Enhance a wizard's experience level in the late game?
Janis Papanagnou
like magic missile would increase if the characters experience level
increases. Incidentally my XL:18 (or so) wizard has half a dozen spare
potions of gain level. Saving them for alchemy seems not necessary any
more (he has already ~300 HPs), so there's the two apparent options to
shortcut some levels on the ascension run with cursed potions of gain
level, or to enhance the experience level in case that spell efficiency
would be increased thereby. And the wizard is chaotic, BTW, so that the
force shouldn't be too bad to expect to shortcut some levels too often.
Any opinions? Will the magic missile spell efficiency (damage) increase
with experience level?
Ah, and I forgot; my wizard has the option to enhance a couple of spell
schools from Basic to Skilled. I know that difficult high-level spells
will become available by skill enhancement, but since all I have are the
level 1 and 2 attack spells that doesn't really matter much. But would
the attack spell's damage increase as well with better skill? (I suspect
not, but don't know.)
Janis
Kerio
wrote:
Some spells have particular effects when going from Basic to Skilled,
but yeah, magic missile always deals the same amount of damage,
regardless of skill (iirc); magic missile's damage is (xl/2+1)d6, so
with xl18 you deal 35dmg on average, with xl30 you'll deal 56dmg on
average.
Get more spells, though, *a lot* more spells: wizards are only really
fun when you have so many spells you don't need wands anymore, and you
can go around just spamming finger of death like it's force bolt or
something like that :)
James
wrote:
> I seem to recall that it was said that effectiveness of attack
> spells like magic missile would increase if the characters
> experience level increases. Incidentally my XL:18 (or so)
> wizard has half a dozen spare potions of gain level. Saving
> them for alchemy seems not necessary any more (he has already
> ~300 HPs), so there's the two apparent options to shortcut
> some levels on the ascension run with cursed potions of gain
> level, or to enhance the experience level in case that spell
> efficiency would be increased thereby. And the wizard is
> chaotic, BTW, so that the force shouldn't be too bad to expect
> to shortcut some levels too often. Any opinions? Will the
> magic missile spell efficiency (damage) increase with
> experience level?
Very definitely. There's a multiplier of XL/2 + 1 on the basic
damage (between 1 and 6).
On the other hand, I'd find some wraiths, and keep the potions
for the ascension anyway.
> Ah, and I forgot; my wizard has the option to enhance a couple
> of spell schools from Basic to Skilled. I know that difficult
> high-level spells will become available by skill enhancement,
> but since all I have are the level 1 and 2 attack spells that
> doesn't really matter much. But would the attack spell's
> damage increase as well with better skill? (I suspect not, but
> don't know.)
Damage, I don't think so, but being skilled or better does
affect cone of cold or fireball otherwise (allowing you to
target a specific square, rather than just a direction---I'm not
sure that this is always an advantage, since you can only target
squares that you can see, but at basic you can fire in the
direction, and it will explode if it hits a monster, even if you
can't see the square).
--
James Kanze
Janis Papanagnou
>
> Some spells have particular effects when going from Basic to Skilled,
> but yeah, magic missile always deals the same amount of damage,
> regardless of skill (iirc); magic missile's damage is (xl/2+1)d6, so
> with xl18 you deal 35dmg on average, with xl30 you'll deal 56dmg on
> average.
That's indeed a significant difference, it makes levelling up probably
the more interesting option. My problem is how to obtain XL:30, the best
to get now with my potions might be XL:25 or so.
> Get more spells, though, *a lot* more spells: wizards are only really
> fun when you have so many spells you don't need wands anymore, and you
> can go around just spamming finger of death like it's force bolt or
> something like that :)
Hmm.., quantity of spells seems not too important in my game ATM; I'm
not feeling to miss anything important. Well, cure sickness might be
handy for Astral, finger of death seems nice but a luxury. I could
have polypiled my stashed spellbooks, but missed to do so. Currently
my wizard already is standing at the "door" to the Wizard's lair, so
not much incentive to go back and learn some more spells. I have some
spare wishes, so I could wish for spellbooks.
Janis
Doug Freyburger
>
> I seem to recall that it was said that effectiveness of attack spells
> like magic missile would increase if the characters experience level
> increases.
Failure rate falls and damage done increases. Wizard charaters will
usually want to go all the way to XP=30 because of this.
> Ah, and I forgot; my wizard has the option to enhance a couple of spell
> schools from Basic to Skilled. I know that difficult high-level spells
> will become available by skill enhancement, but since all I have are the
> level 1 and 2 attack spells that doesn't really matter much. But would
> the attack spell's damage increase as well with better skill? (I suspect
> not, but don't know.)
Specific attack spells change at skilled - Fireball cone of cold go from
a ray to a blast centered on a location. Because of the wide zone of
damage you may want to enhance to skilled. Because you have to be able
to see the target square you may not want to enhance to skilled. You
have the skill slots either way so it's a decision to make.
Others have posted that damage from magic missile goes with XP not
skill. I'll add that MR makes you immune to magic missiles and some
monsters are immune. You'll want to have more attack spells than magic
missile.
With a wizard I almost always want as many XP levels as possible because
of the damage. At each level I also consider what to spend the skill
slot on. I have an extensive write-up on wizard skill slots. It was my
first one so it's verbose. In it I note that at XP=30 there are enough
skill slots to enhance *all* spell schools, but dagger to Expert, plus
if you get Stormy/Vorpy broad/long-sword, and have 3 slots left over.
What I'll spend those on vary game to game. Sometimes I need to burn
them on quarterstaff for survival. Sometimes I burn them on polearm
(spetum) for fun at the castle gates. Sometimes I spend them on
artifacts as they arrive.
Once you're at 0% failure for some spell it's no longer worth enhancing
further except those spells that change behavior at skilled. Because of
fireball and cone of cold attack might not be advanced to keep them
rays.
Robes improve spell success. A wizard tends to hit 0% failure on all
spells before XP=30 without a robe. In the end robes are for classes
other than wizards to me.