Heroes and abilities

[Seravy]

... looking at it further, it just doesn't work. Heroes consistently need more MP that they should have to be able to cast the spells they have (even something like Confusion costs 18!). We did raise the MP pools for a reason when the mod was new, I don't think reducing it can work at all. Maybe by a little, but not significantly.

[Nelphine]

I'd reduce multiples of caster so that 4 levels are the highest without rolling on random, and maximum of 2 for a non champion. Generally, assuming 2 multiples of caster, require 2 levels of the hero for each tier of combat spells. (Common at start, uncommon at level 2, rare at 4, very rare at 6), give or take a level if you have enough multiples.

Every realm has common spells that are always useful throughout the game (darkness, blur, warp creature, healing, web). There's no reason a starting necromancer needs enough mana to cast prayer ( or even blur realistically). (And by the way, I don't consider caster to matter until uncommons, so if the hero is casting blue, the wizard is already casting prayer or counter magic,thus, no, the wizard can't also cast blur. So yes, an item that lets you cast blur does make a huge difference.)

If a player wants a caster hero who can cast major spells (including things like the magicians own flame strike), make them either level that hero, or give them caster skill items.

[Seravy]

I had the problem with the lower tier heroes. Haven't even tried the higher ones.

2 levels for all nonchampions is not fine-grained enough to even possibly work, but we have those other tables for that, not a problem. (Assuming your numbers refer to the old formula and table)

So rare at level 4? Flame Strike is rare, 60mp. Need Caster lv5 to be able to do that at level 4. You said 2 max on nonchampions. So that's contradicting. With 2 you get 38 MP.
Uncommon at level 2? Dispelling Wave is uncommon, costs...well, 125 at full power but willing to say I'm ok with using 50... You get 26 though, I guess you can cast it for that much, but it won't be dispelling like, anything at all. Prayer is also uncommon but costs 40.

Overall, your proposed caster levels don't match the MP you actually need to cast the proposed spell levels.

With your levels (common immediately, uncommon at level 2, rare at level 4, very rare... no hero has one of those anyway) I mostly agree, but that doesn't actually let me lower MP levels on half the heroes or more.

[Nelphine]

I would be going for average cost. So, 12 for common, 25 for uncommon, 40 for rare, 60 for very rare. Roughly.

Yes there are spells that cost more. Get items to reach those, or get even more levels. I don't think any hero should ever cast full dispelling wave without max item help and high level.. The ones that cost more are almost always the problem spells, the ones that I specifically have issues with. 

Having enough mana to cost the big spells is also what allows heroes to outpace the wizard.

[Seravy]

Ok, after looking at each hero what I see is...
-Some heroes can get a small, others a more significant reduction on MP
-But even with those reductions they'll have enough MP to cast a big spell, usually without, on the weakest heroes with a caster item. Generally heroes have 30-50 MP around level 4, and 50-90 on level 9.

The problem is this, heroes will usually need 30-50 MP to cast their own given spells. But if they have that MP at any reasonable level, they'll reach 70+ on max level, and even with just the 30-50 they can reach it if equipping an item or two. So reducing the MP won't help your turn 1 strong spell problem. The only difference it really makes is those heroes not having MP left for turn 2.

(Also only a very few spells actually cost 70+. A lot of those high impact spells have costs in the 25-50 range instead.)

One key part of the MP formula is the "+8" at the end which sets how much MP any hero will always have on level 1. If we have this number low, heroes need a lot of hero and caster levels to reach enough MP for their spells, so that's not a working solution. If this number is high, heroes can get away having lower caster levels, and thus lower MP at max level, to some extent - but it means heroes start with a fairly large amount of MP on level 1. It also means while the hero needs less caster levels, it still has the same MP so it's still worth the same "points". It's just that the first caster level is worth that much more points as the number of levels the hero doesn't need to get.

   
This is about the best reduction I can achieve, with MP required to cast the hero's own spell marked green. (Where the spell is intended to be used twice at a given level, that is also marked green)
Heroes with no spells of their own could have pretty much any level so I just picked what I felt appropriate for the hero's role and tier. We'll probably need to adjust those a bit more. Note these are the lowest amounts acceptable, but some heroes might want to have more. Necromancer for example which is an AI capital staple, likely should. Haven't yet looked at where these changes in points actually move heroes. I'm willing to accept if they are only about 1 points higher that should be, but those that get +2 or more are a problem...

...initial thoughts :
This makes the Sage really stand out. Not only does it get better spells, but also much more MP than the Druid. The Druid is pretty much useless this way. Both having the same role (combat spells+one resource ability) this amount of difference in MP isn't acceptable. Druid need to have more (otherwise it falls behind all other fame 0 casters, and Sage needs less (but then will be very bad at using dispelling wave)).
I'm not comfortable reducing the Golden One that far, being a mostly random hero.
Witch needs too much MP. It already had the most points for the tier, this makes her far too strong. Might need to lose a random ability?
We could let the ranged have some more MP to make up for it being lowest in the tier still.
Magician has crazy MP levels, might need to take back that extra random ability. Warlock can maybe get away with keeping it. I really dislike giving more mp to the Magician than the Warlock though, it should be the opposite.
Priestess needs an obscene amount of MP. Way too much, but Prayer is expensive...(so is Holy Word).
Necromancer should probably get extra MP to at least match that...

Overall, I don't like the results much.

I think we need to make it so that the "+X" in the formula, the starting MP at the 0th level, is adjustable on a per hero basis. If we could start the Priestess or other high mana cost heroes at more MP and give them fewer levels, their max level MP could be less while they still get to cast their spells.

[Nelphine]

Again, I disagree with the concept of them getting to cast their spells at a given level. This specifically does make the witch, sage, magician, and necromancer get too much - just because they start with better spells.

So ignore casting their own spells. Give them mana, and if they want to cast those spells, they need items, or lots of levels.

Instead make sure those heroes have other spells they can cast while they are low level, so that they grow into their powerful spells. This will also make them feel more like wizards in their own right. At low level the magician casts fireball. At high level with powerful magic items, he casts flame strike. Now he's grown, and those levels really do feel important. (Ideally I'd love to give all casters some version of this, but I doubt that is feasible.)

I'd want something like 10+5/hero level, + (1+1/hero level)/multiple caster roll. So just having base caster is 11+6/hero level.

That makes multiple caster rolls a bit weak though.

So, 8+4/hero level, +(2+1.5/hero level)/caster level. So 10+5.5/hero level for just having base caster.

[Bahgtru]

Out of the blue... Why do casters get to be able cast from the wizards's spell books? Why not only their realm spell (for summons)/their given spells (for units and heroes)?

I guess that that's necessary. Then, how about introducing a max spell rarity competency ability for casters?

[Nelphine]

Not sure that would help. Blur on turn 1 before the enemy gets to attack 9+ times makes a huge difference. Casting it and prayer or counter magic is massive - and since it's common, a hero could always cast it with a rarity restriction. Other big things are death Commons, and extra webs.

But it is a limit, so it might help - at least it could prevent multiple very rare combat Global's, or mass flame strikes.

But I suppose putting in a limit based on hero level would mean the entire issue of mana pools gets solved. So seravy can use whatever mana pools he'd like for their spells, and item cost wouldn't matter either.

That could work well. (Uncommons require level 2 hero, rare requires level 4, very rares require level 6.)

Ok, I'm convinced, that would be a much better solution for my concern. If it's codable.

[Seravy]

Give them mana, and if they want to cast those spells, they need items, or lots of levels.

That's not acceptable on quite a lot of heroes, specifically those that you hire mostly for their spell.
(I mean, yes, they will need some levels for the non-common spells, but I wouldn't want to have, for example, level 7 plus an item to cast a flame strike. That would make the Magician hero not worth getting. (Especially if we also do something to items))

Instead make sure those heroes have other spells they can cast while they are low level, so that they grow into their powerful spells.

I considered the "selling point" spell on each hero, the one I base my decision to hire or not on. That spell might be the cheaper or the more expensive one.

I redid my table, assuming variable starting MP is possible for the MP formula (it is, I just need to hardcode the numbers).

   

Again, required MP is marked green and represents :

Sage should cast Dispelling Wave on level 2 (we want AI's Sage to be able to cast this when the hero is sitting in the fortress. 30 turns of being idle is ok - has a surprise factor of "oh it's still level 1, I'm safe" which comes up rarely. But 80 turns of being idle would be too much. Sage should at least be able to use halfway to max slider at max level, or full slider at max level with ~50 MP worth of items.
Healer should cast Healing on level 1, and two Healings at level 3.
Bard should cast Confusion on level 2.
Druid should cast Petrify and Call Centaurs on level 2, Construct Catapult on level 4.
Warrior Mage should cast Flight on level 2.
Witch should cast Black Prayer at level 3.
Magician should cast Flame Strike at level 5.
Warlockshould cast Doom Bolt on level 3, twice on level 7. It should have more MP than the Magician.
Illusionist should cast Mind Storm on level 2, more importantly, should have a HUGE MP pool to be able to use Quick Casting, which strongly relies on that. (Especially important if we plan to make items worse.)
Swordsman should use Healing on level 1, 2x Healing on level 3, Raise Dead on level 4.
Priestess should use Prayer on level 2, Holy Word on level 5.
Elven Archer should use Flight on level 2
Necromancer should use Zombie on level 1, Wrack on level 3, Animate Dead on level 4. It should be a hero with very high MP pool (as it's the top priority AI fortress garrison and the highest ranked pure "black mage").
Chosen should use Mass Healing at level 4.

Most of these I consider absolutely necessary but some are less important. I also tried to give an MP level that suits the hero's tier and class and puts them at a place that feels relatively correct compared to the others.

1 caster level counts as +(2*Hero level), so two level worth in the level count indicated in the table.

Then, how about introducing a max spell rarity competency ability for casters?

Not a bad idea but ultra hard to implement and would make caster MP literally worthless (if the spells aren't stronger than the hero's basic attack, the MP on the hero is literally worth nothing, it's better to not use it at all. And heroes can have very strong normal attacks so this is a real thing that happens a lot.)

Since we did calculate spells need to be high impact for the casting ability to do anything...
Also, a lot of high impact spells are either not high rarity (Blur, Prayer, Mana Leak, Black Prayer). You generally only have at most 2 very rare spells you want to cast per combat. So you do one yourself, the other is done by your high casting level hero and the other, low casting level wizard do the rest.

[Seravy]

Regarding items. I think these reduced numbers are low enough to open up the possibility to care about items - the majority of heroes would not get 50+ MP until at least level 4-5, some even later, with the average or below heroes never reaching 70 or some even 50. So we still have enough room for items to be relevant.

However, obviously we can't have +60 from items at a cheap cost otherwise it becomes not relevant again.
Which means we can do two things. Either reduce max Caster on items, or remove it.
A more typical caster hero uses 2 accessories and a staff weapon. All of these can have caster. So we'd need to limit the amount at about 10 each item. Problem with that is what I explained yesterday - it's not worth crafting such an item ever. By the time you complete the item, the hero likely gains a level and no longer needs the 10 bonus. Even if not, the item will be obsolete soon, unless the hero is already max level and still can't cast a spell you want them to (which is a thing but honestly a very rare one. You usually only need one cost 70 spell which you can do yourself, so heroes can take care of the cheaper, 20-50 mana spells instead, without such an item.).

So reducing the amount doesn't look acceptable to me. The fact that predefined items average at 15.75 skill shows how rarely I had less than the full 20 added to an item - and predefined items are "free" so it's not even related to the cost. I simply think that much MP is disappointing and not worth the slot on the item.

This leaves removing Caster from items. This can also be done in two ways. We can either remove it from specific item types, restricting the hero to using less than 3 Caster items. The ideal for this would be to limit it to weapons (probably only staves and wands), as most caster heroes can wear two accessories. Weapons are perfect because weapon slots are highly competitive : You have to pick between having any weapon flag abilities (doom, illusion, death etc), attack strength, defense, To Hit and Spell Charges. A perfect weapon would usually need all five of these in four slots, so if we have caster here, it is guaranteed to be a trade where the hero has to give up something important to have the casting ability. Ultimately it forces the hero to either use the MP or have a strong attack. (which is even better because having a strong attack makes using MP not worth it for the weaker spells!)
The other option is to remove caster entirely and either add a new stat boosting type item power (I can't come up with any, hit points  and To defend would be overpowered, ammo would be too useless) or just not replace it at all.