After all the love from my previous entries, I thought it was time to tackle one of the (very few) negative feelings I have about the game. http://strangedesign.typepad.com/st...-mechanics-improving-dungeons-of-dredmor.html In short - Sagacity drives both Magic Power (damage) AND spell cost reductions. This means Wizards increase in power quadratically instead of linearly. To fix, I suggest allowing Caddishness to drive spell cost reductions - which leads to several very nice consequences for characters of any class.
I agree that magic scales in a weird way. Mages feel sooooo weak early game, but then your mana issues go away AND you start hitting like a truck later on. Mages being weak early, strong late sort of fits the usual perception of an RPG mage, but it is just too much that way atm IMO. I like your suggestion.
Good points in the article, and your proposed changes would certainly help, but the main thing that makes Mages too good is the fact that monsters' weak AI in this game, that forces all monsters - even Mage-y monsters with spells - to mindlessly charge at you 80% of the time. Mages, simply put, only take damage very early on, when spell selection and mana pools are limited. Once you reach that magical saturation point where you can cast dozens of spells in a row without running out of mana, the entire game becomes "open door, pick best spell, spam until you win" and then you repeat until you find Dredmor. You don't take damage. You don't need food or Healing potions/fungi/spells. You can ignore all forms of armor and damage absorption. Why? Because you just blow everything to tiny little bits from range while your foes try (in vain) to reach you. Splitting the "reduced MP to cast" stat away from Sagacity would help, as it would force you to sacrifice some Spell Power to get to the "I can spam any spell" point. But without stronger AI from monsters, it's not going to matter a whole lot when you could still, even with split stats, play keep-way from all monster types as they blindly charge you and only remember that they can cast spells 20% of the time. Just imagine if you were a Rogue, with almost all Rogue Levels, and you had a Crossbow that fired Clockwork Drill Bolts and Squid Bolts that regenerated over time. That's what playing a Mage is like. You just reach a point where nothing matters because you can kill everything in safety and by the time you hit the next room, your arsenal of spells (read: mana pool) is full - or at least, full enough to be effective. It's the combination of AoE and DoT attacks from a safe position coupled with the multiple benefits of stacking a single Stat (Magic Power) that really take Mages over the top. The fact that you can "mana regen cap" with 2 easy-to-craft Orbs and some basic caster gear is also a contributing factor. Imagine if you could recover 1 Health per round as a warrior, without eating, by putting on gear you'd want to have on anyway. That's where Mages are right now.
If you try playing a mage without alchemy, you'll find that the game takes way longer to go off the rails. The lack of effectively infinite mana (from orb crafting and booze brewing) really holds those mages back. So yes, in my opinion, fixing the "spells are spammable" issue is an excellent first step in fixing mages. Making spell cost depend on caddishness seems weird though, since that stat was chosen basically explicitly because standard mages don't get it. I'd rather fix the ready availability of mana and mana regen, then shunt spell costs from Sagacity to Savvy (which mages only get 1 point in per level). Or alternately, base spell costs directly on sagacity instead of on magic power. Sagacity boosts are far, far harder to find than magic power boosts. As for never taking damage, keep in mind that there's often monsters right up in your face when you open a door. Of course, spammable teleports / invisibility (from fan favorite Burglary, Dodger, Fungal Arts, or Mathemagic) render that more or less moot. Alchemy invisibility potions aren't really spammable due to the shortage of coal.
In general though, every Mage build is going to include a Pet or a Spell that can get you some Range/serve as a distraction when the door opens and the baddies start pouring out. And I do agree with Derakon, lowering the available Mana Regen from dual-Orb builds (and Orbs in General) so that it's much harder to get to the all-powerful point of 1 MP/turn would put all Mages back in line to some degree. Even without Alchemy and it's Starry Orb crafting, it's not too too hard to find a couple of Dark Orbs or Naturey Orb or Flame Orbs or whatever as you prowl the Dungeon and the various shops, and once you get your regen up to 1 MP every 2-3 turns, it's basically Game Over, You Win. All your additional gear beyond that point just reduces the amount of time it takes to slog your way down to Dredmor. Having said all that, reducing the availability of Mana Regen would make the "Sagacity = everything" issue is much less of a problem. And looking at it, I'd say taking Mana Regen away from Sagacity and giving it to Savvy seems more logical (to me), although the problem of "Mages get it as they level up" still remains.
