Abandoned Codex

[Seph]

Ok. No bitching here, I'm starting this thread because in my opinion theres very little reason to make a pure caster character. Gareth has tried buffing them and added a bunch of awesome new spells, but they're still not worth the effort. Here's the main two reasons why I think that is.

Firstly, we have to remember that this is a SMAUG mud, heavily altered as it is, it's still SMAUG. In base smaug casters have two big advantages that they no longer have on AC, due to altering:

#1. Styles.

On a base smaug, and most smaugs out there from personal experience, fighting styles are still in. They've been taken out of AC. While most fighter and combo classes don't suffer from this, the casters really really do.

Evasive and defensive styles were a casters best friend, you could simply drop into evasive and cast away, taking far less damage than a standard or aggressive style. Now instead of having a measly 60% dodge and no parry your dodge rate is way up, you parry the occasional blow, alot more hits miss and the ones that do get through do less damage to you.

#2. Potions.

After this long at this mud, I enjoy the no-mass-potion-athon that other muds are. He who can quaff the fastest wins is crap compared to the gameplay here. However, that being said, mages, clerics, and other casters still suffer from here.

On RoD years ago, back when there was a good 150 deadlies romping around at all times, it wasn't the thieves and vampires that were the most feared, it was the mages. They'd astral in, unravel you and fill you full of q-spikes faster than you could retaliate. Not to say there wasn't balance, but with that potion aspect in the game mages weren't terrified of going toe to toe with a warrior or vampire like they are here. Slide into evasive and pop a couple potions in between nukes and odds are you'd atleast hold your own.

Anyway, just my two cents, lets get some brainstorming going on here. Even if nothing comes out of it, atleast we thought about the problem.
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"Sleep well, sweet child... the lord holds thee now."

[Feyvel]

Yeah, you know, that's spot on. I've played through a lot of chars, and even av'ed a couple of casters (clerics), but yeah, you can never really hope to stand your own against other people, and most mobs.

My only thought on this is that the way the mud is made is very group-oriented. Casters are meant to be supporters, but they always end up having to go solo because either a) there's no one on or b) there's people on but they're all avs who laugh at you for making a mage :p
not to fault anyone or anything in that respect, just pointing out that you can't really play a support char when you're the leader, supporter, tank and healer.

On a side-note, galvanic fervour is freaking kickass

[Nightblade]

I can honestly say that the lack of styles on this mud is the reason I continue to play it. I can't stand the things.
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"Eye level for a kender is door-lock height for the same reason a chipmunk has extra cheek space."

"A kender will take anything that's not nailed down, and a kender with a good claw hammer will get those things too"

[Gareth]

Just as a side point, styles weren't so much *removed* from AC as added in smaug 1.4, which came out after AC started. There's very very few 1.02a muds out there (in fact I can't name one).

[neq]

I personally love spell casters becuase running around just qping all the time is boring, essentially some of you guys become robots I mean you guys can walk through areas and kill everything and not even realize it. but as far as why they suck I don't think they do suck. I like clerics. Sometimes I wished I had more mage spells but as it is I don't think they suck at all. I just need a tank and I can run around all day

[neq]

oooo I thought of one thing but I don't want it fixed. I always would hate it when I ran out of mana grr!!!

[Seph]

My point is not so much 'OMG THIS flipping SUCKS FIX IT NOW' just for a long time now casters have been avoided. Of all the casters, clerics are the least hated, and for good reason. Add an av cleric to a run and things change dramatically. Ad an av mage to a run and theres little difference.

Also, don't get me wrong. I was never a fan of styles, one of the reasons why I stuck around here, but it can't be denied. Styles CHANGE casters completely. Suddenly no evasive skill and fuck all for hitpoints isnt so bad anymore.

Like I said, not trying to get anything changed on a whim. I've had quite a few of these conversations on the mud before. I figured it was time to put in my two cents and get these discussions down on something more permanent.

(Also, I had no idea styles were 1.4. Learn something new everyday.)
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"Sleep well, sweet child... the lord holds thee now."

[Seph]

On a fun sidenote: Gareth, I think you can turn off the swear filters. Last time we did a poll of the active users of this board, pretty much all were over 18.
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"Sleep well, sweet child... the lord holds thee now."

[Wedge]

Chaz and I are planning to test out this group theory. My mage and his cleric are currently both level 55, so we're going to see how well we can level together. All mages seem to do though is buff stats. They don't even get sanctuary... shadowform, eldritch sphere, and antimagic shell just don't seem effective enough either.
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-Wedge

[Feyvel]

You know, a cleric and a mage isn't so bad, me (as damon) and beholder did just that for our last like... 20-somethin' odd levels. It was slow as all hell, and we died -a lot- but at least we ended up getting far enough to group with some fighter-class avs :p

[Cedrick]

Warwizards are fun

The lack of dodging is a hassle, though; if casters had some sort of augmentation to their ability to parry/dodge attacks better, it'd help immensely. But the nonpresence of styles is a good thing, and I don't like the quaff-a-thon either.
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Huh?

[Wedge]

After trying to level with Abu (Cleric) and my Mage, I think one of the biggest obstacles for casters to overcome is down-time. We had to take 10-15 minutes after each fight to trance/heal/rebuff/trance. Needless to say we wouldn't have leveled last night without Oderno, so thanks to him! Anyway, I didn't feel like I was contributing much as a mage until it was time to level and could buff every stat for maximum gain at levels... Gonna try to find a mana crystal and check out some of the new spells, so we'll see how that goes. It seems like I'd be best used as a scribe so some melee classes can have shadowform, shockshield, eldritch sphere, antimagic shell, etc.
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-Wedge

[neq]

now that i thought about this for a while. I think to successfully play a spell caster requires a lot more skill and knowledge which is why they have been avoided.

In a fight i just don't run in and type kick a billion times. I have to think of which spells will help me the most. If I make the right choice my fight is easy. The wrong choice and I'm dead.

So maybe the reason they are avoided is because of the time it takes to know what to do as a spell caster

[Gareth]

I think what Neq says is very true, and it's also the main reason I've been reluctant to hand Mages too much - cause the day will come sometime when someone actually sits down and figures out the magic system together with the suscepts/savthrows of a few dozen suitable mobs and totally cleans house. :]

[Wedge]

Blazebane + Fireball still equals suckage for damage.
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-Wedge