What is the viability of a no-reading race?

[XuaXua]

With all the talk about Mummies and their lack of ability to drink potions, I thought about how much tougher a race that couldn't read must be.

I know many successfully WIN with existing races without casting any spells, but do they also not use scrolls?

I would like to know the viability of building a "blurry eyes 4" type of race (without the trap-detection penalties).
Is this something that could work out as a balanced race, or am I just asking for a species of Trog-worshipers?

There would be no scroll use and no spellbook use. Spellcasting would be near-to-nonexistent.
I would assume spells (and for that matter, only Conjurations!) could only be learned if one was following Vehumet under the most recent rules.
Otherwise, starting spellcasters would be assumed to have been taught their first spell, and drop a paper brick.
There could possibly be one or two braile artefact spellbooks, but otherwise no other spellcasting resources.

At best, we'd need to provide some sort of "Spell Shop" where you would spend gold not to purchase books, but to be taught spells.

I'm not certain what we would have to do to compensate this type of race, but I'd suspect a +5 Evocables might be in order

[Sar]

Being locked out of scrolls of ID and enchant foo would be quite annoying.

[tasonir]

If you're looking for the other side of mummies, just make it a no scroll race. There's no reason to include spellbooks in it. If you want an explanation, the explanation is it's magic.

Not being able to ID would be annoying, and you'd lose powerful strategic options like enchant scrolls and recharging. No scrolls of blinking, fear and teleport reduce your escape options considerably as well. It'd still be possible, certainly. Personally I think I'd miss enchant armor/recharging the most, but that's something I'd say until I'm next to dangerous mobs with 10 hp and could easily save myself with blinking.

[dck]

Scrolls and spells are pretty much polar opposites so there would be no reasons for the limitation to include both.
"A mummy comes into view" sounds like a good enough reason why noscrolls doesn't sound great overall though.

[XuaXua]

Scrolls and spells are pretty much polar opposites so there would be no reasons for the limitation to include both.

It's a "no reading" race, not a "no scrolls" race. I just realized that includes manuals. :-/

"A mummy comes into view" sounds like a good enough reason why noscrolls doesn't sound great overall though.

Not being able to ID would be annoying, and you'd lose powerful strategic options like enchant scrolls and recharging.

I was OK without the escape consumables, since potions could still counter that, and even the enchanting foo (because luck and artefacts), but being unable to uncurse equipment or recharge wands or upgrade wants... this is looking less and less viable unless you're a Deep Dwarf of TSO, perhaps.

Considering that, I'm starting to think this would end up being applied to some sort of golem race, which was not what I had in mind when I initially started this train of thought.

[tasonir]

It could be worked out, but you'd have to special case several things to get around not being able to use scrolls. Everything auto ID's, or they have an ID ability that costs something, they're immune to curses or have a remove curse ability, etc. Some of these aren't strictly necessary, but not having a way to forget spells other than book destruction could be somewhat limited. Could be worked around. Not being able to use dragon armor (at least from hides) or enchant metal armors is a huge nerf, and makes them very luck dependant. You either have a terrible +1 leather armor of rF all game long, or you lucked into a +7 chainmail randart with multiple properties.

Another way to go about it would be to block any tactical scrolls and still let them use id, remove curse, enchant, etc out of combat.

[XuaXua]

It could be worked out, but you'd have to special case several things to get around not being able to use scrolls. Everything auto ID's, or they have an ID ability that costs something, they're immune to curses or have a remove curse ability, etc. Some of these aren't strictly necessary, but not having a way to forget spells other than book destruction could be somewhat limited. Could be worked around. Not being able to use dragon armor (at least from hides) or enchant metal armors is a huge nerf, and makes them very luck dependant. You either have a terrible +1 leather armor of rF all game long, or you lucked into a +7 chainmail randart with multiple properties.

Another way to go about it would be to block any tactical scrolls and still let them use id, remove curse, enchant, etc out of combat.

Pretty much everything auto-id's in trunk at this point. I just played a very long trunk game and I only used my 25 ID scrolls on things so I wouldn't have to use any of my 25 remove curse scrolls.

I guess this character locks out Ashenzari, and forgetting spells (if any could be learned) would be, at worst, Sif-only. And we just had an entire thread devoted to people denouncing the "requirement" of "having" to have dragon armours, so I have to dismiss that one. This smells more and more like a golem/mechanical being.

[tasonir]

A golem/mechanical being would be useful for explaining the divide between spellbooks/scrolls: they were taught/programmed how to read spellbooks but never were for scrolls.

[duvessa]

Potions mostly just make the game easier so it is reasonable (if extremely crippling) to prevent a species from using them. Scrolls, on the other hand, make the game playable.

[TheArcanist]

Being locked out of scrolls of ID and enchant foo would be quite annoying.

Not to mention remove curse. Getting careless or unlucky and wielding a cursed piece of gear would be absolutely crippling.

EDIT: If they had some intrinsic ability to handle curses, I'd actually be okay with the idea behind the species. A forced pseudo-silence conduct is an interesting one, imo. They'd need to get something big in exchange, though - ideally something that would help make up for the lack of ID and enchant foo scrolls.

Perhaps they can eventually read scrolls, but only after a certain XP level(say, 13) and at a very serious cost - permanently sacrificing max HP to do so. This way they can still have the benefit of !Acquirement to get the wands they'll very, very definitely need to survive, or even use !Tele in an extreme emergency.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

Cursed equipment breaks on equip.

[Klown]

Cursed equipment breaks on equip.

This would be pretty cool in general.

[crate]

Cursed equipment breaks on equip.

This would be pretty cool in general.

It's functionally the same as not generating that equipment in the first place, isn't it?

[tasonir]

Cursed equipment breaks on equip.

This would be pretty cool in general.

It's functionally the same as not generating that equipment in the first place, isn't it?

But without breaking the weak, pathetic heart of the player with the possibility of what could have been each and every time.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

breaking the weak, pathetic heart of the player with the possibility of what could have been each and every time.

That is what i aimed for.

[Lasty]

I tried this idea with Iashol's Sacrifice Words, and quickly realized that it doesn't work at all. I ended up instead having the sac words/drink conducts apply a status that blocks reading/drinking when taking damage, which means blocking tactical use, which can be actually interesting. For one thing it means you want to use your potions/escape measures earlier in case you lose the ability to do so later.

[partial]

if they can't read then they won't have any spells that need to be forgotten (:

[Siegurt]

What if they were just *really slow* readers, like 10 turns to read a scroll, +10 turns to memorize a spell etc. that would lock them out of using tactical effects from scrolls in combat, but would let through strategic effects in a reasonable way.

[XuaXua]

if they can't read then they won't have any spells that need to be forgotten (:

You can get spells through Vehumet.

[XuaXua]

What if they were just *really slow* readers, like 10 turns to read a scroll, +10 turns to memorize a spell etc. that would lock them out of using tactical effects from scrolls in combat, but would let through strategic effects in a reasonable way.

This could work. Heck, it could even be a mutation, "Slow Comprehension". Granted, that's pretty much what "Blurry Eyes" is, but it's less of a crap-shoot. With Blurry, at least you have a chance of using a scroll during combat.

[nagdon]

I think the really slow reader suggestion would be interesting, I would try it out on a race.

[TheArcanist]

Slow reading sounds like a way to implement the spirit of a no-reading conduct without making the character virtually unplayable. !tele and !blink are the most reliable and readily available ways for a number of builds to escape a dangerous combat, and ramping up the time it takes to read either scroll would impose an interesting drawback(you'll have to play especially carefully without those two get-out-of-jail-free scrolls) while still granting access to the strategic scrolls that make the game playable.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like it. Losing the ability to read !fog on the fly means characters will need to be played especially carefully in situations where LoS are more important than usual, !silence and !holy word are essentially useless without some seriously careful preparation, and so forth. The only question is what this species would be given in exchange for this drawback - possibly a tactical repositioning ability, like intrinsic blinking?

[XuaXua]

!holy word are essentially useless without some seriously careful preparation, and so forth.

At the threat of derailing my own thread, I just read two holy word scrolls in Mara's face and nothing.

[Bim]

Having no scrolls would remove a lot of the game in general. It'd be playable with a method of uncursing/cursing stuff (which could be built into the race itself) and could be quite interesting if there were lots of positives to weigh it out. For instance they could have high tloc capabilities and spellcasting for escape, and a few other things to help them stay alive.

It'd be good, but I rather feel it'd be a tricky balancing act to pull off

[XuaXua]

Having no scrolls would remove a lot of the game in general. It'd be playable with a method of uncursing/cursing stuff (which could be built into the race itself) and could be quite interesting if there were lots of positives to weigh it out. For instance they could have high tloc capabilities and spellcasting for escape, and a few other things to help them stay alive.

It'd be good, but I rather feel it'd be a tricky balancing act to pull off

Well, it wasn't like Lava Orcs didn't have the inability to read scrolls during high heat. Granted, they had an innate defense during the no-scroll-reading time, and I don't think they were removed because they couldn't read scrolls....

[crate]

Lava orcs could read scrolls...........

[XuaXua]

Lava orcs could read scrolls...........

Could because they used to exist or could because they could when not under fire? When they were under fire, which was generally the time for a good utility escape scroll, they couldn't, and on observation of most of this thread, other than "not being able to read spellbooks" as the stand-out "bad thing", the secondary "bad thing" was not being able to use scrolls effectively in combat situations.

[Bim]

I think the problem is more the not being able to use scrolls ever. Never being able to uncurse, recharge, ident, enchant or amnesia makes things difficult in a lot of ways and not being able to use escape scrolls would hamper them even more. Even lava orcs could sometimes get a teleport off if they ran away/did it before the tension built up, and they could do all the rest to their hearts content.

I don't think it's an intrinsically bad idea, just that you'd need a lot of balance to make it worthwhile.

[dck]

In practice LO scroll restriction really only kicked in when you were deep into the fight.

[Lasty]

The devs were kicking around a "slow reading" version of blurry vision, but it has a problem: after reading teleport, the timer starts counting down immediately. The game structure has players move, then increments the game timer, then handles everything that happens in between, like teleport going off and monsters acting, for the amount of time that passed during the player turn. However, that structure means that a player who took 10 turns to read a scroll of teleport would effectively teleport instantly and then give monsters 10 turns to react at the new location. In some ways it would be a massive buff to teleporting out of dangerous situations.

A more interesting implementation might be "you cannot read/drink if a monster is in sight," but then you get weird situations with invisible monsters.

[TeshiAlair]

Here's a somewhat silly idea: Make them Papervores. They activate scrolls by eating them, but get too enthusiastic: Reading a scroll forces you to to use all of the scrolls in that stack. Reading a spellbook is fine, but memorizing a spell consumes the book.

[HenryFlower]

Another idea on the same line: a species with silence as a random ability with permanent silence for the player.Gives an interesting tactical tradeoff: No EW/EA, no ability to use many god powers. Couple with detect the cursed/uncursed status of items.

Alternately: a god with a vow of silence and a silence field as a perm-ability. Not sure how to balance (would seem to be an obvious choice for an extended run after you have your kit).

[Pereza0]

Slow reading sounds like a way to implement the spirit of a no-reading conduct without making the character virtually unplayable. !tele and !blink are the most reliable and readily available ways for a number of builds to escape a dangerous combat, and ramping up the time it takes to read either scroll would impose an interesting drawback(you'll have to play especially carefully without those two get-out-of-jail-free scrolls) while still granting access to the strategic scrolls that make the game playable.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like it. Losing the ability to read !fog on the fly means characters will need to be played especially carefully in situations where LoS are more important than usual, !silence and !holy word are essentially useless without some seriously careful preparation, and so forth. The only question is what this species would be given in exchange for this drawback - possibly a tactical repositioning ability, like intrinsic blinking?

I also like this idea, maybe they could get a slight bonus to speed or an ability that makes them backstep when they get attacked (say, you use the ability, if you get attacked in the enemie's turn there is a chance that you will dodge it and then step away from it, then your turn starts so you just gained a one tile distance advantage. Repeated uses decrease its chances of success, which recovers with experience).

[TheDefiniteArticle]

No-scroll race is really bad and boring because all useful scrolls are either Scroll of Basic Housekeeping or Scroll of Life-Saving. Also Scroll of Generate More Potions of Haste.

The devs were kicking around a "slow reading" version of blurry vision, but it has a problem: after reading teleport, the timer starts counting down immediately. The game structure has players move, then increments the game timer, then handles everything that happens in between, like teleport going off and monsters acting, for the amount of time that passed during the player turn. However, that structure means that a player who took 10 turns to read a scroll of teleport would effectively teleport instantly and then give monsters 10 turns to react at the new location. In some ways it would be a massive buff to teleporting out of dangerous situations.

Uh...what? The solution to that particular problem is breathtakingly obvious.

[Lasty]

Uh...what? The solution to that particular problem is breathtakingly obvious.

Apparently it's not as easy to implement as it is to imagine. Also, it's possible that I've misstated the details of the issue.

[Siegurt]

The devs were kicking around a "slow reading" version of blurry vision, but it has a problem: after reading teleport, the timer starts counting down immediately. The game structure has players move, then increments the game timer, then handles everything that happens in between, like teleport going off and monsters acting, for the amount of time that passed during the player turn. However, that structure means that a player who took 10 turns to read a scroll of teleport would effectively teleport instantly and then give monsters 10 turns to react at the new location. In some ways it would be a massive buff to teleporting out of dangerous situations.

That's just a bad implementation (the structure under the hood for the way turns work does make that the "easy" implementation though, so I can see why someone would go that way)

A "slow reading" race should work similarly to wearing/removing armour works, it takes many turns, can be interrupted, and doesn't actually do anything until you finish. (e.x. you start the tele counter *after* you finish the 10 turns of reading and you have X turns of "normal" action at that point.)

[Siegurt]

Uh...what? The solution to that particular problem is breathtakingly obvious.

Apparently it's not as easy to implement as it is to imagine. Also, it's possible that I've misstated the details of the issue.

And yes, it's much harder to implement (That doesn't mean it's not the right way to implement it though

[TheArcanist]

Here's a somewhat silly idea: Make them Papervores. They activate scrolls by eating them, but get too enthusiastic: Reading a scroll forces you to to use all of the scrolls in that stack. Reading a spellbook is fine, but memorizing a spell consumes the book.

It'd be pretty easy to game that system, though - just drop all but one of a stack before you read it. (this also means that you'd have to go through the whole interface bumfuckery of dropping scrolls every time you wanted to read one and then picking them up again afterwards - no bueno!)

[jejorda2]

Here's a somewhat silly idea: Make them Papervores. They activate scrolls by eating them, but get too enthusiastic: Reading a scroll forces you to to use all of the scrolls in that stack. Reading a spellbook is fine, but memorizing a spell consumes the book.

It'd be pretty easy to game that system, though - just drop all but one of a stack before you read it. (this also means that you'd have to go through the whole interface bumfuckery of dropping scrolls every time you wanted to read one and then picking them up again afterwards - no bueno!)

We can just get rid of autopickup settings and the ability to pick up and drop part of a stack. If you have one consumable in inventory, is there any reason not to have all of that type in the game in your inventory now that there is no weight or destruction? Maybe sacrificing part of an ammo stack to Ely, but that's not terribly useful?

[and into]

Intentionally not picking stuff up, and then returning to it later, would be bad. Changing autopickup for everyone (or even just for one particular species) to avoid that problem would be really bad, also.

The better way to go with something like that might be that once you use a particular consumable, you cannot use the same consumable for some length of time. Unfortunately this would be weird to implement, as you'd have to make ?identify and other strategic consumables exempt from this somehow, which seems like it would be clunky/awkward.

______

In general, a species with reading restrictions could work. But this thread exemplifies some of the reasons why it is difficult to put into practice: 1.) Some aspects of how reading is handled "under the hood" (technical issue); 2.) the fact that scrolls provide very different types of effects that cover lots of necessary strategic and tactical ground (design issue).

Basically, you gotta come up with something smooth, elegant, and reasonably easy/intuitive to explain, which provides a meaningful tactical restriction in terms of scroll usage, without also making the strategic effects of scrolls unnecessarily annoying. It is possible, but not easy.

[nilsbloodaxe]

Here's a somewhat silly idea: Make them Papervores. They activate scrolls by eating them, but get too enthusiastic: Reading a scroll forces you to to use all of the scrolls in that stack. Reading a spellbook is fine, but memorizing a spell consumes the book.

It'd be pretty easy to game that system, though - just drop all but one of a stack before you read it. (this also means that you'd have to go through the whole interface bumfuckery of dropping scrolls every time you wanted to read one and then picking them up again afterwards - no bueno!)

We can just get rid of autopickup settings and the ability to pick up and drop part of a stack. If you have one consumable in inventory, is there any reason not to have all of that type in the game in your inventory now that there is no weight or destruction? Maybe sacrificing part of an ammo stack to Ely, but that's not terribly useful?

I don't know how I feel about this potential race, but it is interesting that with no weight and item destruction, you are right, you don't need to be able to drop certain numbers of an item (I don't see why you would have to change autopickup though).

[TeshiAlair]

Also, Ash.

[MiraclePrism]

Cursed equipment breaks on equip.

This would be pretty cool in general.

It's functionally the same as not generating that equipment in the first place, isn't it?

Not necessarily. An orc warlord with a cursed -2 bardiche would be only slightly less effective at smacking you around than a warlord with a +0 bardiche, but the former doesn't give you a potentially useful weapon.

[Patashu]

The devs were kicking around a "slow reading" version of blurry vision, but it has a problem: after reading teleport, the timer starts counting down immediately. The game structure has players move, then increments the game timer, then handles everything that happens in between, like teleport going off and monsters acting, for the amount of time that passed during the player turn. However, that structure means that a player who took 10 turns to read a scroll of teleport would effectively teleport instantly and then give monsters 10 turns to react at the new location. In some ways it would be a massive buff to teleporting out of dangerous situations.

A more interesting implementation might be "you cannot read/drink if a monster is in sight," but then you get weird situations with invisible monsters.

Why not implement 'slow reading' as a delay (eating, disrobing, memorizing, etc) that is uninterruptable, and the scroll read effect happens at the end of it? Or is this not viable because of ___ ?

[bcadren]

I proposed this before. It was my iteration of 'salamander'.

(Really) Short Version:
No scrolls; {some} PermaHP to destroy any non-artifact item [intended to destroy cursed equipment]; -1 PermaMP to remove all curses and enchant 1 item at much as an altar prayer; rF+++, lava walking.

[ackack]

I have a won a game where I never used scrolls. Comments to the effect of it being unpleasant and not fit for popular consumption are accurate.

[Kersallus]

I was thinking of a race with Rapid Evolution as a permanent ability, but couldn't think of something to balance them out.

Mutalites (Mue-ta-lights) are Humanoids born through magical experiments gone wrong. (or right) Some call them the children of Jiyva, the insane slime god, because of their unstable genetics, and are often shunned because of their frighteningly rapid changes in appearance. Mutalites are born with no eyes, and cannot read any scrolls. (magical books and manuals have a half chance to generate with "braille" allowing them to be readable for Mutalites) ((Open to change, I feel like Mutalites should be able to play magical classes because there are a large amount of spell modification mutations that may affect them adversely, keeping them in check)) However Mutalites can still detect the environment around them normally albeit at a shorter range. Mutilates enter the dungeon with the Rapid Evolution intristic as a race modifier, but can only evolve at a pace relative to their gained experience.

Innate Abilites-
Mutalites are considered chaotic creatures. They cannot worship Zin, though Elyvilon, or The Shining One will still accept them. They have vulnerability to Holy/Silver damage.
Mutalites detect their environment with the use of hearing,an have -1LOS.
Mutalites are incapable of reading scrolls, and books and manuals have a half chance of being indiscernible for them.

Mutalites have a base Strength of 12, Intelligence of 7 and Dexterity of 7 (before Background modifiers).
----
Preffered Backgrounds
Warrior Mage: Transmuter
Zealots: Beserker, Abyssal Knight, Death Knight
Mage: Wizard, Fire Elementalist, Ice Elementalist,
----
|APTS|
Mutalisks Have high physical endurance that matches their evolutionary nature, And have good passive combat abilities and passable weapon skills.they also have a good spellcasting and transmutation aptitude, although they are clumsy with other magics, and particularly evocations (hard to read when you're blind)


Experience growth is up in he air.

[Greyr]

I think this is interesting.

What if the species was "blind"? Braille reading could be a possible explanation for slow scroll reading as opposed to "you're just dumb and can't comprehend so good". Also, maybe a level of night stalker or something that actually makes not being able to use panic scrolls worth while?

Also, mutelites (or whatever) are essentially shitty demonspawn.

[Zalbag]

The slow-reading idea sounds good to me, because you can still remove curse/ID/enchant stuff but it greatly hampers scroll panic buttons like fog, blink, tele AND it lessens the use of other combat useful scrolls like summoning and holy word.
I was thinking of an illiterate ape race that could only read scrolls if they had high enough Int, and had a blurry-vision like fail % based on Int. Then add the reading-speed affect in. So say, a really smart ape can read scrolls normal, but dumb ones have a fail % and it takes five times as long. The race would have to start with low Int, so fighters would be pretty much scroll-less in combat unless they pumped Int, while mages could use scrolls reliably for the most part, but would still play differently than existing mages, because of how they learn spells.

Instead of memorizing spells through books they would learn spells on a "monkey see, monkey do" basis. Even with high Int, books would be useless. (spellbooks are far more complicated to read than scrolls..?) Also, yes, the disadvantage of manuals being useless would exist.
So almost like a Blue Mage in Final Fantasy, if a monkey PC sees a monster cast a spell, the PC has a % to have the option to learn that spell, based on on Int and Spellcasting skill. It would be an interesting way to learn spells, because some spells are rarely or never cast by monsters. If the monkey race had widely varied spellcasting attributes, that could change things, too. They could still learn spells from Veh, but ideally would have bad conjuration aptitude. They could also have bad aptitudes for Invo and Evo, since there are few races that have penalties there. They would have to rely mostly on MAGIC for magic.

examples
man, it's easy to learn magic dart and throw flame, but my "snow monkey" has horrible fire, and conjuring attributes!
Can't kill this orc wizard until he goes invis or tries to confuse me I have great hex attributes and need some spells

powerful spells would be hard to get w/o Vehumet, for example the only way to get glaciate would be Lom Lobon, a player ghost, or Vehumet. Player ghosts of mages would be a treasure in addition to a risk. It also might be possible to learn monster spells that are otherwise unlearn-able by PCs, like Steam Ball (though that fixes no fog scroll), Awaken Forest, or certain summons However, I can see the logic of monster-only spells being only for monsters, so I don't have a hard opinion on PC's learning oddball spells.

[Sandman25]

No reading character is quite possible, I tried it.
Basic comments:
1) no remove curse means the safest approach is to buy all armour/jewelry in shops. Probably an ability like "uncurse all armour for permanent HP" and "uncurse all jewelry for permanent MP" could be useful otherwise it's too hard to get good gear
2) no teleport means the specie should be fast or should have an intrinsic ability to blink randomly
3) no enchant weapon/armour means it should be a primarily magic user
4) no identify means you would need luck to avoid bad mutations from potion of mutation and wasting of first cure mutation

Edit. 5) My trove asked for an enchanted demon weapon, it made me violate my conduct. The same problem can happen if trove asks for some dragon armour.