Newsgroups: rec.games.moria
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 15:00:21 -0500 
From: "Joseph E. Beck" <jb8n+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Mages Priests -- the battle continues
	<9!z1_dg@rpi.edu>


petitc@nuge111.its.rpi.edu (Christopher Jon Petit) writes:
> Let's see if I can simplify this.
> 
> Each ability will be given a 'utility' rating from 1 to 9 (9=highest),  and
> then I'll add them up.  It's gonna be pretty subjective, but it can
> help soldify
> the arguements running around here:   (this utility is at appropiate levels)
> (So, a power at high level is less powerful than the same at lower levels)

But this causes a *lot* of problems with your chart.   At the end you
have the utility of mage spells at 185 and the utility of priest
spells at 191.  But if you remove the redudancy from mages, they get
*much* weaker.  For instance, consider the following list:
	magic missile:		3
	sleep I			4
	frost bolt		7
	sleep II		7
	fire bolt		7
	frost ball		7
	sleep III		8
	fireball		8

Here we have 51 points of utility for a bunch of attack spells.  Now,
I'd rather have orb of draining than this list of spells, yet OOD is
only worth 9 points.  You can argue that this list of spells is
slightly superior to OOD, but it's very close.  At 20th level (high
middle levels) you'll have most of those spells listed, so your combat
'utility' is much higher, but the priest has the better spell than all
of your combined.  The utility method fails miserably here.

Also, how much is Recharge I worth once you get Recharge II, here
there are 17 points of utility for one spell.  Hmmm...

So the mage has vastly inflated ratings considering that a lot of his
spells do the same thing.  There's no way recharge is worth 17 points
on your scale.  And I don't think all the mage attack spells should be
worth 51 points (especially compared to OOD which is worth 9).  And 
the mage doesn't fight as well physically, and doesn't have as many
HP, and can't be a half troll.

I have some problems with your utility ratings as well.  You think
confusion and stone to mud are comparable? Stone to mud is a long term
solution to dealing with tough monsters (it lets you clear out rock
from a long distance away and tee off on monsters from afar).
Confusion isn't useful later on.  And stone to mud works well against
some of the tougher mid level monsters.

And how can you rate detect monsters higher than detect evil?  Detect
evil will find *invisible* monsters.  Sure detect monsters show more
monsters (only non-invisible ones though), evil monsters are the only
ones I'm usually worried about. 

The sleep spells are also way over rated.  By the time you get sleep
III most of the monsters that you're worried about are immune to
sleep.  It's certainly not worth 8 points IMO. 

Glyph should be a 9, so should protection from evil. 

A lot of the low level spells are over rated.  I'd put bless below
magic missile.  And I'd much rather have magic missile than cure
light.  I mean, here are a list of spells that I've never used except
to see what they did and to gain the XP for casting them.
mage:
confusion
sleep I
sleep II
sleep III

cleric:
bless
sanctuary
slow poison
blind creature
chant

I think these spells should be lowered greatly in value.  

We were wondering what a short list of spells would be that would
almost ensure winning the game, and came up with the following list
for a 'mega-class':
				rating given	
Light area (or call light)  	7
Detect doors/traps		8		
Cure poison			6
Detect evil			6		
Create food			7		
Identify			9		
Stone to mud			5		
Haste self			9		
Orb of draining			9			
Protection from evil		8			
Recharge item II		9		
Heal				8			
Glyph of warding		8

A class having these 13 spells should have no problems winning.  So I
think they should have the highest utility ratings (9's).  The other
spells aren't really needed (a case can be made forspells like resist 
heat/cold and detect invisible), so should have much lower ratings.  

In general it was a good attempt at rating the spells, but I think you
were too nice to a lot of the useless spells.  And I have to disagree
with some of your assessments, but overall a pretty good comparison.

	joe

Newsgroups: rec.games.moria