Demonspawn Rerolls

[Nekoatl]

To add some strategic choice to leveling a demonspawn and make them generally more fun to play (and to reduce the hundreds of wasted hours quitting demonspawn characters with awkward combinations), I propose allowing players a limited number of rerolls. Before a rank 1 demonspawn mutation would be gained, the player is offered the chance to use a reroll to avoid the mutation tree, and if the player elects to reroll, they gain no mutation for that experience level but will be offered a different tree later on. E.g., "Do you want to develop Hurl Hellfire? (Y/N)". If (Y), the player gets rF+, if (N), they get nothing and will never be asked about Hurl Hellfire again. Of course, a player can't reroll a mutation tree if it would mean so many trees have been banned that they can't get their normal mutation count, e.g. a monstrous demonspawn can never reroll claws, and can only reroll a head or foot mutation once each.

This offers strategic choice on 2 levels... first, the choice of whether it's worth delaying mutation acquisition to gain some measure of control over their development, and 2nd, which mutations are worth replacing. Even if the maximum possible number of rerolls is offered (9 for monstrous, 12 otherwise), players won't have complete control over their mutation set, but they might try hard to get a single favorite, reject only mutations that clash with those previously gained (e.g. pro-stealth and anti-stealth), or some other strategy. This seems much more interesting to me than pure randomness, and players that are willing to accept any combination of mutations get the perk of acquiring their mutations sooner than more selective players, balancing out any advantage the selective players might gain by influencing their sets.

[Sorcerous]

Xom is BORED.

[Aean]

Put me down as "against." One of the key elements of Ds is that you don't get to choose your mutation set.

If people want to reroll until they get just the ones they want, they might as well reroll games until they get the early altar they want, or the D1 CPA.

[Nekoatl]

If people want to reroll until they get just the ones they want

No one is suggesting that this should happen.

[Hellmonk]

counterproposal: rebalance ds mutations so there aren't so many boring dud muts and there's more strategic variance to adapt to or whatever.

[Nekoatl]

I guess that would work if done well, but it seems way more difficult. In terms of creating strategic decisions by forcing players to adapt to random mutations, the current implementation does very little, so you're basically talking about a complete overhaul of the system. Even so, I generally find that having choices is more interesting than not having choices, so even if the mutation set were completely reworked into an ideal state, I would still be in favor of adding some degree of player agency, however slight.

[duvessa]

What is it without demonspawn that makes people suggest so many pure newbie-trap abilities? Toggle demonic guardian, toggle nightstalker, toggle magic shield, and now delaying mutations. I get that you want to play a strictly worse human and the mutations are getting in the way of that, but at some point it's gotta be easier to just play kobold...

[ion_frigate]

Suggested revision: When Ds get the first mutation of a facet, they have a chance to veto it. Doing so removes that facet from any subsequent generation, and instantly gives another facet of the same tier, along with its first mutation.

This way, you don't have a noob trap of delaying mutations. You also aren't turning Ds into a "choose your own mutations" species - but you can at least let people avoid getting Spiny on their ranged caster.

[Nekoatl]

I get that you want to play a strictly worse human and the mutations are getting in the way of that, but at some point it's gotta be easier to just play kobold...

LMAO. Why would I ever want to play a human or a kobold when there's nothing interesting about either? Sorry, but an innate amulet of the gourmand can't compete with tentacles, a magic draining bite, varying mutations, or any of the other game-changing gimmicks offered by more interesting species... even if hunger is the most game-impacting feature in Crawl .

[byrel]

Suggested revision: When Ds get the first mutation of a facet, they have a chance to veto it. Doing so removes that facet from any subsequent generation, and instantly gives another facet of the same tier, along with its first mutation.

This way, you don't have a noob trap of delaying mutations. You also aren't turning Ds into a "choose your own mutations" species - but you can at least let people avoid getting Spiny on their ranged caster.

Somehow people have really different perceptions of Ds mutations from me. I'm delighted to get Spiny on a caster background early. Casters end up meleeing things (that are resistant to their element, or that managed to get into their face or w/e). And they're notably BAD at it, and need help. And Spiny just carries your early game so hard.

[Siegurt]

Somehow people have really different perceptions of Ds mutations from me. I'm delighted to get Spiny on a caster background early. Casters end up meleeing things (that are resistant to their element, or that managed to get into their face or w/e). And they're notably BAD at it, and need help. And Spiny just carries your early game so hard.

(FWIW they also end up casting spells at point blank range a lot, spiny can be viewed as "stuff that's at melee range just dies faster than it would without this mutation" which is a pretty good thing to have on a caster, because if something's at melee range, you want it to die as fast as possible)

[Shard1697]

isn't literally the whole point of ds that you get mutations at random? why should the player have more control over them? if you want more control over your species traits, you can play literally every other species besides draconian

[Nekoatl]

My proposal would not change the fact that you'd get mutations at random, and I outlined the reasons for it in my OP.

[Shard1697]

But it would, because it would make it a lot less random if you can veto things. You are supposed to adapt to the mutations you get, not the other way around.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

There is something fun about building a character bit by bit. I wonder if this issue could be solved by having another species that gets a selectable mutation every level...

That species would have to grow it's armor slots. It can't wear anything in the beginning. It could also grow extra arms for more rings, claws, scales, resistances etc. At lvl 27 occasionally a mutation can be swapped out.