Radiant Wizard

Discussion in 'Mod Releases' started by lccorp2, Jan 18, 2012.

  1. lccorp2

    lccorp2 Member

    Installation info: Radiant Wizard is listed as skill 751.

    Changelog: v1.01 released. Minor tweaks to EDF.

    v.1.01

    -EDF now removes all Breached and Disrupted stacks on you.

    Known issues:

    -Skillbar will have 2x Light Dart spells on it at start.
    -Transcendence will not be added automatically to skillbar upon learning the skill; you will have to add it manually.

    Future development:

    -Prettyfy it, diversify the animations and sounds a little.
    -Continue tweaking numbers for balance.

    ***

    Hey guys, I've had my own go at modding DoD. I haven't seen this idea thrown about on the forums yet, so I had a go at it: Radiant Wizard, a wizard skill that makes mages even more of a glass cannon than they are already.

    The aims of the mod:

    *Grant great magical power and defense, at the cost of severely reducing capability in melee combat.
    -The skills grant heavy bonuses to sagacity, magic power, magic resistance and the like, while reducing by as much dodge, block, armour absorption, etc. The first two skills reduce defensive stats, the latter two throwing melee power and crit in the mix to rob you of the ability to effectively use thrown and crossbows, and the final skills take away from sneakiness and armour absorption as well.
    -Players will suffer DoTs (meltdown) and debuffs to defensive and magical offensive capabilities for being hit in melee, and are encouraged to stay at range.
    -However, this is countered by the fact that only the weakest spell has unlimited range--the extreme heavy-hitters are limited to within a certain distance of the caster. Players are encouraged to balance risk of dying quickly with dishing out heavy damage.
    -A teleportation skill will be essential when playing with this mod, and running out of mana will very likely equal death.

    Essentially, the wizard character carrying this skill will gain extreme damage at the cost of losing all melee damage capbility and avoidance and becoming far squishier than the average wizard; the anchored, conical templates the attack spells use are designed to better allow monsters to flank the player. Also, a single resisted spell will mean monsters closing in.

    In the end, the ultimate goal is to increase "peak" events in the player's experience with high damage and high risk of death at the same time.

    Suggested skills for use with this mod:

    -Flat-out damage skills (Promethean, etc)
    -Skills that provide healing/mana regenaration
    -Master of Arms (some mitigation of the tree's effects)
    -Skills that provide teleportation

    Suggested skills NOT to use:

    -Blood magic (greatly increases meltdown damage. Intentionally designed this way so players can't forget about their mana management, which this tree is supposed to emphasise.)
    -All weapon skills (self-explanatory)

    My main concerns with the mod so far:
    -Does it make wizards TOO squishy in melee? During my initial playtests I've had maxed out characters die in a few turns to level 1 monsters, and reduced the armour absorption penalty accordingly. Still, it worries me.
    -Are the skills too overpowered? Do they give enough for the penalties? I'm not too good at balancing, so please advise.
    -Is meltdown damage threatening?

    Thanks to:

    -Null, for pointing out flaws in my code,
    -Essence and Mamga, because I heavily referred to their mods for help,
    -A certain someone who converted some .pngs into indexed form for me,
    -And the guys at Gaslamp for making DoD.

    Playtest if you're interested, and please report all bugs so I can fix them.

    ***

    radiant.jpg

    Radiant Wizard: ""You have immersed yourself in the energies of all things luminous to gain great power, at the cost of your physical body deteriorating."

    Level 0: Light Dart

    [​IMG]


    :sagacity:1 :dodge:-1 :block:-1 :counter:-1 :magic_resist:3 :reflection:3

    "Blast your ememies with a concentrated burst of luminence from your fingertip! Are you sure your hand's supposed to be see-through, though, or is that a trick of the light?"

    -Cost: 3-7 MP
    -:dmg_righteous: damage
    -Unlimited range
    *Basic damage spell

    Level 1: Dazzling Blast

    [​IMG]

    :sagacity:1 :magic_power:2 :haywire:2 :dodge:-3 :block:-3 :counter:-3 :magic_resist:5 :reflection:5

    "Your heart has started pumping out haywire energies, which augment your magical powers and can be released in stunning bursts. This, however, makes it less effective at pumping blood around your body, sapping your strength--physical contact should always be a last resort."

    -:dmg_righteous: damage
    -Stuns (6 turns, unresistable)
    -Wide AoE around caster
    -50 turn coolddown
    *The long cooldown is to emphasise the fact that it's supposed to be an escape spell. Players are expected to stick this into a chokepoint and run while the horde suffers from drone jam.

    Level 2: Realignment

    [​IMG]


    :sagacity:1 :savvy:1 :melee_power:-4 :magic_power:4 :haywire:4 :crit: -8 :magic_resist:5 :reflection:5

    "Wary of the fact that your body is falling apart atom by atom and becoming prone to breaching and highly dangerous meltdown, you learn to pull together the new form you are assuming into a shape more suited to repelling physical threats. This also drains your energies faster than college frat boys can conduct blood alcohol experiments."

    -Self buff: Realignment. Grants :dodge:10 :block:10 :armor_asorb:4 :life:20 :life_regen:5 :resist_aethereal:2 :resist_conflagratory:2 :resist_righteous:2 , but rapidly drains mana at 1/turn.
    -100% on player being hit: Breached. Stacks 5 times, 8 turns, :armor_asorb:-2 :block:-2 :counter:-2 :dodge:-2 :life_regen:-5 :reflection:-3 :magic_resist:-3 :resist_righteous:-1 :resist_conflagratory:-1 :resist_aethereal:-1 . Cannot be decursed.

    Level 3: Charged Beam

    [​IMG]

    :sagacity:2 :savvy:2 :magic_power:4 :haywire:4 :dodge:-4 :block:-4 :counter:-4 :armor_asorb:-1 :magic_resist:5 :reflection:5

    "As you draw closer to transcending to your new energy-based form, you gain the ability to fire a short-range beam that has a chance to siphon the energies of your enemies. This comes at the price of said energies spraying everywhere if those monsters rip apart your fleshy shell."

    -Cost: 8-18 MP
    -:dmg_righteous: and :dmg_conflagratory: damage
    -33% on hit of regaining mana similar to blood magic
    -Three squares in a line in front of caster

    33% on player being hit: Meltdown. 2 turns of :dmg_righteous:1 :dmg_conflagratory:1 :dmg_aethereal:1 damage. Increases by total of 3/turn for each stack of Breached on you. Cannot be resisted.

    (Continued below due to space limitations)
     

    Attached Files:

  2. You had my heart at Prismatic Spray - probably my favorite D&D 3.5 spell.

    I'm (procrastinating on) trying to polish up everything for the next revision of my own mod, but after that, I'm definitely trying yours out!

    The magic resist/reflect gained from the skills doesn't negate the damage dealt to you by the self-damage, does it?
     
  3. lccorp2

    lccorp2 Member

    Thanks.

    Right now I'm testing it out as a version of Necropain, which means it's resistable, and it's why I'm putting it up as one of my worries. If it's not threatening enough, I'll make the DoT unresistable.

    The idea behind the skill is that 3-4 successive rounds (2-3 if you're unlucky) of level-appropriate one-on-one melee will kill you on a wizard build, and meltdown/severe meltdown should contribute towards that.
     
  4. jadkni

    jadkni Member

    This looks like a very cool skill. Trying it out.

    EDIT: Alright, on my first run I didn't actually get to the capstone skill, but as far as I have played into it, it doesn't feel overpowered certainly - I fumbled and died when I was caught in melee for a round and Melted Down. Considering how easily I was blowing everything up, though, I don't see that as a problem - risk vs. reward, and I was playing dumb.
     
  5. lccorp2

    lccorp2 Member

    Thanks for helping me test this out, Jadkni!

    (Severe) meltdown damage is a constant worry for me--I have to make sure it is fair, but still is a constant threat throughout the whole game. Can't have players feel like they couldn't have done anything to save themselves, but I want them to fear melee and if caught in it, end up as two hit point wonders.

    By design, right now the tree has Dazzling Blast and Realignment to help with melee, and both require planning in advance to use as opposed to when the monster is already in your face. Getting surrounded should be punished by swift death with this skill--the only thing the player has left in that situation is Transcendence, and that's on a very long cooldown.
     
  6. jadkni

    jadkni Member

    Alright... I've had two runs now where I've tried to do quests and was DOA. The enemies spawn in a circle around me and I die to a breached meltdown instantly. Both were on elvishly easy, on floor one. Something here could probably use some work.

    The spells hit crazy hard to compensate, of course, but it seems like it could use some toning down on both ends of the spectrum (getting killed and killing too quickly).
     
  7. lccorp2

    lccorp2 Member

    Hmm. Thanks. I'd also noticed that on some playthroughs, but am currently undecided on how to solve that. Is this just for quests, since they uncontrollably spawn monsters about you?

    The current formula I'm using for a normal Meltdown tick is 1+0.05*mPow, multiplied by three for each damage type. For 20 mPow, you'd suffer 2*3 sources*2 turns = 12 damage total from Meltdown. The formula for Severe Meltdown is 1+0.1*mpow, for as many damage types and ticks. Comparably, Necropain is 1+0.1*mPow and More Necropain is 3+0.2*mPow. Each stack of Breached adds 6 total damage to the DoT (2 ticks of 3 damage) assuming they trigger at the same time.

    Another thing is the armour resistance penalty--each point of negative armour resistance equals one extra point of damage from blast, slash and crush from each attack.

    If I may ask about the circumstances of your death--did you have the new version of Realignment active while this happened?

    Also, I've just learned from leafing through the CK mod thread that blasting damage is bugged--blasting resistance does not apply to blasting damage, so I'll probably be changing that aspect to aethereal sometime soon.

    Here are some of the solutions I've come up with so far:

    1)Remove elemental debuffs from Breached.
    2)Change damage formulas for Meltdown/Severe Meltdown.
    3)Rework Dazzling Blast so it stuns for longer and is a wide circular AoE.
    4)Improve resistance bonuses to Realignment.
    5)Remove some armour debuffs from the tree/breached (I don't really want to touch this, but will do so if necessary.)

    2 and 3 seem more likely, I guess, but what do you think?
     
  8. jadkni

    jadkni Member

    A big part of the problem, I'd think, is that the damage scales to your magic power pretty sharply when you consider that it stacks quickly.

    And no, I didn't have Realignment active when I died. I could quite possibly have survived if I'd picked up the quest item while it was active.

    I doubt it would have saved me on GR, mind you.
     
  9. lccorp2

    lccorp2 Member

    All right. Feel free to put aside the mod for a while--I'm going to go in and tweak the formulas and play around with some ideas. v0.4 should be focused on getting this right, as well as hopefully getting in the polymorphed versions of the skills--if not, the latter will be pushed to v0.5.

    Edit: My current plan is to nerf the formula some, make the base damage static instead of scaling with mPow and depend on Breached's elemental debuffs to make Meltdown truly dangerous--the more stacks of Breached you have on you if and when you suffer from Meltdown, the more dangerous it is.

    With the current idea I have, the base (now unstackable) Meltdown spell will only do 1 base damage per type for a total of 3 damage each turn (2 and 6 respectively for Severe Meltdown); each Breached/Disrupted stack adds -1 to each resistance, adding 3 damage per turn per stack of Breached/Disrupted (6 in total). At max of 5 stacks of both, this is 33 damage per turn-- for reference, a naked max level wizard character (6 wizard skills, 1 rogue skill) has about 90 health, and if you took 5 hits from a monster you'd probably be dead already.

    Therefore, Meltdown from a single hit wouldn't be too threatening, but it rapidly snowballs if you let yourself get sloppy or try to tank a monster with a healing spell. I'll increase the timer on Breached to stress this point.

    If you keep on your toes, even suffering double meltdown (From both normal and severe) from a single hit w/ a single stack of Breached would do 21 damage per turn--enough to wound you severely, but still giving you time to teleport away and drink a potion/decurse (while Breached/Disrupted are not decursable, Meltdown IS)/cast knit flesh/activate Realignment. This would also make Realignment's resistances more effective in keeping Meltdown damage under control.

    All this needs playtesting on both high and low levels, though, so don't expect to see it for a few days at least.

    Also considering making Dazzling Blast a wide circular AoE, but heavily reducing damage and increasing cooldown to compensate. Currently noticed that Light Dart still isn't scaling very well, either--I'm going to swap around the damage formulas and see what happens.

    v0.6 will probably focus on tweaking the spells' scaling.

    Double Edit: Am going to make the tree less extreme in terms of stats, too. AA penalties will be moved up the tree for when players are likely to have access to better armour.
     
  10. lccorp2

    lccorp2 Member

    Level 4: Light Bending

    [​IMG]

    :sagacity:2 :mana:5 :melee_power:-5 :magic_power:5 :haywire:5 :dodge:-5 :block:-5 :counter:-5 :crit:-12 :sneakiness:-15 :magic_resist:5 :reflection:5

    "You're not much more than atoms held together by pure thought now; electromagnetic waves of all wavelengths acknowledge you as their master. You direct them where you please, revealing the hidden and weakening those nasty monsters to your spells. Of course, you're concentrating on defying the laws of thermodynamics, and if that concentration is broken..."

    -12 turn cooldown
    -Debuffs monsters in a 3x3 targeted square (like psychokinetic shove) with :magic_resist:-66:reflection:-66:resist_righteous:-5:resist_conflagratory:-5:resist_aethereal: -5 and renders them visible.
    -Also grants :trap_sense:6 for 2 turns.
    -100% on player being hit: Disrupted. Stacks 5 times, 8 turns, :sagacity:-3 :savvy:-3 :magic_power:-7 :haywire:-7 :reflection:-7 :magic_resist:-7 :mana_regen:-5 . Cannot be decursed.

    Level 5: Prismatic Spray

    [​IMG]

    :sagacity:4 :mana:6 :magic_power:6 :haywire:6 :dodge:-6 :block:-6 :counter:-6 :armor_asorb:-1 :sneakiness:-25 :magic_resist:6 :reflection:6

    "You have almost transcended into a being of pure energy, and hence are able to blast your enemies with the essence of the universe. Watch out for the increased energies roiling within you, though."

    -Cost: 12-25 MP
    -Every single damage type in here.
    -2x3 box in front of caster, similar to ki cascade strike. Designed this way to make sure charge beam isn't obsoleted and intended to have high-risk reward in terms on one-hit-kills, but on the chance it's resisted...
    33% on player being hit: Severe Meltdown. 2 turns of :dmg_righteous:2 :dmg_conflagratory:2 :dmg_aethereal:2. Increases by total of 3/turn for each stack of Breached on you. Cannot be resisted.


    Level 6: Transcendence

    [​IMG]

    "You have finally shed your material shell for good and emerged in your true form, a dragon of radiant energy. Well, you could have been a glowing ball of gas or something, but you wouldn't have an excuse to destroy stuff."

    -256 turn cooldown
    -32 turn duration

    When used:
    -Activates Entropic Dragon Form; :mana: 25 :magic_power:20 :haywire:20 :armor_asorb:3 :resist_righteous:8 :resist_conflagratory:8 :resist_aethereal:8
    -Heals to full, decurses. Also removes Breached and Disrupted.
    -Activates Nebulous Energies.
    -Drops 8 displacement mines directly around you, either for incoming monsters to step on or for you to open distance.
    -Allows use of Ascendant's Wrath.

    Nebulous Energies:
    -Medium-small sized circular AoE aura (template 13) around player, does compartively small :dmg_righteous: each turn, 66% chance of stun for 2 turns on monsters who enter aura.

    While in EDF:
    -All stat gains from Radiant Wizard tree still apply. Other trees, though, will not.
    -You can only use Radiant Wizard spells.

    Level 6 (polymorphed only): Ascendant's Wrath

    [​IMG]

    "The energies of the cosmos rage within your heart; you must release them! Rend reality and make these mortals cower with the sheer power of your voice!"

    -Cost: 20-30 MP
    -:dmg_righteous::dmg_conflagratory::dmg_aethereal: damage slightly weaker than Prismatic Spray in a targeted AoE (template 99). Does NOT affect caster.
    -Causes Depleted for 1 turn, :magic_power:-50. (Does not cause Depleted if there are no monsters hit by this spell)

    ***

    Have fun!
     
  11. keeveek

    keeveek Member

    Hmmm... Light Dart kills almost everything on the first level of the dungeon with one shot. I think you should nerf that a little :)
     
  12. lccorp2

    lccorp2 Member

    Thanks for downloading and playing, Keeveek! I may nerf the base damage by 1 or so; I do know that it kills anything on DL1 but diggles with one shot. I was more concerned with the scaling when I made the v0.4 changes, but if no players protest I may nerf it as such to give sickly diggles and blobbies a chance.

    I also wanted to increase the cooldown on Dazzling Blast, but wanted player feedback on that, too, before upping it to 50 or more.

    By DL2 and 3 monsters such as Zombys, Deths, Mummies, etc start needing to be two-shotted with Light Dart; when I first entered DL3 robos and djinns needed to be 3-shot with Light Dart, and I was naturally gravitating towards Charged Beam, which is what should be the case. All my playtests indicate it gets less and less viable as DLs proceed, so we'll see how it goes.

    Tell me how your first monster zoo goes, and if you have problems with monsters spawning all around you in quests and ambushes.
     
  13. jadkni

    jadkni Member

    For my part, with the heaps of Mysticality that this skill gives you, it makes sense to me that the skills would have very low base damage and scale sharply to magic power.
     
  14. lccorp2

    lccorp2 Member

    That's right--it's also made that way to make Disrupted threatening.
     
  15. ninthlite

    ninthlite Member

    I can't add this to my mods list? I am extracting this to my mods folder, but when i start up my game then go to the mods list it is not listed. Any help?
     
  16. lccorp2

    lccorp2 Member

    There's no need to extract the .zip. Simply place it in your mods folder and the game will do the rest.

    What you are probably doing now is directly extracting the mod and skill folders in the zip directly to your mods folder, and that's the wrong way to go about doing it.
     
  17. jadkni

    jadkni Member

    Played all the way to Ascendancy this time.

    Wow. That's a capstone skill certainly. It does feel overpowered, though... even for a 256 turn cooldown. The damage aura seemed to just indiscriminately oneshot everything around you. I feel like it should do noticeable damage, but not quite as much as it does now. It let me just wander through monster zoos and melting everything without breaking a sweat.

    My run ended on floor 5, though. Commandos are a real nightmare with this skill.
     
  18. lccorp2

    lccorp2 Member

    If you were only on DL5, that explains it--most of the spells are still crazy strong at that point (for comparison, something akin to standing in the middle of a zoo and spamming Infernal Torus will clear out DL3-5's zoos easily). The aura is supposed to be defensive rather than offensive--you can use it to attack, but on the off-chance something does manage to survive the two turns to get through the aura and so much as tickle you, that's 8 turns of your 32 turns of EDF wasted. The damage formula I'm using for the aura is currently 2+mPow*0.3, same as Dazzling Blast; by DL7, tank-ish monsters (ice golems, etc) were requiring 3-4 hits from the aura alone to die. DLs 13-14, it wasn't worth the risk walking into the zoo to use the aura offensively.

    I do see your point, though, and maybe the problem isn't so much the damage as the stun--maybe I'll reduce the stun% or duration on Nebulous Energies (which unlike Dazzling Blast, is resistable).

    During playtests, some of my characters have died to swarms of diggle commandos and other invisible monsters, too; I put this weakness there intentionally. Players are given Light Bending to help with this, but like Realignment, you have to pre-emptively use the skills to gain most of their benefit, and Light Bending has a much lower cooldown/cost than Dazzling Blast or Realignment. I don't want to take away all the weaknesses of the skill, and I do feel that it goes toward creating a tense point in the player's experience, where floors with invisible monsters are involved.

    My wizard builds usually involve one or two rogue skills, though; skills like burglary and archeology are still very useful for wizard builds in terms of savvy and still provide trap sense; worst comes to worst, Krong also gives trap sense, or save some equipment with trap sense for those DLs. Ultimately, though, just watch your step on those DLs.
     
  19. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    Any idea what I need to do to prevent the game from crashing anytime I choose Transcendence as a skill at level up? I thought it was odd, so I tested a bit and it happens in any build I make with this mod. (No other mods active.) I also tested it with Roguish Renovation and Interior Dredmorating as they are said to work well together. Same exact effect. Everything else I do works flawlessly, but if I ever attempt to pick that skill it results in an instant crash.

    I like the mod though. I could live with it as is. But I would be even *More* eternally grateful if you could direct me in how to resolve this issue. Thanks in advance.
     
  20. Daynab

    Daynab Community Moderator Staff Member

    Are you on 1.09RevB? I believe mods' last skills used to crash the game on earlier versions. That might explain it.