Species Proposal: Golems

[archaeo]

I've been knocking this idea around for awhile in tileschat: Golems, an evocations-focused species that gives up spellcasting in favor of increased use of the various magical devices in the game. Here's the current version:

• Medium sized, XP apt -1, and have +10% HP. Golems have EP instead of an HP meter.
• High Str, high Int, and low Dex. 4/SI, MR modifier=8 (1 higher than Sp).
• rPois, rRot, unbreathing. Metallic Scales 1, which upgrade to 2 at lvl 6 and 3 at lvl 12. Like gray Dr, amphibious. Stlth-. Slow Metabolism 2.
• Equipped with clockwork brains, Golems cannot learn or use spells. However, as sentient magical devices, they are highly skilled at evocations. An Int-based bonus is added to all evocable powers and success rates. Golems use enhancer staves as if their evo skill was the appropriate spell school skill, but may not use any form of channeling.
• Ability: Internal Power. For an EP cost, golems may evoke a magical device without using a charge. These costs begin extremely steep but go down somewhat at high evocations, though high level items will always have very high costs. Causes Int-based hunger.
• Aptitudes to be decided, but likely fairly flat-to-low melee and ranged skills (with a bonus for staves), good armor and shields but crap dodging, great evocations but lousy invocations and lousy stealth. They can't train any spellcasting skills.
• Because of their artificial nature, golems are charged 50% more piety for god abilities. Veh, Sif, Kiku, and Beogh refuse Golems' worship. All MP costs are assessed as an EP cost. Because their clockwork brains are incapable of anger, they may not Berserk.

Obviously, some of the individual parts of this proposal are iffy; a dev has already commented on the fact that EP is mostly cosmetic flavor here, for example, and I see a few others, such as very Gr-like resistances and a kludgy way of discouraging obvious Trog worship. But I think it's a good platform for discussing a species focused on evocations, a cool niche that the game only partially fills via Nemelex.

[Psiweapon]

Sounds awesome (I love evocations)

Yreddie and Fedhas wouldn't want them either probably.

[archaeo]

Fedhas accepts Gr worship, so I figured it'd be fine. I originally had Yred banned, but removing magic already removes so many gods that it seems a shame to lose another one because of a weird chunk of flavor; I'd handwave it as Golems containing enough organic parts that Yred is happy to accept them.

[Klown]

I can just picture some machine-like golem running around shaking the stone of tremors and wreaking havoc on the citizens of the dungeon.

I always want to try out most of the species proposals here, same for this one.

Only complaint, which you already acknowledged, is Trog. With the few 'go away' gods who dislike the lack of spellcasting, and the increased piety costs(sucks for those with already high costs...omg cheibriados, use slouch once and go from ***** to *** ...slight exaggeration)
No magic + piety stuff = Trogitis. Not that I'd complain, since I like Trog, but yeah.

[Psiweapon]

Sure, what do I know, I can't really fathom the way you deep crawlers wrap your heads around fluff, I see things from a different perspective I guess.

Disabling Kiku makes sense since the demon-god is a spellcasting god... Yred isn't, that is true. And another note: Saying that I didn't see Fedhas taking golems in, doesn't mean that I wouldn't love playing one, not at all:

Spoiler: show

:_)

EP isn't purely cosmetic as far as Evocations would actually boost the Golems' HP. Also, there are a lot of evokable and granted abilities that use MP.

Suggestions:

-The EP cost of different evocations must be carefully assessed since there are a ton of different evocations. I also don't think this should work on decks, but whatever, see the start of the comment.

-Why not make them large? I think that would go better with the aptitudes you're throwing around. Large and clunky, rather than slender and refined.

-I think the piety penalty on top of spellcasting negation is a bit overkill. Maybe harnessing the kilothaums needed to produce artificial magical sentience disrupts spellcasting, but besides spellcasting gods shunning them, I think other gods should be able to interact with them full-blown. They have racial -Cast already, let them take shelter in faith.

[DracheReborn]

[list]
[*]Ability: Internal Power. For an EP cost, golems may evoke a magical device without using a charge. These costs begin extremely steep but go down somewhat at high evocations, though high level items will always have very high costs. Causes Int-based hunger.

I like this idea, but I think it needs more downsides. Wands do all sorts of things (conjurations/hex + big 3 of haste/heal/teleport) and this race gets to use these indefinitely. In fact, I think the big 3 wands should be barred from this mechanic.

Regarding Gr-like resistances, well if they're organic enough for Yred, then maybe they're more the flesh golem sort. No need to tack on scales or rPois/rRot or even unbreathing. Some rTorment might make sense though.

I don't see why spells should be barred at all. Would be more interesting to choose on whether to use EP/MP for wands or for spells.

[Psiweapon]

Psssst... Hey...

forgolems.PNG (1.18 KiB) Viewed 5427 times

Edit: Now with actual transparency.

forgolems_t.PNG (1.19 KiB) Viewed 5319 times

[archaeo]

I don't want to monopolize discussion, but:

I like this idea, but I think it needs more downsides. Wands do all sorts of things (conjurations/hex + big 3 of haste/heal/teleport) and this race gets to use these indefinitely. In fact, I think the big 3 wands should be barred from this mechanic.

I thought including a provisional list of EP costs would make the proposal too cluttered and would be subject to big balance changes anyway, but the downside should be very big EP costs, especially for elemental evokers, rods, and the "big 3" wands. Or, you could peg it to some percentage of max EP, such that you could spam small wands for some time but tele or haste would knock off 50% EP and HW would only provide a tiny, tiny average net EP gain over a period of turns at extremely high Evo, if ever.

The point being that, if you get the EP economy right, there wouldn't be a need for a huge downside beyond hunger and casting from EP.

[gammafunk]

a dev has already commented

DANG

Sorry, wanted that to be my first utterance as a dungeon master. Regarding the proposal, I think for the charge ability you might consider tying any EP cost reduction to XL rather than evocations skill. Other species' special abilities are tied to XL, regardless of whether it's success rate or the mutation level. If you look at Sp and stealth for instance, they have a great stealth apt and are a "stealth species", but nothing about their abilities is tied to stealth skill in a way that's different from other species. Not to say this is a hard and fast rule, but if you're going to break that precedent, there should probably be a reason over than theme. If you want to go the route of tying their abilities to a skill level, one (perhaps crazy) idea is to simply have their evocations skill *be* their XL (thematically they are "upgrading"). Not having to sink any XP cost into evocations certainly creates its own issues, but if you add some further downsides it's a possibility to keep in mind.

As was mentioned, you'd probably have to disallow /hw from the use-without-charge ability entirely. Even if the EP cost of /hw use eats into the wand's heal, you'd have a new (and annoying) source of regen. Another issue would be how do mp-draining enemies effect them; Dj got -Mag I think? Even so, that'd have to be something like -Evo, or they could just be immune to these enemies I suppose. Also, does anti-magic have any special effect on them? I personally don't like the special piety cost for active abilities since it's likely to make players overly avoid using higher-tier active abilities in order to prevent 1) losing them (hard to be sure) and 2) affecting their passive abilities that depend a lot on piety. I think having an invocations apt lower than any other species would be a better route.

[1010011010]

Kiku and Veh shoud allow worship, they still offer pain brand and MP on kills. Neither explicitly states they hate magicless beings. Gods disallowing worship has been (almost) entierly due to flavour reasons not because it's a bad combo.

[DracheReborn]

The point being that, if you get the EP economy right, there wouldn't be a need for a huge downside beyond hunger and casting from EP.

I suppose you could argue that current spellcasting also works just balanced around MP and hunger, but I would point out that spellcasting also has other limitations, namely spell slots and needing to train several different spell schools. With MP/EP-powered wands, it's like you get infinite spell slots + multiple spell school training for free, just from training Evo. Sure one downside is that you'll hit the wand power cap a lot earlier, but until then it's basically a free ride through the dungeon. Have you ever played an artificer? Those guys basically coast through the dungeon until the wand charges run out, but with this species the charges never run out.

And that raises another point. Practically every character of this species is going to be played as an artificer. Wands to carry you early while building up melee, eventually be a melee powerhouse with evokable support. Seems to me that you'd need to find a way to give it a broader application.

I don't know how married you are to the EP idea, but if you are willing to go back to standard HP/MP, here is my suggestion for a downside: no natural MP regeneration. The MP pool can be used to cast spells as normal, or to power wands. Wands can also be used in reverse, i.e. wand charges can be drained to restore MP. So a character can choose to be a caster powered by wands as fuel, or a non-casting type who uses MP for wands. The species also gets a kind of innate Sub. Blood passive ability, where some fraction of damage gets converted to MP (flavored as energy absorption). Divine MP regen works (Sif, Veh) as well as items (crystall ball, staff of energy). This I think would be an interesting core mechanic, and the other stuff (aptitudes, resists, etc) can be governed by flavor.

[pubby]

I like the evocations abilities, although I think the details will need to be worked out more fully. I'm not 100% convinced that EP is the best way of going about this, but I still like it.

Ability: Internal Power. For an EP cost, golems may evoke a magical device without using a charge. These costs begin extremely steep but go down somewhat at high evocations, though high level items will always have very high costs. Causes Int-based hunger.

How does this work with heal wounds wand?

Also, I'd suggest to not call them golems, as that may imply things that they won't have, such as rTorment and no hunger. The clockwork mind has good flavour though so keep that.

[nagdon]

I feel that no spellcasting is too restricitive for a species (only felids have this much unavailable skills and while weapon skills are relatively similar, magic skills are very different, so this species would have even less skill options than felids). It also steps on the toes of Trog (and may be unbalanced with Trog, as they lose nothing with the no spellcasting conduct).

I don't know how married you are to the EP idea, but if you are willing to go back to standard HP/MP, here is my suggestion for a downside: no natural MP regeneration. The MP pool can be used to cast spells as normal, or to power wands. Wands can also be used in reverse, i.e. wand charges can be drained to restore MP. So a character can choose to be a caster powered by wands as fuel, or a non-casting type who uses MP for wands. The species also gets a kind of innate Sub. Blood passive ability, where some fraction of damage gets converted to MP (flavored as energy absorption). Divine MP regen works (Sif, Veh) as well as items (crystall ball, staff of energy). This I think would be an interesting core mechanic, and the other stuff (aptitudes, resists, etc) can be governed by flavor.

No natural MP regen would be a really interesting mechanic, I would definitely want to see a species with this drawback. It also makes "use wands from MP" more balanced. This would make casting strategies harder without simply banning spellcasting.

A minor problem with this suggestion is that the energy absorbtion ability would lead to scummy behaviour (stand next to something not dangerous, let it hit you -> regain mana, escape, regenerate HP, go back if you still need more mana). I would instead give them a very slow XP-dependent mana regen (they don't regenerate MP naturally, but capture small portions of the life essence of their defeated foes).

[Psiweapon]

Okay, maybe this is completely stupid, but why not give them +X% to evokable uses? Something like [(evo+XL)/2]%, or other formula by someone who actually knows about formulas.

Instead of all that EP/MP casting, which sounds incredibly cool but also somewhat fiddly, and after all it amounts to more uses.

+X% to max and current charges in items with charges
+X% to max rod MP
+X% to recharge scroll efficiency (maybe not this since using the scroll is not evo dependant and perhaps too good)
-X% exp needed to recharge an elemental evoker
+X% success to the disc of storms tests
+X% chance to spawn a shadow with lantern of shadows (maybe toned down)
+X% chance to activate other fallible evokable items (maybe toned down)
etc.


No natural MP regen with alternative refill methods instead of racial -Cast sounds pretty cool too.

[DracheReborn]

A minor problem with this suggestion is that the energy absorbtion ability would lead to scummy behaviour (stand next to something not dangerous, let it hit you -> regain mana, escape, regenerate HP, go back if you still need more mana). I would instead give them a very slow XP-dependent mana regen (they don't regenerate MP naturally, but capture small portions of the life essence of their defeated foes).

FWIW, this sort of behavior is already available to say, DD or Vp who park easy enemies in Lair for later use. Maybe XP-based mana regen would work better, but energy absorption is my pet idea which I've been trying to shoehorn into other proposals for a while so I'm not exactly objective on this point

[Lasty]

People have already raised a lot of good concerns and ideas about wands, but I think the provision about enhancer staffs might also be problematic. Since the calculation that determines if the magical effect of the staff triggers would use Evo twice, they would trigger often even with fairly low Evo, and their damage would also be based on Evo, meaning that it wouldn't take much training to get good damage out of any such staff. Further, right now a major limitation of most of the magical melee staves is that they do very little to resistant enemies, and you usually can't just switch between staves to find the right damage type because they're dependent on different skills. With this golem, you only need to train one skill to become amazing with all enhancer staves, and can freely switch between them to find the best damage type for a given target.

The power level of this ability would make it quite reasonable to just train staves to 12, and then never train another weapon skill for the rest of the game. If I'm right about this, most golems would train 12 of one weapon skill, and then never train another weapon or magic skill again for the entire game, leaving all their XP for Evo, Armour, Dodging, fighting and Stealth. These golems would actually train fewer distinct skills than a berserker, and would have a fairly high chance of maxing out all of their used skills during a 3 rune game.

On another topic, if they cannot cast spells then giving them a high int doesn't do anything except protect from stat drain.

[archaeo]

no natural MP regeneration.

This is a solid alternative, especially if racial -Cast is just too much for people to swallow. It admittedly hurts my desire to see dudes Megaman'ing through the D, wands akimbo, but hey.

e: Just as an aside, I was specifically trying to avoid Golems stepping on DD's toes too much, which is why I discarded a lot of ideas dealing with MP/HP regen and "recharging" wands.

How does this work with heal wounds wand?

I guess I should have made a note instead of considering it obvious, but my plan would be to set HW's costs high enough that it wouldn't be desirable to Internally Power the wand, a solution I found more fitting and flavorful than outright banning.

if they cannot cast spells then giving them a high int doesn't do anything except protect from stat drain.

The proposal gives them an Int-based bonus to evocations. The goal was to avoid a Trog-the-Species problem where you could ignore everything but Str. But your point about staves is well taken. Maybe reducing the bonus by pegging the "virtual spell schools" at 1/2 evo? Obviously, this is a problem that goes away with racial -Cast, if people really dislike that idea.

[Siegurt]

What if they were anti-dwarves; No natural MP regneration, but can gain MP by absorbing charges from wands...

[Hirsch I]

nhom nhom, tasty wand.
who would cast spells if the only way to regenerate mana was eating wand charges?

[dpeg]

Hirsch: this is basically only a question of the charges/MP ratio. For example, assume that a wand charge would fully reload your MP -- too strong, eh?

The biggest problem I see is how to make an interface that's not very painful? (Perhaps quivering a wand and automatically using up its charges?)

[and into]

Hirsch: this is basically only a question of the charges/MP ratio. The biggest problem I see is how to make an interface that's not very painful? (Perhaps quivering a wand and automatically using up its charges?)

Maybe the cleanest thing is to allow Golems to consume as many wands as they want, and have those wand charges be translated into a "stored energy" value represented by a number in parentheses next to current MP. This would be much less painful in practice than food on species with gourmand.

Then the only question is how a Golem uses its stored charges to restore mana. This could be through an activated ability that uses some charges to restore mana (perhaps this action should take more than 10 auts?), or it could be automatic via resting—there are different tactical considerations with either approach. You could also allow golems to "hypercharge" their mana supplies up to a certain point, albeit at a higher cost of stored energy—a "hypercharged" golem would have a temporary boost to max mana, which slowly dwindled back down to normal max mana if the excess mana is not used.

In either case one should consider the implications of MP draining effects; alternatively, one could just make golems immune to MP drain.

[archaeo]

Maybe you could just add wands to the "eat" command? If you consume a wand charge, you get back MP as well as some satiation. I can only imagine, however, that this would be kind of a pain to program.

For what it's worth, I was trying for a species that encourages the player to use wands and devices as a primary tactic, and the anti-dwarf idea seems like it would just make players even less likely to use magical devices. "No MP Regen" is probably a good design niche to explore, though, and if this is the springboard for that, so be it!

[Speleothing]

I don't know how married you are to the EP idea, but if you are willing to go back to standard HP/MP, here is my suggestion for a downside: no natural MP regeneration. The MP pool can be used to cast spells as normal, or to power wands. Wands can also be used in reverse, i.e. wand charges can be drained to restore MP. So a character can choose to be a caster powered by wands as fuel, or a non-casting type who uses MP for wands. The species also gets a kind of innate Sub. Blood passive ability, where some fraction of damage gets converted to MP (flavored as energy absorption). Divine MP regen works (Sif, Veh) as well as items (crystall ball, staff of energy). This I think would be an interesting core mechanic, and the other stuff (aptitudes, resists, etc) can be governed by flavor.

No natural MP regen would be a really interesting mechanic, I would definitely want to see a species with this drawback. It also makes "use wands from MP" more balanced. This would make casting strategies harder without simply banning spellcasting.

I was dreaming up species ideas the the other week, and briefly landed upon Alpine Dwarves who did not regenerate MP - ie the total opposite of Deep Dwarves.

[DracheReborn]

The biggest problem I see is how to make an interface that's not very painful? (Perhaps quivering a wand and automatically using up its charges?)

I was thinking this should be passive. Any time your MP buffer is below full, you'd passively leach charges from available wands. This shouldn't affect wand gameplay because you can fire wands from MP anyway.

For what it's worth, I was trying for a species that encourages the player to use wands and devices as a primary tactic, and the anti-dwarf idea seems like it would just make players even less likely to use magical devices. "No MP Regen" is probably a good design niche to explore, though, and if this is the springboard for that, so be it!

I disagree. If you don't intend to cast with this species, you're still getting very good use out of MP! That's a lot more wand charges , etc than what is available to other species. "No MP regen" in my view is just a necessary balancing measure to keep wands from being too powerful.

In fact, I still see the opposite design problem. How do you encourage casting instead of wands on this species when no MP regen is such a hassle. Though I guess setting the MP/wand charge ratio high/low would encourage one and discourage the other.

In either case one should consider the implications of MP draining effects; alternatively, one could just make golems immune to MP drain.

Yes. Things like guardian spirit don't make sense on this species either.