Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat


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Post Friday, 29th July 2016, 03:00

Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

Specifically, make it so melee attacks in transmuted form scale with spellpower instead of unarmed combat skill.

Right now, Transmutations are in a sort of awkward spot in the way it's so heavily tied to unarmed combat. It's not just that unarmed combat skill is basically mandatory to make good use of most transmutations spells, but that transmutations forms actually scale better with unarmed combat than with transmutations skill. I think it would make more sense for transmutations to be the primary offensive skill for characters who use forms as their main form of offense, instead of just something you train until you have low spell failure rates. It seems weird to have a significant portion of a school of magic essentially dedicated to buffing a single form of melee.

(I'm not sure this actually is a good idea, but I wanted to start a discussion about it.)

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duvessa

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Post Friday, 29th July 2016, 03:39

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

I wouldn't implement it as turning transmutations into an 8th weapon skill like you propose, since Crawl already doesn't know what to do with 2 let alone 7.

Instead, if forms are going to exist they should all be able to wield weapons and have the same bonuses for unarmed and weapons. But I think spells that improve your melee damage are flawed in the first place, since unless the required investment is set to exactly the right value (which is basically impossible when stuff like heavy armour exists) weapons either become too strong with the spell(s) or too weak without the spell(s) - this already happens with unarmed+forms and not-unarmed+spectral weapon.

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Post Friday, 29th July 2016, 16:17

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

duvessa wrote:I wouldn't implement it as turning transmutations into an 8th weapon skill like you propose, since Crawl already doesn't know what to do with 2 let alone 7.

Instead, if forms are going to exist they should all be able to wield weapons and have the same bonuses for unarmed and weapons. But I think spells that improve your melee damage are flawed in the first place, since unless the required investment is set to exactly the right value (which is basically impossible when stuff like heavy armour exists) weapons either become too strong with the spell(s) or too weak without the spell(s) - this already happens with unarmed+forms and not-unarmed+spectral weapon.


Your second point is part of the reason I went with turning transmutations into an 8th weapon skill instead of a buff in the first place. Turning transmutations into an 8th weapon instead of a buff to your melee makes it significantly easier to balance.

That said, you make a good point about Crawl already having plenty of weapon types (although one could argue that transmutation already distinguishes itself from the others enough to not cause a problem), I just think making transmutations a buff to other weapon types is a much more complicated option than making it its own weapon skill.

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Post Friday, 29th July 2016, 17:41

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

Quazifuji wrote:
duvessa wrote:I wouldn't implement it as turning transmutations into an 8th weapon skill like you propose, since Crawl already doesn't know what to do with 2 let alone 7.

Instead, if forms are going to exist they should all be able to wield weapons and have the same bonuses for unarmed and weapons. But I think spells that improve your melee damage are flawed in the first place, since unless the required investment is set to exactly the right value (which is basically impossible when stuff like heavy armour exists) weapons either become too strong with the spell(s) or too weak without the spell(s) - this already happens with unarmed+forms and not-unarmed+spectral weapon.


Your second point is part of the reason I went with turning transmutations into an 8th weapon skill instead of a buff in the first place. Turning transmutations into an 8th weapon instead of a buff to your melee makes it significantly easier to balance.

That said, you make a good point about Crawl already having plenty of weapon types (although one could argue that transmutation already distinguishes itself from the others enough to not cause a problem), I just think making transmutations a buff to other weapon types is a much more complicated option than making it its own weapon skill.

This would have the added effect of making your non transmuted self much less powerful unless you specifically invested in it (currently, it looks something like "train unarmed, be a good unarmed fighter, tack on transmutations for extra oomph, sometimes situationally more appropriate, sometimes at the expense of some of your defense)

It might be nice for transmutation users to have the same sort of interaction with actual floor weapons that any of the other book starts do.
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Post Friday, 29th July 2016, 18:19

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

I think UC/Tm is at least a little different than using weapons and you occasionally even have to make a decision how you allocate your skill points, which is a good thing. Every point you spend in Tm that is not getting the form you're teching for castable somewhat reliably is a point you don't spend in other skills you need, so during that time, your combat performance doesn't improve at all. So when do you enter that window of vulnerability? How much do I care about my humanoid form,
do I pick up armour, do I pick up a shield?

Sometimes you even have to choose the correct form to assume because the wrong choice could actually kill you! It's not what it could be but it is going in the right direction and beats "Train Gunds to 21 and pick up the biggest you find" or whatevr by a landslide.

If anything other weapon styles should be more unique and not the other way around.

I don't see the "X requires some additional Y to be effective the most effective" as a problem, there is plenty of stuff like that already in the game. Unless the 18th century technology of the game reaches its capacity limits, niche races/gods/skills/items etc. are okay. Also there are some non-form spells in the school plus I think you could add new "caster" or utility forms so there's more options for different playstyles. Sounds fun!

I also don't like the idea of making UC even more obsolete than it already is and tm with weapons just feels wrong. Steep flavour cost!

But gotta hand it to you, it would fix the problem of investing XP in tm beyond what you need for making forms castable and you could get that 27 title without wastig XP.

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Post Friday, 29th July 2016, 18:49

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

There already are forms which allow you to use weapons. I personally would allow dragon form to wield. I however wouldn't give the UA bonus to weapons, too, and I would make the auxiliary attacks weaker or slower when using weapons, and make wielding one handed weapons impossible. I would leave Ice Form, Blade Hands and Spider Form as they are.

Giving some new forms which allow for weapon use is an interesting idea. There is no fast form left, I think. It might be good for a stabber. There also is room for other Unarmed forms: a form with some kind of hexes aura (hypnotic snail form?), or a form with antimagic bite, or a holy form as lev 9 transmutation.
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Post Friday, 29th July 2016, 23:00

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

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Post Saturday, 30th July 2016, 00:31

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

Honestly, transmutations isn't even a good fit in the magic system. It doesn't particularly interact with the rest of the magic system except insofar as picking up basic charms and translocations are good for essentially every character build. It doesn't meaningfully interact with mp and spell success is minimally important. It doesn't have any really useful cross-school spells that would allow a character to segue naturally into using another spell skill, and indeed by the end of the early game virtually every transmutations-focused character is a melee brute who uses an activated ability at the start of every combat. Transmutations is bursting with flavor, but it doesn't have anything mechanically tying it together other than every spell being a collection of melee bonuses to choose between.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect it to actually happen, but I would think transmutations would be a better fit as a god slot suite of abilities. Wharrgarble, Goddess of the Hunt allows you to take on the aspect of a predator when you seek your prey, and as a sign-up bonus she instantly re-trains your highest weapon skill into unarmed combat when you first convert to her religion. Most of the spells get slotted in unchanged as divine abilities at various piety levels, and the few that don't fit the theme just get pushed into some other plausible school, like petrify turning into earth/hexes or something. No need to dump huge amounts of xp into useless magic skills that don't matter for your character except for the mandatory pre-fight buff suite; you can still benefit from magic but you aren't required to invest in it to be competent.

If transmutations didn't previous exist in the game and it was introduced today, it would probably go in the deity slot. I don't know if changing it now would help enough to be worth the effort involved, though.

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Post Saturday, 30th July 2016, 08:15

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

I don't think it's reasonable to expect it to actually happen, but I would think transmutations would be a better fit as a god slot suite of abilities.


Shadow form comes to mind. But anyway, I don't see what this would accomplish other than shoehorn anyone who would want to use transmutations into worshipping the transmutations god which means less meaningful choice. No bueno. But a tm centered diety would be nice of course but it seems we're trying to move away from the "god of magic schol X" and went to "god of general purpose for every character". But maybe if it where useful for anyone but had particular synergy with tm, it might work (and without making tmut spells exclusive).

and indeed by the end of the early game virtually every transmutations-focused character is a melee brute who uses an activated ability at the start of every combat.


I disagree with that, It is a lot, a lot more useful to learn magic beyond the usual low-level utility spells than training let's say, UC from 21 to 21.5. I incorporate many spells into my tm gameplan and things run a lot smoother since then.

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Post Saturday, 30th July 2016, 17:45

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

KoboldLord wrote:If transmutations didn't previous exist in the game and it was introduced today, it would probably go in the deity slot. I don't know if changing it now would help enough to be worth the effort involved, though.

We brought stuff up like this in this old thread, and I'm still partial to the idea of transmutation fountains/dungeon features, or tmut jewelry. A tmut god would be fine as well, but they're not particularly good spells, and do I think a meaningful fix for the problems would be worthwhile, just far from trivial.

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Post Sunday, 31st July 2016, 06:52

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

Moving transmutations to a god would mean losing out on things like OpTm becoming a dragon decked out in 8 amazing Gozag randarts, or Chei monsters oneshotting everything with the huge strength scaling on dragonform.

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Post Monday, 1st August 2016, 03:13

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

To be clear: Transmutation forms OTHER THAN Necromutation using skills other than Unarmed Combat for damage would be very cool and add some variety to the game. Transmutations being the direct source of damage though is probably foolish, EXCEPT with brand damage: IE Poison/Transmutations spell power deciding how much poison a Spider Form bite inflicts is a perfectly cool idea; but Transmutations deciding the melee damage of Dragon Form would be a foolish move and the speed should stay with UC for existing forms.

New forms that use throwing or weapons...that's a better proposal IMHO, than just "decouple them".
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Post Monday, 1st August 2016, 05:46

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

I do think adding more transmutations that allow you to use weapons would make the school more interesting. Another option could be to make it so that your attacks in forms that meld your weapons are based on your highest weapon skill rather than UC (maybe Blade Hands could be an exception). It's not too hard to explain flavor-wise - it's not like punching things as a human is the same skill as biting things as a spider or hydra anyway, so you can just say you're using your general combat prowess when in a form.

Also, while the general opinion in this thread seems to be that transmutations fighting should remain dependent on combat skills rather than transmutations, if we wanted to move transmutations away from the "train it to an acceptable failure rate and then stop" skill, other aspects (besides things affected by weapon skill) could still be affected by spell power.

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Post Monday, 1st August 2016, 15:13

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

What if form attack delay was determined by spellpower, and damage was solely determined by fighting? Then TMs could actually not train a weapon skill, or train a weapon skill for when they're not in a form.

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Post Wednesday, 3rd August 2016, 19:36

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

What problem are you trying to solve ?

Transmutation is fine, it allows to play a non-troll unarmed combattant, with a reliance on magic buffs for melee combat and very little. Trasmutations allow for an interesting, specific and different playstyle, filling an interesting purpose. What's more to ask ?

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Post Wednesday, 3rd August 2016, 21:00

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

The problem of transmuters being coupled to the UC skill is the proposed problem to be solved. The game has a rich variety of weapon skills, why should one magic school be tied to one weapon skill?

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Post Thursday, 4th August 2016, 04:36

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

Lameador2 wrote:What problem are you trying to solve ?

Transmutation is fine, it allows to play a non-troll unarmed combattant, with a reliance on magic buffs for melee combat and very little. Trasmutations allow for an interesting, specific and different playstyle, filling an interesting purpose. What's more to ask ?


Transmutations that let you do stuff other than be a drunken brawling monk. Tmut that make stealth or casting better would be good. Or a tmut for escapes.

Unfortunately the one transmut spell that supports a non melee playtsyle, necromutation, is complicated as fuck, and not even really that good.

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Post Thursday, 4th August 2016, 21:53

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

Lameador2 wrote:What problem are you trying to solve ?


As others have said: that being a transmuter requires being a unarmed fighter. I think it's weird that the main purpose of the transmutations school is to buff unarmed combat.

One issue with the way transmutations works that I didn't mention before: because transmutations is an incredibly experience-intensive playstyle (unarmed combat is already the most XP-dependent fighting style, and transmutations requires both unarmed combat and a moderate amount of transmutations), it makes it really hard to pick up on a character who doesn't start as a transmuter or unarmed fighter. As people often talk about in this forum, adaptation is a core part of DCSS' strategy. I love it when I find a powerful spellbook or weapon and decide to change the direction of my character so I can use it.

This never happens with transmutations, because it's such a huge investment. I've never found a transmutations spell book and thought "hmm, maybe I'll go transmutations on this character." Because it's almost never worth the experience investment. It's so ridiculously inefficient compared to other utility spells (if you're looking for some buffs to add to a melee character) or weapons (if you're looking for some melee fighting ability on a spell-caster) that it never feels like it's worth it to pick up transmutations on any character who doesn't start as a transmuter or unarmed combat character.

Making transmutations less dependent on unarmed skill would go a long way towards fixing this issue and making finding a transmutations book on non-transmuters more interesting.

Transmutation is fine, it allows to play a non-troll unarmed combattant


So you're saying that you can't really play an unarmed combatant if you're not a troll. I would consider that a significant problem, one that could be fixed by decoupling transmutations from unarmed combat. The fact that transmutations and unarmed combat are so closely coupled means that non-claw unarmed combat has to be balanced around transmutations. Which, as duvessa explained earlier, makes it incredibly difficult to make non-transmutations, non-claw unarmed effective without making transmutations too strong. If transmutations were less tied with unarmed combat, it might be possible to adjust balance non-claw unarmed and transmutations separately.

Trasmutations allow for an interesting, specific and different playstyle, filling an interesting purpose. What's more to ask ?
[/quote]

I agree. I think transmutations is a fantastic playstyle, which is why I wanted to start a discussion about fixing what I saw as an issue that was holding it back. Hopefully, I've already explained what more there is to ask in the rest of this thread: something that preserves the cool parts of transmutations while allowing it to be used effectively by a larger variety of characters, and also allowing non-claw unarmed combat's balance to be less tied to transmutations.
Last edited by Quazifuji on Friday, 5th August 2016, 22:39, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Friday, 5th August 2016, 09:15

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

Too many words, needs to be more concise.

To Lameador2: as you point out, there's nothing wrong with the 'flavour' of the shapeshifting playstyle. That's not what everyone is discussing. The mechanical number-crunching issue that is the problem doesn't affect you - whatever solution we come out with will still be satisfactory to you.

---

There are two directions to the solution:
1) Put more spells in Transmutations so it's relevant for more situations.
2) Remove the Transmutations spell school and put all the shapeshifting mechanics somewhere else, be it a god or items.

I'm in favour of 2. Option 1 doesn't solve the core problem of "you still have a bunch of spells that are used only at the start of combat".
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Post Friday, 5th August 2016, 10:02

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

I don't get the problem of spells being used at the start of combat. Isn't that how buffs work?
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Post Friday, 5th August 2016, 11:44

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

yes, and it's annoying to cast the same spells every single time you're about to fight something which is why most spells like ozo's and stoneskin were removed. transmutations at least have drawbacks, but it's still a lil eh IMO
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Post Friday, 5th August 2016, 16:50

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

I'd like to put an addendum to part of my earlier statement. A transmutation having damage decided by spellpower may overlap too much with Magical Staves and Weapons of Pain. I'm not sure it does, because "Spellpower" isn't the same thing as "Skill level" which those two use.
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Post Friday, 5th August 2016, 18:04

Re: Decouple Transmutations and Unarmed Combat

There is "decoupling from UC" and there is "decoupling from melee altogether". The second would be more interesting, regardless of whether these are god abilities or spells. Forms already have the niche of "charms that you can only have one of at a time, and which typically come with some sort of drawbacks," and devs could push that perspective. Examples, not because I think they're super good ideas, but to indicate the sort of thing I'm imagining:

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Spider Form: give it back extra move speed and give it a stealth bonus. Make its melee worse. It is now the poor man's shadow form.
Ice Form: make this the high-AC caster form (since it already sort of is that). Make its melee worse.
Blade Hands: it's already the strong melee, crummy casting form. Leave it alone.
Statue Form: it's alread the strong defences, slow form. Leave it alone.

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