Race: Silent Spectre

[bcadren]

This is a redraft. I'm not looking for the old topic though. Silent Spectres would be three things no current player race does: No scrolls, non-corporeal undead (ghost instead of ghoul), and permanently silenced race.

Weirdness/Mutations:

• Immaterial - You are not solid. You may not use unarmed combat. Items cannot be cursed to you. Ashenzari doesn't accept your worship. Your base evasion is doubled. (EV x 2). [Doesn't effect +EV equipment or Phase Shift.]
  • Gives all effects of monster flag Immaterial. [rSticky, immune to acid splash, 1/3rd Shatter Damage (none if Flying)]
• Aura of Silence - You are permanently silenced and force all things around you to be silenced with an aura size of XL/3.
  • Note: No noise means nothing outside of your LoS ever wakes up and you can use Bolts of Lightning and Fireballs without waking anything up, etc.
• Demonic Spellcasting: You may cast spells and invoke god powers while silenced; but it is difficult.
  • Silence gives a Permanent -Wiz effect and similar Invocations penalty.
    • This would be considered an effect of having demonic spellcasting/holiness within silence; not a racial mutation.
• Undead standard resistances: rTorm, rN+++, rPois+, rRot.

Aptitudes:

  Code:

Fighting: -2*, Short: -1, Long: -2, Axes: -2, Maces: -2, Polearms: -2, Staves: -2, Slings: -1, Bows: -2, Xbows: -2, Throw: -1, Armour: -3*, Dodge: 2, Stealth: 3, Shields: -2, UC: N/A, Splcast: -2, Conj: -1, Hexes: -1, Charms: -1, Summ: -1, Nec: 0, Tloc: 1, Tmut: -2, Fire: -1, Ice: -1, Air: 1, Earth: -3*, Poison: -3*, Inv: -1*, Evo: 0, Exp: -1, HP: -3, MP: 3!

Stats:
Strength: 4
Intelligence: 4
Dexterity: 10
Gains one Dexterity, every 4 levels. [Similar tier to Ghoul, with Dexterity instead of Strength.]

Special start notes:

• SS receive no food or scrolls on start.
• All starts which begin with no weapon get a +0 Club.
• SS cannot be transmuters and monks.

Preferred Backgrounds:
FE, AE, Gl, As, Ne.

Old Draft:

Spoiler: show

This is a redraft. I'm not looking for the old topic though. Silent Spectres would be three things no current player race does: No scrolls, non-corporeal undead (ghost instead of ghoul), and permanently silenced race.

Weirdness/Mutations:

• Immaterial - You are not solid. You may not use unarmed combat. Items cannot be cursed to you. Ashenzari doesn't accept your worship. Your evasion is doubled. (EV x 2).
• Aura of Silence - You are permanently silenced and ha force all things around you to be silenced with an aura size of XL/3.
  • For balance reasons, your perma-silence may have a chance of failing (IE DE Annihilator passing an HD check against your XL to cast through it).
  • Note: No noise means nothing outside of your LoS ever wakes up and you can use Bolts of Lightning and Fireballs without waking anything up, etc.
• Demonic Spellcasting: You may cast spells and invoke god powers while silenced; but it is difficult.
• Undead standard resistances: rTorm, rN+++, rPois+, rC+.

Aptitudes:

  Code:

Fighting: -2*, Short: -1, Long: -2, Axes: -2, Maces: -2, Polearms: -2, Staves: -2, Slings: -1, Bows: -2, Xbows: -2, Throw: -1, Armour: -3*, Dodge: 2, Stealth: 3, Shields: -2, UC: N/A, Splcast: -5*, Conj: -2, Hexes: -2, Charms: -2, Summ: -2, Nec: 0, Tloc: 0, Tmut: -2, Fire: -1, Ice: -1, Air: -1, Earth: -1, Poison: -2, Inv: -2*, Evo: -2*, Exp: -1, HP: -3, MP: 3!

Stats:
Strength: 4
Intelligence: 4
Dexterity: 10
Gains one Dexterity, every 4 levels. [Similar tier to Ghoul, with Dexterity instead of Strength.]

Special start notes:

• SS receive no food or scrolls on start.
• All starts which begin with no weapon get a +0 Club.
• SS cannot be transmuters.
• SS monks get the piety boost and significant M&F skill.

Preferred Backgrounds:
FE, AE, EE, Gl, DK.

[byrel]

DK? Those don't exist anymore, right? I'd think this would make an excellent enchanter too.

I really like the idea. It sounds way more fun than mummy.

[archaeo]

permanently silenced race.

For balance reasons, your perma-silence may have a chance of failing (IE DE Annihilator passing an HD check against your XL to cast through it).

Demonic Spellcasting: You may cast spells and invoke god powers while silenced; but it is difficult.

Having to carve out exceptions like this makes having a silent spectre race pretty iffy. I could maybe see a god of silence, which would make it a lot more reasonable to create exceptions or limit playstyles, but as a species, you're stuck making all these weird compromises just in order to make it work.

[Wahaha]

Formicid is basically no scrolls already.

[milski]

So besides the no scrolls part, it's less "aura of silence" and more "aura of antimagic?"

[Kaelii]

The main downsides to the race seem to be expressed through poor aptitudes.
Loss of scrolls is their only other major downside, and the impact of that downside is debatable. I feel like has the most interesting interaction with the lack of ashenzari and curses failing.

I'm not sure if aptitudes should be the counterbalance to several very strong bonuses.

To start with, a 2x multiplier on EV is EXTREMELY STRONG. Hilariously strong. I would take it over a flat +8 EV every single game, and phase shift is a level 5 spell with a fairly short duration. It is extremely easy to get +8 out of a 2x multipler to EV. They even have a good dodging aptitude, making it easier to train a massive bonus.

Loss of unarmed is. Well. It is. I'm really not sure how to rate it. ALMOST no reason to use transmutations because of it. I might be tempted to just throw out that whole school of magic at the same time; possibly allow a special exception to still learn some spell if it is super important for some reason. I don't see much reason why a race that cannot use unarmed has much interest (or lore reason) in dragon form or reason to let them also get statueform.

Now. The aura of silence. Its cute. If it actually was an aura of silence, I'd consider it much more interesting. Right now however, I feel it is more of an umbra of "Go Fireball. Go Lightningbolt. Go Tornado. Go Qazlal. Knock yourself out, what do you care" instead of what it says.
Add in a chance to eat the turn of enemy spellcasters? Ru and Gozag give you a chance of redirecting/eating enemy turns, and that power is a god power.

[MrRokkomies]

permanently silenced race.

For balance reasons, your perma-silence may have a chance of failing (IE DE Annihilator passing an HD check against your XL to cast through it).

Demonic Spellcasting: You may cast spells and invoke god powers while silenced; but it is difficult.

Having to carve out exceptions like this makes having a silent spectre race pretty iffy. I could maybe see a god of silence, which would make it a lot more reasonable to create exceptions or limit playstyles, but as a species, you're stuck making all these weird compromises just in order to make it work.

I wrote in to one of those "General brainstorming" threads in CYC about a God idea based around making as little noice as possible. The God would greatly frown upon noice, restricting your spell selection and wand use greatly. He also granted a single target, smite targeted silence ability.

[Sar]

The God would greatly frown upon noice

Anti-Australian god? That's so meta, considering Crawl's origins can be traced to the Land Down Under.

Spoiler: show

[tasonir]

I think it'd be better to have your aura of silence be a real aura of silence. Easier to understand, less exceptions, etc. If you can apply enough physical force to wield a polearm, you can punch things, so let them use unarmed. You can give them a -2 unarmed aptitude if you want to discourage it, although I'd probably let them get away with a 0. This race would be very poor with unarmed anyways, as they're completely banned from transmutations. No spells at all. Might make trog overpowered, but he already is, so there.

Since no spells is already a challenge condition (outside of trog) I'd let their aptitudes be roughly 0 for everything. Some tweaks are fine.

If you wanted to include a chance for a non-demonic monster to overcome your silence aura (based on HD) that's the one exception I'd allow. Perm silence might make enemy spellcasters too easy. Overall, I'd still consider perm silence to be a negative, although it does have significant upsides. Once you got to extended just about everything would resist it, though.

[bcadren]

Well I didn't expect this to take off like that. OK.

@Tasonir if it was normal silence (to both you and enemies), you'd have no invocations as well as no spellcasting, so...trog would offer weapon gifts and nothing else. Choosing gods for Passives only is pretty different; but being limited to literally weapons only is...well you are the opposite of Felids at that point. No Spells, No Invocations, No Scrolls; just potions, melee/ranged weapons and evocations. It's doable, but probably very very limiting.

@Kaelii Yea that's kinda what it is; you can use conjurations and noisy things without there being any noise; because...using silence for that purpose (instead of silencing a spellcaster) is rare. And with bad Spellcasting Apts; it's not like you'd really be SPAMMING those abilities anyways. I originally wrote the EV thing as "If you would be hit; on coinflip, you aren't hit (weren't solid enough to be hit when the projectile passed through you)"not actually sure which is more powerful/better/etc.

[tasonir]

Fair point about god abilities - I forgot silence cuts those off as well. I suppose that could be allowed, there aren't very many passive gods. Vehumet is, but she'd be worthless without spells. Ashenzari would benefit you, but as far as I can tell, that'd be about the only case. You could take chei for the +stats, but without the active abilities only the +stats may not be worth the cost. I'm probably overlooking someone. Probably Makhleb for the passive healing alone would be good.

[byrel]

I think the noise-spreading aspect of silence should be separated from the spell/invo suppressing, these should be renamed slightly to avoid two entirely different things being called silent spectres, and these should only have the no-noise aspect of silence.

Add perma -Wiz, and raise a few of those horrendous apts. Spellcasting to -2/3, Air to 0-1 (incorporeal...), Earth to -3/4 (incorporeal...), Evo to 0 (might as well sinve they don't require speech or physical manipulation. Dodging apt should go up to 3/4; I can't see a reason spriggans should dodge more naturally than an incorporeal ghost. (And yes, I know the EV is doubled afterwards. That's great, but more dodge still won't mitigate -3 HP apt. If you need to make more squishy for balance, drop HP to -4 (felid level).

[tasonir]

-3 hp with unnaturally high dodge just means you're generally never taking any damage and tabbing everything until suddenly by chance you happen to be hit for half your life and now you're at risk. It isn't the best way to design a race, imho. And we already have two races that do it - spriggans and felids. Imho, that's enough of that - most races should be pretty close to human hp, imho. +/- 10% is fine, but going beyond that is either really strong or pretty unfun.

[Pollen_Golem]

And with bad Spellcasting Apts; it's not like you'd really be SPAMMING [noisy conjurations] anyways.

Why not? You still have MP: 3! so you have lots of MP, and you could often rest completely between killing two monsters that are initially adjacent, even with fireballs, since one won't wake the other. Magic school apts are about the same as weapon apts.

there aren't very many passive gods

Pretty much every god provides some passive benefit, even Lugonu because you can wield-ID all the weapons you like. Specifically for a race that is silenced and undead, Sif Muna and Kiku would be completely useless, and if silence prevents committing to a sacrifice, Ru.

Demonic Spellcasting:

Then why insist on silent specters (monsters and player species) remaining undead, rather than being demons??

For balance reasons, your perma-silence may have a chance of failing (IE DE Annihilator passing an HD check against your XL to cast through it).

It's ok for shoals to be easier with Mf, as Elf would be easier with SS. But aura of silence doesn't reach full LOS until XL21 anyway, at which point many chars can handle elf. And you can tweak monsters to avoid silent auras when possible.

Having to carve out exceptions like this makes having a silent spectre race pretty iffy.

Odd inconsistencies are undesirable, and it should be possible to iron them out, even if it means changing how silence works.

Regarding god abilities, you could make them work under silence. Come on, gods are not blind. You could get full mileage out of any god you worship, and Wiglaf, troll shamans, deep elf high priests, anubis guards and mummy priests would retain most of their abilities while silenced. And I'm sure Signal Horn can be replaced by a Ushabti-like rumble

[bcadren]

Updated the original post with a redraft based on suggestions here and on IRC.

[byrel]

This would be considered an effect of having demonic spellcasting/holiness within silence; not a racial mutation.

How is it different from a racial mutation? I assume it would show up that way in the A menu?

[bcadren]

This would be considered an effect of having demonic spellcasting/holiness within silence; not a racial mutation.

How is it different from a racial mutation? I assume it would show up that way in the A menu?

Means if there was actually a demon race at some point it would have this if it stepped into silence. In terms of how it shows up; probably a purple -Wiz for having Sil yourself instead of Sil. [Temporary status that's only permanent because it's your aura.]