True Flame and RP

[Kenji]

The Sorcerer-specific path, Path of True Fire, A.K.A. True Flame (TF), is one that puts the spellcaster's focus in Evocation spells while negating any other schools of magic. In return, the True Flame gets to cast its selection of spells infinitely.

This feedback will focus on both the mechanics and the RP interpretation of the path as well as the perception that has built around TFs.

TL;DR parts will be bolded and underlined for ease of perusal.

Note:
Regarding the actual FR setting's Brotherhood of the True Flame, while they are flame elementalists, they are wizards who attempt to hunt down flame sorcerers due to the wizards deeming the sorcerers as a source of impurity. (Like lab-grown gems vs naturally mined gems)
With the above information, we can safely assume that Arelith's True Flame would be more of a homebrew product than the FR's True Flame.
Arelith's True Flame will now be referred to as TF from now on for convenience's sake.

1. Why isn't the path removed like most of the other infini-cast?
There were talks of removing TFs, but it hasn't happened. TFs aren't mechanically powerful like the Weavemasters or Favoured Souls, but the mechanics of infinite casting does put a dent on D&D spellcasting rules. Only cantrips are meant to be infini-cast, and that's 5th edition! Warlocks, being another infini-caster that is still available, would likely face changes should TFs get changed, as well.

Regardless, if TF isn't being removed any time soon, then let's change it for the better.

Looking at some of the archived suggestions (This one for example): Many of the TF builds can perform better than what the suggestion indicated, but I personally believe the glaring issue to be the RP aspect of it.

When some of the conjuration spells would be very fitting for TFs, they were rejected due to the path being in favor of its eventual removal and further development was deemed a waste of developmental resources.

But since that hasn’t happened, I would suggest, at the very least, add a few spells to be allowed for TFs to use:
- Level 0 -
Acid Splash (Conjuration)
Ray of Frost (Conjuration)

- Level 1 -
Burning Hands (Transmutation)

- Level 2 -
Melf’s Acid Arrow (Conjuration)

- Level 3 -
Flame Arrow (Conjuration)

- Level 5 -
Mestil's acid sheath (Conjuration)

- Level 6 -
Disintegrate (Transmutation)

At the same time, as much as I hate myself for even thinking of suggesting this:
Remove Darkness from TF’s list of available spells. It doesn’t fit the path thematically and overlaps with the Warlock’s darkness spam.
Shadowmage, for example, doesn't have access to evocation spells. But Darkness is the exception to that simply because the spell fits their theme. This should apply to TFs, as well.

2. The name of the path itself is misleading and should be changed
True Flame, while poetic, can make the path seem as if it only utilizes fire elemental magics when it, in fact, utilized many forms of elemental magics and beyond elemental magics.

Players who recognize the character as a mechanical true flame often immediately mention it without inquiring about the TF’s RP interpretation. Examples are as follows:
“Ah, you can cast an infinite amount of magic missiles/fire brands/IGMS? You must be…”

“A True Flame!”
“A flameborn!”
“Praise Kossuth!”

When the character’s RP could have been…

“A dwarven runecaster who specializes in destructive runes”
“A sorceress with elemental plane ancestries”
“Experimental project gone awry”

The RP of the character could have been anything but only fire-related RP. While it is fine to have fire-related RP as a TF, immediately assume and point out the character is True Flame IC due to mechanics while the character’s RP is something else is not.

Path of True Flame should be renamed to something else to avoid limiting one's RP. Most (but not all) have taken the mechanical name too literally when the path itself has so much more to offer. This goes for both those who play TFs and play with TFs.

They could be the following:
Path of Destruction
Path of Obliteration
Path of Annihilation
Path of Evocation (will have to change if the above conjuration spells are added)
Path of Energy Manipulation

[Exordius]

D&D's addiction to Vancian Magic is something that should not be encouraged more then it sadly already is.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Sorry Kenji, it is late at night and I skipped most your probably beautiful post when I read warlocks not infinite casting. You must be thinking about 5 ed warlocks (not same thing, especially since 4th ed has all castere infinite casting)

I am pretty sure 3rd edition DnD warlocks eldritch blast all day long. I could be wrong though.

*edit*

Read it all.

Removing darkness will tank ultravision potion market lol.

Also current TFs can not even use wands or scrolls the way school restrictions are done youd have to custom a lot of spell exceptions which can be done but Id imagine this is one of those things devs arnt passionate about changing but have left it mostly as is for people's fun because it's not top tier meta.

I could be wrong, please give me unlimited disenegrate if so

[MissEvelyn]

Eldritch Blast is a Cantrip in 5e, so Warlocks can spam that all they want. It's their more powerful spells that they only get a few spell slots for.

Cantrips should in my opinion be infini-cast, and 5e did a good thing there, allowing Wizards to actually be wizards (unlike 3.5 where you have to carry a crossbow or sling as a low level wizard).

Regardless, I hope True Flamers (or whatever you wish to call them) will stick around. If we do rename them and change their flavor, I'd love to see something closer to a Spellfire Channeler. We could then finally put the "burning eyes equal Warlock" thing behind us, as we unpack more of 3.5's paths and classes. But, I digress, a Channeler is much different from a True Flame.

With how True Flamers spam IGMS, Force Mage is more appropriate a name for them. And in lore, a Force Mage IS a prestige class that learns to cast powerful versions of Magic Missiles more times than any other mages. But again, True Flamers are not quite the same.

Instead of changing and removing paths, I'd love to see more paths and perhaps even prestige classes introduced. 3.5 is ripe with both, having Red Wizards of Thay, Hathrans, Arcane Devotees, Spellguards, and even Archmages as prestige classes. Those are just a tiny fraction of how many are available. I would love to see some of these adapted as paths or classes in some way or another. There's also a class for nearly every deity, specialized servants of a deity, which is incredible. My personal favorite is the Silverstar prestige class, which is exclusive for Selunites, but many other classes are more open-ended and allow for several patron deities, similar to how the Divine Champion works.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I am sorry, but 5e throws a lot out discussion out the window.

For example, in 3.x cantrips dont scale with level, in 5.0 only can trips scale by level and you need to sacrifice higher spellslots for normal spells to have more damage. That's the opposite of how 3rd edition handles scaling.

(I love 5th edition tabletop for casual mechanics and RP focus GMing, but 5th ed would be a way worse video game than a slightly modified 4th ed.)

[Kenji]

Let's move on from the warlock and edition differences discussion and go into what can be done to further improve TFs in both the mechanical and the RP sense.

There are voices for outright removal, which is fine. But I'd like to ask everyone to think deeper that if TF isn't being removed, what can be done better?

As stated in the original post: how TF is named has an adverse effect on IG culture surrounding TFs. The sooner it is renamed, the better.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I play a TF. They've undergone several QoL changes since his creation.

For the record, I RP him as a "Sparkborne," after his godmother's moniker, Flameborne. He has access to all evocation spells, but his first preference is lightning magic.

Being able to use potions and raising scrolls were really the biggest boons I could have asked for- I've been capable of surviving the vast majority of Kholingen solo (and usually had the ability to safely back out if things went unexpectedly) since level 9. In terms of mechanical boons, they really don't need anything else, IMO; TF's reward strategic, tactical play for mages on a level similar to HiPS for sneaks. Unless an enemy is completely immune to magic, with the correct decision-making and execution you have the ability to obliterate everything you encounter before it ever touches you - even archers, which although the bane of your existence, can be manipulated by clever use of corners into the same deathtraps as everything else.

For me, the fun of the class is in making those correct tactical decisions (and adapting my style for party play in ways that aren't just limitless IGMS spam.) I really can't say I want anything to change overall in their execution, and I'd feel disingenuous saying they need to be stronger at this point, as well. The addition of the new ice spells was more than I could have hoped for, already.

[Nitro]

A little breakdown of Trueflame spells.

Currently, Trueflames can choose between 39 Evocation spells, and with the addition of custom spells, they no longer have any wasted spell slots at any spell level.

Of their spells, the elemental breakdown for directly damaging spells is as follows:
11 Fire spells
7 Ice spells
5 Lightning Spells
3 Force spells
2 Sonic spells
1 Blunt spell (crushing fist
1 misc spell (chromatic orb)
And 9 nondamage utility spells.

Obviously we don't need to talk about the damage output of a trueflame too much, they have the greatest AOE damage potential on Arelith currently, no contest. And single target they can output a respectable 240 damage per turn via IGMS spam.

For utility, they have access to Darkness (and ultravision via potions), gust of wind to disperse cloud spells, stackable walls of fire/ice that can oneshot anything on Arelith if a TF has enough setup time, 5 flavors of (useful) bigy CC ranging from making it harder to hit things to hard to avoid knockdown spam, Great thunderclap to force all 3 saves (and fish for the weak save), Incendiary cloud to make areas blind and sad and Iceberg, which is a ridiculously strong crowd control spell because it's 9th level and infinitely spammable in a TF's hands, and it deals damage to boot.

So here we have a class that can absolutely shred both PvP and PvE targets alike, lay down an infinite amount of high DC CC and prepare a battlefield with judicious use of cloud spells and stackable damage walls. Their sole weaknesses are that if they get threatened by an enemy DPS there's not much they can do once it gets in their face, and that they're entirely useless against targets with high spell resistance or magic immunity.

Note that soloing is not on their list of weaknesses. 99% of the server can be easily solo'd by a TF with darkness spam and a ultravision potion, the rest can be chain CC'd with bigby's spam or killed with careful damage wall kiting.

So with all this in mind, TF's certainly don't need any buffs (and for the love of god don't give them acid sheath). New spells gives them more flexibility and also makes them fun to play, but they certainly don't need any buffs. Conversely, given their anemic performance in PvP, I don't think they need any hard nerfs either. It's easy to shut down a TF since they are literally glass cannons. If anything they need some retuning on the PvE side because having a trueflame in the party completely trivializes almost all the PvE content on the server due to the massive amount of damage and infinite CC they can output at high DC's.

EDIT: As for the name. It's not inaccurate. More than a quarter of their arsenal is fire spells, and a large majority is elemental damage spells. Either way it seems a pretty inconsequential thing, whether it remains Trueflame or is changed to something else.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

A little breakdown of Trueflame spells.

Currently, Trueflames can choose between 39 Evocation spells, and with the addition of custom spells, they no longer have any wasted spell slots at any spell level.

Of their spells, the elemental breakdown for directly damaging spells is as follows:
11 Fire spells
7 Ice spells
5 Lightning Spells
3 Force spells
2 Sonic spells
1 Blunt spell (crushing fist
1 misc spell (chromatic orb)
And 9 nondamage utility spells.

Obviously we don't need to talk about the damage output of a trueflame too much, they have the greatest AOE damage potential on Arelith currently, no contest. And single target they can output a respectable 240 damage per turn via IGMS spam.

For utility, they have access to Darkness (and ultravision via potions), gust of wind to disperse cloud spells, stackable walls of fire/ice that can oneshot anything on Arelith if a TF has enough setup time, 5 flavors of (useful) bigy CC ranging from making it harder to hit things to hard to avoid knockdown spam, Great thunderclap to force all 3 saves (and fish for the weak save), Incendiary cloud to make areas blind and sad and Iceberg, which is a ridiculously strong crowd control spell because it's 9th level and infinitely spammable in a TF's hands, and it deals damage to boot.

So here we have a class that can absolutely shred both PvP and PvE targets alike, lay down an infinite amount of high DC CC and prepare a battlefield with judicious use of cloud spells and stackable damage walls. Their sole weaknesses are that if they get threatened by an enemy DPS there's not much they can do once it gets in their face, and that they're entirely useless against targets with high spell resistance or magic immunity.

Note that soloing is not on their list of weaknesses. 99% of the server can be easily solo'd by a TF with darkness spam and a ultravision potion, the rest can be chain CC'd with bigby's spam or killed with careful damage wall kiting.

So with all this in mind, TF's certainly don't need any buffs (and for the love of god don't give them acid sheath). New spells gives them more flexibility and also makes them fun to play, but they certainly don't need any buffs. Conversely, given their anemic performance in PvP, I don't think they need any hard nerfs either. It's easy to shut down a TF since they are literally glass cannons. If anything they need some retuning on the PvE side because having a trueflame in the party completely trivializes almost all the PvE content on the server due to the massive amount of damage and infinite CC they can output at high DC's.

EDIT: As for the name. It's not inaccurate. More than a quarter of their arsenal is fire spells, and a large majority is elemental damage spells. Either way it seems a pretty inconsequential thing, whether it remains Trueflame or is changed to something else.

I agree with everything, except a non true flwme sorcerer is stilll better pvp. They can pump out 50 IGMS before resting if they want to and further supplement with wands and scrolls while also having no school restriction.

Trueflame is s viable gimmick. It's fun and can probably left as is. But a change couldn't hurt but isn't a big deal either.

[Nitro]

Oh yes, I agree a regular sorc is better in PvP. The only time a trueflame is good in PvP is when the other side are dumb, because anyone with a brain cell will target the TF first and shut them down so they don't get hit by 25 icebergs in a row.

[Kenji]

A little breakdown of Trueflame spells.

Currently, Trueflames can choose between 39 Evocation spells, and with the addition of custom spells, they no longer have any wasted spell slots at any spell level.

Of their spells, the elemental breakdown for directly damaging spells is as follows:
11 Fire spells
7 Ice spells
5 Lightning Spells
3 Force spells
2 Sonic spells
1 Blunt spell (crushing fist
1 misc spell (chromatic orb)
And 9 nondamage utility spells.

Obviously we don't need to talk about the damage output of a trueflame too much, they have the greatest AOE damage potential on Arelith currently, no contest. And single target they can output a respectable 240 damage per turn via IGMS spam.

For utility, they have access to Darkness (and ultravision via potions), gust of wind to disperse cloud spells, stackable walls of fire/ice that can oneshot anything on Arelith if a TF has enough setup time, 5 flavors of (useful) bigy CC ranging from making it harder to hit things to hard to avoid knockdown spam, Great thunderclap to force all 3 saves (and fish for the weak save), Incendiary cloud to make areas blind and sad and Iceberg, which is a ridiculously strong crowd control spell because it's 9th level and infinitely spammable in a TF's hands, and it deals damage to boot.

One thing to keep in mind is that TFs are best played with allies. While powerful, half of those spells can hurt/CC both the allies and the TF itself. I find them seldom used except for maybe the initial pull with an iceberg, but the incendiary cloud will keep an area of foes off-limits for melee in the group, which will invariably make the clear-time longer. There are many spells available to TFs that always look great on paper to spam with, but in live-action, it causes more inconveniences to allies than it is worth sometimes. Maximized IGMS or Firebrand spam is often the best way to contribute to a group. Unless the group would like to sit on its hands twiddling its thumbs while the TF gets all the fun with the Iceberg spam, which is something that is just as feasible.

So here we have a class that can absolutely shred both PvP and PvE targets alike, lay down an infinite amount of high DC CC and prepare a battlefield with judicious use of cloud spells and stackable damage walls. Their sole weaknesses are that if they get threatened by an enemy DPS there's not much they can do once it gets in their face, and that they're entirely useless against targets with high spell resistance or magic immunity.

Note that soloing is not on their list of weaknesses. 99% of the server can be easily solo'd by a TF with darkness spam and a ultravision potion, the rest can be chain CC'd with bigby's spam or killed with careful damage wall kiting.

So with all this in mind, TF's certainly don't need any buffs (and for the love of god don't give them acid sheath). New spells gives them more flexibility and also makes them fun to play, but they certainly don't need any buffs. Conversely, given their anemic performance in PvP, I don't think they need any hard nerfs either. It's easy to shut down a TF since they are literally glass cannons. If anything they need some retuning on the PvE side because having a trueflame in the party completely trivializes almost all the PvE content on the server due to the massive amount of damage and infinite CC they can output at high DC's.

When I used the word, "improve", I did not necessarily mean a buff to TFs. As for TFs trivializing contents, that depends on the party composition. TFs are good for clearing mobs, if there aren't already WMs in the party that kills the mobs before more than a spell is fired off from the TF. Darkness spam felt very cheap and, as much as I still rely on it from time to time, TFs might be better off not having access to the spell for both thematic purposes and not embracing the darkness cheese meta when it comes to farming mobs. A TF can still perform without Darkness, the spell just made the whole ordeal a tad bit cheesy the moment the TF gets access to it.

An established TF surviving its early game (roughly late teens) can solo "farm" mobs easily. However, when it came to end-game contents, their effectiveness is often reduced with the boss' innate spell resistance or DI/DR to magic damage. Take RDI, for example, combine the TF's reduced effectiveness vs end-game bosses with a solid group for RDI, a TF isn't a necessity, but a frontline melee and/or a decent caster is. Having a TF can be either a bonus or a drag depending on how well the group comp is. The same goes for PvP scenarios.

TF is one of those classes where action economy matters and the playstyle differ a lot from the other caster classes. They aren't just buff and forget, occasionally spamming GSF spells. But casting different spells for different occasions on top of having to position themselves to not put themselves in harm's way, it is, like Aelryn has mentioned, a very tactical class to play as.

As for PvP scenarios, today, a melee already has to deal with regular sorcs and wizards who have acid sheathe with far more protective spells. A TF getting acid sheathe was more of a thematic suggestion than a mechanical one, but it is also one I can agree on not allowing them to have it at full strength of the spell.

I can understand the argument for TFs not getting Acid Sheathes as they can simply spam Wall of Fire/Ice near themselves, getting acid sheathe will likely just make them untouchable by the melees. The glaring weakness for most TF builds is when they are up against ranged builds or shotgun PvP builds if they don't already have a considerable distance from an assailing melee. And a TF doesn't have access to G Sanc for a get-out-of-jail card, but Hellball, instead, which can harm allies and have a far shorter duration.

In all honesty, TFs getting Acid Sheathe will still not put them as a top-tier PvP/PvE path nor will it change the meta drastically.

EDIT: As for the name. It's not inaccurate. More than a quarter of their arsenal is fire spells, and a large majority is elemental damage spells. Either way it seems a pretty inconsequential thing, whether it remains Trueflame or is changed to something else.

With only slightly north of a quarter of the spells being fire-based, one way to look at it is that the other 3 quarters of the spells are not flame-based. It is therefore inaccurate in a sense and the name "True Flame" can be misleading in this case. On both of my TFs throughout the last years of playthroughs, some folks have simply said, IC, "True Flame" without even asking my characters how they have obtained such power. The mechanical name of the path is hardly inconsequential.

Again, while it is fine to have fire-based RP for TF characters, it is not okay for those who recognize TFs mechanically to immediately assume all TFs are fire-related character in-game. The path being named "True Flame" is a perpetrator of that particular culture and it is one I intend to change with this feedback.

[Brandon Steel]

Frankly, I enjoy TF’s strictly because it’s a different way to play a class that allows the use of what are usually untouched spells to be enjoyed. Having them removed would make me a bit sad, especially considering they’re not exactly strong classes in comparison to many others.

[MissEvelyn]

I'd like to see unique boons to True Flamers. For example:

- For every 100 damage they deal with Evocation spells, they regenerate 1 hit point.
- Chromatic Orb has a 1%/TF level chance of twinning itself and hit a second target within melee range of the original target.
- Higher caps for weaker spells like Fireball and Scintillating Sphere, exclusively for True Flamers.
- Elemental Shield upon taking X amount of elemental damage.
- Other unique boons, these are just examples

[Opustus]

I really like the levity of infini-casters despite their incongruence with both the design of Vancian magic and apparent balance problems - unlike most mechanically savvy people (yes, I did call myself that), I rate balance a lot lower in importance for a game like NWN, because it's so inherently broken already and doesn't cater to a competitive audience so I just view it as largely a nonissue around which a world of hysteria revolves for very little reason. People have withstood glaring balance problems like the superiority of mages for almost 20 years without flinching their elfy ears, but it's the diversity of playstyles and builds--even if meme, bad, or unoptimal--that makes the gameplay interesting for me after all this time. I think the infini-caster style of play adds to this cast of diverse characters and playstyles.

I would really like to see Trueflame renamed so it would be easier to reconceptualise by the players. I totally agree with Kenji, and I personally think that calling them Trueflame makes them Trueflame and hence bars the creative license of other concepts people would enjoy to play. I think all his suggestions are good; anything focused on the nature of destructive magic is great. Further, the reconceptualisation of the path, in my humbledore, could do with a little touch of homebrew Arelith lore. I don't know why, but server designers seem to baulk at indigenous concepts and are drawing constantly from source material for new ideas; I think it would be lovely to play a homebrew class, race, whatever prominent feature of the game world. Surely the voluminous history of Arelith is a wellspring of inspiration.

Returning to the mechanical balance and thematic cohesion of the class, I certainly agree that the spells shouldn't be tethered to evocation solely. Their kit should be based on interesting and enjoyable spell rotations that make them fun to play while retaining the identity of destrutive-not-defensive caster type. The aim should be to provide both an interesting concept and fun, thematically sound gameplay that fulfills a niche on the diversity scale I referred to in my first paragraph.

Lastly, to end this post by airing a grievance against all sensible internet etiquette, I ABHOR the fact that Darkness has made the cut into both Warlock and Trueflame. Who in their right mind makes the decision to include a spell that effectively exploits primitive AI and makes for the most tedious, repetitive PvM content in the history of NWN? I think it's a huge mistake to make a buggy interaction with AI and game mechanics a prominent feature of any class; I do understand the good intention of making Trueflame able to fend for itself, but there has to be a better option, even if it requires more work. One can fathom a number of ideas very quickly: lower level summons to feed to mobs and draw aggro, hardy CC spells, something to help kiting, or the regen idea by MissEvelyn one post above this.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Lastly, to end this post by airing a grievance against all sensible internet etiquette, I ABHOR the fact that Darkness has made the cut into both Warlock and Trueflame. Who in their right mind makes the decision to include a spell that effectively exploits primitive AI and makes for the most tedious, repetitive PvM content in the history of NWN? I think it's a huge mistake to make a buggy interaction with AI and game mechanics a prominent feature of any class; I do understand the good intention of making Trueflame able to fend for itself, but there has to be a better option, even if it requires more work. One can fathom a number of ideas very quickly: lower level summons to feed to mobs and draw aggro, hardy CC spells, something to help kiting, or the regen idea by MissEvelyn one post above this.

I want to engage this train of thought- why? Why do you abhor the fact that a class whose only toolkit in effective combat is casting one school (Edit: Emphasis on this- despite the name, which comes from the fact that fireball is easily the most iconic of all evocation spells, IMO, the path is very clearly based around a singular school, of which Darkness is a part of, and not a singular element) of magic can utilize this, and why argue for it to be taken away from them, when every other casting class in the game except druid, paladin and ranger, without such strident restrictions, also gets this ability and tactic?

Is your argument that TF's don't deserve it, or that no one should be able to do it? If the former, what metric are you holding them up to in comparison to other casting classes that have vastly superior options both in casting variety and other combat options? If the latter, I can agree, but I'm not sure exploitation of behavioral patterns is something you can quash out in any game that has a PvE element- people have been exploiting AI patterns since the first PacMan cabinets came out in arcades.

[MissEvelyn]

Since Darkness is the most defensive spell a TF has, I agree that it would hurt them very much to take it away.

However, I think the dislike of them having access to Darkness stems from the idea that a TF should be purely, wholly, and completely a destructive glass cannon force. I don't know that I agree entirely with the level of this sentiment, but I can see the merit in this way of looking at True Flamers.

I wouldn't mind them losing access to Darkness, as long as it was replaced with an equally good and important other defensive ability or set of abilities that could be unique to True Flamers.
But with how good Darkness is, and with how dumb the AI is in PVE, I just don't see that happening any time soon.

[Opustus]

There's a clear difference between being able to cast darkness with 1) the basic restrictions of spell slots as a regular caster, 2) spending magic items to cast it, 3) being able to infini-cast it. As far as I can tell, based on my 15 years of experience on various servers, I have only seen the total and absolute spammage of the spell by Warlocks and Trueflames on Arelith. Other builds mainly use it as a very specific tactic, mainly to sneak attack or re-enter stealth, or as an escape tool from mobs.

The problem becomes the darkness spam, which encourages gameplay that relies on a broken mechanic of disorienting spawns of monsters because of faulty or primitive AI. My whole point is that playing is supposed to be fun, and it is my boldest statement that the darkness spam is horribly, hooorribly boring, whether the boringness stems from how the spell interacts with AI, because it minimises all risk that might make gameplay thrilling, or because you do it probably a hundred times over during a single dungeon crawl and you just become numb. If this isn't an experience shared by many, I will gladly change my perception of the silliness of the darkness spam - my view is based on my personal experience of its tedium.

So yes, my argument is that no-one should be able to do it, because it makes for dull gameplay. Behavioral patterns and their exploitation is important, whether an intended feature or just an accident of design; further, good shooter games can be based on simple AIs that produce a sort of hide-and-seek gameplay of peeping from cover to shoot at each other. Casting a spell that makes you invincible and turns terrifying monsters into aimlessly lumbering idiots who just gladly eat your fusillade of spells because they're too scared or confused to chase you into darkness isn't fun, it just strips the mobs of their agency to interact with the character in any way, it's like playing Lego games on very easy or such, pressing X to attack because it just suffices while an actual threat could intencivise you to press X, Y, B, A for cool combos.

For the thematic of one school, why do you think it's important for the class to be focused on one school? If the inclusion of other schools could make the class more interesting and fun to play (just assuming that it would), wouldn't it be very easy to reconceptualise the class into something a bit different? E.g. Not just evocation caster, but a caster focused on destructive and hostile magic. Is there something the single-school restriction achieves better, some satisfying symmetry or iconic feeling of evocation magic?

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Being restricted to one school keeps it from being a weave master, which was pulled from rotation for being able to do too much infinitely. If you start adding other schools back you risk it suffering the same fate, or losing infinite casting altogether, based on recent design philosophy.

I wouldn't mind other options, but not at the expense of gutting the current kit- you still have the option to utilize tactics other than darkness, if that's not appealing to you.

[Kenji]

Weavemaster is not the best comparison in this case. They have access to all schools of magics and the epic spell foci commands whereas TFs don’t.

The destructive spells TFs are suggested to obtain are mostly limited in evocation, conjuration, and transmutation.

I would even go as far as having TFs receive conjuration and transmutation foci for free upon taking evocation foci for as long as they still do not have access to the epic spell foci commands.

Maybe have the TF choose, and they’d only get one tier of focus less for free instead of all three.

Example would be:
A TF takes ESF evocation, it receives GSF conj and trans.

The foci in this case are mostly for DC purposes and, for evocation’s case, removal of biteback from epic spells.

As for darkness spam, it is the most direct way of cheesing contents whereas the other approaches usually require a step or two more than usual. The latter makes for great tactical and party plays, the former with the darkness spam does not.

I can agree with giving TFs a little bit of something else to protect themselves from harm if darkness is taken away due to thematic conflicts.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Why is Darkness to make mobs not able to target you effectively cheesier than HiPS and 100 stealth? If your response is true seeing, mine is ultravision - a very low level buff that's potionable, wandable, and scribeable - in fact I think Thoramind might sell the scroll, I'll double check the next time I log in.

I do agree I'd like it if at least SOME of the monsters would do something intelligent when I cast darkness on myself- although the last few times I did it a few monsters ran straight to the middle of the darkness and forced me to flee it lest they hit me due to proximity while casting. My answer to this was to set up several more darkness spheres and run from one to the next, darting in and out between them and taking shots as I arrived at my new haven. This is not a consistent behavior, but it's happened, and it was exciting.

Perhaps give one or two mobs in every spawn group ultravision or a chance to have ultravision, similar to the mobs that start a fight with acid sheathe as soon as they spawn into existence. This allows the tactic to remain viable while still encouraging and even requiring diversity. For fun, this would also allow some spawn groups to use ultravision and darkness on PC's.

Edit: For the record, this is actually NOT my go-to strategy, although it is safer. My go-to strategy usually involves setting up a field of death and baiting monsters to charge me while I begin throwing high dps spells. Darkness is really more of an "Oh crap" spell that I can't use too liberally in a party unless someone has a wand of UV to burn.

[MissEvelyn]

I just wish mobs were far more intelligent as a whole in the game. They all fight until death, not one of them, not even those with high intelligence, seem to have an inkling of self-preservation.

I want to see mobs use a larger array of spells, wands, scrolls, potions, mundane items, and tools at their disposal.
I want to see mobs run for their lives when they are the only few survivors left with little HP.
I want to see them try to flank me, corner me, use corners to hide (if they're stealth-based). I want ranged mobs to not always fall for my going around the corner strategy.

Of course, this would be asking for a lot from such an old game, but a dreamer can dream =)

[Kenji]

Why is Darkness to make mobs not able to target you effectively cheesier than HiPS and 100 stealth? If your response is true seeing, mine is ultravision - a very low level buff that's potionable, wandable, and scribeable - in fact I think Thoramind might sell the scroll, I'll double check the next time I log in.

We’re comparing apples and oranges here, here’s why:
HiPS requires skill points investment into 2 skills, and then some in equipment. For PvE purposes, as long as they have the camouflage and One with the Land wands/scrolls, etc, the skill investments can be lowered.

Same thing applies to corner sneak, except they require an extra step of running around a corner to break LoS, then sneak, and then maneuver around again.

Note that hiding in general doesn’t benefit your allies, only yourself. It doesn’t render the enemy useless unless it is in a soloing scenario or the mobs have True Seeing.

These are already more investment heavy and can be just as tactical. HiPS aren’t available for two rounds, corner sneak will require maneuvering around and something to break LoS with. Darkness, for the purpose of TF spam, usually doesn’t and can be recast every 6 or 3 seconds.

While some mobs do dispel darkness, for a TF or a warlock it can be easily reapplied again. Not so much for the limited spellslot casters, however.

TFs, with a plethora of offensive spells and other ways of CC (bigby’s, albeit takes longer to hard CC multiple targets), can make do without Darkness. The players will simply be required to utilize the other spells more often and make the right choices with their action economy. They were never meant to have a be-all-end-all answer to everything (darkness in the case of mob clearing) given their focus on destructive spells. Darkness cheapens that play and they are likely better off without it.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

There seems to be an assumption of philosophy that having a path revolve around certain kinds of spells would be more thematic than around a single school.

Though I am not a fan of darkness spamming, i enjoy being single single school focused. Especially Evocation, something out of nothing.

[Opustus]

It's a difference of opinion we are discussing: I personally can't understand why the consistency of a school trumps consistency of the style of magic; I'm trying to understand why. Enjoying the single-school focus for it being cool is great, but can its coolness be somehow explained in terms I could understand? What makes it cool to you and others? Why should it being cool be more important than the rule of another consistent theme (e.g. destructive magic rather than evocation magic) which allows for more versatile gameplay options i.e. spells outside of the evocation school?

[Rigela]

While not having really played a Trueflame I did play a fiendlock and never really liked the darkness spam, mostly due to how trivial it made content as found 90% of the time it ended up with the enemies just not doing anything, or if they did run out of it they still stood still or could be killed by summon/eldritch blast/other PCs without fighting back. Just made me feel like I was being cheesy so I often ended up just not using it. (It also provides great annoyance for many in picking loot up if you can't dispel it easily like a warlock can)

As for providing lore for them, I'm uncertain on that. That they are so open is a big appeal as can allow for great potential to be done with them and where it all comes from. That should be easy enough to do though I think, but giving them a different name to their current one could also be a nice start to help people think of them outside the "firey box" of where to take them, or for others to just not instally go "Oh, Trueflamer" and instantly assume some sort of firey RP around them.

Having just evocation magic is nice, but I do feel that just having them do destructive magic keeps with the same exact theme, but opens up a few more options to them than IGMS and a few other spells spam. Would also help with differentiating them from "fire based rp" (Which is nothing wrong with, if people do want to take a Trueflamer down that path, mind.)