New Race: Golem


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 08:21

Re: New Race: Golem

dpeg wrote:I like this list a lot! And I am confident this would make an interesting species to try out. The flavour is all there, the one bit missing (or I may just have missed it in the thread) is how to replace the hunger adjectives by more golem-adapted words.

I'm glad you like it. I think it's better for native english speaker to think of adjectives, because I can't think of any sensible description right now.
Anyway I'm thinking of creating another thread for this kind of discussion about Item consumption nutrition system - because there is many other topic about this new mechanic in project and I'm afraid it will clutter Golem thread.

Also, updated aptitudes in a first post to reflect my list more precisely. I'm planning to add final version of my description to the wiki when it will shape up a little bit more.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 08:36

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:Anyway I'm thinking of creating another thread for this kind of discussion about Item consumption nutrition system - because there is many other topic about this new mechanic in project and I'm afraid it will clutter Golem thread.

On the other hand, it's the most radical feature of the species, and the first one we need to polish. I've been thinking about it. If magical item eating is the main source of healing, this is going to make the Lair pretty hard. Even if you bring a big stash of enchanted items, it's going to be tedious if you have to travel back to it for healing when you run out. A Vp like regeneration system might be better.

About magic, we can also nerf them in other ways than just bad apts. For example: max spell level is XL/3 instead of XL, and/or reduce spell slots. To make magic background still playable, give them decent UC, and even a slightly higher base damage. So your early golem caster is a bit like a troll: punch things to death until your magic is usable.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 09:21

Re: New Race: Golem

galehar wrote:On the other hand, it's the most radical feature of the species, and the first one we need to polish. I've been thinking about it. If magical item eating is the main source of healing, this is going to make the Lair pretty hard. Even if you bring a big stash of enchanted items, it's going to be tedious if you have to travel back to it for healing when you run out. A Vp like regeneration system might be better.

Yes. But there is Crypt/Tomb for most other species, especially Trolls and Ogres with same problem. You either stack a lot of food before going in there or worship kiku for his meals. In case of a Golem, worshiping Trog or Okawaru will emulate Kiku's invocations. Stacking food for golem is trickier, I admit.
For golems it will be wiser to do "food run" into orcish mines before doing Lair.
What do you mean with Vp regeneration? Don't quite familiar with it because don't play them much (at all) due to overcomplicated satiation levels - 5 levels is too much.
I already have a few ideas that will remove tedium from item consumption. They seem a bit radical (read: new) to me so I rolling it around in my mind for now.

galehar wrote:About magic, we can also nerf them in other ways than just bad apts. For example: max spell level is XL/3 instead of XL, and/or reduce spell slots. To make magic background still playable, give them decent UC, and even a slightly higher base damage. So your early golem caster is a bit like a troll: punch things to death until your magic is usable.

I agree about crippling magic even more by max spell level and reduced spell slots. It will make hybrids and some Warrior-mages still playable while all Mage backgrounds will be hardcore(and in general will be played as hybrids past early game, anyway)
Did you noticed that I also added "reduced maxMP gain on level up". It must be taken in consideration that players may exploit good Invo apt and train it up to gain more MP for spellcasting - so overall MP gain should be toned down in general.
Frankly, I don't see correlation between UC and Spellcasting (except the obvious transmuters) but I noticed that there is not very many species with good UC aptitudes and no specie have even +2 in it. How do you think, giving Golems +2 UC isn't overboard? They will be born monks.
And while we on topic of unarmed, will golem have auxiliary attacks with his feet (kicking) due to boots restriction?
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 09:39

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:Yes. But there is Crypt/Tomb for most other species, especially Trolls and Ogres with same problem. You either stack a lot of food before going in there or worship kiku for his meals. In case of a Golem, worshiping Trog or Okawaru will emulate Kiku's invocations. Stacking food for golem is trickier, I admit.
For golems it will be wiser to do "food run" into orcish mines before doing Lair.
What do you mean with Vp regeneration? Don't quite familiar with it because don't play them much (at all) due to overcomplicated satiation levels - 5 levels is too much.
I already have a few ideas that will remove tedium from item consumption. They seem a bit radical (read: new) to me so I rolling it around in my mind for now.

But the Lair is much sooner. You don't have many alternatives when you reach it. I think it's good to make the Lair a foodless branch for golems while it's the opposite for other species. It's just that with no regen and healing mostly from items, it might be too much, that's why I'm suggesting Vp-like regen. Vampires have slow regen when hungry, and don't regen at all when starving. Their nutrition system is more complicated than that, but that's the only features we would need to borrow from them.

Curio wrote:Frankly, I don't see correlation between UC and Spellcasting (except the obvious transmuters) but I noticed that there is not very many species with good UC aptitudes and no specie have even +2 in it. How do you think, giving Golems +2 UC isn't overboard? They will be born monks.
And while we on topic of unarmed, will golem have auxiliary attacks with his feet (kicking) due to boots restriction?

Caster backgrounds start with no weapon, and if you can't use the spells in your starting book until XL3 or XL6, your going to have to rely on your fists for the first few floors. I like the idea of golems crushing skulls with their big heavy hands. +2 UC and +2 or +3 to base damage sounds good to me (Gh have +2 and Tr +6).
The boot restriction doesn't directly translate into an auxiliary attack (like Dr).
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 09:56

Re: New Race: Golem

dpeg wrote:I like this list a lot! And I am confident this would make an interesting species to try out. The flavour is all there, the one bit missing (or I may just have missed it in the thread) is how to replace the hunger adjectives by more golem-adapted words.


Treat it as a machine. A "low battery" or "low essence" message or something similar works. Instead of eating, the golem consumes or assimilates the magic essence or recharge itself.

Also instead of using the pronoun "you", to use "your golem" looks better for me because we're using a device, are we ?

PS: Magic essence is usually known as mana, but to design the immanent power inside of things there are a lot of synomyms: prana (Hindu), qi (chinese), aether (alchemy), numen (latin), ruh (muslim), wod (anglosaxon), ka (Egyptian), ichor (greeks) ...
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 11:08

Re: New Race: Golem

galehar wrote:Caster backgrounds start with no weapon, and if you can't use the spells in your starting book until XL3 or XL6, your going to have to rely on your fists for the first few floors. I like the idea of golems crushing skulls with their big heavy hands. +2 UC and +2 or +3 to base damage sounds good to me (Gh have +2 and Tr +6).

Ok. I will change UC aptitude some time later.

Roderic wrote:Treat it as a machine. A "low battery" or "low essence" message or something similar works. Instead of eating, the golem consumes or assimilates the magic essence or recharge itself.

I am strongly against using modern/technological terms when describing golems. They are magically created constructs and "battery" or "recharging" is bad flawor, while I very much like "essence" and "consuming" terms.
From all energy terms I like "aether" the most. So if we need to describe inner power source of a golem - aether would be perfect for this IMO.
Roderic wrote:Also instead of using the pronoun "you", to use "your golem" looks better for me because we're using a device, are we ?

Now you are racist against golems :lol: Anyway, this rule does not applies to any other species not because they are devices, but because game treats all game characters like player personifications. Excluding golems from this seems to me like breaking a fourth wall.

galehar wrote:But the Lair is much sooner. You don't have many alternatives when you reach it. I think it's good to make the Lair a foodless branch for golems while it's the opposite for other species. It's just that with no regen and healing mostly from items, it might be too much, that's why I'm suggesting Vp-like regen. Vampires have slow regen when hungry, and don't regen at all when starving. Their nutrition system is more complicated than that, but that's the only features we would need to borrow from them.

So at satiated and hungry golems will have slow regen? It drastically diminishes one of drawbacks that golem have. What abou regen only when satiated? Because changing whole drawback because of 1 branch is quite radical. Flavor-wise it also fits. When hungry or below - energy spends only on upkeep of the golem life(moving, casting,fighting) but when there is excess energy (satiated) it goes into healing.

Alright, here is my crazy idea that, probably, will not only make Lair doable without tedious running back and forth, but will reduce this presumable item hoarding and tedious stashing altogether.

Golems will have innate ability to Crush items into scrap. Doing so, destroys item, creating a pressed pile of scrap, which will weight exactly like the item but will lose 20-50%(not sure which amount is better) of nutrition in the process.
All consecutive crushed items will add it's weight and nutrition(lowered by 20-50%) to already existent scrap-ball. So it will be always wiser to compress nutrient items or you might end up with big pile of useless scrap that barely heals and feeds you.
You can divide scrap ball in two losing 20-50% of overall nutrition in the process.
Also, you can meld them together without penalty later by crushing one of them, with another in inventory.
When you need to heal/feed just eat it and it will be slowly consumed giving nutrition proportionally reducing it's weight.
Eating it will take some time and HP gained per turn makes it impossible/suicide to use in combat.
Crushing non-enchanted items should be prohibited to avoid unnecessary watering down of a scrap-ball by just increasing it's weight (and reducing HP/nutrition gained per turn from eating it)

This is how I imaging it working in game interface-wise:
Golem dispatches a band of orcs and stands over a pile of junk gear and three enchanted items.
pressed "e"
Are you sure you want to devour glowing orcish dagger? <---- Prompts always ask most viable choices first.
pressed "Y"
You devour glowing dagger and feel as your essence replenishes a bit.
pressed "c" <---- since golems don't need to butcher "c" can be used to (C)rush items.
Are you sure you want to crush runed orcish mace?
pressed "Y/a" <-------- after pressing "yes, all of them" golem will automatically crush mace first, then second enchanted item(say glowing robe) after that, leaving grey junk untouched. Crushing time and butchering time should be in par.
In result golem recieved a small scrap-ball with 18 aum in weight and, let's say, 700 nutrition.
When you get hurt or hungry - you find a safe spot for rest and press "e" for eating.
Shows up screen that shows only viable items for consumption excluding equipped ones and with scrap-ball on top of the list.
You choose button corresponding for scrap-ball and golem starts to eat.
Each turn 3 aum of scrapball is eaten until golem is satiated or healthy.
So, for example, golem ate 6 aum some time later and right now have scrap size of a 12 aum with nutrition of about 460.

Crazy, I know, but it will simplify interface by a notch - instead of having lots of junk in many slots - you will have neat scrap pile in one slot. And instead of hoarding items around or come back later you could scrap it immediately and stash (it's inevitable) only scrapball.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 11:56

Re: New Race: Golem

In result golem recieved a small scrap-ball with 18 aum in weight and, let's say, 700 nutrition.


So basically the golem eats magic purée :lol:
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 12:23

Re: New Race: Golem

The game has felids who can't use wands and mummies who can't use potions; it might be interesting to make a race who can't use scrolls (or is strongly pressured not to.) Even without the gameplay effects for inserting scrolls, I really like the idea of golems inserting scrolls into their heads to renew their life force, whether that means hp regen, mana regen, or hunger relief. I don't get why a particularly sharp sword would revitalize a golem whose life came from words on a scroll.

And lair and tomb seem to have plenty of scrolls lying about.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 13:04

Re: New Race: Golem

jejorda2 wrote:The game has felids who can't use wands and mummies who can't use potions; it might be interesting to make a race who can't use scrolls (or is strongly pressured not to.)

You think I was not trying to avoid potion restriction? But as galehar stated many reasonable arguments, I agree now.
First of all, why is there need of scroll restriction? Just cause? And how you would explain in-game why golems can't use scrolls? They illiterate? :)
jejorda2 wrote:Even without the gameplay effects for inserting scrolls, I really like the idea of golems inserting scrolls into their heads to renew their life force, whether that means hp regen, mana regen, or hunger relief.

So, which scrolls do what and how you will explain that teleportation scroll gives HP and remove curse one MP?
jejorda2 wrote:I don't get why a particularly sharp sword would revitalize a golem whose life came from words on a scroll.

That is not sword that revitalizes golem - it's magic that trapped in it.
Think of scroll like a brain and aether sphere in it's chest as it's heart.
You feed your body so that heart will pump blood and let you live - brain only controls your body.
Same with golem - you feed aether sphere with magical essence so that golem can exist, while scroll is a vessel for golem's mind. It doesn't have anything to do with upkeep of bodily functions of a golem.

Roderic wrote:So basically the golem eats magic purée :lol:

I bet it's damn tasty for a golem :lol:

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 13:15

Re: New Race: Golem

The idea is that they eat items; it's a good one. Now, they're three proposals for what kind of item they could dine on: 1) enchanted items; 2) wands; 3) scrolls.
Each of these has some drawbacks and advantages. Enchanted items, for example, appear in abundance and are generally not interesting to the player. Which means it's a nobrainer to eat them. In contrast, wands and scrolls are generally useful -- eating those is not always a no-brainer. (Don't worry about the flavour here. Whether it'll be "You insert the wand into your abdomen.", or "You open your head and put the scroll inside.", it doesn't matter. All of the proposals are good enough to make the flavour work later on.) For this, it's necessary that golems can both use and eat items/scrolls/wands.

galehar: Regarding no innate healing and Vp-like mechanics, there is the difference that Vampires have downsides and benefits from all of their satiation states. Golems would not (as far as I understand), so I think it'd be easier to go with the simplest rule: no innate healing. We can use damage-shaving as for DD (which is only very mild for DD these days, used to be a lot more), or make healing from items as strong as we like, or allow over-healing... There are many possibilities.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 13:17

Re: New Race: Golem

The thing is, you get hit a lot in Crawl. I've heard people complaining about having to rest after every fight, having to butcher and eat and having to sacrifice corpses. If you need to eat items after every fight, this is going to be very tedious. Look at DD. Their "no regen" is balanced by the fact that they have some intrinsic GDR, so they need to heal much less. And they have access to Vampiric draining. Replacing these 2 things by item eating is going to lead to tedious gameplay, even with your scrap-ball idea.
Eating items for nutrition is a nice idea, but it shouldn't dominate your game. After all, searching for food and eating is not the most fun aspects of the game. Instead, I'd use a regeneration system similar to Vampires but simpler. The wiki has a nice table for the Vampire hunger system. Their regen range from very fast to none depending on hunger. I'd go with normal (satiated or above), slow (hungry), none (very hungry and below). Their main drawback is very poor magic, not "no regeneration".
Give them slow metabolism and most enchanted items provide only a small amount of nutrition. The right balance should be that if you eat most of the enchanted items you find, in the early game, you'd struggle to reach satiated. Later, the food clock loosen a bit (because enchanted items are more common), like for other races. Doing Lair before orcs would be hard, unless you found sustenance or you worship Oka or Trog.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 13:24

Re: New Race: Golem

I know, I was the one who suggested DD in the first place :) And I was very much surprised how little damage shaving was actually necessary.

As I see it, there are different issues (all of them solvable in several ways):

1. Why to eat?
This can be done to heal or to prevent starvation or to regain MP or several of these. If the species has no innate healing (which would be interesting, but may not be the defining feature of golem), then eating for HP regain seems a must.

2. What to eat?
I prefer scrolls/wands over enchanted items simply to provide more choices. It's more interesting if you could also use what you eat.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 13:27

Re: New Race: Golem

I see some natural resistances :

How about mutations? It seems plausible that do not affect golems at all. Or are they able to be altered by "magic radiations" ?
Golems are not affected by poison, probably (an easier early game), also since golems do not need to breath I think, cloud effects do not affect them either.

Some degree of fire resistance perhaps? Clay and ceramics are quite thermo-resistant materials
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 13:27

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:First of all, why is there need of scroll restriction? Just cause?

Why does the game need a scroll restriction? Yeah, pretty much "just beacuse." Right now, every race and background uses scrolls the same way, except a few scrolls like teleport and cause fear are less valuable to those who have access to the equivalent spells. I think it would be good to sometimes look at scrolls in a different way, just as necromancers, transmuters, and blood god worshippers look at corpses in a different way and earth elementalists look at walls and stones in a different way.

Why do golems need a scroll restriction? The living races get their energy from chemical reactions that use the remains of other living things as reagents. Golems get their energy from the force of will transcribed into words written on a scroll in their head. Words are the source of their life like food and air is the source of our life. In crawl, words are written in books and on scrolls. It makes sense to me that scrolls would be special to golems.

Curio wrote:And how you would explain in-game why golems can't use scrolls? They illiterate? :)

Oh, I wouldn't necessarily make it so they can't, but if they need all the scrolls to eat, they can't read many. Just like Troll transmuters and berserkers don't get to distill or sacrifice many corpses because they need them all for food, scroll-eating golems would be under pressure to eat scrolls instead of reading them. If we wanted to go farther and say that scrolls are sacrosanct to golems and it's forbidden to read the life-giving words, I guess we could. But I'd go for the interesting choice of whether to eat that last scroll of blinking or walk around near starving hoping to find another scroll. I know I've never eaten a royal jelly with all my stats full, unless I was a spriggan who couldn't eat chunks.

On the other hand, illiteracy would be an easy way to disable magic and scrolls, but I think it's mostly agreed that completely doing away with magic removes too many choices and is a bad idea.

Curio wrote:
jejorda2 wrote:Even without the gameplay effects for inserting scrolls, I really like the idea of golems inserting scrolls into their heads to renew their life force, whether that means hp regen, mana regen, or hunger relief.

So, which scrolls do what and how you will explain that teleportation scroll gives HP and remove curse one MP?

We should pick one effect for eating scrolls, and make it the same for every scroll. More valuable scrolls (those with higher prices in shops) should grant more hp/mp/food, but they should all refill the same thing. I think food makes the most sense, unless mp or hp don't regenerate without eating scrolls.

We don't have anyone who never naturally regenerates MP, so maybe that would be the way to go for Golems. But melee builds don't care about MP.
Last edited by jejorda2 on Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 13:40, edited 2 times in total.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 13:31

Re: New Race: Golem

And how you would explain in-game why golems can't use scrolls? They illiterate?


Or better, they are mute beings.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 13:41

Re: New Race: Golem

Roderic wrote:
And how you would explain in-game why golems can't use scrolls? They illiterate?


Or better, they are mute beings.

Would that remove most invocations along with all magic, leaving fighters, gladiators, hunters, artificers, and monks?

You can't pray while silenced, so you can't even choose a god for the passive benefits.

A permanent silence halo might make up for that, but that has to be overpowered.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 13:45

Re: New Race: Golem

jejorda2 wrote:
Roderic wrote:
And how you would explain in-game why golems can't use scrolls? They illiterate?


Or better, they are mute beings.

Would that remove most invocations along with all magic, leaving fighters, gladiators, hunters, artificers, and monks?

You can't pray while silenced, so you can't even choose a god for the passive benefits.


I used to pray in silence
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 14:01

Re: New Race: Golem

dpeg wrote:The idea is that they eat items; it's a good one. Now, they're three proposals for what kind of item they could dine on: 1) enchanted items; 2) wands; 3) scrolls.
Each of these has some drawbacks and advantages. Enchanted items, for example, appear in abundance and are generally not interesting to the player. Which means it's a nobrainer to eat them. In contrast, wands and scrolls are generally useful -- eating those is not always a no-brainer. All of the proposals are good enough to make the flavour work later on.) For this, it's necessary that golems can both use and eat items/scrolls/wands.

Actually, wands and enchanted items is one kind of dining - they work nicely in the same system.
Eating rations and other permafood is also a nobrainer. What's bad in that? At least living creatures have a source of nutrition other than permafood - chunks.
dpeg wrote:Don't worry about the flavour here. Whether it'll be "You insert the wand into your abdomen.", or "You open your head and put the scroll inside.", it doesn't matter.

It matters for me. I am strongly against using scrolls as food for golems. Especially by "putting it in head".
galehar wrote:unless you found sustenance

In my desighn (first post) Golems are not affected by sustenance or gourmand. You think they should?

dpeg wrote:1. Why to eat?This can be done to heal or to prevent starvation or to regain MP or several of these. If the species has no innate healing (which would be interesting, but may not be the defining feature of golem), then eating for HP regain seems a must.

Also spellhunger for casting golems. I don't like eating regenerating MP.
dpeg wrote:2. What to eat?I prefer scrolls/wands over enchanted items simply to provide more choices. It's more interesting if you could also use what you eat.

In most cases you will be able to use what you eat - weapon, armour, jewelery and wands. About scrolls I already said my disposition.

Roderic wrote:How about mutations? It seems plausible that do not affect golems at all. Or are they able to be altered by "magic radiations" ?Golems are not affected by poison, probably (an easier early game), also since golems do not need to breath I think, cloud effects do not affect them either.

Where were you? It is all in the first post from the very start. Golems immune to mutations and poison, etc.
Clay is suspectible to extreme temperatures so even terracota will be damaged by extreme heat from, say, firebolt. Game-wise, they already have too much of resistances and can be off without rF and rC.

jejorda2 wrote:Golems get their energy from the force of will transcribed into words written on a scroll in their head. Words are the source of their life like food and air is the source of our life. In crawl, words are written in books and on scrolls. It makes sense to me that scrolls would be special to golems.

Now, you just completely countering my concept of a golem with that. In my concept golem powered by energy which it draws from items. Now it seems it draws power from words? In this case we will also add books to the mix? They also have words in it. Let's go crazy!
jejorda2 wrote:If we wanted to go farther and say that scrolls are sacrosanct to golems and it's forbidden to read the life-giving words, I guess we could.
And inability to read books > learn spells > no magic > been there > bad idea.
Roderic wrote:Or better, they are mute beings.

Yay! Another 180 degree turn of my concept. "It has booming voice" Nope! They are mute!
How do they cast spells then?

I very much against idea of consuming scrolls unless someone will provide better explanation than "just because" or "for the sake of balance".
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 14:06

Re: New Race: Golem

Excusez-moi, I 've been reading on this topic today but not carefully enough

I very much against idea of consuming scrolls unless someone will provide better explanation than "just because" or "for the sake of balance".


Realistically speaking (as real as a golem being can be), Kabbalah says that the animation of a golem is rooted on words, so consumption of scrolls makes sense for anything you want to keep in the golem stats, either HP,MP,life-state ... BUT since your golem design is detached a bit from the Jew myth, it's more like a magic automaton (that is made of clay basically because you shun metal for it seems too steam-punk for your taste...).

It's far better the idea of "transference" (or consumption or assimilation) of magical essence from one item to another -the animated golem- one but I still can't figure out how to deal (or merge) the three stats: HP, MP and hunger.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 14:15

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:
galehar wrote:unless you found sustenance

In my desighn (first post) Golems are not affected by sustenance or gourmand. You think they should?

Oups missed that, sorry. Gourmand, certainly not. This is for carnivorous! Sustenance can be either way, this is minor. I'm fine with it having no effect, so let's respect your original design (for once ;)).
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 14:28

Re: New Race: Golem

Roderic wrote:Excusez-moi, I 've been reading on this topic today but not carefully enough
Realistically speaking (as real as a golem being can be), Kabbalah says that the animation of a golem is rooted on words, so consumption of scrolls makes sense for anything you want to keep in the golem stats, either HP,MP,life-state ... BUT since your golem design is detached a bit from the Jew myth, it's more like a magic automaton (that is made of clay basically because you shun metal for it seems too steam-punk for your taste...).

For me it's like if humans were eating brains all the time to live. Scroll is what gives golem a mind and it's weird for me that it needs to eat scrolls to regain HP and MP. Turns out golems are cannibals by your definition.
I shun metal not because of my preferences but because iron golem must be resistant to fire and cold on top of many other resistances. And that's not what player golem needs.
Roderic wrote:It's far better the idea of "transference" (or consumption or assimilation) of magical essence from one item to another -animated- one but I still can't figure out how to deal (or merge) the three stats: HP, MP and hunger.

So, you saying that scroll-consumption idea is better than mine just because you are saying so? I sense a bit of recursion.
If I knew that scroll ideas will turn this way i would never mentioned it in the first place - my use of scrolls was discarded anyway. That was the only reason I mentioned golem having scroll in it's head.

galehar wrote:Oups missed that, sorry. Gourmand, certainly not. This is for carnivorous! Sustenance can be either way, this is minor. I'm fine with it having no effect, so let's respect your original design (for once ;)).

Thank you ;)
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 17:08

Re: New Race: Golem

Scrolls have magic in them right? I've always thought that was how they worked.
Maybe they could eat those too and it is a little bit cannibalistic, but its not like cannibalism was off limits in crawl anyways. Plus Scrolls can stack.
Also eating paper seems like it would be a whole lot easier than eating a sword.

But then again scrolls are very abundant and that would probably interfere with the gameplay of your race.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 17:25

Re: New Race: Golem

For me it's like if humans were eating brains all the time to live. Scroll is what gives golem a mind and it's weird for me that it needs to eat scrolls to regain HP and MP. Turns out golems are cannibals by your definition.
I shun metal not because of my preferences but because iron golem must be resistant to fire and cold on top of many other resistances. And that's not what player golem needs.


Fine enough.

Roderic wrote:It's far better the idea of "transference" (or consumption or assimilation) of magical essence from one item to another -animated- one but I still can't figure out how to deal (or merge) the three stats: HP, MP and hunger.

So, you saying that scroll-consumption idea is better than mine just because you are saying so? I sense a bit of recursion.


No no. You have included a than in "far better (than) the idea of ..." which I haven't written. I prefer your concept rather than the scrolling-eating, simply I don't figure out how to merge the HP + MP +sustenance. The Hp+sustenance sounds like a ghoul nutrition, which is fine, but I like the idea of increasing MP not naturally (suggested in some comment above), although to golems this seems to be rather irrelevant.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 17:58

Re: New Race: Golem

What if golems were given good magic aptitudes, but no natural mp regeneration? Consuming scrolls would grant mp. You'd have to make every cast count.

Channeling would have to be circumvented somehow, and probably MP-on-kills, or there would be little impact.
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Blades Runner

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 18:30

Re: New Race: Golem

Roderic wrote:No no. You have included a than in "far better (than) the idea of ..." which I haven't written. I prefer your concept rather than the scrolling-eating, simply I don't figure out how to merge the HP + MP +sustenance. The Hp+sustenance sounds like a ghoul nutrition, which is fine, but I like the idea of increasing MP not naturally (suggested in some comment above), although to golems this seems to be rather irrelevant.

oh. sorry. misunderstood you there.
I think MP is quite irrelevant for Golems anyway. For a race that can use magic nicely no innate MP regen definitely would be quite nice new mechanic. But golems just not the case.
Yes, I borrowed from ghouls HP+nutrition, but for Golems it always set amout of gained benefit and never random like for ghouls.

jejorda2 wrote:What if golems were given good magic aptitudes, but no natural mp regeneration? Consuming scrolls would grant mp. You'd have to make every cast count.
Channeling would have to be circumvented somehow, and probably MP-on-kills, or there would be little impact.

ok. stop. just stop. your proposal is a big frikking step backwards.
I already stated that golems will not have good magic. heck, we even though about prohibiting it at all.
and if you want to ponder with scroll idea you should give a reasonable explanation for it first. I ain't seen one yet.

Right now we should think about proper integration of item consumption and HP regen.

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 18:44

Re: New Race: Golem

Consuming scrolls is much more interesting, tactically, than being the dungeon vacuum cleaner (that's what Nemelex does). Especially since nothing else - no god, race, skill or even item - restricts the use of scrolls.
Also, if the flavour of golems being animated by magic words as in Jewish mythology was used, it would be really cool.

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 18:45

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio, I know this is your thread, but please stop being so possessive. There _are_ good ideas out there which are not yours.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 18:52

Re: New Race: Golem

dpeg wrote:Curio, I know this is your thread, but please stop being so possessive. There _are_ good ideas out there which are not yours.

Yup, and most of them I added to concept.

I just don't see explanation or good reasoning for scrolls. And if I will shift my concept by a whim of everyone who have opposite outview of my idea - what's the point?
I didn't like wand idea at first - but after it was explained I accepted it.
Now I'm only hearing "eating scrolls is cool! it's interesting. it will be batter than eating trash. eating trash sux"
and that's it. just because.

Especially since nothing else - no god, race, skill or even item - restricts the use of scrolls.

Why, oh Gods, why you came and try to cram this concept where it not belongs?
The game has felids who can't use wands and mummies who can't use potions; it might be interesting to make a race who can't use scrolls

So go and make it! Create a new thread and think of a new concept. It simply offending to me, to batter Golem concept for days so that you can come and begin throwing ideas.

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 19:00

Re: New Race: Golem

1. Decent (or even good) magical aptitudes, but no innate MP regeneration.
Can be made fit flavour-wise, and can be highly interesting tactically and strategically. jejorda introduced the idea nicely, Curio dismissed it with bad language (and zero reasons).

2. Scrolls for food.
Several posters tried to explain that the "should I consume this scroll for HP or keep it for its effect" is a more interesting choice than "should I consume this glowing ring mail or not".

As always, there is more than one possible solution, and golems can make a fine species either way. But dismissing potentially good ideas on a whim will not lead to the best end result.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 19:09

Re: New Race: Golem

dpeg wrote:1. Decent (or even good) magical aptitudes, but no innate MP regeneration.
Can be made fit flavour-wise, and can be highly interesting tactically and strategically. jejorda introduced the idea nicely, Curio dismissed it with bad language (and zero reasons).

Because I'm tired of explaining for everyone same reasons over and over again. If he read the thread he will understand that no-magic/limited magic is a main drawback of a golem that counterweights it's good resistances. Also I'm pissed off that we standing on one place or going backwards all the time, hence "bad language"

dpeg wrote:2. Scrolls for food.
Several posters tried to explain that the "should I consume this scroll for HP or keep it for its effect" is a more interesting choice than "should I consume this glowing ring mail or not".

How is "should I eat this meat ration or not" any different?

dpeg wrote:As always, there is more than one possible solution, and golems can make a fine species either way. But dismissing potentially good ideas on a whim will not lead to the best end result.

I didn't saw any examples why it could be a good idea. Only many enthusiastic exclamations.

I will not develop scroll idea. If someone eager enough - go for it. Right now I do not see any shine in it and will concentrate on item consumption and HP regen polishing up.

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 20:14

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:
dpeg wrote:2. Scrolls for food.
Several posters tried to explain that the "should I consume this scroll for HP or keep it for its effect" is a more interesting choice than "should I consume this glowing ring mail or not".

How is "should I eat this meat ration or not" any different?

Rations don't have any purpose aside from food. Royal Jelly and Ambrosia do, so there's a choice about whether to eat those and get the effect or some other food. Chunks have other uses (sublimation, simalcrum) and the corpses that chunks come from have plenty of other uses. Fruit is useful to Fedhas worshippers.

When I find pizza, jerky, or sausage, I eat it right away. There aren't going to be enough of them to bother using an item slot to make a stack, and I already have honeycombs and bread rations in my stash. For an item-eating golem, every third sword would be a sausage-- a non-decision. Non decisions are undesirable. I eat the sausage if I'm hungry, otherwise keep walking. Since I'm using (say) axes, I don't ever stop to think if I want to wield that sword or eat it. Maybe randart swords with good evocations would be an exception. Armor has the same problem; I'm either looking for robes or plate mail with resistances, and everything else is a snack or litter.

Wands and scrolls are more interesting because I can choose to use them or consume them. The flavor makes more sense with scrolls than with wands, and scrolls are found from D1 to Zot.

Decision come from options. Options come from multiple uses for the same resources. Edible weapons and armor gives those items one use instead of zero, which does not create decisions in the same way as giving items multiple uses.

I guess that since rations only really have one use, it might be a good idea to look at getting rid of them or adding more uses (Feed animals to gain them as allies a-la-Angband, blech!). But rations are a small part of the whole food system, not the main source of food for a new race, so they aren't that bad.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 20:26

Re: New Race: Golem

ok. go on. now it seems that this idea at least thought about and not just shoved around.
one comment though: eating both items and wands seems consistent but eating scrolls and wands - not very much.

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 20:45

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:
dpeg wrote:1. Decent (or even good) magical aptitudes, but no innate MP regeneration.
Can be made fit flavour-wise, and can be highly interesting tactically and strategically. jejorda introduced the idea nicely, Curio dismissed it with bad language (and zero reasons).

Because I'm tired of explaining for everyone same reasons over and over again. If he read the thread he will understand that no-magic/limited magic is a main drawback of a golem that counterweights it's good resistances. Also I'm pissed off that we standing on one place or going backwards all the time, hence "bad language"


I am used to explaining things time after time, so you have my sympathy. On the other hand, reading a forum thread is much more painful than reading a wiki page, which is why the wiki is ultimately better for common design (you can ultimately re-edit it).

I may have missed something but as far as I understand, the evolution of golems and their magic was like this:

1. No magic use at all. This was dismissed as too exclusive.
2. Some magic use, but crippled. E.g. abysmal aptitudes or (by Galehar) reduced spell slots etc.
3. jejorda's proposal of no innate MP regeneration is a different approach to allow some magic but limit its use.

What I personally like about 3. is that it's different to Deep Dwarves and would provide a completely different approach to magic (careful use instead of spamming). The idea might not bear out (because magic spells won't work when they have to be carefully dosed) but it's a new idea.

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 20:51

Re: New Race: Golem

I agree with Curio that having innate MP regen and good magic apts should not be added to golems. While I agree with everyone else that it is very interesting I think it is better left for another species. Hell, possibly even for another type of construct. Or a magical or undead spirit, or whatever. Personally I think it would fit a race that eats souls or feeds on life essence, or even some kind of mindflayer or otherwise brain eating race. Consuming consumables for MP might work great too. But having item eating, nonliving, slowness, nonstandard HP regen and nonstandard MP regen coupled with good casting apts on the same species might be a little too much. Making all of the things that are already there work together will probably be hard enough. And bad magic apts are something people are used to dealing with, while the suggested MP mechanic would be another completely new mechanic. I think Curio came up with a nice cohesively flavored feature package, so why not stick to that and make a different species use some of the other cool ideas?

About eating scrolls: I agree that it could be an interesting tradeoff while eating equipment is often a no-brainer. But I must restate what I said about forbidding potions: I think that a slow species that is bad at magic should not be restricted in consumable use. Many options of dealing with tough situations are already disabled by being slow and bad at magic, especially when the current idea seems to be forbidding potion use and eating wands for instant healing. So at least leave the scrolls alone. Golems need some options other than just slowly walking around, melee, throwing and god powers, plus MAYBE some low level spells.

About the words for hunger and eating: crawl already has scrolls of recharging, so the word definitely could be used. And I don't think battery words would be weird. Plus it might be hard to find better words to describe and energy reserve. (Very) low energy and (fully) charged seem fine to me. Then again I too am not a native English speaker, so what sounds weird to me and what doesn't isn't very relevant.

Another food related thing: does the golem actually eat the items, or just remove the magic? Both could work, but I think just sucking out the magic would fit the flavor better.

Edit: another thing about the MP regen idea: in my opinion a mechanic like this would fit a species focused mostly on casting much better than a species with strongly restricted casting. Because if most people will just ignore casting instead of having fun adapting to the new mechanics, what's the point in implementing and balancing it? This is enough to build a whole species around, no need to tack it on to golems as a restriction. Adding this feature to golems would not only overload the species, but also would be a waste of a perfectly good idea. Plus to actually make "every cast matters" work, victory dancing needs to be gotten rid of first. Putting this in the game now would probably not play well at all.
Last edited by Galefury on Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 21:00, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 21:00

Re: New Race: Golem

dpeg wrote:which is why the wiki is ultimately better for common design (you can ultimately re-edit it).

I plan to add this to the Golem wiki page after idea will shape up more. But with so many "maybe we should"s popping around all the time I might not see the end of it.
dpeg wrote:What I personally like about 3. is that it's different to Deep Dwarves and would provide a completely different approach to magic (careful use instead of spamming). The idea might not bear out (because magic spells won't work when they have to be carefully dosed) but it's a new idea.

Your first comment in this thread was about whole concept being convoluted. I voluntary deleted my own concept standpoints just to meet your expectations and now what? Now you add to this by adding more ideas.
The list I made in my opinion have enough of gimmicks for one race and we should concentrate on improving things listed in there and not adding more to it. Especially things that will also will be in need of heavy revision and/or polishing.

Galefury wrote:at least leave the scrolls alone

:!:
Galefury wrote:Another food related thing: does the golem actually eat the items, or just remove the magic? Both could work, but I think just sucking out the magic would fit the flavor better.

Eh? must be deleted in the process of edition. here is original description of a process:
"In the chest of every Golem is a sphere of pure magical energy placed there by it's creator. That is it's "engine" which runs golem and repairs all damage done to body in a way human body heals itself. By doing so, its power reserve diminishes and requires nutrition in a form of outside magic sources. Most common in a dungeon of such sources would be enchanted items of any kind. Chewing down such item will disintegrate it by aforementioned energy sphere in a belly of a golem and release it's latent power to feed the life of a construct."

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 21:59

Re: New Race: Golem

Galefury wrote:Having item eating, nonliving, slowness, nonstandard HP regen and nonstandard MP regen coupled with good casting apts on the same species might be a little too much. Making all of the things that are already there work together will probably be hard enough.

Yes, consuming enchanted items and scrolls at the same time with a different effect is too much. I was thinking golems could be hungerless, but consume scrolls to generate MP.

Galefury wrote: And bad magic apts are something people are used to dealing with, while the suggested MP mechanic would be another completely new mechanic.

This is what makes the idea appealing to me- it's another set of choices that you don't have with other races. We already have "good at fighting with some resistances and standard armour" in ghouls.

Galefury wrote:I think that a slow species that is bad at magic should not be restricted in consumable use. Many options of dealing with tough situations are already disabled by being slow and bad at magic, especially when the current idea seems to be forbidding potion use and eating wands for instant healing.

That's a good point. The high AC offsets this a bit, half-strength potions helps some, and having the option to use the scrolls and wands instead of eating them is always there. And I'm not convinced they need to be bad at magic.

Galefury wrote:Another food related thing: does the golem actually eat the items, or just remove the magic? Both could work, but I think just sucking out the magic would fit the flavor better.

I like the sound of this from a flavor standpoint, but the gameplay still seems off to me.

Galefury wrote:Edit: another thing about the MP regen idea: in my opinion a mechanic like this would fit a species focused mostly on casting much better than a species with strongly restricted casting. Because if most people will just ignore casting instead of having fun adapting to the new mechanics, what's the point in implementing and balancing it?

This is a good point. What if HP doesn't regenerate unless MP is full? And something needs to be done to require MP regen for those who never use any MP for invocations, evocations, or spells. Possibly MP infrequently decays like ghoul stats? Or, if they have good magic aptitudes (I don't know whether that means 0 spellcasting or 5) it may be worthwhile to put up with the MP mechanic to cast well when you need it.

I suppose that to me, the important things about golems is that they are tough, they can whomp things in bare-handed melee, and they aren't alive in the same way we are. I don't see that "good with magic" or "bad with magic" fits the flavor better, though "bad with magic" can act as a counter-balance to "tough." Limited HP/MP regen may be able counter balance the combination of "good with magic" and "good with fighting."

Maybe my ideas should be a different species. Let me go ahead and summarize what I see so far:
These are different from Curio's proposal:
  • HP regenerates only when MP is full. And slowly at that.
  • MP does not regenerate, but is refilled when scrolls are consumed. Unidentified scrolls give half MP. More valuable scrolls give more MP.
  • Half potion effects
  • Good magic aptitudes
  • Does not consume food or enchantment
These are the same as Curio's proposal:
  • Golems are slow.
  • Golems have above average HP (Ce) and some passive AC boost
  • Golems can not go berserk and be transmuted in other living or undead forms.
  • Can not wear boots, gloves and bucklers. Can't use blowguns.
  • rElec, rNegative+++
  • Poison, Rot, Mutation, Torment immunities
  • LRD, Shatter and Disintegration vulnerable.
  • Yredemnul and Fedhas reject Golems.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 22:30

Re: New Race: Golem

jejorda2 wrote:Maybe my ideas should be a different species.

...or at least don't step on a toes of my idea. I would be grateful for that.
But yeah, if you have a lot of ideas that you don't know where to put - go ahead and make a new race attempt. And I promise that I will not barge in throwing ideas opposite to yours ;)

jejorda2 wrote:[*]HP regenerates only when MP is full. And slowly at that.
[*]MP does not regenerate, but is refilled when scrolls are consumed. Unidentified scrolls give half MP. More valuable scrolls give more MP.
[*]Half potion effects
[*]Good magic aptitudes
[*]Does not consume food or enchantment

First two aspects is just plain crazy. You gave it at least some thought? So basically player will be forced not to cast unless he wants to regenerate HP. And there is not nearly enough scrolls in a dungeon to last your specie for decent time without going OOM.
Besides that it's basically another hungerless caster like mummy, but with potions, and tougher, and with crazy resists.

jejorda2 wrote:[*]Yredemnul and Fedhas reject Golems.

Pay attention please. I said Fedhas should accept golems because they are not products nor instruments of necromancy.

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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 22:39

Re: New Race: Golem

After seeing that list again I noticed that having a booming voice and not being able to use blowguns don't go together very well. Magically talking with a booming voice without having breath can be imagined, but would be a little weird IMO. And if the magical voice comes from the mouth the golem should be able to create enough pressure for a blowing a needle. Maybe they cant enclose the mouthpiece of the tiny blowgun with their big stony mouth, but it still doesn't seem like strong enough flavor to justify removing the blowgun option. Then again, them putting decent throwing apt to use with blowguns would also feel weird. Also grey draconians are unbreathing, and can use blowguns I think. This does sound a little weird to me, but it is precedent for allowing blowguns for non-mute unbreathing species.

Also golems should probably be unbreathing, that's not on the list, but was mentioned earlier in the thread (possibly first post).

Also, unlike jejorda2, I think a golem that is good at magic goes strongly against golem flavor. The only instances of spellcasting golems in stories or games that I know are Acibek in this webcomic and the magic golems in BG2:ToB (they just fling energy bolts at you, no real spellcasting). Usually golems are portrayed as somewhere between barely aware and pretty stupid constructs created for physical labor or fighting. This doesn't mean crawl golems have to be the same, but not going totally against the expectations of people picking the golem race would be good IMO. I think bad at magic fits the flavor better.
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Post Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 23:02

Re: New Race: Golem

Galefury wrote: Maybe they cant enclose the mouthpiece of the tiny blowgun with their big stony mouth, but it still doesn't seem like strong enough flavor to justify removing the blowgun option.

Strong enough for me. Also, i dare you to justify why draconians can't wield bucklers. Yes, offtopic but I'm feeling like I stop giving a damn about whole concept thanks to "fruitful ideas" out there.

Galefury wrote:Also golems should probably be unbreathing, that's not on the list, but was mentioned earlier in the thread (possibly first post).

Well, I thought it's self explanatory. I' ll add it to list of course. Next time when going to edit. If i'm going to edit.

Galefury wrote:I think bad at magic fits the flavor better.

Also there is no casting golem-monsters in game. Not one.
I'm not even talking that (almost)no-magic is standing point for balance.

But who gives a fuck about that? Everybody is a critic.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 09:06

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:I'm feeling like I stop giving a damn about whole concept thanks to "fruitful ideas" out there.

Curio, you don't have to discuss every ideas thrown here. You're free to choose the ones you like to include in your design, and people are free to discuss alternatives. Bad ideas can just be ignored, there's no need to argue against them, they are not worth it. They'll die on their own if nobody cares. Even if 2 or 3 guys say "sounds cool, I like it", this is not what's going to make them happen. They need to be fleshed out, and if nobody cares enough to do it, it's probably just a bad idea. And if it gains some support, then maybe it's not that bad. And if it doesn't fit your golem design, then discussion about it can be taken elsewhere.

Galefury wrote:Another food related thing: does the golem actually eat the items, or just remove the magic? Both could work, but I think just sucking out the magic would fit the flavor better.

I had the exact same idea this morning. I like it, I think it could work. I find it easier to imagine a golem sucking the magic out of items rather than chewing on an enchanted plate mail. It has a minor gameplay effect: you can suck the brand out of a weapon and use branding spells on it. I think it's ok. Also, you can use scrolls of recharging on wands you've emptied.
Btw, only items with adjectives (runed/glowing...) should be edible. Some plain ones can have +1 or +2 but we can say they are just good quality items, not magical.

I don't like the idea of eating scrolls, both from flavour and gameplay point of view. I don't even like the idea that golems have a scroll in their head. It seems you have edited it out of your OP, good. We don't have to explain how they work. They are magically animated constructs. That's enough.

Now, I've tried to imagine how a golem game would play out. Orc is your hive, this is where your going if you're in need of healing. Later, you'll go to Elf. So you'll probably enter orc as soon as you find it, clear a few bubbles, as long as they are easy. After fights, you immediately eat heavy items for healing, and grab the lighter ones. You'll take as much as you can carry with you and stash the others (or leave them on the ground). Then go clear some of the Lair. You'll probably have to go back and forth between the 2 branches for a while, but maybe not that often. It's probably not very different how DD and Vp keep living fridge for healing when they clear non-living branches, it just happens much sooner.

I think it's worth a try. If it doesn't work out, we can add your "magic purée" idea maybe it can help. It has some issues though. Since it reduces the amount of healing provided, optimal play dictates that you just don't use it.
Another backup plan would be my idea of items providing only nutrition, and golems having slow regeneration when hungry, and not at all when starving. The advantage of it is that you would almost never have to pick up items. You just eat them as soon as you find them. We try to balance it so that you're rarely engorged.

Also, if items are used for healing, they don't need to provide nutrition, it's redundant. I say we have 2 options: hungerless, no regen, healing from magical items. Or regeneration depends on satiation and magical items provide nutrition. In both cases, wands can be used as !HW. I believe more in the later, but I'm willing to test the former first.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 10:32

Re: New Race: Golem

galehar wrote:
Curio wrote:I'm feeling like I stop giving a damn about whole concept thanks to "fruitful ideas" out there.

Curio, you don't have to discuss every ideas thrown here. You're free to choose the ones you like to include in your design, and people are free to discuss alternatives. Bad ideas can just be ignored, there's no need to argue against them, they are not worth it. They'll die on their own if nobody cares. Even if 2 or 3 guys say "sounds cool, I like it", this is not what's going to make them happen. They need to be fleshed out, and if nobody cares enough to do it, it's probably just a bad idea. And if it gains some support, then maybe it's not that bad. And if it doesn't fit your golem design, then discussion about it can be taken elsewhere.

Your words like a balm to my irritation :roll:

galehar wrote:I had the exact same idea this morning. I like it, I think it could work. I find it easier to imagine a golem sucking the magic out of items rather than chewing on an enchanted plate mail. It has a minor gameplay effect: you can suck the brand out of a weapon and use branding spells on it. I think it's ok.

Come to think of it I was bothered a bit too imagining how Golems eats a plate mail :? But I think items still should be destroyed in the process. "You devour magical essence from glowing dagger and it crumbles to dust/splinters" Otherwise Nemelexians will exploit this sacrificing same items that was stripped of essence. Giving that Go have good Evo and synergy with Xobeh, maybe that's not a bad thing.

galehar wrote:Also, you can use scrolls of recharging on wands you've emptied.

So it's more like, Go devours all charges instantly restoring lot of HP but wand is not destroyed?

galehar wrote:Btw, only items with adjectives (runed/glowing...) should be edible. Some plain ones can have +1 or +2 but we can say they are just good quality items, not magical.

Flavorwise I disagree. But game-wise if it will not be done how you described, players will be trying to devour essence from every grey/trash item on the floor. Unless golems will have passive ability that can spot enchantment level in the item. For example it will add information for every item that have positive enchantment: glowing dagger (~strawberry), battleaxe (~sultana), runed robe (~choko).

galehar wrote:Since it reduces the amount of healing provided, optimal play dictates that you just don't use it.

Maybe it can be made trivial loss of 10%. Because otherwise it will be a no-brainer to crush everything in sight instead of deciding "eat it right now or crush it in hopes of finding more nutrient item soon"

galehar wrote:Another backup plan would be my idea of items providing only nutrition, and golems having slow regeneration when hungry, and not at all when starving. The advantage of it is that you would almost never have to pick up items. You just eat them as soon as you find them. We try to balance it so that you're rarely engorged.

Also a posibility. But if I might add, Go can have innate "gourmand", slow metabolism, but regenerate only when satiated and above. And speed of regeneration always the same.

galehar wrote:Also, if items are used for healing, they don't need to provide nutrition, it's redundant. I say we have 2 options: hungerless, no regen, healing from magical items. Or regeneration depends on satiation and magical items provide nutrition. In both cases, wands can be used as !HW. I believe more in the later, but I'm willing to test the former first.

1) Hungerless is a bad option because it removes food clock for spellcasing golems, makes golem much closer to mummies again (like potions restriction). But it is easier to implement I give it that.
2) I like this more. No HP gain from items - only nutrition, and slow regen while satiated(hungry) or above. It also adds restraints for casters.

I will try to think of something to improve puree idea. If we consider golems only devouring magic essence, item that stores nutrition can be fitted more nicely flavor-wise than scrap-ball.

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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 11:17

Re: New Race: Golem

Pureeing something would also destroy the item, while immediately sucking out the magic would not. This is irrelevant for everyone but Nemelexites though. I like the idea of being able to eat only runed stuff. This would mean rarer eating, and thus higher nutrition gain from the items you actually can eat. If you really can eat any magical item you will be eating everything all the time, which is very tedious.

Problem: the distinction between runed and not runed is gone after the item is identified, then its just a +x/+y item. Identification should not change the nutrition gain IMO, otherwise eating would be way too tedious. Keeping the distinction between runed and not runed after identification specifically for golems would require some extra coding work (either to "remember" if the item was runed after identification, or to store nutrition as a fixed item property instead of calculating it on the fly).

Another problem is that runed items don't have to be positively enchanted, or even magical at all. Ego items are always runed, but I think that's the only guarantee there is.

Regardless of whether anything magical can be eaten or just the runed stuff I really like the idea of displaying the approximate food value of the items. Otherwise it would be hard to determine what is worth holding on to and what should be eaten immediately. This would however have the pretty strong gameplay effect of partial autoidentification of items, especially if positive and negative enchantment provide different amounts of nutrition/healing. I would prefer having negative and positive enchantment provide equal nutrition, but having negative enchantment and curses having a chance of causing sickness (and thus not providing nutrition at all). This would mean some wasted nutrition through the backdoor, but not being able to distinguish between good and bad items by the displayed food quality.

Another idea (and it might very well be a bad one): since potions cant be used it might be interesting to provide an alternate way to get some extra juice in tight situations. This is a bit like the rejected movement depending on satiation idea, but what if being at Very Full or Engorged would provide a burst of power while also quickly depleting your nutrition back to regular levels? I'm thinking Regeneration buff and slightly faster than normal speed. Might or Haste could also be used instead. This means eating would have to be a quick action though, otherwise it would have to be done before the fight, which is far less interesting in my opinion. That way you could keep a nice juicy randart around to consume in emergency situations. It would probably have to be really juicy (and thus rare) to bring you above the required threshold in one bite. The effect should only last for a max of maybe 100 turns or so depending on how far you go above the required satiation level, so the metabolism would have to be really sped up (to bring you from the max of engorged down to full within 100 turns). A somewhat ambivalent side effect would be that this would prevent people from engorging themselves in Orc and Elf, then doing an entire branch without eating (this may be seen as a good or bad thing). It would make the food game more interesting for golems in my opinion (use the juicy randart for nutrition in a branch with little food, or use it to help kill this unique or clear the Vault:8 entrance?), and it would give them a way to deal with tight situations other than scrolls and wands.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 12:23

Re: New Race: Golem

Galefury wrote:Pureeing something would also destroy the item, while immediately sucking out the magic would not. This is irrelevant for everyone but Nemelexites though.

Not mandatory. Mechanic can be changed so that golem could suck out essence from one item and place it in another, for example (just struck me) a potion bottle, removing it's properties with essence container. Basically golem will make from all potions (otherwise useless to him) he founds, "potions of porridge for golems". So, amount of nutrition carried around would be capped by total amout of potions found/used. (have to do something with transmuters though).
OR it can be placed in 1 item making it some kind of battery. Also with a cap of cource.

Galefury wrote:I like the idea of being able to eat only runed stuff. This would mean rarer eating, and thus higher nutrition gain from the items you actually can eat. If you really can eat any magical item you will be eating everything all the time, which is very tedious.
Problem: the distinction between runed and not runed is gone after the item is identified, then its just a +x/+y item. Identification should not change the nutrition gain IMO, otherwise eating would be way too tedious. Keeping the distinction between runed and not runed after identification specifically for golems would require some extra coding work (either to "remember" if the item was runed after identification, or to store nutrition as a fixed item property instead of calculating it on the fly).

Agreed. Sure way to check if it runed for player would be looking at a tile at least.

Galefury wrote:Another problem is that runed items don't have to be positively enchanted, or even magical at all. Ego items are always runed, but I think that's the only guarantee there is.

I see here only flavor problems. It can be explained that runed/glowing is just a factor that item was enchanted in some way and not always correlates with weapon's actual Acc/Dam stats. Enchanted broad axe (0, +1) can be worse than gray sharpened hand axe (+5,+6). But because hand axe have no magical enchantment put on it(hence no nutrition) - it's useless for golem.

Galefury wrote:I would prefer having negative and positive enchantment provide equal nutrition

Equip runed armour, take about 5 other runed armours, take weapon - run slimes back and forth. Voalia! You have tasty -12 armours and some -9 weapon. Yea, it's like a contaminated chunk but if it digest fine it's yummy 12 enchantment levels.
I imagined it this way.
If summary bonus of weapon is >0 - give nutrition of positive enchant.
For example -3,+5 sabre will give same amount of nutrition as 0,+2 Battleaxe.
For armours - give nutrition for every enchant level from +1 and above.
Devouring not enchanted or 0 enchanted will do nothing "You try to devour essence of the runed robe but nothing happens" Robe turns out +0.
Devouring anything cursed (even with positive enchantment) and anything with summary negative enchantment level will not provide nutrition and, maybe, give negative status effect. It surely must be named other than "Sickness"

Galefury wrote:This would however have the pretty strong gameplay effect of partial autoidentification of items, especially if positive and negative enchantment provide different amounts of nutrition/healing.

One possible way to avoid it - shoving approximate nutrition regardless of negative or positive enchantment is.
So, -3,-4 glowing dagger and +4,+3 runed mace both will be labeled with (~strawberry) tag. And golem always be at risk of eating something bad. Same as living species must cope with sickness from contaminated chunks.
Flavor-wise it can be explained that golem can sense only amount of enchantment and not it's origin.
It's like smelling tasty hamburger with cyanide for humans. It smells yummy but if you eat it - you will die.
*probably too harsh of an example but I hope you catch my drift

Galefury wrote:Another idea... a bit like the rejected movement depending on satiation idea

Pretty much. And that was a main reasoning behind removing it from the draft - too complex. Besides, I think golems can exist just fine without pots, and don't need another buff to compensate. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway until tested it's left unknown.

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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 13:00

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:
Galefury wrote:Another problem is that runed items don't have to be positively enchanted, or even magical at all. Ego items are always runed, but I think that's the only guarantee there is.

I see here only flavor problems. It can be explained that runed/glowing is just a factor that item was enchanted in some way and not always correlates with weapon's actual Acc/Dam stats. Enchanted broad axe (0, +1) can be worse than gray sharpened hand axe (+5,+6). But because hand axe have no magical enchantment put on it(hence no nutrition) - it's useless for golem.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. That runed broad axe might actually be a completely mundane brandless +0/+0 broad axe (try putting on a bunch of emroidered robes, many of those will be +0). So runed does not necessarily mean enchanted in crawl. There might just be some nonmagical runes scratched into a mundane item. So this means that being runed or not (or glowing, or embroidered, or whatever really) is not a distinction between magical and nonmagical items. If that gray hand axe (+5,+6) is just a well crafted item, what stops a runed handaxe (+5,+6) from being a well crafted item with nonmagical runes scratched into it? I agree that this is only a flavor problem, though, and a very minor one.

By the way, this flavor problem also exists with enchantment scrolls and slime corrosion. Take a +3/+3 weapon, you can add 6 enchantment levels of each type to it. Whack a bunch of slimes with it and it becomes -12/-12. You can then add 21 enchantment scrolls of each type, even though the weapon was simply corroded by acid. So unless all acid in crawl is magical acid that removes enchantments instead of just corroding items, this is inconsistent. Like I said this is very minor (and in this case can actually be handwaved as the magical runes powering the enchantment being corroded - this explanation does not work for golem eating).

Edit: another thing: enchant weapon scrolls have the same effect on both the gray +5/+6 handaxe and the runed +5/+6 handaxe, with exactly the same chances of the enchantment failing. This leads me to believe that both must in fact be magical, the gray one is just enchanted in a way that does not require runes.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 13:17

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:Come to think of it I was bothered a bit too imagining how Golems eats a plate mail :? But I think items still should be destroyed in the process. "You devour magical essence from glowing dagger and it crumbles to dust/splinters" Otherwise Nemelexians will exploit this sacrificing same items that was stripped of essence. Giving that Go have good Evo and synergy with Xobeh, maybe that's not a bad thing.

Nemelex and Elyvilon piety gain depends on item value. So if you drain the magic out of an item, sacrificing it will often be worthless.

Curio wrote:So it's more like, Go devours all charges instantly restoring lot of HP but wand is not destroyed?

Yes. If we go with the "absorb magic" flavour instead of "item eating", it will be the same for wands.

Curio wrote:
galehar wrote:Another backup plan would be my idea of items providing only nutrition, and golems having slow regeneration when hungry, and not at all when starving. The advantage of it is that you would almost never have to pick up items. You just eat them as soon as you find them. We try to balance it so that you're rarely engorged.

Also a possibility. But if I might add, Go can have innate "gourmand", slow metabolism, but regenerate only when satiated and above. And speed of regeneration always the same.

Sure, why not. We'll have to figure out the precise scale after playtesting, anyway. I just like the idea of the slow regeneration intermediate state instead of going straight from normal regeneration to none. As I said, I'm fine if the "normal state" is slow. For example, you could have normal regeneration when full, slow when satiated and none when hungry. Reaching full would be hard.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 13:35

Re: New Race: Golem

Galefury wrote:That runed broad axe might actually be a completely mundane brandless +0/+0 broad axe (try putting on a bunch of emroidered robes, many of those will be +0). So runed does not necessarily mean enchanted in crawl.

That's not true. Mundane items (no brand and no enchantment) are never runed or glowing or whatever. makeitem.cc lines 3432 and 3409. It's just that many of them are just +1 or +2, and your brain registers them as mundane :)

Regarding enchanting weapons and corrosion, the details can be dealt with. It's easy to save the original properties of an item before changing it, let's not worry about it for now.

I'm not sure it's necessary to display the nutrition values of items. With my system, you'll want to eat them anyway. If they provide healing, then yes, it would be very important to know how much, so we'd have to give away the enchantment or an approximation of it. Best to give the absolute value, and allow negative enchantment to heal you (and special-case corrosion). Anyway, it's details again.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 13:39

Re: New Race: Golem

@Galefury
All you described is true but it goes beyond Golems. I, for example, still do not understand why runed/glowing robes often turns out to be +0 and hand axe +6 is not.
It should be made at least, that scroll of enchantment makes items runed/glowing (changing tile in a process).
Whole magic enchantment levels removing by jelly acid mechanic is also weird and have nothing to do with golems.
So I say - let's play by the rules that Crawl giving us and don't bother by questions why +6 Battleaxe gives no nutrition while +2 runed whip gives.

galehar wrote:Nemelex and Elyvilon piety gain depends on item value. So if you drain the magic out of an item, sacrificing it will often be worthless.

I can go either way. But if items will be left - their tile and description should change to mundane. So, for example after devouring runed +2 broad axe, +0 broad axe will be left (with corresponding tile).

galehar wrote:Sure, why not.

Hm, ok then. I see full picture like this:
Slow metabolism(1 lvl?) all the time.
Engorged, Very Full, Full - Normal HP regeneration
Satiated - Slow HP regeneration
Hungry, Very Hungry, Near Starving, Starving - No HP regeneration.

You plan on increasing gap between satiated and full for golems?
And also what do you think about ability to create reserve nutrition "potions"?
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 14:02

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:I, for example, still do not understand why runed/glowing robes often turns out to be +0 and hand axe +6 is not.

As I've just said (and I've checked the source), I'm pretty sure the first case isn't true. It's just that when you're trying out runed stuff, you're looking for a brand. When the item is just +1, your brain thinks "crap". We can put a cap on the second. I think we should make any item above +2 guaranteed to be runed. Non-magical items with pluses (good quality) can only be +1 or +2.

Curio wrote:It should be made at least, that scroll of enchantment makes items runed/glowing (changing tile in a process).

Sure, we can do that, no problem.

Curio wrote:Whole magic enchantment levels removing by jelly acid mechanic is also weird and have nothing to do with golems.

This just to simplify. Differentiating corrosion and enchantment (like done in NH) would bring nothing but complexity to crawl. For golems, we just have to make sure it can't be abused, but there's no need to burden the interface with the distinction.

Curio wrote:So I say - let's play by the rules that Crawl giving us and don't bother by questions why +6 Battleaxe gives no nutrition while +2 runed whip gives.

When designing new features, we often stumble upon inconsistencies and weird stuff in the game. We shouldn't be shy of fixing them in the process. When I coded Ashenzari reskilling, I had to fix a number of things in the skill system and it culminated in the new skill menu. Capping the "no-runed" enchantment at +2 would be good IMHO.

Curio wrote:But if items will be left - their tile and description should change to mundane. So, for example after devouring runed +2 broad axe, +0 broad axe will be left (with corresponding tile).

Of course.

Curio wrote:Hm, ok then. I see full picture like this:
Slow metabolism(1 lvl?) all the time.
Engorged, Very Full, Full - Normal HP regeneration
Satiated - Slow HP regeneration
Hungry, Very Hungry, Near Starving, Starving - No HP regeneration.

You plan on increasing gap between satiated and full for golems?
And also what do you think about ability to create reserve nutrition "potions"?

Sounds great. Satiated is already the largest range (ask the bots about hunger). I'd rather reduce item nutrition rather than widen hunger states (much simpler to code).
I think we shouldn't allow storing nutrition. If we have to, it means there's too much of it, and the feature isn't a real restriction but just an interface burden.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 14:30

Re: New Race: Golem

galehar wrote: I think we should make any item above +2 guaranteed to be runed. Non-magical items with pluses (good quality) can only be +1 or +2.

Nice. Because it bugs me when I'm wielding mundane +6 Long sword and find +1,+3 runed longsword. What the heck? :shock:
Also. it significantly widens amount of "glowing" items to eat for a golem.
galehar wrote:
Curio wrote:It should be made at least, that scroll of enchantment makes items runed/glowing (changing tile in a process).

Sure, we can do that, no problem.

Then again, only if it enchants to +3 and above I suppose? Otherwise it will be in conflict with previous ^^^ paragraph. You can enchant +0 item making it "glowing" already at a +1 ench.level.
galehar wrote:This just to simplify. Differentiating corrosion and enchantment (like done in NH) would bring nothing but complexity to crawl. For golems, we just have to make sure it can't be abused, but there's no need to burden the interface with the distinction.

How do you think, acid can remove "runed" status from an weapon dropping it below +3?
galehar wrote:When designing new features, we often stumble upon inconsistencies and weird stuff in the game. We shouldn't be shy of fixing them in the process. When I coded Ashenzari reskilling, I had to fix a number of things in the skill system and it culminated in the new skill menu. Capping the "no-runed" enchantment at +2 would be good IMHO.

Agreed.

galehar wrote:Sounds great. Satiated is already the largest range (ask the bots about hunger). I'd rather reduce item nutrition rather than widen hunger states (much simpler to code).

Oh, I see now. Good.

galehar wrote:I think we shouldn't allow storing nutrition. If we have to, it means there's too much of it, and the feature isn't a real restriction but just an interface burden.

Maybe I wanting too much, but I thought it could provide interesting choices like "should I eat this randart now and gain faster HP regen or store it for later so I will be able to have any regen at all when I need it". Obviously, storing should be very easy on interface (1 slot-"scrap" idea or stackable "potion" idea) and provide utility. For example, without it Lair can be done maybe until level 3-4 without need of returning to your stash. After that, returning to your stash will be mandatory every level or two. That's not counting that making a stash of assorted items is tedious in the first place.
Anyway, I realize that we should take small steps to reach a goal - so let's do it without nutrition storing at first and then we will see if it's needed at all.

EDIT: Updated first post to reflect fluid regeneration. While I was editing I noticed that we do not discussed what happens to jewelery when it is left without essence. So I added into sustenance description this: "Jewelery get destroyed in a process." I doubt there is any sense in creating "brandless" rings and amulets.
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Post Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 15:08

Re: New Race: Golem

Curio wrote:Then again, only if it enchants to +3 and above I suppose? Otherwise it will be in conflict with previous ^^^ paragraph. You can enchant +0 item making it "glowing" already at a +1 ench.level.

The current logic in _armour_is_visibly_special (which is the function used to determine if an item is going to receive a special adjective) is:
is the item an artefact or branded?
return true

is the item mundane?
return false

is the item enchanted and 2 chance in 3?
return true

so 1 in 3 enchanted armour has no special adjective. For weapons , it's the same logic except that it's 2 in 3 which have no special adjective. And there's also 1 chance in 7 for racial weapons to get the adjective which is downright stupid. I'd clean up this mess and guarantee specialness for anything above +2, but keep the chance for +1 and +2 items. They can either be of good quality or have a low enchantment.
Enchanting an item would always turn it into a "glowing" one. Enchanting a +0 sword doesn't make it sharper, it makes it magical. The interface wouldn't tell you if this +3 sword is a +1 sharp sword you have enchanted twice or a normal one you enchanted three times. But then, who cares if it provides 10 or 15 nutrition? And I doubt you'll waste your EW scrolls for extra nutrition, anyway.

Curio wrote:How do you think, acid can remove "runed" status from an weapon dropping it below +3?

It doesn't. It will be a corroded and enchanted item. Even if it is -3, the game will remember it was enchanted before being corroded. You'll know it because it will be coloured green or blue in the interface and displayed in the eat menu. You wouldn't be able to tell how much nutrition it will provide, but this is ok.

Curio wrote:Anyway, I realize that we should take small steps to reach a goal - so let's do it without nutrition storing at first and then we will see if it's needed at all.

I agree. Seems we've reached the point where the thing can be wikified. You can put "options" in the wiki page. The basic features we've discussed first, and then the "alternative" ones we've considered (no regen, hungerless and nutrition storage).
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