Electromancy ~ first mod, please give feedback <3

Electromancy is an offensive wizard skill meant to be an alternative to the lingering fire tiles of Promethean Magic, while providing a good mix of passive voltaic abilities as well as a teleport spell. It synergizes well with Viking Wizardry and hybrid warrior/wizard builds.

Game Description: Channelling the raw power of voltaic energy, you never have to worry about a power outage ever again!

Starting Ability: Shocking Grasp
"A childhood of sticking forks into electrical sockets has left your body permanently charged with electricity which conducts through your melee attacks."
+2, +2

Spell: Shocking Grasp
Cost: 4 - (0.2 x ), minimum 1
Effect Type: Adjacent, includes weapon attack
Damage: Normal weapon attack + 1 + (0.2 x )
Skill Bar Description: "Electrocute a target at melee range, because everyone who looks as good as you needs to carry a taser!"

Notes: The numbers for this spell are balanced based off of the starting Warlockery spell "Puissant Touch," which works very similarly.


Other Notes - IMPORTANT: This spell suffers the same problem that Puissant Touch, which is the basis for my code implementation, suffers from - adding the attack="1" attribute to the spell header makes it so the spell is simply a melee attack with no added effect, but still costs mana. This seems to be a bug in the way the game's XML works, and if Essence couldn't figure out a workaround for Warlockery, I doubt I can for Electromancy. So for now, until this is fixed in a later patch, just enjoy the passive stats on Shocking Grasp in the mean time.


EDIT: It seems like the extra damage is firing, just not showing in the log for whatever reason.

2nd-Tier Ability: Voltaic Shield
"You have learned to increase your innate electrical current to voltage levels that make you dangerous to touch. Fortunately, it also made you lightning-resistant."
+5
~Passive: Voltaic Shield Blast
30% chance when the player is hit to deal 2 + (0.3 x ) and Paralyze for 2 rounds in a 3x3 square centered on the player, but excluding the player's tile.

Notes: The numbers for this spell are balanced based off of the starting Astrology spell "Radiant Aura" and its corresponding triggered spell "Blinding Flash." The chance to proc here is a bit higher, and the paralyze effect always happens when procced unless resisted, but the damage is about half that of "Blinding Flash" and the paralyze effect is a round shorter. Rather than upkeeping a brittle buff, Voltaic Shield is a costless passive, so in exchange, it grants no damage buffs and a much narrower focus for its resistance buff, albeit at a higher magnitude.

3rd-Tier Ability: Lightning Cone
"You can unleash your latent electrical charge in a more purposeful, cone-shaped manner, just like a certain Emperor. Mace of Windu sold separately."

Spell: Lightning Cone
Cost: 15 - (0.2 x ), minimum 7
Damage: 5 + (0.5 x )
Effect Type: Anchored Template
Shape: Cone that extends three tiles out from in front of the player, being 1 tile wide at the closest point and 3 tiles wide at the farthest point.
Skill Bar Description: "If they only knew the power of the Dark Side..."

Notes: The numbers for this spell are balanced based off of the 4th-Tier Promethean spell "Obvious Fireball." The damage here is a tiny bit higher and the cost a tiny bit lower to make up for the range limitation of an anchored template.

4th-Tier Ability: Path of Least Resistance
"You have become one with the electricity coursing through your body! Your voltaic resistance and damage bonus increase, and you gain the ability to transform into a bolt of lightning for instant teleportation."
+3, +3

Spell: Path of Least Resistance
Cost: 20 - (0.25 x ), minimum 10
Effect Type: Target Empty Floor
Teleports the player to the chosen tile. Requires line of sight.
Skill Bar Description: "Transform into a lightning bolt and take the path of least resistance to teleport to any tile you can see."

Notes: The cost for this spell is balanced based on the 5th-Tier Mathemagics spell "Xeuclid's Translation." The initial cost is the same, but because it's a tier lower and it's a support spell in a damage skillset, the rate at which Savvy affects its mana cost is lowered, and its minimum cost is higher.

5th-Tier Ability: Lightning Bolt
"You can throw bolts of lightning that pierce through multiple enemies in a line, which would deal 10d6 voltaic damage if this were Dungeons and Dragons. Thankfully it's not, because then we'd have to roll Reflex saves for all the poor Diggles you're going to be frying with this thing."

Spell: Lightning Bolt
Cost: 18 - (0.3 x ), minimum 6
Damage: 17 + (0.5 x )
Effect Type: Beam
Skill Bar Description: "Deals 10d6 voltaic damage in a line. Except Lord Dredmor ran out of d6's, so you'll have to settle for the more vague term, 'heavy voltaic damage.'"

6th-Tier Ability: Thunderstorm
"You have mastered your internal electric currents, but that was not enough for you. Now the skies themselves bend to your will, raining down thunder and lightning upon your foes in wide swaths of destructive power! ...Exactly how you convince the skies to come down into the dungeon is a matter of scholarly debate."

Spell: Thunderstorm
Cost: 50 - (0.5 x ), minimum 15
Damage: 30 + (0.85 x )
Effect Type: Unanchored Template, 5x5 square
Special: Destroys walls
Skill Bar Description: "Call out to the skies and wreak destructive havoc on the dungeon itself!"

Notes: The numbers for this spell are based on the 6th-tier Astrology spell "The Stars Aligned." The damage, initial and minimum mana costs are higher, but the rate at which Savvy reduces the mana cost is higher too. The area is a bit smaller, only being a 5x5 square as opposed to "The Stars Aligned" having a 7-square diameter circle, but that's made up for by the fact that it can be cast at range rather than centered on the player and the fact that it digs wall tiles away. Thunderstorm is more powerful overall than "The Stars Aligned," but that's because Electromancy is a damage skillset while Astrology is more of a buffing skillset with a side of damage.

Passive Stat Totals: +5, +10

Version history:
1.0
Initial release, totally playable and fun.

1.1
Voltaic Shield
Proc rate reduced to 30% from 50%.
Proc base damage increased from 1 to 2
Proc scaling damage increased from (0.2 x ) to (0.3 x )
Paralyze duration reduced to 2 rounds from 3 rounds

These changes should resolve the issues with stunlocking and free escapes while the added damage should keep the spell satisfying to see it proc.

1.2
Lightning Cone
Spell area reduced to a 1-3-3 tile cone instead of a 1-3-5 tile cone. Hopefully this will help reduce the occurrence of unintentional wall tile digging in blacked-out areas of the map.

Thunderstorm
Added missing sprite and sound effect - sorry for the oversight!

All Spells
Spell icon sizes reduced to 32 pixels from 64 pixels. Hopefully this will fix the icon size issues when using the small version of the skill bar. Skill icon widths as displayed on the character creation and skill book screens remain 64 pixels in size.


1.3
Thunderstorm
Gave the template a center point. This should allow the spell to actually cast now! So sorry!


5/7/2013 ~ Fixed the directory structure. Sorry, I usually extract all my mods so it never occurred to me that some of you might be using them as packed .zip files.

Known Issues:

Wall tiles' graphics do not regenerate when destroyed by a Thunderstorm. They become walkable, so functionality is as intended, but they still look like walls, not floors. Saving and reloading your game makes them look like floors.

 

The skill looks quite nice, but there is a problem:
(I think it is from before CotW, but nothing much should have changed):
Exotic Damages and You
As you can see there, your skill gives 10 resist against a pretty rare damage type (except Big D, his bolts hurt).
See that half of the monsters that even deal this (6 in the entire dungeon+some bosses, I think) deal less than 4 voltaic damage.
Therefore making this unnoticeable in most situations and completely and utterly overpowered in once a dungeon situations, which is not quite a worthwhile deal.
Maybe you could add some (circuits don't rot) or something in it.
Also, since most trees do not entirely focus on one damage type, but have minor others next to it, maybe you could add some low-dmg fire dots (smoldering) or something.
As another idea that has nothing to do with this, in me the idea of a "Dynamo-Man" comes together, using manaregen as a base for his damage....

 

Rubber pants should increase your power and metal boots decrease it.

 

First, why not the other way round? The rubber pants would make it harder for him to emit energy...
And second, how?

 

@Frelus I don't really like the idea of adding something that doesn't make sense just because only a few monsters use the damage type that resisting DOES make sense for. "Circuits don't rot" is a huuuuge stretch for adding a resist. Plastics don't rot either, but the Plastic Ring doesn't have any on it. Also, this game is constantly being modded and updated, so there'll always be new monsters and some of them might use high voltaic damage. Dredmor already does. As the whole idea is that an Electromancer has electricity in their bloodstream, I think having 10 is kind of a necessity, lol~ Also, I just looked at it and Astrology has a whopping 6, so having high exotic damage resistances on skills doesn't seem like that much of a problem. And that's not even including the resistances its buff spells give you. Including the spells, Astrology has a grand total of 10, 4, 4 and 3.

@Alistaire The whole idea is that an Electromancer has electricity in their circulatory system with their blood. If anything, it would be the opposite - wearing rubber would make it harder to conduct that electricity outwards into spells, and wearing metal would make it easier. Besides, I don't know how to code spells that change effects based on what items you have on.

On a separate note, I noticed that my spells don't use a small icon if I tick the skill bar down to the small version. What's the syntax for giving a spell a large and a small icon? I play with the large UI stuff usually, but I'm sure plenty of people use the small one.

 

Well, rubber pants would keep the legs from emitting energy and metal boots would flow energy into the dungeon. I think you don't cast lightning bolts with your legs do you.

 

How do you know that? For all we know, individual characters could cast lightning bolts with a variety of body parts. Like their knees. Or their toes.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback ^_^ I'm going off to my D&D game now, but I'll be back later tonight to read here.

 

Aw man, I want to play D%D, too...

 

Let me head this post with that I haven't play tested this yet. The first thing I notice is that it has two exceptionally good support skills here. At level 2 is the voltaic shield. What I feel is that the proc may be a bit high. That combined with the 100% paralysis is really high. As a reference, Radiant aura procs 35% of each hit and has a 33% paralysis rate. So if two monsters hit you, there is a pretty high chance of knocking out all of the monsters around you. This gives you 3 turns to back away to safety if you are a wizard or 3 turn to hack off their legs if you're a warrior. I may be reading this wrong so correct me if i did. The next is a teleport. That combined with the voltaic shield is pretty much an escape plan. Cast spells, get hit, stun enemy, teleport a bit away, and repeat. This is ok really, many skills have some sort of teleportation. As for the resistances, It doesn't really matter as it can be simply for flavor if nothing else.

Long story short. Paralysis shouldn't be 100%. Lower the stun time or stun chance. Unless if i'm wrong, then oops.

 

@MarethRavenlocke Is this will be available on steam workshop?

 

@grimAuxiliam No, you read it correctly, I just had an old value in my post, and potentially in my zip. It's supposed to be 100% paralysis on successful proc, but the proc rate is supposed to be 30%, not 50%. It does less damage than the Radiant Aura as well, specifically 1/4 the damage - a significant decrease. When I had decided on 50%, it was originally the 3rd-Tier skill, and there was no 6th-Tier one. Needless to say, when I re-ordered them for better balance after my own playtests, I had a lot of other things to change as well, and I overlooked that one New version will be uploaded in a few minutes with 30% proc rate.

@iamcreasy I really don't know about the Steam Workshop thing. I also mod Skyrim, and I really hate what Valve puts in their Workshop EULA. Basically, Valve owns your mod the moment you submit it to the Workshop, then they can sell it and pay you whatever percent THEY want to, or even nothing at all. They also own your content and can use it for other mods or Valve games if they want, and you'll never see a dime or any credit. I've always been against the idea of monetizing community-made mods at all, much less without paying the modder royalties. So I guess my answer is no, none of my work will be on the Steam workshop until Valve gets its head out of its ass on the modding issue.

Don't get me wrong, I love and use Steam. I think it's a great platform for indie developers to sell their games, and for bringing games to the PC that otherwise might not get a PC version. Not to mention I can buy games without having to run to GameStop. But the EULA for indie games is different than the one for mods, and much less... totalitarian, so while I would seriously consider using Steam to sell an indie game when I eventually develop one, using it to upload a mod is like signing away your work for nothing.

 

Hmm. I haven't read the EULA before, but after you pointed it out I went through it.

Anyway, here is my few pointers that I thought about it. If they want to sell it you will get your share of it. More importantly if they want to sell the mod, first they need to have the permission from Gaslamp Games, and developers allowing that is highly unlikely.

What history says, Valve like modders very much and what I believe that they won't do anything to screw them. Even if they start selling mod, there is always an option for everyone else to get it from anywhere else, like this forum. I think this potion that bothering is more focused towards using your mods face as a selling point for the game, and not asking permission or going through another legal processing layer.

 

The icons looks bigger, I guess this is an issue.

 

@MarethRavenlocke btw, it would be really nice if you put your mod on steam workshop. It wont hurt much right?

What I was asking, is good content on the shelf of DoD's steam workshop page. There aren't much good content. Among around 90 items maybe around half of them are worth checking. But Electromancy is a really good one. For me it would be a pleasure to download, rate and fav it over there. But, if its not there, I will be missing half the fun.

Thank you.

 

@iamcreasy ~ Maybe I'll give the Steam Workshop a shot then. I just know there's a huge rivalry between Steam fans and Nexus fans among the Skyrim mod community, and I lean largely toward the Nexus crowd since their mod manager has better functionality and they've been around since Morrowind, but that's neither here nor there, and certainly not Dredmor-related.

@Daynab ~ If I use the 32px version, will it stretch or search for the 64px version when the player ticks the large interface mode? I didn't draw any of my icons, they all came from the base game and expansions as far as I can tell, but I copied and renamed them to avoid messing with the base game's files unintentionally. I used the 64px versions to avoid the lower-resolution ickiness of the 32px ones I noticed some abilities had a sort of smallicon="<path>" attribute in addition to a regular icon="<path>", but I didn't find anything about it on the DredMod wiki, so I didn't try it.

Also @Daynab ~ A moderator likes my first mod! <3

 

Thank you!

So, solution?

 

@iamcreasy Could be, but for now I tried simply using the 32px versions across the board for spellDB, and the 64px versions for skillDB. Version 1.2 is up, by the way. Read the version history for more details.

 

@Daynab I remember there was an option that magnifies the HUD of the game. Is that option deprecated?

 

@iamcreasy No, it's just available for different parts of the HUD separately now. You can now use the large skillbar while keeping the small backpack, for example - each UI element that is capable of multiple sizes will have a button on it similar to the ones on the minimap. Anyway, playtesting now with the icon changes.