Species Proposal: Caiman

[Noisewar]

Caiman are reptilian people of the swamp, imbued with extremely corrosive skin that is so powerful they can digest their prey through mere touch. They can grow be to monstrous in size if they wish, or stay small and evasive. They are among the few species who actively collect and use even the most mundane weapons, leveraging their ability to corrode them with deadly acid.

Racial Traits:
- Caiman start with rAcid+++, and have rCorr against enemy attacks (but not for natural abilities below). They cannot wear amulets of resist corrosion.
- Chance on attack of corroding your in-hand or quivered weapon, which also gives it a temporary brand (3-6 turns) that deals bonus 1d6 acid damage with one-handed weapons, 2d6 acid damage with two-handed weapons.
- Chance on being hit that an armor piece will corrode, which also deals 1d5 damage to adjacent enemies.
- Hunter Instinct: Natural +2 to-hit for all attacks, and +10% damage to all thrown attacks.
- Keen Senses: Able to see enemies inside clouds or water
- Swamp Lurker: Gains a bonus to evasion for each adjacent tile that is shallow water, plant, fungus, or cloud. This gives ((# of tiles)^2 / 3) + 5)% bonus.
- Due to their monstrous feet, Caiman cannot wear boots.
- Note that changing forms e.g. stoneskin will negate natural acid abilities.

Level Bonuses:
*Random stat every 4th level
*Health -20%
*At level 10, Caiman gain an auxiliary acidic bite.
*Caiman start out as Little-sized humanoids. Every 6 levels, they will be given the option to shed their skin and grow one size, up to Large. Doing so is irreversible, and adjusts the player's stats as so: +1 STR, -1 Dex, +5% health, +1 to all natural acid damage effects, all size relevant adjustments.

Aptitude Adjustment:
-1 Fighting
-1 Short Blades
-1 Long Blades
+2 Polearms
+2 Staves

+3 Throwing
+1 Bows
-1 Crossbows

+1 Dodging
+1 Stealth
-3 Shields

-1 Fire Magic
-1 Ice Magic
+1 Air Magic
+1 Earth Magic
+1 Poison Magic

+1 Conjurations
+2 Hexes
+2 Translocations
-3 Transmutation

-1 Evocations
-1 Experience

[pubby]

Some quick comments...

They cannot wear amulets of resist corrosion.

The usual behavior is to mark the amulet as useless rather than prevent wearing it.

- Chance on attack of corroding your in-hand or quivered weapon, which also gives it a temporary brand (3-6 turns) that deals bonus 1d6 acid damage with one-handed weapons, 2d6 acid damage with two-handed weapons.
- Chance on being hit that an armor piece will corrode, which also deals 1d5 damage to adjacent enemies.

This is kind of neat, but I really wouldn't want my gear corroding all the time. I don't think I would enjoy this.

- Hunter Instinct: Natural +2 to-hit for all attacks, and +10% damage to all thrown attacks.

+2 to-hit seems alright, but +10% ranged damage is unnecessary. Good ranged aptitudes is a cleaner method.

Caiman start out as Little-sized humanoids. Every 6 levels, they will be given the option to shed their skin and grow one size, up to Large. Doing so is irreversible

This is neat. I like it!

and adjusts the player's stats as so: +1 STR, -1 Dex, +5% health, +1 to all natural acid damage effects, all size relevant adjustments.

This needs a bigger downside so that the decision is interesting. For instance, losing movement speed. Also, I don't know if/how EV is tied to character size, but it really should be for this species.

Health -20%

This seems low. I'll suggest -10%.

Aptitude Adjustment

Personally I'd prefer +1 polearms and +1 staves, although it's not a huge deal.

Looking at their magic aptitudes, I don't really understand the +1 earth. I imagine swamp creatures as ice magic + air magic, which is a combo that isn't really seen in other species.

Also, conjurations/hexes/translocation seem overall too high. I'll suggest +0 conj, +1 hex, +1 tloc.

[epsilon]

This needs a bigger downside so that the decision is interesting. For instance, losing movement speed. Also, I don't know if/how EV is tied to character size, but it really should be for this species.

Increased size is a big downside in most cases.

[and into]

Large size for player species generally means 2 to 4 EV less, with 2 or 3 being most common—all else being equal. However usually large species also have bad base dex, bad chances for dex growth, and at least sub-par aptitudes in dodging. If you get decent dex going and put in the investment though dodging is not bad at all on large species.

So actually a large species that has okay innate dex base/growth and good aptitude might actually be a somewhat novel direction—not enough to carry a species but a secondary distinguishing mark.

EDIT: Also let it throw large rocks, wield giant clubs if you choose to "shed" and increase size.

[DracheReborn]

Yeah, size is an explicit factor in EV (base EV = 10 + size_factor + (7 + dodging * new_dex) / (20 - size_factor) according to learndb)

I think the biggest downside with either little or large size is actually the loss of armour slots, so on a species that can choose its size, you probably want to stay at small (Ha/Ko) or medium. However, this race has that corrosion mechanic that may make armour slots less relevant - unless you get lucky with artifacts, all your aux gear will eventually get corroded after all.

I find the corrosion mechanic very interesting. It makes the species strong at early levels (extra damage at the cost of mediocre, replaceable equipment). Towards midgame though, it seems to me that you'd be on a desperate hunt for gear that can resist corrosion (artifacts or highly enchanted stuff). This might prompt you to use up enchant scrolls on less optimal gear, for example, which is kind of interesting I guess. The downside is that early on you'd probably have to heft around multiple weapons and pieces of armour to replace badly corroded stuff. One change that will help make this mechanic more bearable IMO is if corroded armour never goes below 0 AC.

Hunter Instinct seems unnecessary to me. Swamp Lurker is a nice idea in theory, but these terrain dependent abilities are often tedious in practice, i.e. dragging enemies to a swamp a half level away. Though I guess there is precedent in Mf.

Some questions - do monstrous feet get an aux attack? What happens if your current weapon already has a brand (e.g. flaming), does the acidic brand stack or override? How does corrosion work on launchers or thrown weapons? I.e. do you corrode the launcher? Note that thrown weapons and ammo can't corrode, though I suppose you can just mulch them. What do you mean by "monstrous" size? In crawl terminology, the largest player size is "large" (Og/Tr), though you can get up to "huge" with dragon form. Is there a cap to the size that this species can grow?

[Sprucery]

Is there a cap to the size that this species can grow?

Every 6 levels, they will be given the option to shed their skin and grow one size, up to Large.

[DracheReborn]

Whoops. Thanks dude

[Bloax]

This needs a bigger downside so that the decision is interesting. For instance, losing movement speed. Also, I don't know if/how EV is tied to character size, but it really should be for this species.

They start at around 80% human hp (?Is 1 hp apt is more than 10%?), so going from Little->Small->Normal->Large with a 5% increase in hp each time would result in 92% human hp, along with +3 str and -3 dex.
Going from little to small would be a worthwhile investment once you collect enough armor to even make the EV loss worthwhile, but any more wouldn't be worth it - since they can already use their +2 staff aptitude at their initial size.

If you think a large -1 hp apt race that constantly corrodes its own equipment and has mediocre aptitudes is so overpowered that they need a movement speed malus alike to nagas (who are much stronger) then you are plain wrong.

[pubby]

If you think a large -1 hp apt race that constantly corrodes its own equipment and has mediocre aptitudes is so overpowered that they need a movement speed malus alike to nagas (who are much stronger) then you are plain wrong.

I wasn't talking about how good they are compared to other species, but rather how small Caiman compares to large Caiman. I think in the ideal situation, small Caimain and large Caiman would be equally powerful, yet play differently. This may be true without any extra effects, especially if the EV differs by as much as 4 per size (thanks 'and into')

One change that will help make this mechanic more bearable IMO is if corroded armour never goes below 0 AC.

I like this idea.

[crate]

I would never even consider playing a species that corrodes its own equipment. It doesn't matter what else the species has.

[DracheReborn]

I wasn't talking about how good they are compared to other species, but rather how small Caiman compares to large Caiman. I think in the ideal situation, small Caimain and large Caiman would be equally powerful, yet play differently. This may be true without any extra effects, especially if the EV differs by as much as 4 per size (thanks 'and into')

IMO it would be ok for large Caiman to play (slightly) better than small Caiman - it's supposed to be a level bonus after all. As it is, I think few Caiman characters would want to go above medium size anyway. GSC's sound good in theory but the flat damage of the acid brand mechanic seems better on fast weapons.

[1010011010]

Armour destruction is a bad idea for this species:
At the moment people are discussing small v large, since the advantage of mid-sized species (abundance of equipment) is completely negated by equipment being corroded all the time. It also encourages players to frequently switch to new equipment and stash good equipment for hard fights, it's all very tedious.

[Noisewar]

Couple quick notes... the idea was to have a species for whom the vast amount of trash equipment lying around is in fact useful until you've attained aterfacts. So perhaps in order to cut down on the tedium of corrosion, it should be an *attempt* at corrosion. This would still deal the bonus acid damage, but highly enchanted items could resist, per normal corrosion rules. This of course would make artefacts extremely useful, maybe too powerful, as they wouldn't block the bonus acid splashback any more.

On size, I think the downside to increased size is already significant enough already, considering what size inherently does to EV. If anything, I would want them to get a random stat every 3 levels in order to compensate, or maybe just get straight up more HP%.

Finally, on the aptitudes, the idea for having both air and earth was more for flavor than anything... I don't feel swamps are consistently with ice/fire type magics, and are more about environmental aspects. That said, Earth isn't particularly useful for this species due to what stone transmutations do, so the next best magic I feel would be for fire. IMO.

[and into]

Here's how I would try to make this species interesting, IMO:

I like that you get chances to grow. To make this trade off potentially interesting, maybe something like this would be warranted

Give Caimen's (at all sizes) an innate +3 AC or something due to their tough, leathery skin.

Caimen's start at small size, with high EV. Can't use large weapons (same restrictions as kobolds?). Shield penalty of kobolds. HP -20%

At Level 10 (e.g.) get first offer to increase size, or repress metamorphosis. If you reject, stay same size. If you do increase size:
Neutral. Same weapon restrictions etc. as human. Neutral HP penalty. No EV bonus.

At level 15 (e.g.) get next offer to increase size. If you were human and decide to grow, you become
Large size. EV penalty. Ogre HP. Unfitting armor. Can wield giant clubs and GSC. Can throw large rocks.

At level 22 (e.g.) if you are not already at max size, you get chance to grow, again

At level 27, you get one final chance to grow, if you so choose.

1.) Give them relatively slow leveling;
2.) give them balanced stats and average apts across the board except I'd say go ahead and give them +2 for Ice and +1 translocations so they fill a couple of particular niches that aren't filled by a lot already (but don't weigh them down with a bunch of negative aptitudes that's boring and railroads them);
3.) definitely drop the whole corrosion/acid thing;
4.) maybe also give sub-par innate MP growth and/or natural MR (regardless of size). A species that is good at learning and using magic well but has limited MP resources, at least in early game (where it might actually matter sometimes) is a minor distinguishing feature.

The point is to encourage players to adapt body size based on what has turned up in the dungeon. But to do this successfully you must plan ahead and perhaps even train some things or allocate stat points in ways that are not immediately optimal, but will become highly useful if you live long enough to grow to a bigger dude—so there is a calculated gamble involved. Early on your +3 EV boost and high EV help but you've got low HP. Later on you adapt as you best see fit, however always with the proviso that the items that turn up later might ultimately have been better suited for a smaller size.

I could see myself enjoying such a race.

[DracheReborn]

At level 15 (e.g.) get next offer to increase size. If you were human and decide to grow, you become
Large size. EV penalty. Ogre HP. Unfitting armor. Can wield giant clubs and GSC. Can throw large rocks.

Have to be careful here. This path seems to lead to a strictly better Ogre, i.e. all the Ogre advantages along with noncrappy Dex and apts. Not to mention easier early game. In the current proposal, Caimans have not great HP (even with the HP bonus at Large).

Couple quick notes... the idea was to have a species for whom the vast amount of trash equipment lying around is in fact useful until you've attained aterfacts. So perhaps in order to cut down on the tedium of corrosion, it should be an *attempt* at corrosion. This would still deal the bonus acid damage, but highly enchanted items could resist, per normal corrosion rules. This of course would make artefacts extremely useful, maybe too powerful, as they wouldn't block the bonus acid splashback any more.

I seem to be the only fan of your corrosion mechanic. What if it were an active ability, e.g. something like "Secrete Corrosion". It still can be something that doesn't trigger at every hit, but at least you can turn it off if its too annoying.

I do agree that acid branding of weapon seems a little strong. It seems like a weak form of electrocution brand to me, and you get it for free. What if you just keep the armour corrosion, and maybe give the aux attack right away instead of at L10. So activating "Secrete Corrosion" triggers passive acid damage + armour corrosion on hits, and enables acidic bite. And maybe give the active ability a breath cooldown.

[Noisewar]

I seem to be the only fan of your corrosion mechanic. What if it were an active ability, e.g. something like "Secrete Corrosion". It still can be something that doesn't trigger at every hit, but at least you can turn it off if its too annoying.

I do agree that acid branding of weapon seems a little strong. It seems like a weak form of electrocution brand to me, and you get it for free. What if you just keep the armour corrosion, and maybe give the aux attack right away instead of at L10. So activating "Secrete Corrosion" triggers passive acid damage + armour corrosion on hits, and enables acidic bite. And maybe give the active ability a breath cooldown.

Hmm, I worry that making it into an activatable passive is all the reward without the risks, but if it's what's needed to make a caiman playable, then your suggestion works pretty well.

[njvack]

The problem with the corrosion mechanic is that there's a ton of armour and weapons in the game, but going and finding and getting them over and over again is a pain. So the actual risk is pretty small as long as you're willing to do something tedious.

[dpeg]

I think the corrosion idea is really nifty. It may be impossible to turn it into a good mechanic, but the very idea has appeal. DracheReborn, you're not the only one!
Here are some ideas how to possibly make it work somewhat smooth:

• Corrosion only affects body armour (since the other pieces are rare).
• Caimans either pre-identify curse body armours or can take off cursed body armours. Alternatively, caiman just shed their body armour as soon as it reaches negative enchantment.
• Caimans pre-identify enchantments of body armour (i.e. when seeing them on floor).

These mean that as a caiman you may have to carry around spare armours, but it'll be easy for you to pick a decent one. Next, we can obviously make the armour degradation as fast or slow as we like. The real question is how to make this not just a mechanical activity, but something that affects your game.

• Every time a body armour corrodes, you accumulate acidic saliva. You can let it go at once. In other words, while a randart armour prevents the corrosion, you cannot recharge your one-off acid blast any longer. (Grinding alert: corrosion only happens under attack, but we don't want players to wait next to rats so as to work up acid blast power. This can be easily addressed: corrosion chance proportional to incoming damage as fraction of maxHP -- you don't want to risk that.) Flavour: the corrosion is just an expression that the incoming damage stirs your acidic entrails enough to harm armour when acid passes through skin. But your mouth can store some acidic saliva.