Mindcrafters

[Spellweaver]

What is your favourite racial and playstile choice for mindcrafters?
As for me, I prefer dark elves and, more rarely, drakelings, because of Alertness skill. Survival without it seems to be too hard for me, but what other good choices exist?
And about playstile, I try to use mindcrafting(at least, offencive abilities such as Mind Blast) as rarely as possible and fight in melee most of the time to be good with weapons and, in result, not so weak. Is this good way to play?

[JellySlayer]

Well, there are almost no circumstances where it is a bad choice to pick a drakeling. I guess the only real downside in this case is that mindcrafters have a super hard time training Ma, which is one of drakeling's worst stats, and having extra PP is rather important for mindcrafters since they're deprived of HPcasting. Hurthlings are a respectable choice too, if you want a more missile orient mindcrafter, but have similar problems with Ma as drakes.

Dark elves are a fine choice, I suppose, although the beginning of the game is probably pretty tough since you have a low To class and a low To race. Gnomes might give a better early game without sacrificing too much Ma.

Troll mindcrafters are a weird choice, but actually pretty good. Basically, you just play as a regular troll brute, except that you have free teleport control, confusion resist and can confuse people. Just don't expect to ever use any of your high-power abilities.

I normally play mindcrafters basically as either melee or missile characters, and use confusion blast to make my life easier. Most of the good crafter abilities don't show up until later in the game, by which point my character is probably strong enough that I just forget to use them. There is no bad way to play though. If you want to use mostly mindcraft for combat, there's nothing wrong with it.

[Spellweaver]

About drakes... I love them, but became almost entirely disappointed after one frozen on D:49 and then incapable to fight hordes of ghosts before Gates. Mindcrafters also, as I know, have no good ways to get warm (alchemy only with wish or potion, and I would most of the time find something more useful, no spells, except for potions/wand of Wonder), and this makes me afraid.

[Spellweaver]

And also, what starsign is best? Wiki recommends something like Tree, but Wi is easily trained and not so crucial.

[JellySlayer]

Candle, of course. Raven being second choice.

Salamander is okay I guess, if you really think you want the extra PP. But really, you're just making the game harder if you pick anything other than Candle/Raven.

[edit]D:49 isn't actually that bad for drakes, as long as you're pretty fast. You can get to the stairs in maybe 10 turns, which shouldn't hurt your speed hugely.

[Spellweaver]

Salamander is the thing I never thought about, interesting. Thanks for idea.

[grobblewobble]

As a mindcrafter I usually start the game by taking off clothes, to enable true berserking. Confuse + true berserk is a nice combo to deal with stronger monsters in the early game.

Mind blast is useless in most fights, but there are some exceptions. If you keep the door of the bandit boss closed, you can kill him without any risk or alignment hit from behind the wall. Even the villagers usually don't seem to care if you kill him this way. Similarly, many tough monsters can't open locked doors and are helpless if you lock them behind doors and fry their brains out. For example the assassin prince - nice chunk of XP for a low level mind crafter.

Drakelings are really the easiest mindcrafters. Their acid spit helps you with all the stuff that is immune to confusion blasts.

[_Ln_]

I'm pretty sure you can hit '5' with a wand of fire to get blasted (if you're not playing with Sage).

I mainly use melee with mindcrafters because PP tend to finish quickly, and you can't cast without it. Still, TB (not that TB) and GTB is pretty much the most powerful thing in the game. I recently played with a mindcrafter and remembered a discussion on these forums about which class would beat which in PvP. There were wizards, archers and so on. Now I'm pretty sure that a mindcrafter can beat the crap of anyone given the duel takes places at high clvl (enough for TB).

[Silfir]

I'm pretty sure it'd be rocket tag. Whoever gets to hit the other first with a disabler should probably win. What's the range on GTB? I confess that while I've won with a mindcrafter before, I can barely remember any details about it.

[grobblewobble]

GTB can be cast anywhere in sight range, that's the major strength.

I've wondered about Pvp as well, not sure mindcrafters would win. An immortal necromancer would be hard to beat, archers with access to teleportation, farsight and humanoid slaying ammunition should not be underestimated either. GTB would be a strong offense, but once you're out of spellpoints there isn't much you can do as a mindcrafter, so an opponent with good healing spells could be difficult. On the other hand they do have confusion wave, perhaps the easiest way to disable someone from a distance.

[Silfir]

Farsight is absolutely crucial, but thanks to wands of wonder, available to anyone. On the other hand, it has a limited duration, and the effect depends on Mana if I'm not mistaken. High level mindcrafters might still be able to read the spellbook though.

Immortal necromancer should win by default as long as they wear an amulet of petrification resistance... Except...

An eternium two-handed sword of corruption. You'd have to get to melee range first, but since even an immortal necromancer will end up with very low HP scores, killing them with the sword over and over and possibly preventing them from taking any action at all should be possible. At that point, it's simply a matter of corrupting them all the way to writhing mass, which should count as a win in PvP. The necromancer still has a shot, however, since the PC has to take breaks to eat or pray for manna inbetween.

Other necromancers can still win by sending something like quickling king ghosts at their equally immortal foe. Though they'd probably run out of corpses before they can put any dent in their opponent's lifespan.

I have a terrible memory about GTB, but I seem to remember I could only aim in a certain direction. Is the area of effect a cone covering everything in line of sight in that direction, or does it travel in a straight line? If it's the latter, I don't know how you'd hit anyone aware of your position.

Farsight seems crucial - but speed can substitute for it in combination with monster detection and controlled teleportation. If your speed is higher than your opponent's, in theory you can detect their location, teleport next to them and immediately act again, using a disabler or a true berserk tremendous blow. That would be the way I'd try to win with an orc barbarian at least.

[grobblewobble]

Mindblast and Greater Mindblast are like bolt spells. Telekinetic Blast is melee range and not particularly good. Greater telekinetic blast attacks a single square, anywhere you like, can't be resisted (physical damage) and DV/PV are irrelevant.

[Silfir]

Ooooh, not bad. How much damage does it do? Can it be pumped enough to reliably one-hit-kill unless HP is similarly pumped?

[_Ln_]

[(W / 5) + L]d6.

Basically, with W:20 and L:20, you'll be doing 24-144 dmg. Wow, somewhat low. It's still good against melee weapons, but miserable comparing to humanoid slayer (will they work on PC, I wonder?).

All right, maybe I'm not as sure now.

[grobblewobble]

The L there stands for level, not learning. So it's about 200 average damage at level 50. In theory you could get it up to nearly 250, but instant killing is out of the question.

Humanoid slaying vs player character.. I'm not entirely sure. One could test it by eating arrows from barbarians in the wilderness, I suppose. Occasionally they should shoot you with an arrow of slaying.

[Spellweaver]

Talking about PvP... In theory, each class can have unlimited HP/PP, after long enough game. You can even become archmage. So, numbers do not solve anything here.

[Soirana]

... Except...

an immortal necromancer will end up with very low HP scores

Really? To+10 from gear is not so impossible and iirc natural one does not get zeroed. [there was some sort of bug of how rounding and halving is applied i think eventually necro would end at 20 To [with +10To gear that is]].

I am not 100% sure but i think extra hp from pots does not go away either.

Under current game version PvP would be rather hilarious:
the only really limiting part would be geetinng Death, Para, Petr, Conf and other preferable intinsincs from pools. Afterwards you scum xp, get 15ish precrowns and start ring engine....

After engine [with creative copypasting naturally] you have max stats, all maxed skills, and HP/PP being at games max allowed number.

Keep in mind that +damage does not go to inifinte [although i guess ball spells with extreme high trained power sorta do]
Add very high piety, water orb, shitload of stuff in pack and you will be ready to grindfest.

[_Ln_]

The L there stands for level, not learning. So it's about 200 average damage at level 50. In theory you could get it up to nearly 250, but instant killing is out of the question.

Humanoid slaying vs player character.. I'm not entirely sure. One could test it by eating arrows from barbarians in the wilderness, I suppose. Occasionally they should shoot you with an arrow of slaying.

Heh, I was thinking it's Learning for mindcraft and spells since I first read manual. Still something to learn about ADOM :)

[JellySlayer]

The best bet for PvP would probably be to try for an irregular death like casting petrification spell or something. Intrinsic is pretty rare, and character strength is otherwise not a factor. Monk/Assassin instant kill ability might be useful too. Or spam summon monsters and then try to kill them by djinni strangling with your RoDS. Or plug your ears with beeswax, summon banshee and hope you can knock out his beeswax with an improved fireball before he can get yours. [edit]Pots of deafness would be better, I guess. Beeswax is too fragile for this sort of thing

Otherwise, necros would probably be pretty scary I think. Three extremely experienced quickling king liches and an immortal PC would be a force to be reckoned with, plus being casters.

I think we clearly need to petition TB for a pvp option in the next release. I'd pay for that.

[Spellweaver]

How do you imagine PvP in ADOM? A single turn can take from a moment (you just move) to several minutes, if you chose, for example, what potion to drink. It would be very unpleasant for opponents to wait each time you do your turn.

[JellySlayer]

Hmm...

Probably there would be an arena level area that you could import a character to. Possibly could be a big room style level, or a regular level, or maybe a maze level (but probably much smaller than a regular level--maybe half size or something). Traps, monsters on/off. Have character restrictions based on level, turncount, (or even classes) as the players like. Possibly other options, like fire from ToEF, underwater, D:49 icy, or teleport resistant, massively corrupting levels, or Andor-style shifting level.

You can set a timecount on how long you want a turn to take (as in, 1 turn on your turncount). Probably 10 seconds minimum, 1 or 2 minutes maximum. If you don't take your turn within that time, it counts as though you just pressed 5. It would still be very sluggish compared to regular play, but I don't see any way around that. You'd need to be able to connect to other player, either using server, or maybe direct IP or something.

[Spellweaver]

Well, interesting, though I still doubt it will be so interesting in practice.
Also, scummed chars (even savescummers) are indifferent from fair played, at least nowdays.
And there would be lots of minor problems in realisation, as always.

[grobblewobble]

That can be solved with clocks, like in chess. If both opponents agree to a quick game the time limit can be short.

I also imagine that limits are placed on the power levels of the characters involved (no wish engine, or nonsense like that) and that resources like healing potions and piety would be limited as well. Also the area where both are allowed should probably be limited.

edit: crosspost, missed the reply from Jelly.

It would probably be best to have an interesting set of predefined characters, instead of characters imported from single player.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Or give you a new lvl. 1 character in a dungeon, forbid you from exiting it, give you a time limit (say, 5000 turns) and after that time limit, if your character is alive, it goes to your PvP character roster.

At the beginning where I wrote a dungeon I was going to write "the ID", but better not, due to stairhopping. It could be in a dungeon similar to the ID but with persistent levels.

There could be different categories of PvP depending on the time limit: 0 turns (lvl. 1 chars), 1000 turns, 5000, 50K, unlimited (scummerweight category)

[Soirana]

One of variants i could see would be like:
Char starts at entrance to dungeon [think small cave] with turn limit [think 5-6k]. If he makes through it [think like reaching HMW] he is eligable to participate in PvP.

For scumming reducing I'd say remove all stuff char has and make special shop [with limited credit] in which you can aquire stuff before PvP. Would need good balance on prices, but i guess could work in theory.

[Spellweaver]

Does TB read our proposes?

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I doubt it. While he does read the forums, I don't suppose he comes to the ADOM I forum much, he probably focuses in the ADOM II forums (especially the issue management one).

If you really want this to reach him, I think his blog or the Facebook account are the way to go.

But seriously, it's nice to dream but I doubt we'll ever see PvP implemented in ADOM... it must be quite hard to code in a game that was never planned to have any multiplayer feature. Asking for it as a feature in ADOM II, which has a much more flexible engine and it is still in an early stage, may be a better bet.