[CF-Devel] Spell failure code for cleric spells flawed?

[Peter Mardahl]

Hello,

  I've been trying to advance a character with an average Wis (10)
as a priest in Devourer.  I found that the 1st level spell cause wounds
would fail from 50% to 75% of the time.  

  I believe this high a failure rate is extreme.  I believe it should
be about 25%.

  Here is the code:

  if(item == spellNormal && op->type==PLAYER&&s->cleric&&
     RANDOM()%100< s->level*2 - op->level + cleric_chance[op->stats.Wis]-
	op->stats.luck*3) {  /* You fumble the prayer */

For a level 1 spell and a level 1 char and a 10 wis and 0 luck:

2 - 1 + 70  == 71% chance of failing on a level 1 spell.  At Wis 18:
2 - 1 + 20  == 21% chance of failing.

My comments:

1)  This is too harsh.
2)  Increasing skill levels in the priest area helps far too little.
    I mean, a level 3 priest enjoys a 2% success rate benefit on a 1st level
    spell!  Sheesh!

How about:
   s->level/(float)MAX(op->level,1) * cleric_chance[Wis] - op->stats.luck *3

  and changing cleric_chance:
   1	2    3    4   5   6   7   8   9   10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17
  100, 100, 100, 100, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 15, 14, 13,

  18   19   20    21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30
 12    11   10     9   8  7   6  5   4   3   2   1   0


My scheme has these properties:  

1)  No matter how high a level you get, you can still fail a spell
unless you have either luck or Wis 30.
2)  Base failure % of 40 for lev 1, 10Wis chars instead of 71.
    For level 2, 20% failure on a level 1 spell.

PeterM