I've decided to start modding dredmor today, and I've got the first build of my new skill ready. It's called "Powerful Idiot", and one of the things that I wanted to do with him was to bar spellcasting entirely and force the player to rely on brute strength. But the problem is, I can't seem to figure out how to set the stat variables rather than modify them. The only tags that affect stats seem to be primary/secondary buff, and I don't know of any way that I can call the variable keeping track of mana in XML, so I'm at a standstill for this. Right now I'm just using really big debuffs to get the same effect (-20 mana, -10 magic power) but I want to know if there is any way I could directly set the variables?
No, there isn't. The only way you can modify those values in the game is by altering them with either a buff bonus, or with a bonus from a skill. There might be some roundabout ways to achieve some things, but without knowing what *exactly* do you want to achieve there, there's no way for us to propose any of those.
The idea behind the skill comes from me realizing that there are no melee builds that are both good enough to get you through going rogue with permadeath that don't involve extensive use of magic- at the very least, they all use viking magic, and most use fleshsmithing too. This is for people that really just want to play warriors, not mage/warriors. I'm also adding abilities that make playing pure melee, you know, not boring. The biggest balance is that you're going to have no capability of using any spells. I suppose that a ridiculously low mana stat is would have a similar effect, I just want to make sure that taking powerful idiot and viking magic at the same time would never work. You wouldn't have any mana to keep that lightning effect on for even a single turn. Is there any tag I can use for this? Looking at the dredmod tutorials, the only thing I thought would work at all would be a really big debuff.
Yeah, in this case there is no roundabout way. If you really want to make sure that they wouldn't be able to cast any spells, the only way to make sure that it'll remain that way is to put a big debuff, and preferably also another permanent debuff that casts a mana-draining spell on you every turn. Then again, I don't really see any reasons to do that, but meh, that is an original idea so I wish you good luck.
Isn't there a way to permanently silence the character? I thought the old version of Barrier Maiden did that.
Technically speaking, you could do that, but there is at least one skill tree I know of that has a "0 mana spell" that really isn't a spell but just a no-cooldown ability, which could not be cast in such a situation. Oh well, there are no perfect solutions for this one, to be honest.
Magic is the way of cowards. Weapon/Dual Wield/Berserker/Master of Arms/Assassination/Burglary/Archaeology or bust
You can play all fighting style skills, you just need to realise that you need to be smarter about your planning.
I hate to ressurect a thread, but I have another question, and I would rather not litter the front page with additional threads. All the XML documents I've seen for dredmor mods don't have a doctype. Is it unnecessary? Will it do anything to the end product if I leave it in anyway?
