Tartarus Sorceror
Posts: 1698
Joined: Saturday, 18th June 2016, 13:57
Wednesday, 4th January 2017, 16:31
Reboot vampires
Crawl Vampires want to be a lot of things.
- Spriggan: similar aptitudes, they can also become small and very fast, bonus to sneaking around, see invisible
- Human-like slots
- Deep dwarf: no regen when bloodless
- Trolls: fast regen when alive
- Other undeads: undead traits when hungry
- Mummy: immunity to spell hunger when hungry
- Vine Stalker: healing bite
In theory, this is awesome, but, in practice, this is a mess. Sure, the fact that vampires cannot freely change their status means that they aren't OP, but it also very negatively affects playability. It's a lot of micromanagement, considering that this is a turn game that won't allow you to give individual orders to your summons, and this micromanagement is done with instruments you aren't supposed to use (5 5 5 5 5). There also are a million shades of bonus you need to keep count of.
One proposal could be to greatly simplify vampires. Give them only two or three status, and allow them to vomit blood at will, losing maybe one turn and gaining the vertigo condition for a while. If it were 3 status, status 1 could give all (ALL) alive abilities, status 2 serve as buffer zone to continue berserking or transmutations without them being abruptly interrupted by the decrease in satiation (without allowing to renew them), and status 3 could be pure undead. Delete all other, non undead related changing bonus (stealth, regen, metabolism speed...) keeping the bite (flavour).
However, I think that vampires are easier to start over with completely. This is because there are too many problems related to how vampires would work anyway: playability and item management would still be a pain, if somewhat less. There also is a fair load of overlap with other species, in particular spriggans and vine stalkers. I think vampires should be a unique race, rather than a collection of characters from other races.
So, what do vampires in fiction do?
Vampires:
- Drink blood
- Can temporarily coerce people through magic
- Can turn people into permanent slaves
- Turn themselves into animals
My proposal is to turn vampires into a "pure" undead that can temporarily dominate (like the wand) other creatures. I am not sure of what kind of limiting factor would be best: exhaustion would likely be OK, with more powerful vampires able to use it two or three times in a row.
A second ability, gained by increasing level, is that of permanently dominating other creatures, turning them into permanent allies (vampire spawns or blood bonds or whatever). The calculation of the max creatures you can have as permanent allies should be creature-XP or HD based. So I'd give a vampire the ability to dominate creatures up to a number of HD equal to his level. Like, you're level 5, you can control 5 goblins, or one goblin and two green rats, or one orc wizard and two orcs. Also make it MR based, so you can't become Cerebov's master. The problem, of course, is that HD is a secret number! But I don't think it should be. The difference with Beogh would be the limited number of allies you can gain, the fact that they don't increase in power as they go, and the fact that you can choose them from a different pool.
Keep the vampiric weapons bonus and the restoring bite. If the race becomes too strong, limit the domination number and modify starting stats or HP.
I have no opinions about bat form, although a large part of me would like to remove see invisible from vampire and give vampires from level 8 the ability to turn into a dog with see invisible.
Any thoughts?
- Spriggan: similar aptitudes, they can also become small and very fast, bonus to sneaking around, see invisible
- Human-like slots
- Deep dwarf: no regen when bloodless
- Trolls: fast regen when alive
- Other undeads: undead traits when hungry
- Mummy: immunity to spell hunger when hungry
- Vine Stalker: healing bite
In theory, this is awesome, but, in practice, this is a mess. Sure, the fact that vampires cannot freely change their status means that they aren't OP, but it also very negatively affects playability. It's a lot of micromanagement, considering that this is a turn game that won't allow you to give individual orders to your summons, and this micromanagement is done with instruments you aren't supposed to use (5 5 5 5 5). There also are a million shades of bonus you need to keep count of.
One proposal could be to greatly simplify vampires. Give them only two or three status, and allow them to vomit blood at will, losing maybe one turn and gaining the vertigo condition for a while. If it were 3 status, status 1 could give all (ALL) alive abilities, status 2 serve as buffer zone to continue berserking or transmutations without them being abruptly interrupted by the decrease in satiation (without allowing to renew them), and status 3 could be pure undead. Delete all other, non undead related changing bonus (stealth, regen, metabolism speed...) keeping the bite (flavour).
However, I think that vampires are easier to start over with completely. This is because there are too many problems related to how vampires would work anyway: playability and item management would still be a pain, if somewhat less. There also is a fair load of overlap with other species, in particular spriggans and vine stalkers. I think vampires should be a unique race, rather than a collection of characters from other races.
So, what do vampires in fiction do?
Vampires:
- Drink blood
- Can temporarily coerce people through magic
- Can turn people into permanent slaves
- Turn themselves into animals
My proposal is to turn vampires into a "pure" undead that can temporarily dominate (like the wand) other creatures. I am not sure of what kind of limiting factor would be best: exhaustion would likely be OK, with more powerful vampires able to use it two or three times in a row.
A second ability, gained by increasing level, is that of permanently dominating other creatures, turning them into permanent allies (vampire spawns or blood bonds or whatever). The calculation of the max creatures you can have as permanent allies should be creature-XP or HD based. So I'd give a vampire the ability to dominate creatures up to a number of HD equal to his level. Like, you're level 5, you can control 5 goblins, or one goblin and two green rats, or one orc wizard and two orcs. Also make it MR based, so you can't become Cerebov's master. The problem, of course, is that HD is a secret number! But I don't think it should be. The difference with Beogh would be the limited number of allies you can gain, the fact that they don't increase in power as they go, and the fact that you can choose them from a different pool.
Keep the vampiric weapons bonus and the restoring bite. If the race becomes too strong, limit the domination number and modify starting stats or HP.
I have no opinions about bat form, although a large part of me would like to remove see invisible from vampire and give vampires from level 8 the ability to turn into a dog with see invisible.
Any thoughts?
I Feel the Need--the Need for Beer
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