"No + Spell level of any kind."
Spell level is the natural reaction to Hit/Damroll bonus Meeles get from gear. I already shown how even +3 isn't that huge of a damage increase.
This leaves the only other way to increase mage offense, equipment with Oprogs.
Look at Barbarians. Why are they so powerful? Because in addiction to their PASSIVE automatic meele power they can use ACTIVE spell like abilities. They have stuff they can use in combat that bypasses defenses and deals high damage.
Mages could have the inverse of this. PASSIVE damage. Remenber mages need to use ACTIVE stuff if they want to deal any damage.
Perhaps we can expand on this front.
The other option is improved defense which is always HP durability.
HP can be extended by HP gear, AC gear and defenses gear. But I will speak of it latter.
Weapons:
1 handed cursed staff. This is not that great and not a huge imbalance. There are several people with this, and all it does is open your mage to hold something. A shield, a wand/staff or a treasure.
One of my necros holds a +30 HP treasure from this. Another get -50 AC from a shield. My Battlemage holds his Tainted Ankh.
We could have a cursed one by default one in a very hard of place like gear or desolation. As long it's damage is low enough no meele will ever use it. You also can't dual wield it with another weapon, but can use a shield.
Also on staffs. We should have more cursed and no-drop staffs. The proliferation of skills that allow the disarm of cursed staffs by meeles dictates this need. All of them can blind+disarm, so their skill is still useful, but it allows a mage to conserve the staff, reducing hours of downtime during which he will not PK.
Daggers. There no decent daggers for mages. They should be the second go to weapon for mages after staffs.
Some people call this a mage dagger.
Object 'dagger Yog-Sothoth' is type weapon, material steel.
Extra flags: glow magic antigood.
Weight is 3, value is 2, level is 50.
Weapon type is dagger.
Damage is 8d6 (average 28).
Affects mana by 40.
Affects hitroll by -1.
Affects damroll by 1.
Affects dispel magic by 5.
Rare item. (4 STR)
I call it a wasted opportunity. 105% dispel adds nothing over 100% dispel (another of mages problems), but the 40 mana is interesting. A shame that it being uncursed means it will not see much use.
We could have a low damage cursed dagger that auto-dispels. Yes, auto-dispel. If I'm giving up using a staff which parries 30% better than a dagger, I want something in return. Something decent, or else it's a non choice.
Perhaps it curses, or blameblinds. Now those are also interesting.
Maces.
I always wanted a 1h mace that blinded. Like the ones in Dragons of Autumn twilight.
For my clerics. (Blind spell, not flame-blind.)
Swords.
A cursed sword of low damage that poisons could be interesting for a BMG. Perhaps even a dagger.
Again if the average damage of a weapon is bellow 20, no meele will use it. And we can have wonderfull flags like -90% enhanced damage, or -75% dual wield that will ensure a weapon is not used for meele purposes.
Auto-casting gear.
If was placing a spell on a piece of equipment, I would take special attention to what save type that spell targets.
Having access to a spell from another school than the one your class is limited to, is a very interesting concept.
For example, If I'm a Invoker it would make sense for me to get something that is maledictive in nature. Curse, plague, visitation.
If I'm a shaman, perhaps I want some pure afflictive effects, or perhaps something mental, like a Mind-Blast.
If I'm a Cleric and the Warmasters finally learned to walk around with 50 mental saves, I might wish something that perhaps casts dysentery, or some debuff like weaken.
Also, please, please don't put more auto-healing gear. This kind of gear is completely unfair.
HP durability.
Now back on HP, aka defense.
We can raise HP with stuff as pure HP gear, or AC gear. They both have the same impact, but pure HP also counters spells.
There are plenty of examples of this kind of gear, so lets skip it.
What we need is more gear that improves proficiencies of defenses.
For example, a rare armor socket that improves parry by 2% but decreases enhanced damage by 10%.
For example a pair of gloves that improve staff by 5%, but decreases two handed by 10%.
Perhaps an alternative to the coral staff that has -50 AC instead of +50 HP.
On the subject of spell prof. The only reason to have it is to counter prof dropping effects like Fury and other rare-stuff (unless you are a BMG). So perhaps some high bonus, to key spells could be interesting. (Read interesting, as actual useful, people actually using it.)
We got +15% ray/path.
Perhaps some +15% fireball or Hellstream.
Some +15% dispel that isn't a dagger but armor could also be interesting.
Perhaps flashfire, elderitch blade, blades.
A rare ring of +50% word of recall could be nice.
