OK, I know there have been like a thousand threads on Wandcrafting, but the general consensus has been no consensus. I wanted to propose something that made Wandcrafting make sense. So let's start by looking at the goals for wandcrafting, which means the goals for all wands. Wands should do one of two things: 1) Give characters with limited combat options something interesting and effective to do in combat. 2) Be utility spells that are useful regardless of dungeon level because you use them out of combat. Most of the wands in category 2 are already just fine. Coral, Zodiacal, Stone, and Bony wands are all good. It's the weaponized wands -- the vast majority of them -- that need to be revamped. Unfortunately, my wife just told me that we have to leave right now, so I'm going to have to get back to this later. Sorry to Seacrest you all like that, but tune in later for the meat.
EDIT: Ohhhhh more coming from Essence later; misread his endnote at first. Going to spoiler out the bulk of my post so as not to hijack his original intention. Spoiler Maybe a list of the ineffective combat wands would be useful? Then an analysis of what makes them ineffective and what the Wandcrafting skill can do to fix that? One thing I'm a little confused on is if you're proposing changing Wandcrafting, the wands themselves, or both? Some particularly underwhelming wands (though maybe I'm not using them right) in my mind are (names might not be exact): Transmographying Wand: Damage is piddly, having 3-4 bonus ore/gems has never been useful when I used it; I almost always sell these for the 2500+ gold they're worth. Wand of Bling: Damage is okay early on, but is very quickly shrugged off. Wand of Arcane Missile: See Wand of Bling Wand of Fire: Damage is okay early, but I usually end up hanging on to these just for encrusting. Some slightly more effective wands: Meatwand: Fleshbore debuff + DOT can be useful, provides food. Arctic and Acid Wands: I use these on early floors to clear Zoos with moderate success. Situationally effective: Wand of Rock: The knockback can be very useful; or it can get you killed when it gets resisted and that out of depth miniboss knocks your teeth out with his 25+ damage swing on dungeon level 3. When playing a character w/o Wandcraft, generally I only hang on to Category 2 wands and the Arctic and Acid ones; the rest are just sell fodder.
Ok so. We know that combat-oriented wands are basically a source of zorkmids in the late game, the question is why. The answer, i think, comes in two parts: 1) Wands all scale to Wandcrafting (which is cool) and/or Magic Power. 2) The skills that give Magic Power are, in a broad sense, also the ones that give magical offenses that can be used regularly. therefore 3) The people who can use wands don't need wands, and the people who need wands can't use them. Essence's Proposed Solution: Change all of the combat-related wands so that they scale super-strongly off of Wandcraft, and scale moderately aggressively to....CADDISHNESS. Does it make sense flavor-wise? Probably not, although with D&D's Use Magic Device lore floating around, you could make some argument that wands respond better to force of personality than they do force of will or some shit. The point, though, is that wands that are designed to be effective with high Caddishness can actually be the go-to weapon of choice for fighting opponents that are resistant to physical damage. Wandcraft then becomes a skill wherein a Warrior or Rogue trades extra squishiness and loss of some combat stats for the abilities to heal, decurse, create walls, and effectively utilize the occasional magical attack. Rather than, as it is currently, a skill for Wizards to sell come reagents at a slightly higher price and/or cheese the random wands for an easy way to get around the first-level hump. Warriors and Rogues are even more likely to appreciate the and bonuses, because throwing and needing to advance on zoos full of Octos and whatnot. And that's it in a nutshell. Wands should scale twice; to Wandcraft and to Caddishness (and the recipes also need to be worked over for regularity's sake, but that's another thread...or is it?)
I actually think that finding good wand recipes qualifies as part of making Wandcrafting matter, personally. Also, I like the idea of wands having an uncapped source of scaling (IE, one that keeps getting better even once you cap out the skill). I have to admit that I thought you were going to suggest Savvy given as that's the stat of Bards and thus (in my mind) the most charismatic... Still, Caddishness does make wands matter more for non-Wizards. But it makes them oddly less useful in the hands of Wizards, which doesn't entirely fit, IMO. Could they rather scale to ? Without being totally bonkers for wizards, that is. Most characters still amass a good 100+ mana in the course of the game, even if they don't use it, and Wandcrafting adds even more through bonus Sagacity. Sure, wizards can get something like double that if they want to, but there might be a point where it could work. Or not. I'm not that great with numbers...
I'd want it to scale off of savvy, I think - that plays off into roguiness a little more without putting it out of reach for a warrior or a mage. Edit: And more explicity: I think this is a great idea.
I think the point is that wizards don't need wands, they have spells, and so we should try to make them better for non-wizards. You know what would be kind of cool? If they scaled to everything. All 6 of the primary stats. Nobody has any kind of advantage, and everyone can use them equally, but they still get stronger with you.
I considered that, Nacho, but I think it's just too complex code-wise. I also don't like it being Savvy, because then you're basically telling Warriors that they're too good to play with wands. Which actually might be true -- I'm not sure. But it feels like it's failing to match up with my stated goal. Scaling to mana is right out; Wizards would be wielding wands twice as powerful as everyone else, which exactly defies the point.
Uhm, after all rogues are those who need some love. This synthesizes how stats are changed by level up: by changing from magic power to savvy you make it somewhat equal to D&D: rogues and wizards use wands effectively. But, anyway, Savvy is not afflicted by armors, while magic power is. After all, thanks to you, warriors have gained (will gain officially, but I simply cannot play the vanilla game anymore without your weapon changes) throw weapons, that can help with some effects like knockback and ranged attacks. And they have clockwork knight and pratical geology, so...
Savvy makes a lot more sense thematically. Warriors can use wands, but they're not naturally gifted at it, and their lack of ranged power (apart from throwing stuff) is a deliberate weakness for the sake of balance. There's no reason to cancel out this weakness by giving them free rein with wands. Strong buff/debuff/utility wands at high crafting levels (and with hidden recipes) wouldn't be a bad thing. I'm sure most characters could find a use for them.
I think the point of making it Caddishness was more to shift wands to "notwizard" than to rogue. And... while that WOULD help them be more useful, there are two theme issues with it. The first is that caddishness doesn't really seem to be the thing to make wands work, and the second is that it makes wizards, who arguably should be the wand guys especially since wand lore is a wizard skill, actually be the worst at using wands. Now, I have an alternative solution, although I'm not entirely sure it's possible. What if being empowered by booze boosted the strength of wands? This would also change how booze is sorta useless to non-casters as well.
The floorScale thing exists, but I don't think it actually does anything. I think you get the same amount from those effects regardless of what floor you're on. In fact, I remember why David said they did that: because the Mysterious Portals (and Pocket Dimension?) are Floor Zero, which led to some stupid complications with scaling to floor level.
That's stupid. I'd rather Bankster work properly on floors 1-15 and not work in the Mysterious Portals than not work right anywhere.
It's not this: warriors can live without too much magical damage. They can still take full effect from utilities, and in fact it's the thing most needed by them. Rogues, instead, can help with this incremented power (and, after all, Rogue Scientist boost - and/or is boosted by - wandcrafting too). Wizards in general and gishes could benefit from the ranged attack too, if the scale is a success.
So, then, let's rework the various Wand spells so that they scale to Wandcrafting and Savvy. This, of course, for the ESCRII when I get back round to it in, say, January. The question becomes: is there an easy formula for translating the existing Magic Power scale to a Savvy scale?
Yeah, divide the current magic power scale by two. Magic Power is already just Sagacity/2, so all you're really doing is replacing Sagacity with Savvy. Maybe tack on a few extra points to make up for magic power given through equipment and skills, which is a lot more than savvy given from those sources. But I'll note that a lot of wands don't scale to magic power, but to Wand Crafting. What do we do about them?
