Species: Poltergeist

[TeshiAlair]

Came up with this idea while browsing the Wraith thread, thought it could be fun and had some interesting mechanics.

Poltergeist: An undead spirit capable of interacting with the material world, able to hold weapons and drink potions, but still not fully tangible.

Stats and level bonuses:

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Str: 5
Int: 5
Dex: 8
+1 INT or DEX every 4 levels
Normal HP, MP, exp

Reasoning: I wanted moderately balanced stats because I like being able to play a lot of different playstyles. The reason Str is so high for something semi-incorporeal is that part of their ability to lift/hold things is supernatural in nature.

Abilities:

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Ability: Phase. For two movements, can move through things. (Aka, can move through a one tile thick wall, or one enemy). Walls able to be phased through are indicated, but objects on other side are not revealed. Grants invisibility through duration. Costs high breath.

Reasoning: Crawl is all about positioning, which is why fast races tend to be incredibly strong. This provides another way to position. It is a very short term escape (avoid being pinched between enemies, jump behind a pillar), but also allows for offensive options due to its stab opportunity. The high "breath" cost means that it can be used once in most fights, but only once. If this is considered too strong, I'd considered it having a temp str/dex drain as you need time to fully collect yourself again.

Innate traits:[/b}

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Mutation resistance 3
Floats over water/lava
+rN
+rC
+Stealth
rPois, rRot, rTorment


Reasoning: Fairly standard undead traits, plus a bit of stealth and floating due to ghostliness.

[b]More experimental innate traits:

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Incorporeal:
Armour has -25% AC, encumbrance, and GDR
Shields have -25% SH and penalty
Weapons have -25% base damage and slightly reduced base delay.
Melee attacks do mild cold damage on hit


Reasoning: Holding items causes them to become part of the poltergeist, becoming ghostly and enabling them to follow it through walls. This reduces their physical impact, but also chills enemies on attack.

Aptitudes:

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Fighting: -2
Short Blades: 0
Long Blades: 0
Axes: 0
Maces & Flails: 0
Polearms: 0
Staves: 0
Unarmed Combat: -2

Armour: 0
Dodging: 3
Stealth: 2
Shields: 0

Throwing: 3
Slings: -1
Bows: -1
Crossbows: -1

Spellcasting: -1
Conjurations: -2
Hexes: 3
Charms: -2
Summonings: 1
Necromancy: 1
Translocations: -2
Transmutation: -2
Invocations: 1
Evocations: 1

Fire Magic: 1
Ice Magic: 1
Air Magic: 1
Earth Magic: 1
Poison Magic: 0

Reasoning: Because of their unique interaction with items, weapons and armour don't pose a problem (outside of the earlier innate weirdness). However, they struggle with general fighting and unarmed combat due to their insubstantial nature. Their stealth is only +2 because creatures feel a chill and feel a draft when they come near.

Throwing is +3 because poltergeist.

They excel at hexing enemies and are generally good at elemental magic, however anything requiring altering themselves in any way, whether that be enchanting, morphing, or teleporting, is tricky for them.

So, thoughts? I don't think there is anything extremely radical here, but their abilities and mutations provide their own set of challenges I feel, good use of phasing will be really rewarding, but it isn't spammable. I feel like their early game is on the strong side due to their undeadness and decent base stats, but their midgame will be tricky due to equipment.

[DracheReborn]

I thought this idea was inspired by this

Phasing seems to be the defining characteristic of this species proposal, but isn't it very similar to Shadow Form? Well, Shadow Form + Passwall.

[TeshiAlair]

Huh I don't know if I saw that thread actually.

I feel they are quite different. Shadow Form gives longer term invis and a damage reduction and fog, in exchange for being much weaker. This is far more of a positioning/escape tool with the plus of likely getting a free stab. Shadow Form is very much a transformation to a different style of play, this is more of a tool. And while it has pieces of other things, Passwall being the most obvious, I think its use cases are pretty different.

[DracheReborn]

Ok. TBH I haven't played with Shadow Form at all, so can't say much beyond the similarity that struck me.

[Lasty]

It does seem like this is a passwall stabber race, which might be a bit too niche. They even have an easier time getting a buckler of {ego} penalty down and get bonus damage/faster attack that stack well w/ short blades that already get most of their damage from brand/slaying. We already have a lot of races that fit into this niche, but most of them don't do it in such a large number of specific ways.

Other than that, they've got strong stats and aptitudes (+0 and +1 to most things, only negatives to two or three meaningful skills, Fighting and Charms and maybe Translocations) and a large number of bonus resistances. Overall, they seem quite strong, as in "pretty much just better than human in most ways".

[TeshiAlair]

Hmm. Yeah, upon looking again, I'd probably cut the majority of aptitudes down by one, probably the elementals and the weapons skills. I also want to cut Stealth by one actually- they have a great stabber technique, but since stabbing scales on stealth, I want that to still feel like an option and not like the "best option." Might cut the cold damage as well, that's gonna be very strong early game.

I think that phasing has to be noisy enough that it's not as good as passwall for stabbers. So, if you phase through an enemy and stab them, it will work more due to the invis than anything else. However, if you passwall and there is more than one enemy on the other side, you're only going to have the one stab before you pop out of invisibility.

[Klown]

It does seem like this is a passwall stabber race, which might be a bit too niche.

Does that really matter? We have mummies who literally get necromancy boosts. :p

[Lasty]

Mummies have one ability that boosts necromancy, others that penalize necromancy (can't cast regen/DD/bjorg), and necromancy is broadly useful to everyone. That's not really niche at all. This species has multiple benefits that most strongly benefit stabbing builds:

* Aptitudes (Throwing for needlestabbing, Hexes, Stealth)
* Special ability makes attacks faster, adds cold slaying (ideal for short blades)
* Special ability gives invis and passwall
* Shields have reduced penalties and effectiveness, benefiting one-handed weapons and characters using shields for stats instead of for defense.
* Armor all becomes lighter and more EV-focused
* Weapons all become lighter and faster with a penalty to base damage, which most advantages short blades, which already have extremely low base damage and are only effective by virtue of speed * (brand|slaying).

Arguably, almost every aspect of this species is aimed at making stabbing/sb builds effective.

[TeshiAlair]

I guess the question becomes, is having a very stabber friendly race something that is interesting. If not, is the idea of phasing interesting enough that the species should be tweaked to be less incredibly stabber friendly.

FWIW, I think a very hexes-based stabber that sucks at charms is fairly interesting, but that's just me.

[Viashino_wizard]

I guess the question becomes, is having a very stabber friendly race something that is interesting. If not, is the idea of phasing interesting enough that the species should be tweaked to be less incredibly stabber friendly.

FWIW, I think a very hexes-based stabber that sucks at charms is fairly interesting, but that's just me.

Stabbers are already very hexes-based. Sure Blade is the only Charms spell in En's starting spellbook, and it's half Hexes anyway.

[TeshiAlair]

Pondering some more ideas, but out of curiosity- is there a design taboo about species having multiple abilities?

[spudwalt]

From what I've seen, it's not exactly taboo, but people generally prefer simpler species concepts.

[TeshiAlair]

So, right now, I'm feeling the most unique niche this species can fall into is that of an "anti-hybrid"- Someone who can go easily in either direction, but requires enough investment that doing both is difficult. To that end, I'd almost reverse the weapon/armour trait: give them normal effectiveness, but make the encumbrance costs higher/min delay requirement higher so you have to put more investment into fighting. However, the decent aptitudes + undead bonuses would make melee fighters still worth it overall.

I think I like the original design more, I'm just worried it doesn't add enough beyond phasing being neat.

Thoughts?

Also I hope I'm not posting too much in here, its just that this is the first idea I've had that has actual potential.