Snake Sneak
Posts: 128
Joined: Friday, 9th March 2018, 20:26
Race Suggestion: Muet
Quick Summary
- Cannot read scrolls, but can still cast and invoke with bad apts, even under Silence. Take that, Ereshkigal!
- Learns abilities to remove curse, enchant equipment, and auto-ID magical jewellery. These are almost purely to offset core issues of scroll-less.
- Enchant equipment is limited; gain 1 charge per 2 LvlUps. 14 uses at lv27, and more are gained for further XP ala felid lives.
- Silence field (a)bility. The race's positive ability. Power increases with XL. Costs draining, has a cooldown.
- Good innate magic resistance, high mp mutation (offsets bad spellcasting apt)
- Awful spellcasting apt due to silence, but high magic schools. Good armor/bad dodging on a stealthy and magically capable race. Well suited to more hybrid builds.
*Fighting/melee/ranged:All 0, Staves +1 (Maybe -1 Throw/Sling/Bow?)
*Armor:+2, Shields:0, Dodging:-2, Stealth:+3~4
*Spellcasting:-3, Most Magic Schools:+2, Charms:+3, Elemental Magic:+1
*Invo:-2, Evo:+2~3, EXP:0, MP:+1
Concern:Magic schools were originally +1, but I was concerned Spellcasting/magic school apt merely balanced eachother out in terms of spell success, equivalent to standard -1 cast and 0 schools, while also penalizing spell levels/hunger... on a race meant to be good with magic. However, the current apt set might be too skilled at hybridizing. Then again, they can't use any scrolls and have fewer spell levels with no Amnesia scroll, so. Feedback?
The dodging/armor apt might seem to mismatch overall theme at first glance, but this race is accustomed to enchanting and using good equipment, and cursed silence does not mean dextrous. Melee builds don't miss the spellcasting apt that much whilst being able to train up for individual schools or spells fairly well (e.g. enchanters), and spellcasters enjoy high apts and more AC than usual due to using all self-enchants for AC and +2 armor skill. I considered an HP penalty, but figured inability to use escape scrolls probably covers it.
Full Examination:
A humanoid race that has been cursed with eternal silence. The Muet are stealthy, but not unmatchably so; their body still makes noise, although they cannot speak. They have learned the art of speechless spellcasting over generations, and in the process grown adept at sensing magical power and enchantment as well as applying their own enchantments to their gear. Particularly skilled Muet can share their curse, emitting a field of unnatural silence around them. However, spellcasting and the invocation of godly powers is still made much more difficult by their curse, and they cannot evoke the power of magical scrolls.
- Decursing ability at lv5~7:Necessary without scroll of remove curse. As opposed to ignoring curses, this preserves curse system and ability to worship Ashenzari.
- Auto-ID of jewellery:This is purely because you don't have ID scrolls to avoid wield-IDing amulets of faith. Being afraid to ever try on a new amulet later in the game would just be annoying as heck, and this makes more sense than having a special exception just for amulets of faith. (I anticipated resistance to suggesting they ID all non-artifact equipment)
- Potions can only be identified by blind-quaffing or purchasing them from a shop. Hello Gozag/Ashenzari. (Unless it's decided this is also annoying as heck.)
- Silence Field:The key race-defining ability. Regular access to Silence greatly assists against many uniques, quite a bit in Elven Halls and Tomb, and to a lesser degree in Shoals and Snake. It does not help at all in Lair/Swamp/Slime, and only against Entropy Weavers in Spider and some draconians and liches in Zot. (Although boy will you enjoy silencing liches!) It holds some use in vaults and depths, but not extensively. Keep in mind this is not passive, and if you can't kill all the spellcasters before the range shrinks (or even get them into range of it at all!), they're still going to be a problem.
- Enchant Gear:Overall, they have less enchantment than scrolls usually grant, but with more stability and control; it's not split between weapons and armor, so you can pump up armor while spellcasting or waiting for the right base weapon... or freely buff weapons if you get a nice armor randart. Overall, probably a minor buff compared to conventional enchantment, but you can't +9 your sweet demon trident as soon as you find it unless you sacrifice AC to do so.
As for the silence, it's worth considering that after you complete depths and vaults, most casters (orb of fire, electric golem, and all demons iirc) are actually immune to silence, leaving noise reduction as the main effect outside of Tomb. Granting a small permanent silence field near/at max level might not be unreasonable, when a character has likely already done most/all of Vaults/Depths. Even granted at lv25~27 it notably affects those seeking 15 runes... and in hell/pan it mostly only reduces enemy-sourced noise. Late-game switch to noiseless Qazlal, anyone?
Also, I'm not sure how they use Zin's Recite ability. Aggressive sign language at the demons???