New Magic School Idea to Counter Necromancy: Light Magic

I think necromancy can be powerful early game, but there are so many demons in the late game, that it can start to feel a little useless as you progress, resulting in you only using the buffs, as opposed to the combat spells. Light magic would also be supported by TSO, and would be strong against demons, undead, and trolls.

New Spells:
spell_0
Halo - Halo would be a first level Light spell that allows the user to expand their halo radius by two squares, increasing their accuracy. Monks would start with this spell memorised. When used on an enemy, it would instead do holy damage to them while the effect lasts.

spell_3
Electrobulb - A second level Light/Air spell that gives the caster the brilliance effect. It would also inflict a new effect, magic draining. When the user has the magic draining effect, spells cost double MP.
The brilliance ends when the magic draining ends.

spell_1
Lightshaft - this second level Light/Earth spell would create a shaft to the surface, casting sunlight onto the dungeon floor. This sunlight would petrify trolls, do holy damage to undead and demons, and blind dungeon dwelling monsters with eyesight. Holy monsters are immune to its effect.

spell_4
Starfield - this third level Light spell would spawn multiple “stars” which would do holy damage and blind anything in the same tile. The stars dissipate after the player character moves. Channeling the spell makes more stars.

spell_5
Constellation - a level 5 Light/Hexes spell which creates a beam out from the player to every nearby spell. The beam would do heavy holy damage, and confuse creatures of animal intellegence hit by the beam.

spell_2
Summon Angel - a level 6 Summoning/Light spell that summons a single angel to assist the user. Full power it summons a daeva instead. A top level follower of TSO will even be able to summon a single Ophan at full power.

spell_6
Divine Wrath - Damages everything in sight (including you) with holy damage, scaling with power. Following TSO doubles the damage.

spell_7
Eclipse - A level 4 Light/Hexes/Necromancy spell that puts a two-tile umbra around the player and causes fear for creatures that can have the fear status. It is an evil spell

spell_8
Sunbeam - A level nine Light spell that applies a more powerful version of Lightshaft’s effects in a stright line. This would do double holy damage to demons.

Reassigned Spells -

  • Dazzling Flash is now a Conjurations/Hexes/Light spell
  • Searing Ray is now a Conjurations/Light spell
  • Starburst is now a Light/Fire spell

Tell me what you think! Btw, I made the art, so thank me if you use it.

2 Thanks

These spells all sound fun, but the L9 feels weak.

I disagree about Necro though. It’s a solid school for 3 or 15 runes.

1 Thank

Constellation seems like it would be useless without starfield. Maybe it could also target demonic and undead creatures as well or also target friendly conjurations (fulminant prism, battlesphere, orb of destruction, etc.)?

The rest of the spells seem fun, though.

1 Thank

the idea is that starfield is a charge-up spell for constellation - maybe constellation could generate 3 stars after the blast to make up for the drawbacks?

That would probably work. My main concern was rolling constellation as a djinni and not being able to use it. Maybe creating the stars, then after channeling for a turn it casts the beam? Or would that have the same problem as sandblast? (Although the spell would have some immediate effect)

1 Thank

It would most likely work best if there are already stars, but it would create two stars instead if there is nothing to affect. Another fix would be djinn not being able to get Constellation if they do not already know Starfield.

1 Thank

Do you know how to get these ideas into the full game?
Right now this is just a bunch of mock-up art that a random kid (me) drew because I was too lazy to make a mod.

Thanks for the feedback on my idea. Maybe light magic can be proposed to be added as a magic class for the monk.

that is fair. I have very little experience actually coding (I use scratch), but all of these seem feasible to create.

Halo

Halo seems like it would just grant the “Halo” status or smite if used on an enemy, not too complicated

Electrobulb

Electrobulb would grant brilliance and the ambrosia potion code could be reused for the magic-drain and brilliance effects being tied together.

Lightshaft

Lightshaft could function like an AoE spell, but with the effects of dazzling flash in the AoE plus some holy damage (it would basically be clouds of holy fire + dazzle).

Starfield

Starfield acts like almost every summoning spell, plus a channeling effect that is already used in searing ray. (It also could be a light and conjuration spell)

Constellation

Constellation might be a bit harder, but if you keep track of each star in an array or list or something like that, the beam-spell targeting mechanics wouldn’t be too hard to implement.

Summon angel

Summon angel is just a summoning spell, and angels already exist. Nothing too complex.

Divine wrath

Divine wrath’s targeting could function like either Discord or Olgreb’s Toxic Radiance, but it also affects you.

Eclipse

Eclipse is like a short-range fear scroll, you could use the Halo code to create the AoE around the player.

Sunbeam

Sunbeam is Lightshaft but better. If Lightshaft can be done, Sunbeam is possible too

Ideally, you’re looking to reuse as much code as you can without needing to create more (at least, that’s what I think).

1 Thank

lol I use Scratch too
btw, the source files are here, in order to make a mod.

I don’t know, maybe pitch these ideas to the devs?

1 Thank

Quite a few of them hang out in the discord.

1 Thank

I’ll keep that in mind.

I think a more unique spell would be Divine Punch, a level 2 Light spell that causes your next unarmed attack to do extra of your god’s magic type, and multiplies your unarmed attack’s damage of that type by the number of stars on the faith indicator (Or gold for Gozag and souls for Yredelemnul)

Aka:
TSO: **…
1d4 damage + 2d4 holy damage

Kiku: ***…
1d4 damage + 3d4 pain

Jiyva: *…
1d4 damage + 1d4 corrosive damage

souls for Yredelemnul

I’m not sure the god of the black torch will care much for light magic

Maybe if you use Wucad Mu’s Divine Punch spell under an evil god, you end up in penance, and under Dithmenos especially. Not Beogh, however. Trog still doesn’t support this spell

God magic type list:
None: Normal
Wu Jian Council: Normal
Qazlal: Air
Gozag: Normal
Okawaru: Normal
Ashenzari: Draining
Xom: Random
Cheibraidos: Slowing
TSO: Holy
Ignis: Fire
Fedhas Madash: Earth
Nemelex Xobeh: Random
Zin: Holy
Sif Muna: Conjuration
Vehumet: Conjuration
Beogh: Smiting
Uskawya: Normal
Ru: Power
Jivya: Corrosion
Elyvilon: Holy
Hepliaklqana: Confusion

What is the dcss discord channel?

DCSS has a Channel in the roguelikes discord server. There’s an invite link on the crawl website (https://crawl.develz.org/) (but I also posted it below for convenience)

Thank you!

They said no to light magic

What was the reasoning they gave?

1 Thank