: You know what? I'm just going to let you guys be surprised when I do in Mindcraft what I'm planning to do, heh. There comes a time when it's 3 on 1, being nitpicked on every little thing, from every angle, that I just don't feel like chatting about it anymore one bit.
RavenRed: Happy coding, then.
NeilStevens: I wish. DG put the brakes on; he's not sure if he wants what I want or something else entirely, heh.
RavenRed: DG giveth, DG taketh away. Blessed be the name of DG.
Have fun,
CosmicGerbil I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound rude, I was just trying to help a bit. I did sound a bit like a "back seat programmer", sorry again (I can't find an embarrased emoicon, so just imagine one here).
NeilStevens: Oh, you didn't do anything wrong, please don't worry about it. It's just that the combination of everyone here criticizing me on every point I've made, that made it too much.
CosmicGerbil Ah, OK then
LordEstraven: Ah sorry, I'll have to remember not to whine next time. :P
While we're at it, I have an idea for a module, or perhaps a package, that would rework Mindcraft... It would be separated into three subskills:
* Psionics: Telepathy, etc. Mindwave, Precog, Psychometry, that kind of thing; utility stuff and some attack spells. Attack spells would all be GF_PSI or related, and therefore have no effect on things without brains. These spells wouldn't be the most potent, but they would be cheap and quick to cast, with relatively low failure raits.
* Psychokinetics: Moving things around with your mind. Covers teleporting (with no void gates!), moving items around, and some rather potent (mostly targetted) attack spells. These spells have higher failure rates and cost more, but they're powerful and useful.
* Pyrokinetics: Psychokinetic spells create linear motion; pyrokinetic ones create random motion, and lots of it. These would almost all be attack spells, allowing one to set off powerful explosions and perhaps even set things on fire. Failure rates would be somewhat lower than for psychokinetic spells, but these would be very expensive to cast due to the amounts of energy involved, and would take longer to cast than other Mindcraft spells. The costs, however, would be very much justified by the potential damage.
In order to get this working, it might be necessary to drag in more spells from the Pernband "Mind" realm...
Sorgath: If you're interested in making mindcraft an auxilary skill and not a main class you could implement it so that it acts as a Spellbook in the players mind. The player could choose to memorise a number of spells, with the maximum number being dependant on mindraft skill levell, the player could then cast these spells without the need of a spell book and possible at a faster cast rate. If you wanted to restrict it more you could always limit what schools/Spells can be memorised