Shoals Surfer
Posts: 273
Joined: Monday, 23rd November 2015, 23:18
Tweak Nagas: Some Minor Requests
Let's talk about Nagas!
Long story short, Nagas are a adaptive race in the same vein of humans (their mean apt is -0.064!) offer a very strong late-game in exchange for a weak early-mid game.
Nagas are offered things like See Invisible, Poison Resistance, +9 AC (at level 27), higher than average Magic Resistance, and an average grasp on every school of magic, and Spellcasting itself. In addition, they gain Constriction at level 13, a very powerful tool that offsets one of their disadvantages; it forces enemies faster than you to make an escape attempt that gives the player more time to pummel their aggressor.
On the flip side...
Nagas have poor defense aptitudes (Dodging, Shields, and Armor are all -2), which makes getting any meaningful gain from your stats a struggle without moderate investments in each, should you choose to utilize more than one. They also suffer from Deformed, which reduces your base AC by half its value, meaning that your set of plate armor will start you off at a disappointing 5 AC. Though raising your Armor skill does very well to mitigate the loss Deformed causes, Nagas have a -2 deficit to Armor, which makes it harder to get a serious effect out of heavy armor. Which is what you're supposed to ideally utilize, since your strength is 10, which gives you a slight bias towards wearing heavier armor while being a functional strategist.
Nagas, as they're known for, possess the slowest base movement speed in the game, at a whopping 1.4 arbitrary units of time per square. Slow movement speed not only demands you take more care with every keystroke, but also emphasizes and pursues players for making mistakes. Barring a well placed hallway, you cannot run from your problems without sufficient tools or spells. This disability takes a fair amount of investment and luck to deal with. This is a non-negotiable feature of the race, though I would still like to put emphasis on how punishing this is in correlation to all their other disadvantages when I ask for this tweak to be taken seriously.
I have covered the black, and the white. I'm going to talk about the gray.
Nagas possess the one of the least powerful mouth based ability (barring Shoutitis) in the game. Mephitic Cloud Breath (which has its own issues) and Steam Breath both have their utility and power, which remains varying degrees of relevant, Spit Poison pales in comparison very quickly as the crawl advances. Its service is to give the Naga a helping hand where it needs it the most, and it does so with meager success. I maintain that it is not sufficient. On the same vein, Nagas tie for the best aptitudes in the arguably worst school of magic in the game; Poison. Poison loses its effectiveness at about the same time their construction proxes work (along with their spit). Constriction is not enough to make up for the weakening of two of their bread-and-butter modes of destroying enemies, in my opinion.
Nagas have a +5 to stealth, tied for first with two other races. For the sake of keeping my promise stated above, I'm going to briefly compare them with another generalist everyman, the Kobold. The mighty Kobold has a diminutive +4 to stealth. They also moves at 1.0 arbitrary units of time, as opposed to 1.4. The Kobold ALSO starts with a dexterity of 11, as opposed to 6. Finally, A Naga approaching a sleeping newt (spooky!) at the end of their line of sight has to take 2.4 auts longer than almost anyone else (barring one of the related races).
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TL;DR The Naga is not suited to dodging, stealth, as it stands, in addition to struggling with strength based builds. Intelligence, a slightly above magic list, and higher than average, and adaptation seem to be their core strengths in the early-mid game. The changes I propose skew Nagas towards a direction of play that I believe is the goal of them, without compromising the design of their race.
1. Poison is reduced to 2, Charms are raised to 1. Enemy nagas constantly utilize haste to remove their core weakness, please help us, Dev Team.
2. Raise Shield and Armor to -1, lower dodging to -3. Their mid-game armor issues would be easier to be dealt with, with this change. They aren't suited towards dexterity, putting further stress on this fact is fine.
3. Provide Tough Skin 1 upon entering the dungeon. If one enters the dungeon with a robe, they will have 2 AC to begin with. This is acceptable.
4. Make the random stat they gain every 4th level either strength or intelligence. They do not lend themselves to dexterity.
Thank you for your time.
duvessa wrote:teleportitis is annoying but i dont think you could ever convince me it is dangerous, let alone crippling
duvessa wrote:DCSS Go: jump down the nearest manhole and fully explore the sewers before you go back out
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- Dungeoneer, duvessa